Jeff Zucker, RedBird Capital And Abu Dhabi’s IMI Formalize Joint Venture With $1B Earmarked For Media And Sports Investments

Former CNN and NBCUniversal boss Jeff Zucker, private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners and Abu Dhabi-based International Media Investments have formalized plans for a joint venture.

RedBird IMI, as the new entity is known, has $1 billion in committed funds aimed at “large-scale” media and sports investment opportunities, participants said.

Zucker will be CEO of the venture and he is also joining RedBird as an operating partner. RedBird, which was founded by former Goldman Sachs banker Gerry Cardinale, has recently teamed with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon on their new company. It is a stakeholder in Skydance as well as the XFL, which was bought out of bankruptcy by Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia.

Word of the Zucker-RedBird venture first surfaced last month. Zucker left his post at WarnerMedia overseeing sports and news after disclosing a consensual relationship with former colleague, Allison Gollust. While many in the CNN ranks had long known the pair had been romantically involved, Zucker had also come under scrutiny due to former primetime host Chris Cuomo’s actions as an adviser to his brother, former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Zucker arrived at CNN in 2013 and then added oversight of Turner Sports in 2019. Before his time at WarnerMedia, he had a 25-year run at NBCU, capped by a four-year stint as CEO.

“I’ve spent 35 years running media businesses at the intersection of news, sports and entertainment, creating new brands and resurrecting old ones,” Zucker said in a press release. “That experience has given me unparalleled perspective for this unique time in media, and the combination of the RedBird and IMI capital and strategic discipline, combined with my operational experience, will give this joint venture a unique advantage in the current media landscape.”

IMI is a private company based in Abu Dhabi whose investment portfolio includes The National, Sky News Arabia, CNN Business Arabic and The Grid.

“The RedBird IMI joint venture has come together at an important time as the media industry continues to evolve in both content creation and distribution to meet the evolving expectations of consumers globally,” IMI CEO Nart Bouran said. “Partnering with Jeff Zucker and Gerry Cardinale will enable us to
bring tremendous operational, investing and financial expertise to make impactful and transformative
investments across the media, entertainment and sports landscapes.”

Cardinale said the new venture would be “a long-term, fully capitalized investment vehicle that can own and operate content-focused businesses across the media spectrum in the U.S. and globally.”

With Zucker aboard as CEO, he added, RedBird IMI “will integrate substantial operating expertise with sophisticated financial and investing acumen to deploy transformational capital on a scaled basis.”