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May 12, 2006
Banking on indie? Cross that New Bridge when you get there
Nikki Finke at LA Weekly's Deadline Hollywood has a few notes about a new "indie" film fund: "Merrill Lynch's Global Asset Based Finance Group and Rizvi Traverse Management have formed New Bridge Film Capital, a Los Angeles-based film financing company to provide gap capital to independent producers..." Writes finke: " These are the same two companies that poured $100 million into ICM to finance an expansion of the talent agency's business." ICM's Jeff Berg has been a Rizvi advisor in the past, she reports, as well as that "Rizvi's money management company and Merrill Lynch each ponied up $20 mil.... New Bridge will be run by two showbiz veterans: the executive director will be Diane Stidham, formerly exec director of the global investment bank ABN Amro, and the director will be Danny Mandel, formerly of local Union Bank." Many revenue streams make for an expected river, she suggests: "In this day and age, with so many film revenue streams, there's much better clarity on anticipated returns from indie films," an insider explained. "As a consequence, New Bridge will be aimed at the independent market and its most promising films where recent performance is very high."
Posted by Ray Pride at May 12, 2006 01:51 PM
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