PART I: A few years ago, ICM Partners acquired Just For Laughs / Juste pour rire with evenko & Bell Media. Then Creative Artists Agency bought ICM. With Artemis buying CAA, what's in store for JFL going forward?
A few years ago, during the MeToo era, a scandal involving JFL's founder Gilbert Rozon forced its sale. While most local players only saw a festival, to their credit a few agents at ICM had an idea: why not take the Montreal-based festival that was synonymous with standup comedy & try to build a media business around it. For its troubles, ICM realized that to preserve the generous government credits, the festival needed to be owned 51% by Canadians. ICM then proceeded to bake off their prize & landed with Bell Media & evenko, which is the production company tied to the CH Group's Montreal Canadiens & more notably, the Jazz Festival here. I got involved in the process, it wasn't meant to be, life goes on. I know some of the details behind the deal, but will only discuss what's public.
Since then, ICM was acquired by its larger competitor CAA, and since then, TPG-owned CAA was acquired by Artemis. That led rival WME | William Morris Endeavor feeling undervalued, partly as a result of being "buried" within Endeavor, which also owns TKO, the combined entity that owns WWE & Ultimate Fighting Championship. Endeavor's backer Silver Lake is considering its strategic options, including taking it private (or as I suggested, spinning out WME to focus on the faster growth TKO) but it now seems like its backer Mubadala will step up and help take the whole keiretsu private.
As I specialize in giving unsolicited advice & propose M&A hookups, that left me to wonder what - if anything - would happen to CAA/ICM's stake in JFL. CAA is massive, valued at $7B, and now owned by Artemis. But given that Bell/evenko needed to own a combined 51% to justify the deal's economics (receiving $10M in annual govt subsidies, & purchased at C$65M by the Montreal Gazette), I'm not sure how it feels about owning 49% of a business it cannot consolidate or ever control. While the synergies with a talent agency are clear, in practice, comedy standup routines represent a bit of a quandary, why?
Read on for part II, linked in the comments, before we look at its strategic options.
Sr. Media Planner at MilkMoney
4moJust saw this episode last night...too good...too relatable