In a low-growth, illiquid market, growth and liquidity are priceless.
The recently ended concurrent strikes in Hollywood seemed to threaten the overall film and TV production ecosystem, but they actually wound up strengthening an emergent source of finance for the industry: private credit.
So, what is private credit, and why the interest in media production?
As the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild strikes wore on, studios and streamers were no longer a viable source of funding for producers seeking capital. Instead, they turned to private-credit financiers such as the one I operate at FilmHedge, which has given me a unique perspective in watching this trend play out.
Dozens of film and television productions that were underway when the strikes started, or that went into production as they took hold, were given approval to shoot — exemptions called interim agreements — by SAG-AFTRA on a case-by-case basis. For example, independent films starring talents such as Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway were among those announced as having been granted interim agreements; private-credit lenders were involved in “Bob Trevino Likes It,” with John Leguizamo; and the films “Off the Grid” and “Not Without Hope,” both starring Josh Duhamel, also received agreements with backing by private-credit financiers. See more at Variety.
