TPG Real Estate Partners has completed a deal to acquire a majority stake in Studio Babelsberg AG, the German film studio.
The acquisition of the European studio complex comes as the streaming content boom has Wall Street and hedge funds eyeing studio campuses for acquisition. On Monday, TREP said it paid shareholders of Studio Babelsberg in Germany EUR4.10 for a majority of outstanding shares via a recent public offer.
Babelsberg CEO Dr. Carl L. Woebcken and COO Christoph Fisser maintain a minority stake in the Potsdam-based studio complex, which is the country’s largest film studio and has worked on such Hollywood productions as Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.
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In September, TREP first unveiled the deal for a controlling stake in the legendary production facility by acquiring Filmbetriebe Berlin Brandenburg GmbH, which was controlled by Woebcken and Fisser. With the closing of the transaction, Studio Babelsberg joins TREP’s other studio assets, which includes Cinespace Studios and in all encompasses a stable of 90 soundstages worldwide.
In November, TREP purchased studio campuses in Toronto and Chicago belonging to Cinespace Studios, home to production of major films and TV series like Dick Wolf’s Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med, Netflix’s Umbrella Academy and MGM’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it’s understood that the real estate equity investment arm of asset firm TPG paid around $1.1 billion for Cinespace Studios in Chicago and Cinespace Toronto.
Studio Babelsberg will continue to operate as an independent entity.
“With Studio Babelsberg, we saw an opportunity to invest behind a leading studio facility that is well positioned to benefit from secular growth trends in media and content consumption. We support the company’s strategy and direction and look forward to growing the business,” TREP partner Michael Abel said in a statement.
