Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) on Friday said it would take a stake in the US production company behind the Mission: Impossible and Terminator series, marking China’s latest incursion into Hollywood.
The deal would give Tencent the opportunity to cofinance Skydance Media films, which would benefit from the Chinese firm’s distribution and marketing in the world’s second-largest movie market, the firms said in a statement.
It did not provide financial details, but the Los Angeles Times cited an unidentified source familiar with the deal as saying that Tencent had paid more than US$100 million for a stake of 5 to 10 percent.
Founded in 2010, Skydance has produced 15 films, most in collaboration with Paramount Pictures, including the Star Trek franchise. It is preparing to release sequels to the Mission: Impossible, Terminator and Top Gun sagas in the next two years.
Tencent has become one of the world’s most valuable companies, raking in profits from its addictive mobile game Honor of Kings and WeChat (微信), China’s most popular all-purpose social media app that has nearly 1 billion users. It last year joined the exclusive club of companies with a market capitalization of more than US$500 billion.
Tencent has already made inroads into the movie business, investing in last year’s Hollywood blockbuster Kong: Skull Island, while it also has control of one of China’s major movie ticketing services.
Its partnership with Skydance “also supports collaboration on other media initiatives, including television, interactive and virtual reality,” the statement said.
The move comes after major conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group Co (萬達集團), whose interests range from real estate to entertainment, snatched up Legendary Entertainment LLC — maker of Jurassic World and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy — for US$3.5 billion, as well as US-based cinema chain AMC Theatres.
However, it also follows warnings from Beijing against the “irrational investments” overseas by Chinese companies, particularly in the movie industry.
A financing deal between Huahua Media (華樺傳媒) and Paramount Hollywood studios valued at US$1 billion in November last year fell through as a result of the regulatory tightening.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS