A British visual effects producer whose recent credits include Daniel Craig’s final outing as James Bond is being groomed for a sale that could value it at more than £300m.
Sky News has learnt that Cinesite, which is based in London, has hired Goldman Sachs to examine strategic options amid a glut of dealmaking in the sector.
City sources said that an outright sale of the business was a likely outcome later this year.
Cinesite, which was founded in Los Angeles in 1991 to work on a restoration of the classic Walt Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, has worked on recent Hollywood productions including No Time To Die and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Previous projects include producing special effects for Game of Thrones and the Avengers series.
The company is minority-owned by Gryphion Capital Investments, which backed it in 2019 alongside new debt facilities from Barclays and NatWest.
Management and employees are thought to also be shareholders in the business.
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The appointment of Goldman to explore a sale comes as a surge in demand from streaming platforms such as Netflix spurs revenue growth at visual effects houses such as Cinesite.
Weta Digital, the studio founded by Sir Peter Jackson, was recently sold to video games producer Unity Software for $1.6bn, while Netflix itself has snapped up Scanline VFX, a German-based competitor.
Cinesite has expanded its expertise into animated content, and counts Amazon-owned MGM, Walt Disney and Sony Pictures Animation among its key studio partners.
A Cinesite spokeswoman declined to comment on Monday.