Blackstone, one of many world’s greatest non-public fairness companies, is in superior talks to purchase a stake in Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG), the proprietor of among the most well-known playhouses in London’s West Finish.
Sky Information has learnt that Blackstone, which manages greater than $1trn (£790bn) in belongings, is near snapping up a minority curiosity within the proprietor of the Duke of York’s and Lyceum theatres.
If accomplished, it will likely be a big company transaction for an organization which has staged productions of Harry Potter And The Cursed Baby, Hamilton and The E-book Of Mormon.
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Metropolis sources stated that Blackstone was anticipated to amass the shareholding from TEG, an Australian dwell leisure and ticketing firm which purchased into ATG throughout the pandemic.
One added that the deal would contain a stake of between 10% and 15% altering fingers.
ATG has been majority-owned by Windfall Fairness Companions since 2013, making it a prolonged possession interval by non-public fairness business requirements.
Windfall did contemplate operating a sale course of a number of years in the past however was stymied by the pandemic, which compelled the closure of theatres and different dwell leisure venues for months throughout a succession of lockdowns.
ATG operates dozens of theatres within the UK, with its different distinguished venues together with the Harold Pinter Theatre, in addition to the Empire in Liverpool and the Lyric and Hudson on Manhattan’s Broadway.
In complete, it owns roughly 60 theatres, having struck a deal in 2021 to purchase the Golden Gate Theatre and Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, and the Fisher Theatre in Detroit – each of that are key cities for touring Broadway productions.
Pic: Geoff Moore/Shutterstock
Final yr, it introduced that it was combining its US operations with Jujamcyn Theaters to strengthen its place in that market.
The corporate competes with rivals together with Lord Lloyd Webber’s Actually Helpful Group and the billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik, who owns the Theatre Royal Haymarket.
The valuation of ATG within the cope with Blackstone was unclear this weekend.
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Windfall acquired the corporate for £350m over a decade in the past.
In 2022, it was reported to be in search of to refinance roughly £1.2bn of debt.
ATG has a workforce of greater than 4,000 full-time equal staff, and its venues have performed host to among the world’s most profitable performs and musicals, together with The Lion King, Les Miserables and Depraved.
The corporate was based within the Nineteen Nineties by the husband-and-wife staff Sir Howard Panter and Dame Rosemary Squire, who subsequently went on to arrange a rival theatrical group.
It’s now run by Ted Stimpson, a leisure business veteran who changed Mark Cornell final yr.
A renewed sale course of for ATG is alleged to be unlikely to happen for a while.
Accounts for Worldwide Leisure Holdings, ATG’s guardian firm, present it made a file working revenue within the yr to 25 March 2023 of £120.5m.
It stated that advance ticket gross sales had been exceeding pre-COVID ranges.
Blackstone and Windfall each declined to remark.
