Directors
Steve Orchard
He was a non-executive director of Independent Radio News and UK Top 40 Ltd, and became a member of the Sony Radio Awards committee and Brits judge.
Steve was promoted to the main Board of the industry’s largest PLC, GCap Media in 2005. In 2009 Steve incorporated Quidem Ltd. and became the company’s first CEO, immediately acquiring five radio stations in the West Midlands and then adding a sixth station in 2010.
Simon Fawcett
Previously he was the Chief Executive of Aramid Capital Partners, which managed a $250m Fund specialising in Entertainment Loan Finance, and funded more than 30 films, and has successfully funded the expansion of the leading East European Distributor, A Company, and the successful US stage theatre company, Broadway Across America. Simon was previously the Finance Director of Pathé Entertainment, and was actively involved in the growth of Pathé from a small independent UK distributor into an international production and distribution studio operation.
Simon qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG.
Will Ingram-Hill
He has subsequently sat on the board of a number of SMEs in the energy, tech and media sectors, is the founder and managing director of strategy consultancy, IHL, and continues to practice law as a London based partner at Temple Bright LLP.
Alex Glover
In the media sector Alex represented Guinness Mahon Development Capital and Proven – two firms specialising in media IP. He also worked on the SE flotation of Reuters and with a number of other media Groups such as the Daily Mail and General Trust. Alex retains particular expertise in sales and marketing and fund raising, both domestically and in international markets.
Advisory Board
Jon Kramer
Michael Lee Jackson
Michael has released a multitude of records with his bands and under his own name over the years. In 2010, Michael composed, engineered and mixed the original score for feature film The Bad Penny aka Falling Down. From 2005 to approximately 2009, Michael was creative manager, band leader and guitar player for the solo work of Ian Gillan, singer of Deep Purple, and played guitar for 10,000 maniacs on tour (1999). From 1999 to 2004, Michael performed approximately 150 shows for USO/Armed Forces Entertainment all over the world with his group, Animal Planet and with his subsequent group under his own name. More recently, Michael has embraced photography and his work has been exhibited on the east and west coasts of the United States.
Michael has written two books, Your Father’s Not Coming Home (co-author Jessica Jackson) (1982), and Doing Drugs (1983).
Investment Partners
The two companies selected to launch our Fund in 2017 were chosen in areas of the media world where we believe there to be most potential for the development of content and the establishment of valuable IP. They are:
They are:
1. AFTER SHOCK COMICS
– a comic book development company
3. RAVEN SCORES LIMITED
– ongoing film music scores business
The Company develops new comics working in conjunction with Aftershock comics, an established comic book company having already launched 65 comic titles and won the prestigious Diamond Independent Comic Publisher of the year award in 2017. AS Comics Ltd has recently launched a further 3 comic books titled Orphan Age, Cross to Bear, Hanging Man.
– AfterShock is an idea generator that develops fresh, trendsetting content ideas in collaboration with creators
– It is profitable solely as a comic book publisher
24 TV shows adapted from comic books are currently airing, with another 28 slated for 2019-20 release (half coming from Independent Publishers (Not DC/Marvel)) and 128 in development. 11 of the top 22 grossing films worldwide in the last two years were either inspired by or adapted from comic books, grossing nearly $14.23BN. North American retail comic sales hit a record high of $1.21BN in 2019, up from $255.0MM in 2000.
Spending on total new content from major content creators reach nearly $121.0BN in 2019 and is expected to grow substantially in 2020 with major services launching Quibi, Peacock and HBO Max. Disney spent nearly $27.8BN on content in 2019 and Netflix spent $15.3BN on content with that number is expected to grow to $17.3BN this year. Sky, the European media giant, is creating a new TV studio and plans to more than double its investment in original programming over the next five years, while Amazon estimates it will spend roughly $7.0BN this year on content, an increase of $2.0BN from 2018. These trends indicate that content spend is lucrative and in high demand by major internet companies, OTT providers, legacy companies and ad hoc networks of major overseas broadcasters.
At the heart of the new Fund is Raven Scores, a music publishing, production and media investment company concentrating on the acquisition, financing, supervision and publishing of major film scores. Over the last three years the company has had considerable success exploiting the music scores of successful films such as At Eternity’s Gate, directed by Julian Schnabel and starring Willem Dafoe, Ophelia directed by Claire McCarthy and starring Daisy Ridley and Naomi Watts, The Tax Collector directed by David Ayers and starring Shia LaBoeuf and The Silencing directed by Robin Pront and starring Nicholaj Coster-Waldau and Annabelle Wallis.
The Company was founded by senior music and film industry executives, who have managed or owned music catalogues of some of the largest media groups in the world, including Columbia Pictures Music, Belwin Mills, Merchant Ivory, Al Gallico, Endemol, Handmade Films, Chorion, Millimage and Pathe.
o The majority of music created by the company is the incidental and background music (known as ‘the score’) for film and TV. The company owns the intellectual property of the composed music (alongside the composer) from origination, and will retain ownership of the copyright created for 70 years after the death of the composer.
o That copyright will earn income in the form of royalties collected worldwide from TV companies and theatres by the worldwide network of performing rights societies. Every time one of the films in which ASG owns the score is shown on TV or cable, the company earns royalties based on a minute of music.
o Most of the scores funded by ASG have at least 60 minutes of music, and a film shown on any European terrestrial channel will earn a royalty of at least £25 per minute, generating an average income on each film of approximately £1,500 and $10,000 on US terrestrial channels.
o The company has raised over £5 million to date through EIS and VCT schemes managed by Octopus and others. ASG plan to invest on this scale every year going forward.
For investors the returns have been impressive and long-term and as well as attracting 30% EIS tax relief. ASG’s published business plan seeks to achieve an IRR of 18% (excluding EIS relief) for shareholders, or 27% with tax relief.