James Bond studio owner gives company a licence to sell

Pinewood Group appoints Rothschild to advise on potential £350m sale of business

Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig promoting Spectre, which came out in 2015
(Image credit: Getty)

Pinewood Group, the owner of the studio most famous as the home of the James Bond franchise, has launched a review of its capital structure that could lead to a sale of the business.

The production facilities company, which owns the eponymous film and television studio as well as a number of others in the UK and overseas, in countries including Canada and Malaysia, has appointed investment bank Rothschild to advise on the process. Options under consideration include measures to help achieve a main stock market listing or a sale that would be worth as much as £350m.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

To list on the London Stock Exchange, a company must have at least 25 per cent of its shares in "free float" - that is, available for investors to buy and sell on the open market. At the moment, Pinewood is effectively controlled by three shareholders - property group Peel Holdings, which owns 39 per cent; jewellery chain Warren James, at 26 per cent, and Aviva, with 16 per cent – who have been reluctant to dilute their holdings.

One city source told The Guardian that the ideal outcome for Pinewood would be to encourage new investment at a valuation that would enable these principal shareholders to sell down without compromising the value of their holding. The paper also quotes another broker as saying the sale of such a "trophy asset" could be at "somewhere between £315m and £350m", a substantial premium to its pre-announcement market capitalisation of £260m.

Pinewood announced the review as it published results for the first half of the financial year showing operating profits had trebled to £7m on revenues of £38.2m. In the past year, it has been home to the latest films in both the Bond and the Star Wars franchises, while its investment arm has backed Amazon’s first UK original drama, the period fashion drama The Collection.