Digital Domain Sale to Chinese-Indian Venture Approved

Digital Domain Media Group won court approval to sell its business to a partnership of Chinese and Indian film companies, according to a report by Bloomberg Businessweek [1].

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Linehan Shannon said he would sign an order approving the sale after lawyers work out the final wording.

Units of Beijing Galloping Horse Film Co. and Reliance MediaWorks Limited, based in Mumbai, won an action for Digital Domain, whose visual effects artists have won multiple Academy Awards. The companies agreed to pay $30.2 million, plus take on contracts worth $3.6 million and pay $2.9 million in employee wages, according to court records.

“We had an outstanding result,” company attorney Robert Feinstein said in court today in Wilmington, Delaware.

Digital Domain, with operations in Florida, California, Canada, India, China and Abu Dhabi, filed for bankruptcy on September 11, with plans to hold an auction for most of its assets, including an investment in Ender’s Game, the science-fiction movie starring Harrison Ford that is scheduled to be released next year.

Galloping Horse will fund $20 million of the purchase using an interest-free loan from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Radio, Film and Television, through a government-affiliated investment agency. Galloping Horse’s unit will own 70 percent of the company and the Reliance unit the rest.