Webedia acquires Germany’s leading filmed entertainment website MoviePilot.de.
Clipperton Finance acted as buy-side advisor to Webedia
Berlin/Paris – July, 1st 2014 – Clipperton Finance’s Berlin office is pleased to announce the acquisition of Moviepilot.de, the top German website focused on movies and TV shows by the leading international digital content publisher Webedia.
Since Cédric Siré and Guillaume Multrier co-founded Webedia in 2007, the company has become a global leader in digital media, with a portfolio of 15 premium vertical sites associated with the lifestyle and entertainment universe, reaching over 21 million monthly unique visitors in France and 50 million globally. Since being acquired in May 2013 by Fimalac, Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière’s holding company,Webedia has expanded aggressively in various digital verticals and geographies via external growth targeting digital entertainment champions, notably the acquisition of the leading French film websiteAlloCiné in 2013, and two transactions already managed by Clipperton Finance in 2014: Diwanee (the leading digital media player focused on women in the Middle-East – March 2014) and Jeuxvideo (#1 gaming site in France – June 2014).
Founded in 2007 by Tobias Bauckhage, Jon Handschin and Ben Kubota, Berlin-based Moviepilot GmbHrapidly became the leading provider of personalized recommendation and discovery for filmed entertainment, with 5 million monthly unique visitors, 2 million Facebook fans, and 10 million views on its Youtube channels.
The deal will enable Moviepilot to focus on expanding its operations in the United States, where it runs the social movie site moviepilot.com, while German operations will be run by Webedia, and complement the activities of Filmstarts, the German subsidiary of AlloCiné. This transaction will enable Webedia to strengthen its position in Germany and to become the leading independent group on the filmed entertainment vertical.
Stéphane Valorge, the Partner of Clipperton Finance in charge of managing the transaction, commented “We are very proud to have accompanied a leading online media group such as Webedia for the third time in a cross-border buy-side transaction. On top of our mutual long-term commitment to Webedia, this deals also illustrates our capacity to manage international transactions and leverage our German coverage”.
For more information, please contact:
Clipperton Finance
Berlin:
Stéphane Valorge, Partner, svalorge@clipperton.net
Paris:
Nicolas von Bülow, Partner, nvonbulow@clipperton.net
Thibaut Revel, Partner, trevel@clipperton.net
About Clipperton Finance
Clipperton Finance is a European corporate finance boutique exclusively dedicated to the HighTech and Media industries. Clipperton Finance advises high growth companies on financial transactions, fundraisings, capital increases and Mergers & Acquisitions. With a team based in offices spanning London, Paris and Berlin, and an international reach, Clipperton Finance is a European leader in the sector. The team has successfully structured more than one hundred high level international transactions in the European High Tech sector. For more information, visit www.clipperton.net