Zinkia Entertainment Acquires Majority Stake in CAKE Entertainment
In a joint venture deal designed to bolster content brand management and distribution opportunities, Zinkia Entertainment announced today it has taken a 51% stake in award-winning kids and family entertainment company CAKE.
The new alliance, which sees both companies maintaining their own management, teams and identities, is an amalgamation of knowledge, expertise and creativity. Both Zinkia, which has been highly successful in implementing brand management and digital strategies to enhance brand visibility, and CAKE, which has great talent for identifying and nurturing quality programming, will benefit from the partnership.
José MarÃa Castillejo, Zinkia’s President, who brokered the deal, explained, ‘This strategic alliance with CAKE is an important development in our plans to build, develop and manage a top-tier slate of kids and family entertainment properties for the global market. We look forward to working with CAKE, their talented management team and quality catalogue of programmes.’
Tom van Waveren, CEO and Creative Director of CAKE, added, ‘We have known the people leading Zinkia for many years and have been great fans of all they have been doing with Pocoyo and their company. We have had time to conclude that our respective skills are very complimentary and we feel that we will be able to significantly contribute to each others success stories. The deal fulfils a key aspect of CAKE’s long-term strategy and we’re delighted it has come to fruition as planned.”
London-based CAKE, headed up by Tom van Waveren and Ed Galton, works closely with a portfolio of production companies from around the world helping them to develop, create, commercially position and manage their IP propositions for the international market. Properties handled by CAKE include: Oscar’s Oasis, Poppy Cat, Tom & the Slice of Bread with Strawberry Jam & Honey, Angelo Rules and The Sparticle Mystery.
Zinkia, which has a proven track record in creating and managing entertainment brands, has turned its multi-award winning property Pocoyo in to a global hit. Licensed to over 150 territories worldwide, Pocoyo has more than 400 million hits on YouTube®, 35 million visitors to the officialPocoyo website (www.pocoyo.com) and a host of best-selling, multi-lingual apps. On the licensing and merchandising front, there are over 150 Pocoyo licensees worldwide, and master toy licensee Bandai has recently released an extensive toy line in the US, available at major retailers including Toys“R”Us, Toysrus.com and Amazon.com. Zinkia’s latest property is the comedy adventure series Mola Noguru, which is being pitched to major international broadcasters and licensing companies at MIP-TV.
