Group: Technicolor Creative Studios

VFX houses today: Moving Picture Company, The Mill, Mikros Animation

Merged: Mr. X, Mill Film, MPC Advertising

Technicolor and Deluxe were strategic investors looking to add VFX studios to their broader portfolio of post production services.  Both firms experienced considerable financial turbulence over the past ten years, with Deluxe filing for bankruptcy in 2019, and Technicolor’s Production Services group being spun off in 2022.  

Technicolor’s acquisition of The Moving Picture Company in 2004 had a huge impact on the visual effects industry, not least because MPC successfully offshored large amounts of their high-end Hollywood VFX work to a facility of thousands that Technicolor built in India.

Group: Framestore

VFX houses today: Framestore, Encore VFX, SDFX, Method Studios

Merged or shuttered: CIS Hollywood, Illoura, Centro Digital Pictures, The Computer Film Company (CFC)

Framestore’s acquisition of the Company Film Company in 1997 was perhaps the first merger of two modern VFX studios with their roots in the dawn of the digital age. 

Deluxe acquired CIS Visual Effects in 1998, later adding five other VFX studios to their group between 2010 and 2018. They then filed for bankruptcy in 2019. Framestore, which had been comparatively quiet on the M&A scene until then, acquired the former Deluxe creative services businesses – operating under the name C3M – in 2020. 

Framestore seems to favor absorption into their established VFX ecosystem to much greater degree than Technicolor and Cinesite, e.g. working to integrate VFX pipelines across their studios.

Group: Cinesite

VFX houses today: Image Engine, Nitrogen Studios, TRIXTER, L’Atelier Animation, Squeeze, Moov, FX3X

Merged or shuttered: LaserPacific/Cinesite Hollywood

Cinesite was sold off by parent Kodak in a 2012 management buyout. Three years later, the company embarked on one of the most sustained M&A programs in the visual effects industry, which has continued from 2015 to the present.

Cinesite bills itself as the destination of choice for SMEs in the VFX industry that want the advantages of being part of a group without giving up their brand equity – a “House of Brands” approach.  They have built a strategic competency in M&A, with a deal pipeline and knowledge of the marketplace that goes far beyond a single transaction.

Cinesite has grown rapidly as a result of their aggressive M&A program. While the level of symbiosis between their acquisitions is unlikely to be any higher than Technicolor’s, this is at least consistent with their overall strategy of preserving the different brands. Their portfolio companies have become less risky investments by being rolled up into a group, which will, in turn, have increased their valuation.