Wasserman’s ‘Insane’ Price Tag — and the Curious Strategy Behind It
I can reveal the eye-popping ask, the backup plan, and the new aggro era of deals and LBOs
I cover top dealmakers for paid subscribers. I wrote about the billion-dollar scramble for Casey Wasserman’s company, a fix for film’s mid-budget crisis, animation’s box office boom and who’s scoring big feature film deals.
There’s a staggering number out there that Casey Wasserman is asking for his agency, The Team.
Some dealmakers with whom I shared that number tell me that it is “objectively insane” (don’t worry, I’ll reveal it to you below). But remember this is an era where Warner Bros. Discovery shares are valued at the makes-sense-to-only-one-guy price of $31 a share — nearly 2.5 times the pre-bidding war price of $12.54 a share on Sept. 10, the day before news broke that David Ellison’s Paramount was making an offer.
The eye-watering Wasserman asking price — and the quiet skepticism around it — is a sign of where Hollywood dealmaking stands right now: unpredictable, aggressive and increasingly untethered from traditional financial logic.
Earlier:
Consider February. Ellison pulled off a hostile pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery that will stand as the largest leveraged buyout in history (take that, Carl Icahn!). At the same time, Wasserman announced he’s exploring a sale of his company — now rebranded as The Team — amid fallout tied to his name appearing in the Epstein files.
Neither deal is done. But together, they point to a new untethered era of Hollywood M&A — one defined less by orderly consolidation and processes, and more by high-risk bets, and, increasingly, personality.
“The Ellisons have been very aggressive in their strategies, so they probably are a prime example, but I would not discount that happening in other situations,” says a leading corporate dealmaker. “The table is set for outside-the-box, unique dealmaking and strategy to get what you want. It’s a very disruptive time in the marketplace.”
I talked to some of the industry’s top lawyers about not only what’s next for those soap opera-esque scenarios, but also why M&A that eschews traditional business norms may be the new normal.
Today, I break down what’s actually happening behind the chaos:
The “insane” price Wasserman is seeking and the multiple on EBITDA he wants
Why he insists on selling The Team as a whole
Who could realistically buy it — and the leading theory on his backup plan
Why representation businesses are uniquely hard to sell (“assets walk out the door every night”)
The “movie-worthy” drama behind the Paramount–Warner deal
Why the acquisition marks an upswing in LBOs
The next wave of deals insiders expect (they “aren’t necessarily the sexiest”)
Companies in play, including star-driven studios — even as the “dumb money” that valued Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine at $900M is no more
First, fresh details on what’s happening behind the scenes at Wasserman’s The Team: