Terry Semel’s Back To Stargazing: Looking At Buying IMG?
By Rafat Ali - Mon 02 Jun 2008 08:35 AM PST
Terry Semel, the former CEO of Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), may be looking at going back to his Hollywood roots for good: he plans to make a run at acquiring IMG, the sports marketing and entertainment talent agency, reports NYP, citing sources. Semel now runs an investment firm Windsor Media, and earlier this year reports surfaced that he was looking at buying New Line Cinema, the movie studio owned by Time Warner...later New Line was merged into Warner Bros, Semel’s former home.
IMG is owned by PE firm Forstmann Little & Co., which bought IMG in 2004 for around $750 million. The firm recently hired Chris Albrecht, the former CEO of HBO, as the head of its global media unit. Semel hopes to turn the agency into a media firm, the NYP reports further says. The firm has clients such as Tiger Woods, Gisele Bundchen, Maria Sharapova and others.
Semel has been meeting PE firms the “sovereign wealth funds of the United Arab Emirates”, to raise money for this large transaction...IMG could sell if the price is above $2 billion. The story says Semel recently sat down with Teddy Forstmann, the owner of the PE firm, and IMG’s bankers at Goldman Sachs, to gauge their interest. As to whether this deal will happen at the right price Forstmann sees the agency as a “play toy” that allows him to rub elbows with celebrities, the story says, and that anything around $3 billion may help change his mind, though that would be a very rich price. So for now, still a vaporware-idea-hoping-to-happen…
Posted in: Entertainment, VC+M&A, Mergers & Acquisitions
Tags: terry semel, img,
