Europe has a brand-new media large.

Vuelta Group, a private-equity fueled firm headed by former Canal+ and Goldman Sachs government Jerome Levy, made a really huge launch on the European scene on Thursday, asserting its acquisition of Scandinavian unbiased movie firm Scanbox, German distributor/producer SquareOne Leisure and French worldwide gross sales firm Playtime.

Vuelta (Latin for “to go round”) is planning future acquisitions in France, Italy, Spain and the Benelux area because it seems to be to construct a pan-European tv and movie studio specializing in the manufacturing and distribution of European content material throughout the continent.

The Vuelta launch is an additional signal of consolidation within the European indie market, which has already seen a number of unbiased producers and distributors subsumed into PE-backed studios equivalent to Leonine and Mediawan or snatched up by world indie giants like Fremantle and Banijay.

The Veulta setup will see every of its subsidiary corporations proceed to function autonomously with the previous house owners changing into shareholders of the Vuelta Group. Based on the corporate, it has greater than $50 million in backing from an unnamed U.S. personal fairness agency in addition to European fairness companions.

Levy, as group chairman, will head up Vuelta, with David Atlan-Jackson, his long-time associate in media financing group Backup Media, as chief content material officer. Allen Duffy, former finance director at Fremantle, has been named chief monetary officer. Scanbox’s Thor Sigurjonsson, Playtime’s Sebastien Beffa and Sq. One’s boss Al Munteanu will all serve on Vuelta’s administration board. The corporate can be formally based mostly in Eire for tax functions.

“We’re thrilled to launch this formidable challenge to assist the European trade create its personal tales and distribute them internationally. The European market is singular and wealthy; our ambition is to double down on European business productions,” stated Levy in a press release.

Added Atlan-Jackson: “With improvement, finance, manufacturing, and distribution with a European DNA, we are going to turn into a pan-European one-stop store for all skills. Vuelta Group is the one group to merge distinctive native distribution experience with worldwide manufacturing capabilities.”

Scanbox, headquartered in Copenhagen and with operations throughout the Nordic territories, is a number one unbiased distributor in Scandinavia with a line-up that ranges from arthouse titles like latest Cannes competitors movies Could December from Todd Haynes and Ken Loach’s The Outdated Oak to Sylvester Stallone’s upocming Cliffhanger reboot and Jason Statham automobile The Bee Keeper, each of which Scanbox pre-bought for his or her territories.

Munich-based SquareOne’s theatrical line-up contains such options because the Nicolas Cage sequel Lords of Warfare, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Breakout and Daisy Ridley-starrer The Cleaner. The corporate can also be an lively TV producer, with a latest German adaptation of Your Honor, starring Sebastian Koch and Paula Beer, and the Italian mafia collection L’Ora.

Playtime, a well-known face within the worldwide gross sales world, has dealt with such cross-over hits as Son of Saul, Coco Earlier than Chanel and Goodnight Mommy and represented Cannes competitors titles About Dry Grasses from Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Catherine Corsini’s Homecoming. It’s at present doing pre-sales on the Charles Aznavour biopic Monsieur Aznavour starring Tahar Rahim (A Prophet, The Mauritanian).

Deadline first broke the information of the Veulta launch.