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The Future. Three years after going public to much media fanfare, Endeavor is going private once again, thanks to a buyout from majority stakeholder Silver Lake Management. With rival CAA locking up a $7 billion sale to Artémis last September (instead of going public), Hollywood agencies may be cooling their IPO dreams in favor of keeping their mystique with wealthy benefactors who want access to cultural tastemakers.
Gold from Silver Lake
Endeavor — the Ari Emanuel-led parent company of WME, IMG, and OpenBet, and the majority owner of TKO Group — is done trying to impress the public markets.
- Private equity firm Silver Lake, which already owns 71% of the voting shares in Endeavor, announced that it’ll acquire all of the outstanding shares that Endeavor doesn’t already own in a $13 billion buyout.
- That’s a 55% premium on the stock price of October 25, 2023 (the day before Endeavor announced it was considering a sale) and 9% more than Monday’s closing price.
- Silver Lake said the buyout gives Endeavor a $25 billion enterprise value — allegedly the largest PE takeover of a public company in more than a decade and the largest ever in the media and entertainment industry.
Ironically, TKO, the parent company of WWE and UFC that spun out of Endeavor, will remain public and is currently worth $15 billion.
The stocks of both Endeavor and TKO popped at the buyout news.
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