Slate financing pooled film series to diversify risk for Wall Street investors.

Evidence

Whereas the studios had typically relied on passive, revolving lines of credit from banks before, funds were now designed for PE firms, hedge funds, and investment banks to actively participate in financing smaller catalogs of films. An estimated $15 billion was pumped into “slate financing,” in which a series of films (upwards of twenty-five) were produced from the same pool of capital, thereby diversifying the risk and return. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 297

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines slate financing precisely: a pool of capital producing twenty-plus films to spread risk and return.
• XREF: Core to the book’s thesis — this is the ‘private equity rollup’ ancestor that Part Two will trace into individual texts.