Alibaba, Tencent, Vanke join $1.5b round for CMC unit
CMC Inc, a company set up by Chinese media-focused private equity firm CMC Capital Partners to hold assets beyond a 10-year horizon, has raised RMB10 billion ($1.5 billion) in Series A funding.
The round – which gives CMC Inc. a post-money valuation of RMB40 billion – was led by Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings, and China Vanke. Additional contributions came from financial investors such as CMB International Capital, a unit of China Merchants Bank.
CMC Inc, formerly known as CMC Holdings, was established in 2015 by Ruigang Li, founder of CMC Capital Partners and previously president of Shanghai Media Group. It received RMB10 billion in seed funding from Oriza Holdings, Alibaba, and Tencent.
CMC Inc’s portfolio encompasses a wide range of media, sports and entertainment assets. Its film industry holdings include production company Gravity Pictures, distributor CMC Pictures, movie theater chain UME Cinemas, and Pearl Studio, which was formerly a joint venture with DreamWorks Animation. In the media space, CMC Inc. has invested in Hong Kong’s TVB, Chinese financial news provider Caixin Media, and short video platform Pear Video.
There is also a lifestyle and fashion publishing business, an events management unit that puts on live music and stage shows, and a string of theme parks, including the Shanghai Dream Center and China Lego Park.
The company is known for acquiring the broadcasting rights to matches from China's domestic football league and taking a stake in the holding company of Manchester City Football Club as well as in Formula E Holdings, the parent of the eponymous electric car racing series. These appear in the sports portfolio alongside SECA, a sports management and marketing business.
“With technological disruption driving continuous change in content consumption, the global media and entertainment industry is undergoing a new round of adjustment and transformation. As one of the world’s most important economies, China has the potential to nurture a new generation of large-scale media and entertainment businesses. CMC has always believed in high-quality content and innovation, promoting the integration of offline and online, domestically and overseas,” Li said in a statement.
CMC Capital Partners closed its second US dollar-denominated fund at the hard cap of $600 million in July 2017. The firm raised its debut US dollar fund at $350 million about three years earlier. This followed its first renminbi fund, which had a corpus of RMB2 billion ($313 million).
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