Four acquisition offers have been registered so far for insolvent French production company Cyber Group Studios—and a desire to own its Gigantosaurus IP is at the heart of some of these bids.
The Paris Commercial Court set an initial deadline of December 16 for takeover proposals, but more bids could come in before the court hearing to determine a buyer, which is expected to happen at the end of January or beginning of February.
So far, offers have been submitted by a joint-venture between United Smile, Toonz Media Group and Hong Kong-based toy importer/exporter Atlas Global; a Parisian live-action studio called Solent Productions; France’s Newen Studios; and French media and education company Hildegarde (which also tried to acquire TeamTO when it went up for sale in September).
Ranging from five to 60 pages in length, the offers from these potential buyers outlined a wide variety of plans for Cyber Group.
For example, the joint-venture bid anticipates spending US$5.2 million (€5 million) over several years to get Cyber Group Studios back on track. This includes US$1.5 million (€1.5 million) for creditors and US$3.6 million (€3.5 million) to continue business operations and retain employees. Leading this group is United Smile—which partnered with Cyber Group in 2022 as the global master toy licensee for Gigantosaurus. It’s primarily interested in leveraging the French studio’s animation production capabilities for its toy business.
Its plan is to continue production on the fourth season of Gigantosaurus, as well as developing the brand’s presence in the digital ecosystem, and completing the financing on an animated series based on video game Final Fantasy IX that Cyber Group has been developing since 2021.
Hildegarde, which noted that Cyber Group would complement its existing animation and international distribution business, has only pledged to spend US$10,500 (€10,000) to establish an ad hoc holding company called New CGS in Paris.
In its proposal, Hildegarde maintains that Cyber Group Studios’ activity “has declined due to investments undertaken as part of an international deployment strategy (purchase of production companies abroad) at the very time of the downturn in the animation market linked to the COVID-19 health crisis [and] a considerable increase in production costs, even as investments by historical audiovisual partners were stabilizing or falling.”
Newen Studios, which is owned by French broadcaster TF1 and runs animation studio Blue Spirit as one of its subsidiaries, is only offering to acquire select Cyber Group assets. Specifically, it wants the Gigantosaurus, Final Fantasy IX and Zou IPs. If Newen is successful with its bid, Blue Spirit (Blue Eye Samurai, My Life as a Zucchini) would take them over from a production and brand management standpoint. Blue Spirit is also one of Cyber Group’s creditors, with signed production contracts for Gigantosaurus.
The final bidder, Solent, is a live-action studio that has been transitioning into animation production since 2022, according to its filing. It co-produces a 2D-animated series called Samuel for ARTE that has generated more than 90 million views on its arte.tv streamer. It also acquired French animation prodco Studio RedFrog (Mick the Mini Chef, Samuel) in Q4 2023. Solent sees this acquisition as a way to accelerate its animation expansion.