Prime Focus, Parent Company of ‘Tenet’ VFX House DNEG, Raises $250 Million
Summary
Novator Capital Advisers has made a $250 million investment Prime Focus Ltd., the parent company of DNEG — Christopher Nolan’s go-to visual effects studio whose work for the director has won Oscars for Inception, Interstellar and most recently, Tenet. As a result of the investment, Prime Focus plans to eliminate debt and focus on growing DNEG’s VFX and animation business, as well as expanding into gaming and original content creation. DNEG chairman/CEO and Prime Focus founder and non-executive director Namit Malhotra will increase his ownership stake in the parent company from 35 percent to approximately 70 percent, and Novator will own a 15 percent stake in DNEG, according to Wednesday’s announcement. Said Björgólfsson, “The global explosion in demand for high-quality content across platforms has given rise to significant opportunities in the media and entertainment market, and we have identified DNEG as having all of the key components in place to take full advantage of these opportunities. Building on its award-winning legacy, we are backing Namit’s vision to accelerate DNEG’s evolution from pure services provider to content production and gaming services powerhouse for the entire eco-system.” Said Malhotra, “In my 25 years of experience building a global business, I can say without a doubt that I have never seen such an explosion in demand for our services or a better time to form new content creation partnerships.”