(Reuters) – Veteran Hollywood producer Peter Chernin said on Tuesday his company North Road has bought Turkish film and television house Karga Seven Pictures in one of its first major international acquisitions.
Los Angeles-Istanbul-based Karga Seven is best known for its popular English-language period piece, “Rise of Empires: Ottoman”, and Turkish time travel drama, “Midnight at the Pera Palace”, which were among Netflix’s top shows.
The companies did not disclose a deal value.
“Given its sheer volume of globally relevant and high-quality content, Turkey is a perfect fit with North Road’s broader international strategy, and the addition (of) Karga 7 to our studio is a significant accomplishment,” North Road Chairman and CEO Chernin said.
Karga Seven’s founders Sarah Wetherbee, Emre Sahin and Kelly McPherson will remain in leadership roles, with Wetherbee and Sahin serving as global co-CEOs and reporting to North Road President Jan Frouman.
McPherson will head English-language content, along with newly hired Ömer Müjdat Özgüner serving as the company’s Turkey CEO.
Chernin, best known for such films as “Ford v Ferrari”, the revival of “Planet of the Apes” and “Hidden Figures”, had set up North Road in 2022 after he raised $800 million from private equity firms Providence and Apollo to fund acquisitions in the United States and abroad.
In July 2022, Chernin acquired the U.S. operations of Red Arrow Studios in a deal valued around $200 million, which combined Chernin’s namesake film and television production company, Chernin Entertainment, with two other studios.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles and Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
