Banijay bags All3Media as $8 billion mega-merger crosses the finish line

MUMBAI: It’s a wrap and what a blockbuster. Banijay Group and RedBird IMI have completed the merger of Banijay Entertainment and All3Media, birthing the world’s largest independent production company in a deal pegged at $8 billion. The combined colossus, which keeps the Banijay Entertainment name, will be jointly owned 50:50 by Banijay Group and RedBird IMI, with Banijay Group consolidating the numbers.

First announced in Paris on 3 March 2026, the deal sprinted through the European regulatory maze in a shade under six months quicker than even the dealmakers dared hope. “It was not so difficult, it was pretty much bureaucratic stuff,” Banijay Entertainment chief executive officer Marco Bassetti told Variety after the closing.

The top table is set: RedBird IMI chief executive officer Jeff Zucker becomes chairman, Bassetti continues as CEO, and All3Media boss Jane Turton slides in as deputy CEO. The trio will call the shots from London, where the merged entity has planted its headquarters flag poached from Paris, no less. Bassetti, speaking to Variety from his new London digs (“with a fantastic view,” he quipped), said the UK is now the group’s biggest market and “the European capital of this business.” He will, however, commute from Paris. C’est la vie, it’s just a quick train ride.

And yes, the All3Media name is toast. Asked by Variety whether the moniker was officially retired, Zucker was crisp, “It is.”

Numbers with plenty of noughts

The new Banijay Entertainment straddles 25 countries, houses around 170 creative labels and boasts one of the industry’s fattest content larders more than 265,000 hours and counting. On a combined basis, it would have clocked over €4.3 billion ($4.9 billion) in 2025 revenues and over €0.7 billion ($0.8 billion) in adjusted EBITDA. Cost synergies of around €50 million ($60 million) are targeted within a year of closing.

For parent Banijay Group, the pro-forma 2025 picture is even plumper: €7.4 billion in revenue (the figures also include revenues from sports betting giant the Tipico group which it acquired in March 2026), €1.6 billion in adjusted EBITDA and €1.2 billion in adjusted free cash flow. The transaction delivers a total cash upstream of €801 million ($913 million) to Banijay Group, a €625 million ($712 million) cheque from RedBird IMI plus a €176 million ($201 million) pre-closing dividend. Shareholders get a sweetener too: an exceptional dividend of €0.93 per share lands in the coming weeks. And bear in mind these numbers are unaudited.

The content cupboard groans with superbrands MasterChef, Big Brother, Survivor, Gogglebox, The Traitors, Race Across the World scripted heavyweights such as Peaky Blinders, Black Mirror, Call the Midwife and Fleabag, plus the Oscar-nominated Hamnet. It was only two years ago that RedBird IMI snapped up All3Media from Warner Bros. Discovery and Liberty Global; Banijay mulled a bid then, but blinked. Now it has the whole shooting match.

Traitors on stage, MasterChef in the wild

Bassetti is bullish on stretching that IP well beyond the telly box. He told Variety the group already stages 3,000 live events a year including the World Cup opening ceremony in the US has just launched the Black Mirror VR experience in New York (Toronto and China next), is taking The Traitors to the theatre next year, is “studying” what to do with MasterChef, and is working on a Survivor boot camp. Live, digital and sport, he said, are where the group plans to grow organically and, perhaps, otherwise.

On the $60 million synergy hunt, Bassetti told Variety the creative and production engine is off-limits: savings will come chiefly from leases, rents and support functions, with any headcount trims “mainly in the support function.” The money saved, he said, will be ploughed back into creating new IP, with the ambition of being “the home of talent,” a natural consolidator in a consolidating world.

Eyes wide open

Might ITV Studios, freshly spun off from ITV, be next on the menu? Zucker played it coy with Variety, today is day one, he said, but the group will “look to be opportunistic” and he didn’t want “to rule anything in or out.” On the wider merger mania Sky swallowing ITV, Paramount and Warner tying the knot Zucker was sanguine, telling Variety that scale is the price of admission in today’s entertainment business, and the group feels “very comfortable and confident” in its position.

In the official announcement, Zucker declared the completion “marks a new era in global entertainment,” while Bassetti called it “a transformative step” and Banijay Group chief executive officer François Riahi hailed “a defining milestone in Banijay Group’s history.” Turton, bowing out of the All3Media corner office and into the deputy’s chair, said leading the company had been “a huge pleasure and privilege.”

The paperwork is done, the champagne corks have popped, and the London office view is apparently splendid. Now comes the hard part: digesting an $8 billion meal and proving that in showbiz, bigger really is better.

Marco Bassetti pix courtesy: Mjohnleigh – Own work, CC0, (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=147864729)