Carlyle-backed firm launches private credit platform for entertainment sector
Content Partners, a private equity firm backed by the Carlyle Group, has created a new private credit strategy for the entertainment sector.
The firm has launched Content Partners Credit (CPC), which will soon start originating loans to fund new content development.
Entertainment banker Alphonse Lordo will head up the new private debt platform. He was previously managing director and head of entertainment at Truist Securities.
Lordo said that he sees content development lending as “a billion-dollar-plus marketplace that is just unloved and not tapped at this moment.”
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CPC will focus on lending to independent studios, talent agencies, and anyone who owns entertainment IP rights to film, music and television content.
It will offer flexible capital, from first-lien debt to preferred equity investments. The platform will specialise on middle-market deals of between $25m (£19m) and $50m.
Lordo told Deadline that the launch of the private credit platform is in response to a lack of funding opportunities for deals under $100m.
“Banks have funding issues, and they have regulatory pressures,” he said. “Enter private credit to kind of help stretch beyond what a bank can do for clients.
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“As we assessed the marketplace, for any type of deal structure, there were not a lot of credible private capital providers in that kind of $10m to $100m range, and we thought that was a void that we could fill.
“We know the IP very well. We know the business models very well. We understand them. We know the risk fit, and we know the players … and thought no one’s doing this in a way that’s partnership oriented, that’s here to provide monetisation for IP plus growth capital for producers, distributors, catalogue owners, investment firms who are buying catalogues, investment firms that are doing co-finance and slate deals.”
Content Partners owns rights or interests in more than 500 films and 3,000 hours of television, including 13 Going on 30, Black Hawk Down, and the CSI television franchise.
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