Wilbrain Acuires Canadian Pre-Manufacturing Studio Home Of Cool

• Wildbrain is buying full possession of Home of Cool for CAD$15.5 million (USD$11.4 million). From that complete, CAD$10.25 (USD$7.5 million) comes by way of the issuance of 4,479,406 Wildbrain shares, with the opposite CAD$5.25 million (USD$3.8 million) to be paid in money – much less any debt current on closing and topic to customary working capital changes and holdbacks. There’s additionally an earn-out of as much as CAD$6 million (USD$4.4 million) depending on the gathering of tax credit earned earlier than closing.
• The transaction is predicted to shut throughout Wildbrain’s fiscal 2023 fourth quarter, topic to circumstances to closing.
• Home of Cool executives and co-founders Wes Lui and Ricardo Curtis will be a part of Wildbrain’s senior administration crew within the newly created roles of co-general managers of Home of Cool. The duo will report back to Wildbrain president Josh Scherba, who heads up the Firm’s content material and studio enterprise.
• Home of Cool is exclusive in that it is likely one of the few studios devoted to commissioned pre-production work for animated movies and collection. Among the many firm’s high-profile collection credit are Marvel’s What If…?, Disney’s Gravity Falls, Netflix’s Maya and the Three, and Apple TV+’s Pretzel and the Puppies. The corporate has additionally labored on blockbuster options together with Illumination’s Despicable Me, Sony Photos Animation’s Offended Birds, twentieth Century Fox’s The Peanuts Film, and Blue Sky Studio’s Ice Age and Rio franchises.

Wildbrain president Scherba stated in a launch:

This acquisition is an funding in inventive excellence. Home of Cool is acknowledged as one of many best pre-production firms within the international animation {industry}. We’re delighted to welcome Wes, Ricardo, and their crew on board at Wildbrain, a mix of expertise that may instantly broaden and deepen our collective inventive strengths. Their experience is extremely complementary to our current enterprise, increasing and enhancing our pre-production capabilities, not just for Wildbrain’s proprietary content material but additionally for third-party initiatives. The acquisition additionally establishes a brand new entry level for IP house owners to interact with Wildbrain’s 360-degree providing throughout manufacturing, distribution, and shopper merchandise licensing.

Lui added:

Home of Cool’s mission is easy: convey audiences collectively by way of the suave telling of distinctive tales. Wildbrain shares our enthusiasm for storytelling, and from the second they first approached us, we had been ecstatic about combining forces and leveraging their 360-degree strategy and our experience in story and preproduction to develop, produce and distribute premium content material. We will even additional have the ability to provide extra top-level inventive companies for all our shoppers.

And Curtis stated:

As a fiercely impartial operator for the final twenty years, it could require one thing particular for Home of Cool to affix one other studio. Wildbrain is that particular. Wildbrain has industry-leading experience in manufacturing, distribution, and licensing, and its attain on a number of platforms tremendously expands our capability and scope to attach with audiences. Combined with their deep catalog of properties—many I grew up with—hitching Home of Cool’s wagon to Wildbrain permits us to collaborate in beforehand unavailable methods on the premium content material we’re recognized for.