History
Thomas Tull founded Legendary Entertainment after raising $500 million from private equity firms. It was one of the first companies of its kind to pair major motion picture production with major Wall Street private equity and hedge fund investors, including ABRY Partners, AIG Direct Investments, Bank of America Capital Investors, Columbia Capital, Falcon Investment Advisors, and M/C Venture Partners. The company was incorporated in California in 2000 and in 2005 it signed an agreement with Warner Bros. to co-produce and co-finance 40 films over seven years. In 2010 Tull and two other investors, Fidelity Investments and Fortress Investment Group, bought all the shares of the original investors. Following the transaction, Tull became the largest shareholder, thus enabling him to more easily direct the company's operations. In 2011, Accel Partners bought $40 million-worth of shares and Accel partner Jim Breyer joined the company's board of directors. That same year the company was reported to have been valued at more than $1 billion. In September 2011, Chief Creative Officer Jon Jashni was appointed to the new position of President. In December 2012 Waddell & Reed bought around 20% of Legendary's shares for $443 million.
Read more about this topic: Legendary Pictures
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews—Micah, Isaiah, and the rest—who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)