Lantern Capital Partners, a Dallas-based private equity firm that specializes in investing in underperforming companies, has been selected as the winning bidder for the purchase of bankrupt film production studio The Weinstein Company, according to multiple media reports.
Lantern Capital Partners entered the sale as the studio’s prearranged bidder, or “stalking horse,” offering $310 million plus the assumption of about $115 million in debt.
“Lantern’s bid clearly achieves the highest and best value,” Ivona Smith, a member of the Weinstein Company’s board, said in a statement. “We look forward to working with Lantern to close the transaction.”
A judge stil needs to sign off on the deal.
The Weinstein Company (TWC), a multimedia production and distribution company launched in October 2005 by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the brothers who founded Miramax Films in 1979, came under intense media scrutiny last year when Harvey Weinstein was accused of engaging in a pattern of sexually inappropriate behavior with the studios female cast members. The firm filed for bankruptcy in March.
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