WBD, Liberty Global putting All3Media up for sale with $1.26bn price tag – reports

All3Media International’s catalogue includes The Traitors

Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) and Liberty Global are reportedly putting UK-based superindie All3Media up for sale for around £1bn (US$1.26bn).

The 50-50 joint owners are exploring several options including selling their stakes to a third party, or one buying out the other’s stake, according to The Daily Telegraph, which first reported the news.

All3Media is the parent to more than 50 production companies including Studio Lambert, Objective Media Group, Silverback Films and Lime Pictures, with a footprint across the UK, US, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and New Zealand. Its distribution division, All3Media International, has a catalogue of more than 30,000 hours of content and sells formats including The Traitors and Gogglebox.

The company, led by CEO Jane Turton, said it had its biggest year in 2021, posting £866.6m in revenue.

The move to sell All3Media comes nine years after Discovery and Liberty Global acquired the company in a joint-venture deal valued at around US$930m at the time.

Rumours that it would be sold off started as soon as the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery was first announced.

That is partly due to the fact WarnerMedia already has significant production and distribution assets, and also because of WBD’s huge debt pile, which stands at around US$49bn.

The Daily Telegraph said bankers at JP Morgan had been engaged to explore a deal, although there is no guarantee a transaction will take place.

A representative for All3Media said: “We do not comment on speculation.” Liberty Global and WBD did not comment immediately.