Candle Media sells Hello Sunshine back to Reese Witherspoon
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Reese Witherspoon. Photo: Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images
Reese Witherspoon has teamed with Mediawan, a Paris-based independent production company, to buy back her production firm Hello Sunshine for an undisclosed sum.
Why it matters: The sale represents Candle Media's continued shift away from its original plan to build an integrated media company and eventually sell it or take it public. Instead, the company is focusing on operating — and potentially selling — its individual brands.
- In February, Axios reported that Candle sold a majority stake in digital media company ATTN: back to its co-founders, Matthew Segal and Jarrett Moreno.
Zoom in: In a statement, Hello Sunshine said the deal with Mediawan will allow the company "to explore a broader range of storytelling formats and distribution models, connecting in new ways with audiences around the world."
- "I'm investing alongside Mediawan and joining Pierre-Antoine Capton and his teams because this is the perfect home for this new media landscape," Reese Witherspoon said.
- "It's also a homecoming," she added, noting that Hello Sunshine was originally backed by Peter Chernin and Jesse Jacobs of The Chernin Group. Their production company North Road was also recently bought by Mediawan.
- As part of the transaction, Hello Sunshine says it will refocus "on premium film and TV and Reese's Book Club, while expanding into new storytelling formats and distribution models."
- Reese's Book Club, it notes in a statement, reaches 6.2 million readers and drives approximately $900 million in U.S. book sales.
Catch up quick: Candle Media raised around $2 billion from Blackstone in 2021.
- It used that money to acquire a slew of media and production companies, including Hello Sunshine and Faraway Road Productions, the content studio behind "Fauda."
- The Hello Sunshine deal was worth more than $900 million in 2021, a deal that critics subsequently said was overvalued.
- Hello Sunshine itself had shed parts of its business. Earlier this year, The Home Edit co-founders Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin bought their company back from Hello Sunshine, which had previously sought to build its own portfolio of media and lifestyle brands.
The big picture: Candle Media raised a lot of money at a time when the streaming wars were driving a boom in entertainment production spend. Eventually, that momentum slowed as streaming giants looked to live sports to grow.
- The raise saddled Candle Media with debt, which it was forced to pay down with profits from its most lucrative properties, including ATTN: and children's YouTube brand Moonbug.
- Last year, Candle Media CEO Kevin Mayer told Axios he was eyeing individual exits for some of the company's biggest brands, including Hello Sunshine and Moonbug.
