The sale of Wasserman is shifting into high gear, with the management powerhouse retaining the investment bank Moelis & Co. to advise on the transaction, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Founded by Casey Wasserman in 2002, the firm is a rollup of a number of agency, management and marketing businesses, with a particularly strong presence in the sports sector and the music business. It also owns the management-production firm Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
Moelis, as it happens, advised Brillstein in its sale to Wasserman three years ago.
Casey Wasserman announced the sale of the company he founded in a Feb. 13 memo, telling staff that he would step aside to focus his efforts on the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, which he leads. The move came after the company lost high-profile clients like Chappell Roan, John Summit and Laufey among several dozen others. (Also out now is Imagine Dragons, though sources say the band’s decision predated the Wasserman controversy, coming after their agent retired at the end of last year.)
The announcement to his 4,000 staffers came after a week of intense scrutiny and criticism from his roster after suggestive emails he’d sent to Ghislaine Maxwell had surfaced in the Epstein Files.
“First and foremost, I want to apologize to you,” Wasserman wrote in the memo. “I’m deeply sorry that my past personal mistakes have caused you so much discomfort. It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to the clients and partners we represent so vigorously and care so deeply about.”
Wasserman is expected to have a robust slate of potential buyers, both strategic and financial. Other talent agencies, like CAA, UTA and WME are seen as potential bidders, as is former Endeavor mogul Patrick Whitesell, who launched Silver Lake-backed investment firm WTSL last year.
Private equity firms are also circling, with many of those companies eager to gain exposure to the sports business. Bruin Capital and KKR’s Arctos are among the firms that may be interested, while Goldman Sachs inked a deal to acquire Excel Sports Management late last year (Moelis also advised Excel in that deal, which reportedly valued the firm at $1 billion.).
Wasserman’s sports unit generated $266 million in revenue in 2024, nearly 30 percent of the company’s total revenue, an S&P Global report from June of last year noted. That sports representation revenue figure — derived from 4,500 sports clients — is second only to CAA at $578 million that year.
Sportico first reported the hiring of Moelis.
Source link
