Hello, Money: Hollywood Questions Reese Witherspoon’s $900 Million Hello Sunshine Deal
As might be expected, Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer, the former Disney execs who are acquiring Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine company in a $900 million deal, are bullish about their shiny new toy, the anchor of their as-yet-nameless Blackstone-backed media company. “It’s not a production company, first of all. It is a pretty well-configured, multiple business-line company, and is really a next generation company,” Mayer explained in an interview with TheWrap a few hours after the deal was announced on Monday. But outside observers of the deal seem to be split right down the middle, calling the acquisition of Witherspoon’s female-focused content company for a $900 million valuation either a “brilliant move” or a faulty equation that just “doesn’t add up.” Although $900 million is small change — well, smaller — compared to Amazon’s recent acquisition of MGM for $8.45 billion, it’s a landmark sum for a content company without a distribution arm or extensive library of content. And Monday’s announcement has some industry watchers questioning the financial soundness of the deal. “It is hard for me to understand any rational economic argument for this for this kind of valuation,” a Los Angeles entertainment attorney attorney who declined to be...
Read original story Hello, Money: Hollywood Questions Reese Witherspoon’s $900 Million Hello Sunshine Deal At TheWrap
