Industry

ACF, the global media and entertainment investment bank, has announced that it has advised Syco Entertainment (‘the Company’ or ‘Syco’) on a ground-breaking $125 million securitization deal of the Intellectual Property in the Got Talent Franchise. The Got Talent Franchise includes America's Got Talent and Britain's Got Talent formats that have been commissioned in 72 territories worldwide.

The deal will allow the Company to use this war-chest to grow the business through a mixture of strategic acquisitions and organic growth projects.

ACF advised Syco throughout the complex investment deal working with their team in both the UK and US over a two-year period. The deal is the first of its kind as it includes securitization of various aspects of the Got Talent Intellectual Property, which comprise production margins and fees, digital income, franchise and original content sales, and sponsorship income. ACF’s innovative approach used a structure for the Got Talent format more commonly applied to the music-industry’s royalty income streams.

ACF was the lead bank and advised Syco in both the UK and the US. Memery Crystal, a multidisciplinary international law firm based, advised Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment.

Commenting on the investment deal, Thomas Dey, ACF’s Founder and CEO, said:
“ACF worked with Syco to formulate this financial strategy to support its plans and managed the entire process as the lead bank. Our brief was to create a structure to enable the Company to maximise the full potential of its existing passive royalty income stream. ACF has created a winning formula using our extensive experience from across the media and entertainment sector. We are certain that this ground-breaking structure will be one that we will use for many media formats in the future.”

Ian Rosenblatt OBE, Director of Syco Entertainment, added:
“ACF’s certainly got talent. Their team, led by the ever-tenacious Thomas Dey, delivered on their promises and introduced the perfect partners to achieve our goals.”