An announcement out of Paris reveals that leading international entertainment companies Banijay and Zodiak Media have completed a merger transaction, uniting their catalogs and production units to form Banijay Group — now the world’s largest independent production and distribution group with around $1 billion USD in revenues.
Banijay Group, operational from Feb. 23, is 73.8% controlled by a company composed of Stephane Courbit’s LOV Group (50.1%) and De Agostini Group’s DeA Communications (49.9%), with Vivendi owning the remaining 26.2%. Courbit has been named Chairman, and Marco Bassetti is appointed CEO of Banijay Group.
The newly formed company boasts production operations in 17 territories, generating drama, factual, reality, docu-drama, children’s and animation programming. Banijay and Zodiak’s distribution operations are merging, to be led by Head of Distribution Tim Multimer — these operations will keep the name of Zodiak Rights. Additional key appointments for the Group include CFO Sophie Kurinckx and General Counsel Frederique Sauvage.
