A little bit over one 12 months after closing its reportedly $750 million acquisition of ICM Companions, Artistic Artists Company (CAA) itself is reportedly in “superior” talks to promote a majority stake to French billionaire François-Henri Pinault.
Phrase of CAA’s rumored sale only in the near past entered the media highlight in a Bloomberg report, although predictably, neither the company nor the Groupe Artémis president and Kering head Pinault appeared to have commented publicly on the matter on the time of this writing.
Although media final 12 months assigned an estimated $5 billion enterprise worth to the mixed ICM-CAA entity, Bloomberg has connected a valuation of “not less than $7 billion” to CAA in reference to the current talks. For sure, time will inform whether or not the deal truly closes (and which price ticket it brings with it).
However the identical outlet, citing an nameless supply, went forward and drove residence that the discussions “may nonetheless finish with out an settlement.”
In the meantime, a spokesperson for Kering made clear that the reported talks hadn’t concerned the luxury-goods firm (and Gucci father or mother). Individually, the sale rumors have after all arrived amid well-documented author and actor strikes in Hollywood. (Pinault’s married to actress Salma Hayek, who’s reportedly a part of the CAA roster.)
Past the silver display screen, nonetheless, the Major Wave stakeholder CAA represents various high-profile artists – amongst them Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, John Mayer, and even digital acts. Fort Price-based TPG (which backed lyrics platform Musixmatch one 12 months in the past) owns 53 p.c of CAA, having final invested within the firm, at a $1.1 billion valuation, in 2014, per Reuters.
Extra broadly, CAA’s sale would mark the newest in a collection of shakeups within the expertise sphere. Laid-off Paradigm brokers went forward and established their very own operation, TBA, as an example, and the comparatively new agency now counts as shoppers CHVRCHES, English Instructor, feeble little horse, and The Beths, to call just a few.
(Paradigm subsequently cashed out of its reside music touring division altogether; the unit was bought after which rebranded as Wasserman Music in April of 2021. April of 2022 introduced Wasserman’s buyout of Paradigm UK’s music-representation enterprise.)
Moreover, UTA – a considerable portion of which belongs to personal fairness agency EQT – has finalized a number of acquisitions of its personal, together with offers for Echo Location and MediaLink. BMG has been quietly broadening its presence on the administration facet, and most lately, WME in April scooped up Pink 11 Music.