Hemisphere Media Acquires Video-on-Demand Service Pantaya For $124M

U.S. Hispanic and Latin American market-focused media company Hemisphere Media Group Inc HMTV acquired the remaining 75% stake of U.S. Hispanic Subscription Video-on-Demand Service Pantaya for $124 million in cash from Lionsgate, gaining full ownership of Pantaya.
Pantaya launched in August 2017 via Hemisphere, and Lionsgate joint venture has 0.9 million paying subscribers. The monthly paid subscription service starts from $5.99. The service is accessible through its website, app, and distribution partners like Apple Inc AAPL, Amazon.Com Inc AMZN, Alphabet Inc's GOOGL GOOG Google, and Roku Inc ROKU.
Hemisphere plans to boost content investment aiming towards a higher U.S. Hispanic subscriber base as per CEO Alan Sokol.
Pantaya, Lionsgate, and STARZPLAY (the international premium subscription service of STARZ) will uphold a strategic content relationship encompassing Spanish-language motion picture and television co-productions along with Pantaya's continued licensing of Spanish-language content from Lionsgate.
The acquisition will be financed by cash on hand and a $50 million term loan. The company has also arranged for a $30 million corporate revolving credit facility.
Hemisphere held $134.5 million in cash and cash equivalents as of Dec. 31, 2020.
Price action: HMTV shares traded higher by 8.76% at $12.67 on the last check Thursday.