EXCLUSIVE: Eire’s Playhouse Studios has swooped for troubled UK post-production home Lipsync, saving dozens of jobs within the course of.
The Dublin-based Playhouse paid an undisclosed quantity to accountancy agency Oury Clark for the belongings of The Brutalist publish home, we’ve discovered.
Deadline revealed in Could that Lipsync had successfully filed for the British model of Chapter 11 chapter amid the brutal panorama for post-production corporations after the pandemic and Hollywood strikes. Oury Clark took cost of Lipsync’s operations and was working to financially restructure so the publish home may pay collectors.
The Playhouse deal ends that course of and means Lipsync won’t go the identical means because the likes of Technicolor, which imploded earlier this yr in one of the vital spectacular company collapses of latest instances.
The Lipsync model will stay the deal retains a big proportion of Lipsync’s workers in work, although an undisclosed variety of roles might be laid off. The corporate had round 70 workers, who have been liable to redundancy through the chapter course of.
“In an trade the place jobs are disappearing each week, we’re glad that we have been in a position to preserve the vast majority of folks in jobs at Lipsync,” Playhouse Group’s Peggy Cafferty instructed Deadline. Nonetheless, she added that Playhouse had nonetheless been compelled to “make some powerful selections.”
Playhouse instructed us Lipsync will nonetheless provide VFX on its Autodesk / Flame traces and thru companions, however will now place better emphasis on different areas of publish equivalent to sound, grading, DI, deliverables, high quality management and compositing in its on-line suites.
Focus Capital Companions acted as company finance advisor to Playhouse. The Eire- and U.S.-based Focus dealt with the transaction, and has additionally raised new capital for Playhouse Studios dad or mum Playhouse Group, which is scaling its operations throughout the UK and Europe. Wallace Company Counsel acted because the authorized advisors.
Playhouse is an Irish media manufacturing firm centered on manufacturing, post-production, and movie and TV financing. The corporate mentioned the Lipsync acquisition can be a “cornerstone within the Playhouse Group’s technique to construct Europe’s most superior and agile manufacturing, post-production and content material financing group.”
Playhouse has put in former Molinare Managing Director Mark Foligno as CEO, with Lorcan Kavanagh and Cafferty named Chief Income Officer and Chief Working Officer, respectively. They may collectively lead the growth plan.
Based in 1986 and headquartered in Soho, London, Lipsync turned properly established in image and sound post-production, visible results, and digital intermediate providers. It labored on quite a few BAFTA- and Academy-winning movies equivalent to 2025 Oscar Greatest Image nominee The Brutalist. It’s additionally supplied publish providers to Salt Path, The Queen and Three Billboards Outdoors Ebbing, Missouri amongst many others, and had additionally develop into lively in movie financing.
Managing Director Peter Hampden and monetary chief Norman Merry led the corporate, working it by dad or mum firm Glenthorp Ltd. Merry handed away from most cancers aged 63 earlier this month.
Playhouse’s acquisition of the storied firm comes because the publish trade battles a continued and damaging downturn, with Technicolor’s closure main to large job losses and the likes of DNEG laying lots of off.
At this time’s information is a vibrant spot among the many chaos. In different instance of inexperienced shoots, workers from Technicolor subsidiary The Mill partnered with Dream Machine FX to launch ARC Artistic, whereas the closure of Irish biz Windmill Lane Photos led to a number of of its execs partnering with Molinare to type Elephant Goldfish, information of which we revealed earlier this month.
