Sep 20, 2023

Vuelta Group, the rising Paris-based European film studio which recently launched with the high profile acquisitions of France's Playtime, Germany's SquareOne and Scandinavia's Scanbox, is expanding its footprint in Italy and France. Spearheaded by media finance veterans (and childhood friends) Jerome Levy and David Atlan-Jackson, Vuelta has bought Indiana Production, a leading Italian company ... founded by Benedetto Habib and Marco Cohen, which had Giorgio Diritti's "Lubo" playing in competition Venice and just revealed its big-budget Netflix series project "The Leopard" and Sky's "Unwanted." Vuelta has also taken a stake in France's Pan (formerly called Pan-Europeenne), the well-established production and distribution banner headed by Nathalie Gastaldo, Philippe Godeau and Camille Gentet, whose credits include the hit franchises "Largo Winch" and "Legendaries." Vuelta ... Group bowed last year with more $100 million provided by a U.S. private equity firm and has now diversified its backing through its European partners.   At a time of massive consolidation throughout the European film and TV industries, Vuelta isn't looking to follow the acquisition model of other French media groups such as Banijay, Newen, Mediawan and Federation. Instead of buying out multiple production companies across many territories, Vuelta Group will operate as an integrated studio boasting ... production, distribution and international units through its several companies. European production and/or distribution will be handled by Pan in France, Scanbox in Scandinavia, SquareOne in Germany and Indiana Production in Italy; while international sales will be handled by Playtime. The flexible approach will allow each banner to work autonomously with partners within the group or third-party companies, while become shareholders of Vuelta. " ... Our idea is to build a multi-territory indie company with entrepreneurs who have similar ambitions, values and a vision," said Levy, Vuelta Group chair, who spent most of his adult life in New York and headed Archie Comics Publications ("Riverdale") after working at Houlihan Lokey and Goldman Sachs. Atlan-Jackson, who previously co-founded Backup Media, said "It was especially important to find the right people because when we buy a company ...