The e-commerce giant
Amazon
announced on Wednesday the purchase of the
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film studio
for $ 8.45 billion (6.906 million euros), the second largest acquisition in its history, after several days of speculation.
The two companies highlighted in a joint statement that
Amazon "will help preserve the legacy and catalog of films"
of the Hollywood studio, which has a content archive with 4,000 titles dating back to the 1920s.
"The real financial value behind this deal is
the hidden treasure of intellectual property
in the great catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with the talented team at MGM," said Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, in the note.
The companies considered that
MGM's centennial trajectory
"complements the work of Amazon Studios, which has focused mainly on producing television programs" and that taking this step confirms its ambitions to expand in the entertainment sector.
The operation, subject to the green light of the regulators, coincides with recent
movements of concentration
in this market after the announcement last week of the merger of WarnerMedia -owned by AT & T- and Discovery, which will create a new competitor for the leaders of "streaming" .
Kevin Ulrich, the chairman of the MGM board of directors, who had been looking for a buyer for several months, highlighted in the note the "incredible transformation" of the study and thanked the workers for their efforts to achieve this "historic day."
"
I am very proud that the MGM Lion, which has long evoked
the golden age of Hollywood
, continues its successful story and that the idea born from the creation of the United Artists endures as the founders originally intended, led by the talent and his vision, "he added.
MGM's catalog encompasses movies, including the
James Bond
franchise
and classics like
Gone with the Wind
, but also 17,000 television series, with recent hits like
The Handmaid's Tale
,
Fargo
and
Vikings
, and collectively has won 180 Oscars. and 100 Emmys.
"Through this acquisition, Amazon would empower MGM to continue doing what they do best: tell great stories," said the e-commerce giant, which scored
its second-largest transaction
after the purchase of Whole Foods supermarkets in 2017, for 13,700 million.
After the news was confirmed, Amazon shares barely noticed any changes on Wall Street in trading before the opening, trading up 0.47%.
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