Despite a slowdown in the industry, Pinewood, known for franchises like James Bond, is thriving due to its business model of signing tenants to long traditional real estate leases. Almost all of its UK studios at Pinewood and Shepperton are leased or pre-leased to Netflix, Disney, and Amazon. The company is expanding the studios from 2.1M SF to more than 3M SF and last year, bought a new studio in Toronto. The bond issuance prospectus valued Pinewood and Shepperton at about £2.75B, while Pinewood Toronto was valued at about £250M.
Key takeaways:
- Pinewood Group has completed a £750M bond issue, the largest new UK bond issued in the past three years, despite uncertainty in the film and TV sector.
- The funds will be used to repay another high-yield bond that matures in 2025, and the debt raised was 50% more than the £500M bond originally envisaged by the company.
- Pinewood, known for hosting famous franchises like James Bond, is bucking the industry trend due to its business model of signing tenants to long traditional real estate leases rather than renting out space on a production-by-production basis.
- Pinewood and Shepperton studios are valued at about £2.75B, while Pinewood Toronto was valued at about £250M, and the company is expanding its studios from 2.1M SF to more than 3M SF.