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Meet one of Jagex's new owners


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An investment bank founded from the good people from Goldman Sachs - aka. one the great investment firms that led to the financial crisis...

And...a movie?...Yeah these people sure have invested their money in the right place...

 

Big media names back boutique bank Raine

 

By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles

 

Published: April 10 2011 23:03 | Last updated: April 11 2011 01:31

 

 

 

Eric Schmidt, Sean Parker and other pick names from the media and technology sectors have invested in a merchant banks fund started by two former Wall Street dealmakers and Ari Emanuel, head of the William Morris Endeavor talent agency.

 

Mr Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google, and Mr Parker, the former president of Facebook, are among the backers of Raine, according to people familiar with the situation, while Peter Chernin, the former chief operating officer at News Corp, is on the banks advisory board.

 

Raine, which has offices in Los Angeles, New York and Beijing, is led by Joe Ravitch, the media banker and former Goldman Sachs partner, and Jeff Sine, the former head of the UBS technology, media and telecoms division. It is on course to raise $500m to finance acquisitions in media, sports and entertainment, with investors including Terry Semel, former chief executive of Yahoo, Jay and Miky Lee, from the family that started Samsung, and Masayoshi Son, founder of Softbank, the Japanese media group.

 

WPP, the marketing group, and Mubadala Development, the Abu Dhabi-owned investment vehicle, are backers, according to people close to the situation.

 

The boutique bank is close to completing its third investment, having agreed to acquire a stake in OpenSky, an online social shopping service. It has bought a stake in Vice, the style magazine, and invested in Jagex, a Cambridge-based online games developer and publisher.

Raine declined to comment, as did WME. But the two companies are close partners: Mr Emanuel, brother of Rahm Emanuel, the new mayor of Chicago, and Patrick Whitesell, a fellow partner at WME, sit on Raines advisory board.

 

WME, which represents stars such as Martin Scorsese and Christian Bale, is working with Raine on how best to exploit deals. One option being explored with Jagex is to turn RuneScape, the companys popular multiplayer online game, into a movie developed by Hasbro Studios, the film development arm of Hasbro, the toy company.

Hasbro, which developed the blockbuster Transformers series of films, is a WME client.

 

Raine is scouring Asia for possible acquisitions, according to another person familiar with the situation. Theyre focused on high-growth areas in growth regions, the person added.

 

Some WME clients are also backing Raine, including Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, who control the lucrative sport of Ultimate Fighting Championship.Other Raine investors include Richard Rosenblatt, the founder of Demand Media, who sold MySpace to News Corp, and Marc Andreessen, the Facebook board member and co-founder of Netscape Communications.

 

Ray Chambers, the former private equity investor, and Ted Forstmann, the owner of IMG, the sports marketing group, are also involved and sit on Raines advisory board.

 

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/943fcde2-63a9-11e0-bd7f-00144feab49a.html#axzz1K0HueM3I

 

add:

about hasbro studios

Hasbro Studios is the Los Angeles-based production division of Hasbro, Inc.. The virtual studio develops and produces shows based on Hasbros world class brands, including TRANSFORMERS, MY LITTLE PONY and GI JOE; delivers new branded content; and produces programs from top third-party content creators.

 

http://www.hasbro.com/corporate/hasbro-studios/

I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating - Sophocles

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Jagex having corporate investors isn't news to me.

 

What I didn't know was that Hasbro has it's own film subsidiary. I suppose that's where the Barbie DVDs come from too.

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Sounds like an exciting endeavour.

I don't see how one person with ties to Goldmann-Sachs can make it a negative thing.

Eh, I just don't trust investment bankers at all - I'd rather trust an IRS agent with my life savings tbh/

I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating - Sophocles

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Misleading topic titles makes growing boys stunted and forever alone.

 

All a movie means is more exposure and possibly more lifelong players. That's not a bad thing.

 

Runescape doesnt have "epic" quality characters or stories, its doomed to fail. If WoW couldnt do a movie neither will runescape, and if runescape does it will be sitting next to the barbie dvd's

They do have the signature heroes we haven't seen yet.

But I'm holding my breath.

I can't imagine either Hasbro or Goldmann Sachs can pull this off well.

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Runescape doesnt have "epic" quality characters or stories, its doomed to fail. If WoW couldnt do a movie neither will runescape, and if runescape does it will be sitting next to the barbie dvd's

 

I didn't say they would be a rousing success. The barbie dvds aren't phenomenal, yet everyone seems to know of them regardless if they like it or not. And they're popular amongst children, enough to make good business sense to keep releasing new movies. Does that not indicate an increase in exposure?

 

The Gower brothers are still majority shareholders and they won't let their game tank for the sake of a few movies. If it does go through as a straight-to-dvd release, I can't imagine it hurting the company.

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Misleading topic titles makes growing boys stunted and forever alone.

 

All a movie means is more exposure and possibly more lifelong players. That's not a bad thing.

 

Runescape doesnt have "epic" quality characters or stories, its doomed to fail. If WoW couldnt do a movie neither will runescape, and if runescape does it will be sitting next to the barbie dvd's

 

Yes, but movies come from the imagination. They don't all have to have a backstory and built on something else. A new storyline can be created.

RIP Michaelangelopolous

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Sic the people who made Monty Python's Meaning of Life on it and have an odd compare/contrast between Runescape and reality.

 

Well, if it's going to hit bottom, it might as well hit it in style.

Prepare to Die! Path of Exile RPG

 

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"Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends." Yeats

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Runescape doesnt have "epic" quality characters or stories, its doomed to fail. If WoW couldnt do a movie neither will runescape, and if runescape does it will be sitting next to the barbie dvd's

 

I didn't say they would be a rousing success. The barbie dvds aren't phenomenal, yet everyone seems to know of them regardless if they like it or not. And they're popular amongst children, enough to make good business sense to keep releasing new movies. Does that not indicate an increase in exposure?

 

The Gower brothers are still majority shareholders and they won't let their game tank for the sake of a few movies. If it does go through as a straight-to-dvd release, I can't imagine it hurting the company.

Didn't they lose majority recently?

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Actually when I found the news I was just gonna lament some more about how investment bankers are taking over Jagex and turning RS into a profit machine...

 

The movie thing was a secondary WTF discovery. I'm trying to dig up more info now.

 

As far as I know from earlier news I dug up, Gowers all together don't have a majority share anymore, but it's hard to source it because nothing directly states that. We need a leak/source from an actual Jagex investor who has these accounting information. So...anyone with tons of $ and want to put their money in one of these companies and find out some info for us...

I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating - Sophocles

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This is the last info I could find on the ownership of Jagex, and as we all know, a lot has changed since 2008 but the fact remains that the Gower brothers have never shied away from outside investment.

My real question is; will it use real actors or will it be animated? And if it's animated, will they just make it machinima? Oh please no machinima!!!!!

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great rs selling out to us..

 

I wish the EU would finally put an end to these abbominations and would ban US people from misusing inventions made by the EU.

First they came to fishing

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't fishing

 

Then they came to the yews

and I didn't speak out because I didn't cut yews

 

Then they came for the ores

and I didn't speak out because I didn't collect ores

 

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

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My God, I'm so tired, I must be delusional. If I didn't know any better, I would think that I just read that someone is making a Runescape movie. Who would be stupid enough to do that and think they could get away with it?

 

Hahahahaha...huh?

~ W ~

 

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I wouldn't be surprised if it was somehow linked to Betrayal of Falador. From people who have read it it sounds like a good read so would be the most logical thing to make into a film.

 

Pessimism at a short link to a bank is just funny and without any base, as well is any comment about selling out.

Want to be my friend? Look under my name to the left<<< and click the 'Add as friend' button!

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