Vuelta Group Launches European Studio With Acquisitions in France, Germany, Scandinavia

Scott Roxborough
·3 min read

Europe has a brand-new media giant.

Vuelta Group, a private-equity fueled company headed by former Canal+ and Goldman Sachs executive Jerome Levy, made a very big launch on the European scene on Thursday, announcing its acquisition of Scandinavian independent film company Scanbox, German distributor/producer SquareOne Entertainment and French international sales company Playtime.

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Vuelta (Latin for “to go around”) is planning future acquisitions in France, Italy, Spain and the Benelux region as it looks to build a pan-European television and film studio focusing on the production and distribution of European content across the continent.

The Vuelta launch is a further sign of consolidation in the European indie market, which has already seen several independent producers and distributors subsumed into PE-backed studios such as Leonine and Mediawan or snatched up by global indie giants like Fremantle and Banijay.

The Veulta setup will see each of its subsidiary companies continue to operate autonomously with the former owners becoming shareholders of the Vuelta Group. According to the company, it has more than $50 million in backing from an unnamed U.S. private equity firm as well as European equity partners.

Levy, as group chairman, will head up Vuelta, with David Atlan-Jackson, his long-time partner in media financing group Backup Media, as chief content officer. Allen Duffy, former finance director at Fremantle, has been named chief financial officer. Scanbox’s Thor Sigurjonsson, Playtime’s Sebastien Beffa and Square One’s boss Al Munteanu will all serve on Vuelta’s management board. The company will be officially based in Ireland for tax purposes.

“We are thrilled to launch this ambitious project to help the European industry create its own stories and distribute them internationally. The European market is singular and rich; our ambition is to double down on European commercial productions,” said Levy in a statement.

Added Atlan-Jackson: “With development, finance, production, and distribution with a European DNA, we will become a pan-European one-stop shop for all talents. Vuelta Group is the only group to merge unique local distribution expertise with international production capabilities.”

Scanbox, headquartered in Copenhagen and with operations across the Nordic territories, is a leading independent distributor in Scandinavia with a line-up that ranges from arthouse titles like recent Cannes competition films May December from Todd Haynes and Ken Loach’s The Old Oak to Sylvester Stallone’s upocming Cliffhanger reboot and Jason Statham vehicle The Bee Keeper, both of which Scanbox pre-bought for their territories.

Munich-based SquareOne’s theatrical line-up includes such features as the Nicolas Cage sequel Lords of War, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Breakout and Daisy Ridley-starrer The Cleaner. The company is also an active TV producer, with a recent German adaptation of Your Honor, starring Sebastian Koch and Paula Beer, and the Italian mafia series L’Ora.

Playtime, a familiar face in the international sales world, has handled such cross-over hits as Son of Saul, Coco Before Chanel and Goodnight Mommy and represented Cannes competition titles About Dry Grasses from Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Catherine Corsini’s Homecoming. It is currently doing pre-sales on the Charles Aznavour biopic Monsieur Aznavour starring Tahar Rahim (A Prophet, The Mauritanian).

Deadline first broke the news of the Veulta launch.

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