U.K.-based entertainment financier Goldfinch is set to open a Singapore office by the end of 2024, marking its expansion into the Asian market. The move comes as the company celebrates its 10th anniversary and aims to provide credit-based financing facilities for film and television projects in the region.
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Goldfinch has closed $250 million in deals across 300 projects over the past decade and has produced BFI London Film Festival title “Quant” and Raindance selection “A Bird Flew In.” It is establishing new operating brand and holding company Goldfinch Asia. As part of this expansion, the operations of Singapore-based entertainment financing firm Aurora Global Media Capital, founded in 2017, will merge into the new entity.
Leading the merged entity together with U.K.-based senior Goldfinch leadership team, CEO Kirsty Bell and COO Phil McKenzie, will be Aurora founder Justin Deimen, who joins as managing partner. Deimen brings over a decade of creative entrepreneurship and independent cross-border producing expertise to the role, including a stint with 108 Media, which he exited in 2023. He currently also serves as the executive director of the Southeast Asian Audio-Visual Association, an ASEAN-focused creative producing trade organization.
The new entity will operate across various APAC markets, including South Korea, India, Japan, Australia/New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. David Webster, CEO of The Carrot Collective and co-founder of AI Create, will join as a director. Webster, who previously served as chief growth officer and managing director of BBH Asia, brings two decades of experience in venture building and creative leadership to the role.
Goldfinch Asia plans to implement credit-driven funding models that have been successful in Europe and North America. These include cashflowing of tax incentives and soft monies, financing pre-sales and post-sale contracts, media inventory financing with agencies, and gap financing across unsold rights of productions.
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The company will also offer executive producing and sales consultancy services to help structure, package, and monetize productions in the evolving content industry.
Bell and McKenzie said: “With global demand for Asian content at an all-time high and domestic production ramping up to keep pace, we see an opportunity to apply the proven and successful funding and monetization models we have honed over our many years in the Western indie system to the benefit of investors, producers and buyers across Asia. We aim for our processes to be culturally specific and tailored for the market as we establish roots and partners in the market with our track record and brand.”
Deimen added: “Replacing equity-centric investment into productions in Asia will be an important step towards the maturing of the regional industry as it primarily turns the sales leverage and broader ownership of projects back into the hands of independent producers instead of them having to sell IP and commercial rights early into the production to buyers as per the status quo. Secondarily on a macro level, this allows the volume of productions in the region to expand dramatically and allows for a qualitative focus on the output of premium-budget content that can then travel and sell. This essentially leads to better positioning of Asian content and filmmakers in the global marketplace, igniting further value creation across the Asian creative industries.”
Goldfinch has been active in producing films through its genre production label, Dreamtown Entertainment, and has delivered documentaries under its Goldfinch Entertainment banner. The company also runs an Oscar and BAFTA-winning short film fund called First Flights.
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