World child’s publishing, schooling, and media firm Scholastic has signed a definitive settlement to put money into 9 Story Media Group, an unbiased creator, producer, and distributor of child’s content material. By the deal, Scholastic will purchase a minority of voting rights and 100% of the financial curiosity in 9 Story for roughly $186 million. That is topic to customary closing changes.
9 Story’s enterprise divisions embody Brown Bag Movies, which has gained 21 Emmy awards and two Oscar nominations, and 9 Story Distribution Worldwide, which represents live-action programming for teenagers similar to A Form of Spark. It additionally contains Story Manufacturers, the buyer merchandise division that focuses on constructing manufacturers similar to Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood each on- and off-screen. As well as, 9 Story lately partnered with Crayola Studios to deal with the manufacturing and distribution for brand new, authentic initiatives. It additionally acquired Portfolio Leisure’s library, manufacturing slate, and growth initiatives.
The funding in 9 Story’s crew, manufacturing, gross sales, and licensing capabilities expands Scholastic’s alternatives to leverage its child’s franchises throughout print, screens, and merchandising. The funding additionally solidifies the continued collaboration between Scholastic Leisure — the media growth and manufacturing division of Scholastic — and 9 Story manufacturers such because the animated collection reboot of Clifford the Large Crimson Canine on Amazon Prime Video and PBS Children. It additionally contains the manufacturing of Eva the Owlet.
“This extremely strategic mixture, including 9 Story’s industry-leading capabilities with Scholastic’s trusted model and confirmed capacity to create iconic youngsters’s collection and franchises, has great potential to construct deeper connections with younger folks by our tales, because the pages of our books come to life on screens and thru merchandising,” says Peter Warwick, Scholastic President and CEO. “At its core, Scholastic’s 360-degree content material creation technique is about partaking youngsters with studying, and now we have launched our tales to generations of children by reaching them the place they’re.”
Scholastic believes that, attributable to 9 Story’s current content material library, manufacturing studios, and extra, the addition of 9 Story will contribute to long-term earnings accretion, drive substantial enhancements in top-line progress and bottom-line outcomes, and scale back the capital depth of manufacturing.
“We’ve been lucky to work with Scholastic for many years, going again to my very own begin with the family-favorite manufacturing, The Magic College Bus. The mixture of our international studios, gross sales, and distribution capabilities with Scholastic’s current media enterprise, iconic title, and distinctive capabilities opens much more alternatives to ship compelling tales and construct impactful manufacturers for audiences worldwide,” says Vince Commisso, President and CEO, 9 Story. “We’re keen to start bringing collectively our complementary skills to reinforce Scholastic’s place as a prime developer, producer, and distributor of children and household content material.”
The investment has been accredited by the shareholders of 9 Story and each corporations’ board of administrators. The deal is anticipated to shut in Q1 of Scholastic’s fiscal 2025, which begins on June 1. Scholastic plans to fund the transaction from obtainable money and its revolving credit score facility, whereas anticipating the upkeep of its common dividend and approved inventory repurchase program.
For extra data, go to investor.scholastic.com.
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