Entertainment Partners, one of Hollywood’s giants in the payroll services industry, has agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to acquire rival Ease Entertainment Services.
EP president and CEO Mark Goldstein will keep those titles at the combined company while Ease CEO Mike Rose will become president of a new division called Movie Magic Scenechronize Technologies. The new unit will consist of Ease’s cloud-based software suite for managing production information along with EP’s Movie Magic budgeting and scheduling technology.
The payroll services industry has been rapidly evolving from companies that merely issue paychecks to production workers to entities that assist in all facets of production management, including digital storage and sharing of sensitive materials like scripts, as well as facilitating and maximizing tax credits.
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“Opportunities like this to re-imagine a business and innovate an industry come along very rarely. Brining together our two companies accelerates our shared vision to modernize the production industry,” Goldstein said.
The transaction is expected to close in the next 30 days. EP will remain an employee-owned company. EP has 900 employees and Ease has 130, but executives were unable to say on Thursday whether the merger would cause layoffs.
Email: Paul.Bond@THR.com
