All3Media Sale: Bidding Moves To Final Stage As Frontrunners Emerge Including Goldman Sachs

EXCLUSIVE: The auction for All3Media has reached its final stage and frontrunners have emerged to acquire the The Traitors super-indie.

Deadline has been told that Banijay and Peter Chernin’s North Road are leading the pack. Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, has emerged as a surprise candidate. ITV, which has been linked for several months with an All3Media buy, is still monitoring the situation, we understand, and remains in the running. The likes of Sony and Fremantle ruled themselves out a little while ago.

After going up for sale in May with a reported valuation of around £1B ($1.2B), the All3Media auction kicked off in earnest last month. All3Media is co-owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and Liberty Global.

While there were initially question marks over whether France’s Banijay would bid, we now understand the Big Brother and Survivor maker is interested. The company, which is owned by FL Entertainment, recently integrated Endemol Shine Group following a $2.2B takeover and is acquisitive.  “We are very active in M&A but we never pay crazy prices,” CEO Marco Bassetti told The Times last year.

Former Fox chief Chernin’s North Road launched last year, bringing together Chernin Entertainment, the $200M worth of U.S. assets of Red Arrow Studios, which included Love Is Blind producer Kinetic Content, and Connor Schell’s non-scripted business Words + Pictures. The company has since invested in several more outfits and has been discussed in conversation with All3Media since it went up for sale.

The Goldman Sachs private equity investment is understood to also be very much central to the race and would likely land All3 with a decent amount of cash to spend if it opts to go in that direction. This is the first time that the global banking giant has been connected to the deal.

The bidding process is expected to end shortly. We revealed that ITV was yet to fully walk away from the deal a few weeks ago and it could still mount a late-stage bid. ITV had initially said it was “exploring” the deal before telling shareholders it was “no longer actively exploring” but still monitoring.

All3Media revenues rocketed 17% to £1B ($1.3B) last year, as we revealed in late June. EBITDA shot up by a similar proportion to £100M and total group operating profit was up from £26M to £40M. However, some were understood to have balked at the initial £1B valuation due to All3Media’s considerable debt pile, which amounts to some £760M.

All3Media owns 50 labels, producing the likes of Fleabag, The Traitors and the upcoming Netflix series Squid Game: The Challenge.

All3Media, WBD, Liberty Global, Banijay, North Road, Goldman Sachs and ITV declined to comment.