Since Ashland Hill Media Finance launched in spring 2022, the film and television lender has helped put together more than 20 projects — some of which are in play at AFM — and backed Tamara Birkemoe’s ambitious new sales outfit Palisades Park Pictures.
Principals Joe Simpson, Simon Williams and Jonathan Bross had known each other for years through roles in finance and entertainment. Simpson worked in marketing at Columbia TriStar, then jumped over to MGM before managing film investments, while fellow Brit Simon Williams was an accountant and hedge-fund manager before a 10-year stint at the UK’s Ingenious Media, where he ran the film fund for seven years.
Bross started in the turnaround group at Arthur Andersen before moving to distressed-asset specialist Hilco Private Debt Fund. He fell into film after his actress sister asked him to help on a short. “I thought, ‘How hard could it be?’” smiles Bross. “Now I can answer that question.”
Ashland Hill Media Finance has offices in Santa Monica, London and Tallinn, Estonia, where Williams has family and spends time each year. The firm is backed by a large US-based institution and provides senior secured and gap loans against tax incentives, pre-sales on unsold territories including the US, and also offers bridge loans and finishing funds. When considering which projects to board, the principals are under no illusion about the challenges that routinely afflict the independent space, from economic crises to new business models and, more recently, the dual Hollywood strikes.
“A lot goes into the underwriting,” says Simpson. “It’s about how you select those projects that you want to participate in and how much risk you’re prepared to take on a project.”
They own a majority stake in Palisades Park Pictures in partnership with Birkemoe and her longtime colleague, international sales veteran Mark Damon. The sales company launched earlier this year and is bullish on bringing commercial fare to its international theatrical partners, already reporting brisk sales on titles such as upcoming romantic comedy That’s Amore! starring John Travolta and Katherine Heigl, and Neil Marshall’s completed crime thriller Duchess with Charlotte Kirk.
Open relationship
The relationship is not exclusive and both parties can work with others. “We are two separate companies with two separate leadership teams and two separate P&Ls,” says Bross. “If we can both be involved on a project, of course it’s terrific. We only ask for consideration.”
Ashland Hill’s roster of feature collaborations includes Rupert Sanders’ reimagining of The Crow starring Bill Skarsgard and FKA twigs, which is in post and was pre-sold by FilmNation in Cannes 2022, and Christophe Gans’ Return To Silent Hill horror reboot, which is sold internationally by The Veterans.
The financiers are not just interested in big commercial fare and will work at any budget level across genres. “We’ve got a couple of smaller-budget, foreign-language [projects] we’ll be announcing soon,” Simpson notes, adding there is also neutrality over distribution channels. “We have no problem taking a streamer’s paper and financing that. Equally, if it’s independent distributors that want to buy the movie, we will do the same with them.”
The ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike has inevitably affected things and the principals agree some projects they wanted to work on have not been greenlit. However, opportunities have arisen further afield: four features are scheduled to begin shooting in Australia and New Zealand in the coming weeks, while another two in Canada and one in Scotland recently wrapped.
The Ashland Hill principals like to operate as executive producers in a way that maximises efficiency. The firm often funds in US dollars at the request of clients, but one of its strengths is the ability to fund in multiple currencies. “We can handle foreign currency management for producers and do that heavy lifting,” says Simpson. “That takes away some of the pain because if you get it wrong, there’s pretty significant risks; currencies can fluctuate quickly.”
“In one instance,” Williams says, “the impact of not having the appropriate FX [foreign exchange] protections in place led to a funding shortfall of 12% of the picture’s budget. Ashland Hill mitigates this risk by hedging the future value of cash it is funding, and the multi-currency funds it receives to repay its loan. By matching the timing of currency flows on the cost and revenue sides, we can significantly reduce the potential cost of exchange rate fluctuations to nearly zero.”
At the end of the day, the company’s approach to financing comes down to collaboration, notes Bross. “Storytelling is important — it’s a team sport and we do what we do very well. There’s a lot of demand for independent content, the audience is going to continue to be there, and we want to be part of bringing that content to where the audience is.”
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