Hollywood’s largest landlord is showing signs of distress
[LOS ANGELES] Michael Hackman, who spent billions of dollars acquiring soundstages around the world, is becoming one of the big casualties of a global slump in film and TV production.
MBS Group, part of his Hackman Capital Partners portfolio, has hired AlixPartners to restructure its debt and raise new financing, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The company, which provides services for 650 soundstages in North America, Europe and Saudi Arabia, has cut about 100 US jobs from its staff of 1,400 over the last two weeks, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing non-public information. In addition, Hackman personally left the MBS board.
A decline in film and TV production is ripping through businesses that support the entertainment industry, from landlords such as Hackman Capital all the way down to caterers and costume makers. US studios output was down 35 per cent last year from the peak in 2022, according to industry tracker ProdPro, with production retreating a further 12 per cent in the first half of 2025.
Hackman Capital, the world’s largest owner of film and TV soundstages, and investment firm Affinius Capital Management bought MBS from Carlyle Group in 2019 for US$650 million. Affinius, formerly Square Mile Capital Management, is MBS’ largest stockholder, two of the people said.
MBS leases equipment and services prominent facilities such as the Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York, Pinewood Studios in suburban London and Netflix Studios Albuquerque. MBS and Hackman remain intertwined. MBS operates numerous stages owned by Hackman, which ranks as its largest client.
Hackman, which owns hundreds of soundstages, went on an acquisition spree over the past decade, borrowing when interest rates were low and studio space was in high demand from Hollywood producers rushing to make movies and TV shows for Netflix and other online services. The company has US$10 billion in assets under management, according to its website.
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Since then, major film and TV companies including Walt Disney, Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros Discovery have curbed spending and cut thousands of jobs. In addition, strikes by writers and actors halted many film and TV projects in 2023. Paramount is preparing to bid for Warner Bros, a merger that would shrink the number of legacy Hollywood studios to four.
Earlier this year, Hackman entered refinancing talks with Goldman Sachs Group after failing to repay US$1.1 billion in debt on Radford Studio Center, a 110-year-old facility where Gilligan’s Island and Seinfeld were filmed, Bloomberg reported. He’s delinquent on the debt owed on that studio for the months of July and August, according to mortgage filings.
Last month, Hackman refinanced a US$165 million mortgage on Raleigh Studios, also in Los Angeles. It listed part of Raleigh, a production site in the San Fernando Valley, for sale at US$18 million in August. Rival studio operator Occidental Entertainment put its flagship property near downtown Los Angeles up for sale for US$45 million. The facility dates back to 1913 and has hosted productions starring Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin.
“I don’t believe our facility, or others like it, are well-suited for investors,” Craig Darian, chairman of Occidental, wrote in an e-mail. He suggests such properties should instead be owned by film and TV production or distribution companies. “Unless one has a long runway, a redevelopment plan and a reliable exit strategy, my view is ‘Stay Out’.”
To counter falling occupancy from Hollywood film and TV productions, Hackman has sought to lease sets to social-media influencers on a shorter-term basis. The executive has also discussed with colleagues whether the firm can reimagine the soundstages as venues where popular food and drink brands can erect pop-ups to interact with consumers.
Hackman wasn’t alone in betting on a production gold rush. It has partnered Affinius on more than 100 properties, while Blackstone and Apollo Global Management have also bought and built significant soundstage businesses.
In July, Herc sold its lighting and grip business Cinelease to private equity firm Zello for US$100 million after second-quarter rental revenue fell nearly 40 per cent from a year earlier.
Arri Group, which made cameras used to film blockbusters such as Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, is weighing a sale of its business and has appointed AlixPartners to restructure its operations, Bloomberg reported.
In August, the founder and chairman of Hudson Pacific Properties, a real estate investment trust that also acquired production space with Blackstone, said it was “starting to experience positive traction in our studio business”.
Shares of Hudson Pacific have lost 90 per cent of their value since a 2020 peak. Hudson’s Quixote Studios subsidiary, which rents production equipment, cut 82 employees in July, according to a filing with California’s employment department. Hudson bought Quixote in 2022 for US$360 million.
“Quixote has no debt, unlike some of our competitors, so we are well-positioned to navigate any production environment,” a Hudson spokesperson said in an e-mail. BLOOMBERG
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