An investor group led by ZM Capital, ZelnickMedia’s private equity fund has acquired Cast & Crew Entertainment Services from ABRY Partners.
Founded in 1976, Cast & Crew provides payroll services for the motion picture, television, live entertainment and commercial markets. The company’s suite of services includes entertainment payroll, production accounting software, procurement and purchasing services, residual payments, labor relations, production incentives and workers compensation insurance.
Cast & Crew is headquartered in Burbank and has field operations in New York, Albuquerque, Atlanta, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Detroit, Philadelphia and Wilmington. Canadian offices are located in Toronto and Vancouver. In addition, an office is scheduled to open in London later this year.
Cast & Crew’s entire management team will continue to lead the company.
“The ZelnickMedia team values and supports Cast & Crew’s mission to provide the market-leading service and best-in-class products that have defined us for the last 37 years,” said Eric Belcher, Cast & Crew’s president and CEO.
Strauss Zelnick, managing partner of ZelnickMedia, has a long-standing relationship with Belcher, dating back to when they worked together at 20th Century Fox where Zelnick was president and COO.
“Cast & Crew has an exceptionally strong and experienced management team, industry-leading service and software, a culture characterized by entrepreneurial spirit and accelerating momentum – all critical to our investment decision,” said Zelnick. “ZM has followed the company’s impressive growth and is committed to supporting the company’s investments in service and innovation for the benefit of customers, employees and other stakeholders.”
ZelnickMedia’s co-investors included VSS Structured Capital Fund and Ares Capital Corporation. Ares also provided the senior debt financing.
