Brands
The ABBY’s joins hands with prestigious global award program, The One Show
Mumbai: South Asia’s pre-eminent awards for Creativity, Media and Communication, ABBY’s has joined hands with The One Show, the globally prestigious award program in advertising, design and digital marketing worldwide, thereby sharing the stage with other global and regional award platforms.
The association seeks to create a new gold standard in recognising and awarding the region’s best creativity by bringing global standards of judging, jury selection and transparency to the established Indian Awards brand.
The One Club for Creativity CEO Kevin Swanepoel said, the One Show is committed to raising the bar on creative judging standards all over the world. “With India already a rising new global creative powerhouse, the Abby Awards will further add shine to a very respected domestic creative program,” he said.
The One Show’s Gold Pencil, which is regarded as one of the top prizes in the international creative industry for over 40 years, has a rich legacy of honouring some of the most ground-breaking ideas, created by some of the most remarkable minds in creativity across the globe.
This year’s Abby’s will be a part of the Goafest in partnership with the AAAI and will mark the thirteenth Abby Award after a break of the last two years due to the pandemic.
Elaborating on the association, The Ad Club president Partha Sinha said, “Abby’s has been India’s mainstay for 56 years when it comes to recognising creativity & innovation across the communication industry. We wanted to add more heft and give Abby’s a place on the global stage it so well deserves. The association with ‘The One Show’ will enhance our judging standards to match global best practices, help in the selection of juries and raise levels of transparency in the entire awarding process”.
The Abby Awards will represent the South Asia region that includes India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan and has been doing so since 2004. In keeping with contemporary trends, the Abby’s will include categories such as Direct, Design, Digital, Mobile, Technology, Still Craft, Digital Craft, Radio Craft, Video Craft, Brand Activation & Promotion, Branded Content & Entertainment, PR, Broadcaster and Publisher.
The Awards Governing Committee for ABBY’s Awards includes eminent industry names such as Havas Group India Group CEO Rana Barua, (AGC Chairman), Goafest Organising Committee chairman & Another Idea founder Jaideep Gandhi, Times of India president Partha Sinha, IPG Mediabrands CEO-India Shashi Sinha, Publicis Groupe CEO South Asia Anupriya Acharya, Madison Communications chairman and managing director Sam Balsara, GroupM Media (India) CEO-South Asia Prasanth Kumar and FCB Group India Group Chairman & CEO Rohit Ohri, among others.
The list of international judges will be announced by One Show after the process of selection of both Indian and international jury will get initiated.
Brands
UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
