Millennium Entertainment’s current management team and private investment firm Virgo Investment Group have acquired the company’s catalog and distribution platform. The company, which will be renamed, made the announcement Tuesday.
Millennium Entertainment was sold by majority investor Avi Lener (pictured) and Trevor Short’s Nu Image, along with White Horse Pictures’ principals Nigel Sinclair and Guy East and Prentice Capital. Nu Image will keep the Millennium brand, which now will be associated solely with its other subsidiary, Millennium Films.
Chief executive Bill Lee will stay on, and none of Millennium’s 780 employees will lose their jobs. No price for the deal was announced, but when the company went on the block in April 2013, sources indicated the asking price was between $65 million and $75 million.
Also read: NuImage Puts Millennium Entertainment on the Block
“This transaction creates new opportunities to further establish the company as a leading, independent distribution platform for high-quality content, with a customer-centric and content curation focus,” Lee said in a statement. “I am pleased to invest my own capital alongside Virgo and am confident that Virgo’s values, ideas and resources will enable us to fully realize our business aspirations of building broader relationships with producers, talent and customers.”
Millennium Entertainment has distributed more than 300 feature films in its four-year history. Among the projects currently in the works is “Are You Here,” directed by Matthew Weiner (“Mad Men”) and stars Owen Wilson, Zach Galifianakis and Amy Poehler.
Millennium was advised by Stephen Prough of Salem Partners on the transaction, while Dan Rowe of Sword, Rowe & Company advised Virgo Investment Group, whose legal counsel was Schuyler Moore of Stroock.