BlackRock: Last News

Thania Garcia As rights-backed securitization deals grow more prevalent in the music industry, Influence Media Partners has obtained $360 million in debt financing through private securitization, collateralized by music royalties from a portion of its portfolio of catalogs. This latest round of investors includes Nuveen, PPM America, Aflac, Pacific Life, and accounts managed by HPS Investment Partners.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor President Trump said he’s going to delay enforcement of a U.S. law that requires TikTok‘s parent company to sell to non-Chinese owners for another 75 days — setting a new deadline of June 19. In a post Friday on Truth Social, Trump wrote, “My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Wait — Elon Musk just sold X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, to himself? Well, kind of. Musk, in a post on X Friday, said that his artificial-intelligence company, xAI, has acquired X in an all-stock transaction that values X at $33 billion ($45 billion minus $12 billion in debt). The deal gives xAI a valuation of $80 billion, Musk claimed.

Alex Ritman When Sébastien Raybaud founded Anton in 2011 (as Anton Capital Entertainment), his first major deal proved to be groundbreaking for the European film industry. Although institutional slate financing had been a regular practice among U.S. studios (Raybaud himself helped arrange several deals during his time on the film arm of investment bank Société Générale in London), it just wasn’t being done on the continent.

Anton, a European studio that has backed titles including Paddington and His Dark Materials, has raised €100M ($108M) in financing through investors led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.

Alex Ritman Anton, the European production, financing and sales group behind “Greenland,” is set to ramp up its output following a significant injection of funds. The company — which was the first to bring institutional slate funding to European production — has secured more than Euros100 million ($109 million) in new financing through a group of institutional investors, led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney had won enough of the shareholder votes cast for its 12 board candidates as of Tuesday evening to successfully defeat an aggressive, months-long proxy fight waged by Nelson Peltz‘s Trian Partners hedge fund, Reuters reported, citing anonymous sources. Enough votes had been cast as of Tuesday evening to put Disney’s board directors “safely ahead” of Trian’s two nominees for the board — Peltz and ex-Disney CFO Jay Rasulo — per the Reuters report. In addition, the three board candidates proposed by investment firm Blackwells Capital failed to win enough votes, according to the report.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney and CEO Bob Iger have pulled into the lead for their 12 board candidates to win reelection — with activist investor Nelson Peltz trailing — with more than half of shareholder votes cast ahead of the Mouse House’s April 3 annual meeting, according to the Wall Street Journal. Two of Disney’s institutional investors — BlackRock (which owns about 4.2% of outstanding shares) and T. Rowe Price (0.5%) — support the company’s own slate of directors, which include Iger, per the Journal, citing anonymous sources.

Disney may have nudged Nelson Peltz farther from its board as giant BlackRock is said to be backing the company’s slate of directors. The firm is Disney’s second-largest shareholder at about 4.2%.

Peter Caranicas Deputy Editor Prominent entertainment attorney Ken Deutsch has switched from one powerful firm to another, leaving Latham & Watkins to join Paul Hastings as a partner and global co-chair of the entertainment and media practice. At Latham & Watkins, Deutsch was global co-chair of the firm’s entertainment, sports, and media group.    Deutsch’s move boosts the already impressive Paul Hastings entertainment and media team. On the transactions side it includes Craig Emanuel (who was named Variety’s Power of Law Honoree this year), David Hernand, Mickey Mayerson, Susan Williams and Sean A. Monroe. In litigation, it boasts the services of Steven Marenberg, Tamerlin Godley, James (Bo) Pearl and Josh Gordon. Like Deutsch, all have been featured in Variety’s Legal Impact Report.

13D and 13G reports. For those outside of the inside-baseball world of corporate finance: Forty-five days out from the end of the year, companies are required to have filed 13D and 13G disclosure forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These reports are required for investors who amass 5% or more of a company’s total stock issue. Starting with this primer on how to monitor big-dollar investment bets, Variety will offer a quarterly survey of how the media and entertainment sector is faring among the world’s most sophisticated stock pickers.

MACRO announced the completion of an over $90 million minority investment led by BlackRock Alternatives, through the BlackRock Impact Opportunities Fund and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. Harbourview Equity Partners and funds managed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management also participated in the round, joining the list of MACRO’s investors that also includes Emerson Collective, AMC Networks, Essence Ventures, MNM Creative, Raymond J. McGuire, Anré Williams, Clara Wu and others.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Charles King’s Macro has raised a $90 million minority investment from BlackRock Alternatives, HarbourView Partners and funds managed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Macro will use the influx of capital to expand its multiplatform operations across production, branding and talent representation units, said King, who is founder and CEO of Macro. The company will also work to diversify its revenue streams with businesses that build a direct connection with consumers. A former WME partner, King launched Macro in 2015 to focus on content that amplifies underrepresented voices to capitalize on the untapped business opportunity. Macro previously raised about $150 million in a 2017 round of financing that included such investors as Emerson Collective, Ford Foundation and W.W. Kellogg Foundation.

OKLAHOMA CITY – Financial companies that boycott the energy industry are pushing "anti-American" political agenda, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt told Fox News. "ESG is kind of rewriting how you invest.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBlackRock and Warner Music Group have invested $750 million, in partnership with Influence Media, to acquire music-rights catalogs from female and diverse artists, a source confirms to Variety.Rather than joining the fray pursuing catalogs of iconic, older white-male artists like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie, the female-led Influence, which was founded by Lylette Pizarro (formerly a partner at RPM GRP) and Lynn Hazan (formerly CFO and GM of Epic Records) is focusing on newer, active catalogs, and plans to work with the artists, which will retain a stake in their work.While companies like Hipgnosis Songs also have invested in what are called “shallow” (i.e. more recent) catalogs from contemporary hitmakers like Jeff Bhasker, this partnership has already invested $300 million in 20 catalogs, including Puerto Rican powerhouse songwriter-producer Tainy, known for his work with Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Rosalía, Shawn Mendes and Cardi B’s “I Like It.” The news was first reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorMNTN, the connected-TV advertising company that owns Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort creative agency, announced a $119 million in Series D financing.The round, which closed in the fourth quarter of 2021, was co-led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock and Fidelity, which collectively invested approximately $110 million.MNTN (pronounced “mountain”) was founded in 2009 as SteelHouse before rebranding last year. Previously, the company had raised about $65 million in funding from investors including Baroda Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Mercato Partners, Qualcomm and Rincon Venture Partners.The funding comes after MNTN announced the acquisition Maximum Effort in June 2021. In January, the company bought QuickFrame, an original video creation platform with thousands of creators, who produce video spots for over 1,000 clients across 20 categories.

Elaine Crowley has been a flawless presence on our television screens for over a decade and she has now opened up about the unexpected experience she had while trying to get Botox for the first time.