A few days ago, the deadline for companies to register their interest in the rights to the Terminator closed, and now the winner of yesterday’s auction has been announced. Deadline Hollywood reports that Lionsgate and Sony engaged in a fierce bidding war that lasted for five hours, before both dropped out, realising they weren’t going to be the winners, as another company wanted the Terminator rights at any cost.
So who did buy them? A hedge-fund called Pacificor. It may seems strange that a hedge fund would want to own the Terminator, but that’s not the whole story. Pacificor is the company that provided the funds for Halycyon to buy the franchise rights a few years ago and get started on Terminator Salvation. Then, last year, they claimed Halcyon wasn’t keeping up its repayments and forced the company into bankruptcty, which is, of course, what prompted the sale. Halcyon responded with a lawsuit charging extortion, bribery, and fraud, but apparently all has been forgiven as Halcyon yesterday accepted Pacificor’s bid of $29.5 million – which is about the same as the loan Pacificor provided a few years ago.
The big question is, while Pacificor seemed keen just to get their money back when they pushed Halcyon into bankruptcy, why do they want the franchise rights? It’s not like any of the films come with it, as they’re still owned by other people (Terminator 3 and 4 remain with Halcyon, and they’ll also get $5 million for any future Terminator movie). The rights are only really worth anything based on what Pacificor does with them, and it seems slightly odd for a hedge fund to directly get into the movie business in this way. Presumably they have some plans on how to make money out of their new acquisition, but we’ll have to wait and see what they are.