Kirkland Advises Banijay Group on the Debt Financing of its Acquisition of Endemol Shine Group

Kirkland & Ellis represents Banijay Group on the debt financing aspects of its acquisition of Endemol Shine Group, which was announced on October 26.  Endemol Shine Group is currently co-owned by The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) and funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, Inc. (NYSE: APO). The acquisition, which is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory clearances and consultation with the relevant employee representative bodies, will encompass Endemol Shine’s 120 production labels with an estimated 66,000 hours of scripted and non-scripted programming together with over 4,300 registered formats. 

Upon completion of the acquisition, Banijay Group will own almost 200 production companies in 23 territories and the rights for close to 100,000 hours of content. Total pro-forma revenue of the combined group is expected to be approximately €3 billion for the year ending December 31, 2019. The acquisition will be financed through a capital increase of Banijay Group and committed debt financing, which includes a committed full refinancing of Banijay and Endemol Shine’s existing financial debt, supported by Deutsche Bank, Natixis and Société Générale.

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The Kirkland team was led by London-based capital markets partner Cedric Van den Borren and debt finance partner Samuel Norris. They were assisted by capital markets partner Antoine Lebienvenu, debt finance partner Ben Myers and associates Alexander van der Gaag, James Green, Khayam Amin and Megan Tan, and tax associate Anthony Antioch. Transactional partner Vincent Ponsonnaille, and debt finance partner Eric Wedel and associate Ben Steadman also assisted on the transaction.