Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer recently picked up shares of the company on the open market and vice chair Michael Burns said today he thinks the purchase was spurred by a visit the set of the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic. “He is pretty fiscally conservative in many ways and so that was actually interesting to see him do it, and I swear he bought it because he went to the set — we are shooting the Michael Jackson movie on the Sony lot – and he just came back and just said, ‘This thing is going to be incredible’,” Burns said at a Deutsche Bank media conference today.
According to an SEC filing Monday, Feltheimer acquired 100,000 shares, half each Class A and B shares. Burns was talking up the studio ahead of an upcoming split with Starz.
He confirmed that about 13%-15% of the studio’s equity will move into a SPAC and trade publicly on the NYSE (stock symbol LION).
The rest of the studio will be spun into the new company by the end of calendar 2024, creating two pure plays in Lionsgate and Starz.
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