WildBrain Ltd has signed an agreement to acquire animation pre-production company House of Cool for $15.5 million.
The kids and family entertainment company called the acquisition “a strategic extension of WildBrain's focus on creative excellence,” with a focus on premium animated series.
Toronto-based House of Cool specializes in pre-production, an early planning stage in the life of a feature or series during which the story is developed and creative choices are made to establish the look, feel, style and pacing of a project, the company said.
House of Cool executives and co-founders, Wes Lui and Ricardo Curtis, are joining the WildBrain Studios senior management team.
"We're delighted to welcome Wes, Ricardo and their team on board at WildBrain, a combination of talent that will immediately broaden and deepen our collective creative strengths,” WildBrain president Josh Scherba said in a statement.
“Their expertise is highly complementary to our existing business, expanding and enhancing our pre-production capabilities, not only for WildBrain's proprietary content but also for third-party projects," he added. "The acquisition also establishes a new entry point for IP owners to engage with WildBrain's 360-degree offering across production, distribution and consumer products licensing."
House of Cool more than doubles WildBrain's pre-production capacity, building on its existing pre-production team of roughly 80 people based in Vancouver, the company said. The House of Cool brand will be maintained as a distinct identity under the WildBrain banner.
"House of Cool's mission is simple: bring audiences together through the artful telling of unique stories,” Lui said. “WildBrain shares our enthusiasm for storytelling, and from the moment they first approached us, we were ecstatic about combining forces and leveraging their 360-degree approach and our expertise in story and preproduction to develop, produce and distribute premium content. We will also further be able to offer more top-level creative services for all our clients."
The terms of the deal will see WildBrain issue $10.25 million worth of shares of the company and pay $5.25 million in cash. Additionally, there is an earn-out of up to $6 million based on collection of tax credits earned up to closing.
The transaction is expected to close in the company's fiscal 2023 fourth quarter, which ends on June 30.
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