West palm Beach (HedgeCo.Net)- “The current influx of funds from hedge funds, private equity funds and institutional investors into studio and independent distributor funds has created a considerable opportunity on the content creator side of the Hollywood equation,” says Aaron Kaufman of the Barbarian Investment Fund.

Unlike recently formed film investment funds, Barbarian brings together 5 notable film producers such as Benderspink (The Ring, American Pie), Original Media (Half Nelson), GreeneStreet (In The Bedroom) and others. The fund provides a mitigated risk portfolio of non-correlated assets by investing only in films under 10 million that have 80 to 100% of their budgets secured by foreign pre-sales.

With 500,000. as minimum investment, a 2 year lock up period and 2% management fee, Barbarian partners with independent producers who specialize in independent films budgeted at less than 10 million.

Several 9-figure deals have recently been struck between large institutional investors such as JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and the Royal Bank of Scotland to name a few, and studios such as Disney, Paramount and Warner Brothers that fund multi-year production slates costing more than $3 billion.

Private equity and hedge funds are now also entering the market, funding large scale ventures such as Virtual studios and Legendary Pictures, these groups have recently funded films such as Superman Returns, Batman Begins, Poseidon and 300.

Alex Akesson

Contributing Writer
HedgeCo.Net
Email: Editor@hedgeco.net