DNEG, London Head Office Visual Effects and Animation House, which won an Oscar for people like Dune s Dogma And he also recently worked on season 4. Weird stuffand Special Purchasing Company (SPAC) Sports Ventures Acquisition Corp., both parties agreed to terminate their previously announced business combination that would have publicly accepted DNEG in a $1.7 billion settlement.
The companies broke the news on Thursday, citing “the current unfavorable market conditions for SPAC”. Equity markets were volatile, which eliminated activity in initial public offerings and SPAC operations.
The announcement came two days after DNEG published a business update, noting that it was “better than [its] Target Revenue” for its fiscal year ending March 31 at $409.3 million. On Thursday, the company also announced a “new business record reflecting unprecedented demand for its animation and visual effects services.” The company says it currently has about 8,000 employees and plans to increase to 10,000.
“Due to resistance in the SPAC market and general market volatility, we have decided to suspend our SPAC process with Sports Ventures,” said Namit Malhotra, president and CEO of DNEG, in a statement.
Alan Kestenbaum, CEO and Chairman of Sports Ventures, noted that “It has been mutually agreed that the best option for all parties at this time is to close the transaction.” Praising DNEG, he said, “Namit and his team are industry leaders, producing amazing, award-winning work that has won awards this year. DNEG has a bright future and we wish you all good luck. Malhotra paid tribute, saying, “Alan and the team at Sports Ventures have been excellent partners in this process and we wish them the best of luck.”
The head of DNEG also expressed confidence that it will succeed as a private company. “We are incredibly optimistic about the future of DNEG and the company continues to demonstrate impressive financial results due to our higher revenue growth announced earlier this week,” he said in a statement. “Our strong pipeline reflects significant demand for our industry-leading animation and visual effects services, as evidenced by the continuation of our recently announced multi-year and visual effects services renewal agreement with Netflix through 2025.
Malhotra said in an interview the hollywood reporter That in this context, “we want to make the people of the company recognize that this is our choice; That’s not what we failed to do. In fact, we voluntarily divorced.” He added: “It appears that the markets in general, because of the war in Ukraine and all the fluctuation in inflation, have completely gone from technically bullish stocks to an all-time high, suddenly moving to the other extreme.”
Instead, he described DNEG’s commercial drive. “We made predictions, we won. We have a multi-year contract with Netflix. “In this difficult time of hiring, we have hired a record level of employees,” said Malhotra. “So everything was as good for us as it could have been. Why should we put ourselves in a bad situation?… We are good businesses, we have done great things and we have great opportunities, but the markets are bad. Like there’s a storm outside. Do you want to fly a new plane in a storm? why would you do that? “Let the storm pass, you can fly tomorrow.”
When the SPAC agreement is not on the table, “it’s still all on the table to consider what is the best path we can take as we don’t really have any urgent need for funding,” the CEO emphasized.
DNEG will be able to visit the public again as soon as the markets return, he hinted. “I don’t mean that we’re not discussing SPAC,” Malhotra said. But given growth trends and the fact that DNEG’s work has garnered attention, the company can “just go and do a straight IPO.”
It also focuses on growth opportunities. DNEG is expanding into feature film animation and is also looking to create content in areas like video games, as well as emerging features like meta-conversion. “Our focus is just to continue what we’re doing and open up other areas,” Malhotra said. THRHe calls the metaversion and gameplay “very powerful capabilities that are a very good point of what we do”.
Can a conversion goal mean that a company is looking for acquisitions? “When it comes to building metavers, of course, companies like DNEG, who have been given their own technical portfolio, and thousands of people around the world are in the best position to go out and take advantage of this opportunity,” he said. . Arguing. “Because we don’t have to buy another company to tell us how to create a virtual world or a virtual mall or a digital London. We already have it, we already built it. So if you put in a meta version, we can create our own, we already have the tools and technology for that.”
Malhotra also wants to continue pushing the company towards co-production. Sunday mid trailer Brahmastra – Part One: ShivaThe premiere took place at Disney’s Star Studios Tent, whose executive director is a producer and has more than 16 million views on YouTube in 24 hours. “So this is a big day for us on our journey to be not just a service company but a manufacturing partner as well,” he said. THR. And I will gladly show the world how we are moving up the value chain and starting to create content. We also have a co-production with Alcon Entertainment GarfieldVoiced by Garfield Chris Pratt and his father Samuel L. Jackson. This is a great animated film that we are also producing.
In addition to having a financial participation in the execution of the content, Malhotra also sees other benefits of production. “We’re investing more creatively, we’re acquiring more ownership, our people are involved in the design, delivery and execution,” he explained. “It’s much more profitable for everyone in the company.”
DNEG’s upcoming projects on behalf of Hollywood partners include similar projects Bullet train (Sony, July), black adam (Warner Bros., October), Glass Onion: The Secret Secret (Netflix, 2022), Haunted Mansion (Disney, March 2023) and Mega 2: trench (Warner Bros., August 2023).
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
