IPO Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Saudi-owned MBC Group, the Middle East’s top broadcaster, has announced it is floating a 10% stake on the Riyadh stock exchange seeking to raise up to 831 million riyals ($222 million) in a move to boost growth and help fuel its output of high-end productions. “Institutional and retail investors will be allowed the opportunity to acquire shares and participate in the long-term growth plans of the company and the Saudi media market,” MBC Group said in a statement on Thursday.

Shares in Reddit, which surged last Thursday in their blockbuster IPO, exploded again Monday as bullish investors bought into options on the social media firm.

Shares of message board master Reddit headed sky high Thursday as the company launched its initial public offering. The stock was up nearly 60% from its midday at about $54, giving it a market cap of $8..8 billion. It’s a great showing for the biggest tech offering in some time since Reddit had set the IPO price at $34 a share.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Investors rallied around Reddit‘s initial public offering Thursday, driving the discussion-forum company’s stock up over 50% in its market debut. Through the IPO — expected to be among the biggest tech stock offerings of the year — Reddit raised $519 million and created a windfall for existing shareholders, including Condé Nast parent company Advance Publications and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Reddit is targeting a valuation of up to $6.4 billion as it gets for its initial public offering.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In what’s poised to be one of the biggest initial public offerings of the year, Reddit disclosed financial details of its forthcoming IPO, through which it’s aiming to raise as much as $748 million. On Monday, in an update to its S-1 filing with the SEC, Reddit said it will offer 22 million shares, expected to be listed at an IPO price of between $31 and $34 per share.

Social media platform Reddit filed with the SEC today for an initial public offering, a move anticipated for years by the company, which was founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian and Aaron Swartz. It boasts 100k+ communities, or subreddits, including wallstreetbets, the home of meme stock traders who upended Wall Street in 2021, taking shares of GameStop and others to the moon.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Reddit, the popular internet discussion “community of communities,” filed a registration statement Thursday for its long-awaited initial public offering. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. Reddit intends to list its Class A common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “RDDT.” In the S-1 filing with the SEC, Reddit reported 2023 revenue of $804.0 million, up 21% year over year, and a net loss of $90.8 million in 2023, compared with a $158.6 million loss the year prior.

Reddit appears to be moving closer to a long-anticipated IPO.

UPDATE, 5:43 PM: Ari Emanuel has received an early Christmas present courtesy of a LA Superior Court judge.

Shareholders at Saudi Arabian media giant MBC Group are seeking to raise as much as $222 million by listing the company on the Saudi Exchange, known as Tadawul. 

Saudi Arabian media giant MBC Group has announced its intention to float a 10% stake in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Saudi Exchange, known as Tadawul, in the coming months.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chinese movie conglomerate Hengdian Films has inked a contract to fit Imax with Laser premium large format screen systems at 20 of its cinema locations. The order is the Imax’s largest recorded during the past four years. Hengdian Films is a pre-existing Imax client and the new deal will expand its Imax screen count to 27 when completed.

Although the tide could turn in the coming weeks with the expected approval of Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, investment and M&A in the gaming sector declined again in the second quarter.

Imax Corp. is planning to acquire full control of its China subsidiary, the company announced Wednesday.

Former Fifth Harmony star Lauren Jauregui has a really fascinating theory about the whole Twitter s**t show that has gone down over the last week — and, like, the last year.

Alibaba Group has announced that co-founder Joe Tsai is taking over as chairman, while Eddie Wu, currently chairman of ecommerce businesses Taobao and Tmall Group, has been appointed CEO. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce, technology and entertainment giant, said Tuesday that Joseph C. Tsai will succeed Daniel Zhang as chairman of the group. Eddie Wu (aka Wu Yongming) will take over Zhang’s role as group CEO. Both men are veterans of the group. Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets basketball franchise, is currently Alibaba’s executive vice chairman. Wu is one of Alibaba’s founders and was its original chief technology officer in 1999. He has since held the CTO role at key businesses units including Taobao and Alipay and is currently chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group. Zhang, who took over as group chairman from the iconic Jack Ma, is in the process of orchestrating the biggest restructuring in Alibaba’s 24-year history. Alibaba, which has share listings in New York and Hong Kong, is to transform itself into a holding company with stakes in six separate business units that are free to raise their own capital or even go down the IPO route.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Roku expanded its board with the election of Jeff Blackburn, formerly Amazon’s top digital media and entertainment executive, at the company’s annual shareholder meeting Thursday. Blackburn served as Amazon’s senior VP of global media and entertainment from May 2021 to February 2023, where he oversaw content businesses including Prime Video, Amazon Studios, MGM, Music, Audible, Games and Twitch. Before that, he was the ecommerce company’s SVP of worldwide business development, advertising and entertainment from 2012-20. He had first joined Amazon in 1998 after advising the company on its IPO. “Jeff’s extensive experience in digital media and technologies makes him a great addition to our board of directors,” Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood said in a statement. “I look forward to his contributions to Roku as we grow our leadership as the TV streaming platform of choice for more than 70 million households.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Reddit, the internet community discussion powerhouse, is cutting 90 jobs, laying off about 5% of its total employee base, as it restructure operations to position itself to break even in 2024. The job cuts were announced by Reddit CEO Steve Huffman in an email to staffers Tuesday. “We’ve had a solid first half of the year, and this restructuring will position us to carry that momentum into the second half and beyond,” Huffman wrote. Along with the layoffs, Reddit is reducing its hiring plans for the rest of 2023 to about 100 additional employees (previously it expected to hire 300). Reddit currently has around 2,000 employees worldwide.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Indonesia’s largest cinema chain Cinema XXI could be heading to the stock market through an IPO by early next year. Early details were reported by the Nikkei newspaper citing its finance industry partner publication Dealstreet Asia. They said that the company may seek to raise $300 million of fresh capital. Last year, financial news service Bloomberg said that Cinema XXI ‘s owners were seeking to raise $500 million-$1 billion through an IPO. The reasons for the large discrepancy are unclear. The company holds a 60% market share of Indonesia’s cinema exhibition industry and, as of December 2022, operated 225 cinema venues with a total of 1,217 screens.

Kit Harington looks ready for business in London, England on the set of his new show.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Alibaba, China’s e-commerce and entertainment giant, announced net profits of $10.6 billion for its financial year to the end of March, a year-on-year increase of 39%. The rebound was achieved on revenues of $126 billion that were up by just 2%. Using the group’s preferred non-GAAP measure to exclude extraordinary items, net income rose by a smaller 4%, but weighed in at over $20 billion. The importance of the overall figures has been rendered moot by Alibaba’s end of March announcement that it plans to transform itself from an operating company into a holding company, by allowing each of its six divisions to go their own way.

Perry Sook, who has led Nexstar Media Group from humble beginnings two-plus decades ago to its current status as the top owner of TV stations and the parent of The CW, made $39.3 million in 2022.

Endeavor Group Holdings CEO Ari Emanuel, whose bonus-laden $308 million pay package turned heads in 2021, made $19.1 million in 2022, according to the company’s latest proxy filing.

Sarah Goldberg has already lined up a new gig now that Barry is saying buh-bye: she is joining season 3 of HBO’s Industry.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Sarah Goldberg is staying put at HBO, with the “Barry” star set for a recurring guest star role in Season 3 of “Industry.” Production is set to begin in the U.K. soon on the new season of the series, which is a co-production with the BBC. The Season 3 logline states “As Pierpoint looks to the future and takes a big bet on ethical investing, the desk find themselves front and center in the splashy IPO of Lumi, a green tech energy company — in a story that runs all the way to the very top of finance, media and government.” Goldberg will appear in the role of Petra Koenig, described as “a portfolio manager at ethical investment fund FutureDawn.” Goldberg is the latest recurring guest star announced for Season 3, alongside Kit Harington, who will play the CEO of Lumi.

Kit Harington is heading back to HBO!

EXCLUSIVE: Kit Harington is about to start production on his next drama for HBO and no — we’re not talking about the Jon Snow sequel.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce and media group, unveiled a top to bottom corporate restructuring that it says is intended to “unlock shareholder value and foster market competitiveness.”  The group, which has a current market capitalization of $228 billion, will split itself into six divisions of differing sizes. Each unit will have a CEO and a board of directors and can pursue independent fund-raising or even IPOs, when they are ready. At present Alibaba has its shares and ADR shares listed in Hong Kong and New York. Some parts of its media business also have their own Hong Kong share listing Alibaba Pictures. (And there is a healthcare business with yet another share quote.)

Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel isn’t making many predictions or taking sides as the WGA deadline approaches.

Former China high-flyer Jack Ma’s influence is being further cut, as the Ant Group company he cofounded said he is reducing his voting rights at the financial technology firm as it restructures in line with a regulatory crackdown.

valued at $3 billion. However, this is the company’s second attempt at an IPO after a previously scheduled reverse merger with SeaChange International valued at $5 billion was terminated in June due to market volatility.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief After more than a decade of losses, Chinese video streamer iQiyi Tuesday unveiled another improved quarter. But its problems are scarcely in the rear-mirror and it simultaneously announced that it will raise a further $500 million of capital. Revenues in the April to June 2022 period, the second quarter of iQiyi’s financial year, dropped by 13% to RMB 6.66 billion. Net losses for the quarter weighed in at RMB214 million. That was a massive reduction compared with the RMB1.40 deficit recorded in the equivalent quarter in 2021. But it also represented a return to loss after recording a maiden first quarter profit – RMB169 million – in the January to March period.

said in July that app downloads and usage have increased as rival creator-driven social platform TikTok has come under increased scrutiny both in the United States and internationally. Triller counts celebrities such as Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart, Billie Eilish and Justin Bieber among its users.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefKakao Piccoma, a Japanese online animation firm, has reportedly pushed back its plans for a share listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, previously indicated for December this year. The company hopes that the delay will help it hold on to a $6 billion valuation.The company is jointly owned by Kakao, the Korean tech and messaging giant, and Kakao Entertainment, with shareholding respectively 73% and 18%. Piccoma raised finance last year though a private share sale that brought in Anchor Capital, valued it at JPY847 billion ($6.17 billion at current exchange rates).