STX Entertainment Scores Financing from China’s Tencent & PCCW

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LOS ANGELES: STX Entertainment has received investments from PCCW and Tencent Holdings, which both now hold equity stakes in the company.

STX also received new investments from East West Bank’s Dominic Ng as well as existing investors TPG Growth, Hony Capital, business interests of Gigi Pritzker, Michael Pucker and their immediate family and William Wrigley, Jr.

STX is planning to use the investments to accelerate its expansion, looking to grow its TV and international operations, and add high-quality, full-scale capabilities across music and digital, including short-form, app-based and virtual reality/immersive entertainment.

Additionally, PCCW and Tencent entered into respective content distribution agreements with STX Entertainment. Through its pact with PCCW, STX will provide original and first-run Hollywood content, as well as co-create regionally tailored programming for PCCW to distribute across its TV and digital channels and OTT services in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and India. STX also has a content partnership with Tencent.

“We conceived STX for the new media landscape to meet the changing needs of talent, industry partners and audiences,” said Robert Simonds, the chairman and CEO of STX Entertainment. “We’ve broken down the traditional silos of the entertainment business to become the best home for stars and creators to tell their stories anywhere and through any format. Whether it’s through television, apps, video games, social media, film or any other medium, we’ve created the only company with the infrastructure, reach and industry expertise to incubate, generate and distribute content for all platforms, on a global scale.”

Simonds continued, “Developing deep relationships with smart, experienced, well-connected partners is a cornerstone of our value proposition. We’re excited to be collaborating with PCCW and Tencent, extremely well-respected and powerful companies, as we execute on our long-term strategy.”

Janice Lee, the managing director of PCCW Media Group, said, “The new alliance represents an important milestone in expanding PCCW’s strategic investments into compelling content creation, not simply for audiences in Hong Kong but also for international audiences. Furthermore, STX’s wide release of films and scripted television series can also be distributed across PCCW’s pay TV and OTT platforms, thus bringing the best content to viewers in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and India.”

“We believe in an open platform strategy to partner with media companies to create and distribute premier content globally,” said Martin Lau, the president of Tencent. “We look forward to partnering with them to capture the many opportunities the evolving media landscape presents.”

“STX is successfully bridging the U.S. and Chinese media and entertainment markets—the two largest in the world,” added John Zhao, the chairman of Hony Capital. “By making China a foundation of its strategy and structure from inception and building the right relationships in the region, STX has put itself in an unparalleled position to unlock content opportunities for talent and brands in China, the world’s fastest growing entertainment consumption market, and throughout other key Asian markets.”

“When we co-founded STX, we saw an opportunity to fill existing voids in the entertainment and media industries, which stemmed from the traditionally siloed nature of each business,” said STX Entertainment’s co-founder and TPG Growth’s managing partner, Bill McGlashan. “From the beginning, we understood the greater opportunity for STX beyond film and TV. As we’ve succeeded in traditional media—creating one of the biggest film studios in the country—we are incredibly excited about revolutionizing the entire entertainment industry.”