Carlyle Invests in Entertainment 360 // Talent Mgmt M&A Heats Up

February 21, 2025 by Chris Erwin

RockWater Roundup

M&A analysis of the creator economy to make you a better operator and investor.

Today we discuss Carlyle’s minority acquisition of Entertainment 360, including the deal details, strategic rationale, and why PE investment is increasing in the fragmented talent management landscape.

Let’s break it down…

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–TARGET: Entertainment 360–

Overview

Prominent full-service talent / literary management and production company
Fka Management 360, rebranded in 2022 to represent expansion into content creation and production
Founded 2002 by Suzan Bymel, Guymon Casady, Eric Kranzler, Evelyn O’Neill, Daniel Rappaport, David Seltzer
21 partners, 20 execs per website
142 associated members on LinkedIn
Based in Century City, CA

Business Lines

Talent Management – represents Hollywood actors, writers, directors, showrunners, and other creatives. 360 management including endorsements, sponsorships, and other biz dev
Film / TV Production – develops, packages, and produces original films and TV. Uses ideas generated in-house and also outside material

Company Highlights

Produced media such as Game of Thrones, Steve Jobs, The Fall Guy
Manages talent across films and TV, such as Barbie (Margot Robbie), The Bear (Jeremy Allen White), Atlanta (Zazie Beetz)

Capital Markets History

2025 minority sale is first time in E360’s 22-year history that company raised outside funding

–BUYER: Carlyle–

Overview

Investment firm focused on private equity and private credit
Founded in 1987 by William Conway Jr., Stephen Norris, David Rubenstein, Daniel D’Aniello, Greg Rosenbaum
2.3k employees across 29 global offices
Based in Washington DC
$441B AUM

Company Highlights

Deployed over $14B into sports, media, entertainment since 2017
171 investments over TTM (sector agnostic)
$47.9B dry powder

Business Lines

Global Private Equity – their core business, focuses on buyouts and growth capital investments across various industries
Global Credit – distressed debt, mezzanine financing, and structured credit products
Global Investment Funds – sector-specific funds across geographies including Asia, Japan, Africa, Europe

Capital Markets History

Oct’23 – Failed to raise $22B for Flagship Fund VIII, ended up raising $14.8B

Carlyle Media Portfolio

2023: Incubeta – Digital Marketing Platform
2022: litMUS Music – Music rights acquisition and management platform
2021: KANAMEL – Content production and marketing
2020: DEPT – Digital Marketing Agency

–DEAL DETAILS–

Overview

Minority sale
Announced 1.29.25

Post Deal Ops

E360 to use funds to drive growth
E360’s current board and leadership will remain the same

Strategic Rationale

Minimal detail shared in press releases
“Expand our platform to continue delivering dynamic results for our clients in an ever-changing entertainment landscape”
Based on similar past PE / talent rep dealmaking and strategic trends in talent space, it’s likely…
- E360 owners can take some money off the table
- Expanding and / or investing in high-growth creator services like digital representation, influencer marketing, brand partnerships, and entrepreneurship
- Growing content development and production opportunities for in-house talent

–WHAT ELSE I FIND INTERESTING–

We’ve written extensively about talent rep consolidation on our blog. Check out our Night / BRM deal analysis for an extensive breakdown and history of talent rep M&A. Of note, very little info has been publicly shared about this deal.

PE-backed talent rep consolidation is going from agencies to management companies. PE spent the past 15 years consolidating talent agencies, and making a lot of money through sales and IPOs (e.g. TPG’s sale of CAA to Artemis in 2023). Now we’re seeing clear signals that PE is turning its focus to talent management companies. We saw this in TPG-backed Initial Group’s 2024 acquisitions of Grandview and Untitled, and Providence-backed Wasserman buying Brillstein in 2023. Now, Carlyle’s 2025 minority investment in E360 further bolsters this trend.

There’s been extensive non-PE talent management M&A since 2022. With this Carlyle / E360 deal, we count at least 18 talent mgmt transactions since Sep 2022. Buyers have ranged from digital marketing agencies and social publishers to gaming co’s, talent agencies, and diversified entertainment co’s. The buyerverse has consistently expanded, like Live Nation buying Timeline in Dec 2024. Big PE is also seeing the growing capital flows into the management space, driven by landmark shifts in consumer behavior and thus revenue flows – and these large investment funds have the M&A consolidation playbook from their Hollywood agency investments over the last decade, plus similar operator landscape dynamics that got them to lean into the space in the first place. On that point…

Talent management space is very fragmented. From our past deal analysis: “Interestingly, many of these traditional management companies are still independent, and the landscape is very fragmented vs the traditional Hollywood agency landscape…I think of management companies like Entertainment 360 (fka Management 360), Emerson Collective-backed Anonymous Content, LINK Entertainment, The Gotham Group, Authentic Talent, Ron Burkle-backed LBI Entertainment (Rick Yorn), and many more. Another large management company is 3 Arts, which is owned by Lionsgate – the studio bought a majority stake in 2018 and then increased its stake in 2023. For the right price, I can see 3 Arts also being an acquisition candidate.”

Scaled talent rep co’s like E360 are attractive initial investments for PE to execute their management rollup thesis. The legacy Hollywood firms have large traditional talent rosters, and diversified and scaled revenue from film / TV, streaming, touring, endorsements, book publishing, merch, and more. They also boast strong leadership quality, team and client scale, diverse capabilities, and strong industry reputations. This makes them good platforms to bolt on new capabilities and smaller scale acquisition targets. Though, despite the industry fragmentation, these larger management co’s that can act as platforms are increasingly limited (see above paragraph). Of note, a good platform example from the agency side is Providence’s 2022 minority investment into Wasserman, which gave the agency needed capital to acquire 15+ companies over the past few years. Wasserman is one of the most aggressive acquirers we’ve tracked in the talent space, and has targeted agencies, management companies, marketing agencies, and more!

Carlyle had to compete for the deal against other PE firms. No surprise considering the above dynamics, and Puck had good insights here. Other interested investors included Eldridge Industries, The Chernin Group, Redbird Capital, and Crestview (minority owner of talent agency Gersh, which just bought A3’s digital assets). Given this is the first time E360 has raised outside capital, a key winning factor was investors and management having a shared vision for the company’s growth…plus attractive valuation, deal terms, and control provisions. Very curious to see how this partnership, and E360’s growth ambitions, unfold.

I’m the founder of RockWater Industries. We do M&A and strategy advisory for creator economy and digital agencies. From buy / sell-side M&A and fundraising, to consumer research and go-to-market planning.

DM me on LinkedIn or email me chris @ wearerockwater dot com