ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi Media Company is eyeing investment opportunities in film-making as hedge funds abandon Hollywood and studios scramble to raise new financing, the company's chief executive said.
The state-owned company plans to grow through joint ventures and acquisitions as it seeks to become a global player.
"The timing is good. The hedge funds' money flooding Hollywood led to a bubble ... Money is not flowing," Edward Borgerding told Reuters in an interview on Monday.
"Now there's less pressure on actors and movies can be made at lower production costs with good quality."
Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and flush with oil money, is pushing state-owned entities to pick up bargains globally to diversify the emirate's economy.
Earlier this month, the company set up Imagenation Abu Dhabi, a film unit that plans to spend some $1 billion over the next five years to develop, finance and produce content for both the global and Arabic-language markets.
It also set up a $250 million fund in partnership with Los Angeles-based Participant Media.
"This is just the first partnership. Next month we will announce two more partnerships with Western companies that would broadly be similar in structure to the one with Participant Media," Borgerding said, declining to name the firms.
"We are a company that companies think of when they have opportunities. I do see media investments in companies happening," he said.
Borgerding dismissed any cultural or religious clash in working with Western companies such as Participant Media, which made "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary film about global warming presented by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
"Our objective is not to annoy people, but to entertain and send positive messages with films we make," he said.
Nor are Western companies uncomfortable with working with a government-owned outfit, he said.
"We operate as a modern, corporate and commercially driven entity with our own board of directors," Borgerding said.
Abu Dhabi Media Company employs 1,800 people across its units which include publishing, television, radio, digital media, distribution, and printing.
The firm's headquarters are in Abu Dhabi and it has offices in Cairo, Dubai and Washington D.C.
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