It’s been a big week for agency-focused news. Not to be done out of their own press time, UTA had announced their acquisition of entertainment, tech, and media strategic advisory firm, MediaLink, this week. Brandon Blake, the entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A, has more for us.
$125 Million Deal
The firm has been acquired from UK-based Ascential PLC for a tidy $125M. The current CEO, Michal Kassan, will become a partner at UTA, and brings a stable of over 150 employees with him. MediaLink will, however, continue its involvement with the Cannes Film Festival despite the merger.
The reason? UTA hopes to “grow its brand-facing business”. Unmentioned, but as important we can assume, is the lucrative slice of the pie that the streaming industry has turned into. The hope seems to be to leverage different, novel brand potential instead of relying on older models as the streaming age dawns.
UTA Marketing reforms
Alongside the merger, we see UTA Marketing rebrand as UTA Entertainment & Culture Marketing, and it seems destined to be incorporated into the existing MediaLink fold. MediaLink is set for no changes of top management currently. Kassan is on record as noting that we “now double click in the entertainment space more than we ever could have imagined,” citing the ever-growing merger between tech, marketing, media, and entertainment as their reason for being amenable to the deal.
It’s an intriguing merger. MediaLink hasn’t been the flashiest kid on the block, but as boutique consulting firms go, it has a strong rep, working with some high-profile firms and a fair chunk of the global media companies.
It’s been something of a major year for M&A activities in the agency business. Do we assume this new maneuvering is linked to the death of packaged deals, after the long-fought WGA agreement? It’s likely. UTA has, to date, avoided some of the megadeals we’ve seen from other agencies this year, but the new acquisition could be very lucrative for them indeed.
