Yahoo Finance Lionsgate Studios to Start Trading on Nasdaq
Lionsgate will at long last launch its standalone film and TV studio business, Lionsgate Studios, on Nasdaq on Tuesday.
The studio, led by CEO Jon Feltheimer, said the transaction will see the spun-off company begin trading separate from Lionsgate’s Starz business and under the ticket symbol LION. It expects to raise $350 million in proceeds. Lionsgate Studios is made up of Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group and Television Studio business, along with a 20,000-strong film and TV library.
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“This transaction reaffirms our longstanding belief in the value of premium content by enabling us to launch Lionsgate Studios as one of the world’s leading standalone, pure play, publicly-traded content companies,” Feltheimer and vice chair Michael Burns said in a statement ahead of the Nasdaq’s opening bell on Tuesday.
“It is an important step forward in the process of preparing strategically and financially for the full separation of our studio and Starz businesses that is designed to deliver incremental value to all of our stakeholders,” the duo added.
That full separation is now set to occur by the end of Lionsgate’s calendar 2024 year, the studio said. Lionsgate spun off its film and TV studios business as part of a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) to create the separately traded public company.
Screaming Eagle Acquisition Corp., a SPAC — often referred to as a blank check company — is led by SPAC sponsor Eagle Equity Partners and CEO Eli Baker. Launching Lionsgate Studios on Nasdaq aims to give the Hollywood studio options before completing a long-awaited separation of the film and TV studios and Starz, including raising fresh capital and merging with existing businesses.
The SPAC transaction has been structured with the parent company eventually retaining 87.2 percent of the shares in Lionsgate Studios, while Screaming Eagle Acquisition Corp. will control the remaining equity stake.
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