French financier to grow UK business

French TV and film financier, Natixis Coficiné, has hired a London-based executive to help grow its presence in the UK and other English-language markets.

Stuart Woodward

Stuart Woodward has joined Natixis Coficiné as relationship manager after previously working at Bank Leumi and Bank of Ireland.

He helped launch Bank Leumi into the TV industry, and oversaw the financing of shows including Dickensian, The Feed, The Widow and Black Mirror.

Woodward joins his former Bank of Ireland colleague Edwige Rolin, who helped recruit him to Natixis Coficiné. Rolin has worked at the company for more than 10 years and has more than 25 years of production finance experience. His main responsibility will be to build business relationships with producers in the UK.

“The company brings tonnes of experience and we have an excellent reputation as a brilliant long-term partner for anyone who is going to be looking to borrowing regularly,” Woodward told C21.

“Natixis Coficiné has demonstrated that they truly understand today’s production finance space. Competitiveness and expertise are at the heart of their offering and I’m excited to introduce them to my network clients.”

The company helps to finance around 140 films and 100 TV series each year and has recently increased its international department which accounts for 35% of its overall business. The growth was spearheaded by Coficiné director Christophe Vidal.

Natixis Coficiné wants to provide cashflow financing to more English language films and television series, having closed in recent months on Little Birds, Supernova and Riviera 3.

It was also the senior loan partner on the successful The Night Manager limited series starring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie and produced by the UK/US prodco The Ink Factory.

“We are thrilled to see Stuart joining our team. We had been looking for someone to enhance our London operations and Stuart ticks all the boxes,” Vidal said.

“He will be a perfect complement to Edwige and we are convinced that Stuart will bring us more UK-originated business. As a matter of fact he has already started and that’s very promising”.