Zurich Film Festival Co-Founder Karl Spoerri Teams With Private Equity Duo To Launch Euro & U.S. Producer-Financier SPG3 Entertainment

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EXCLUSIVE: Zurich Film Festival co-founder and former artistic director Karl Spoerri is launching film and TV production and finance company SPG3 Entertainment (SPG3), which will be based in Zurich and Los Angeles.

SPG3 is co-founded by CEO Spoerri and Urs Wietlisbach and Alfred Gantner, founders of global private equity house Partners Group, which has close to $100BN in assets under management.

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SPG3 will manage “significant capital” on behalf of institutional investors and high net worth individuals. Over the next five years, the company says it is aiming to finance and/or produce or co-produce six to eight films or TV series per year with budgets in the $5-60M range.

The company will also develop up to ten micro-budget projects per year with budgets of up to half a million dollars.

SPG3’s executive ranks will include Viviana Vezzani, Spoerri’s partner and former management executive at the Zurich Film Festival, as COO; private equity and corporate advisory executive Tobias Gutzwiller as CFO; and Jasmin Kirner (At Eternity’s Gate) as development executive. Former ICM indie finance agent and Ingenious Group associate Mila Cottray will be sourcing investment opportunities.

Spoerri is best known for co-founding and building the Zurich Film Festival into a significant European fall festival and as chairman of the entertainment business conference Zurich Summit.

As a producer he has executive-produced movies including Oscar-nominee At Eternity’s Gate, The Old Man & The Gun, The Beach Bum and A Dangerous Method.

Spoerri told Deadline, “Our work is filmmaker-driven and we will look to collaborate with talent making commercial content with their own unique stamp and a clear creative vision.”

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