Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith sell media company stake to ex-Disney execs

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith bought a minority stake of their manufacturing firm, Westbrook.
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Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have reportedly bought a minority stake of their media firm, Westbrook, to former Disney executives Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer.

Westbrook — which produces Netflix’s hit collection “Cobra Kai” and which backed “King Richard,” the biopic starring Will Smith as Richard Williams, the daddy of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams — had been in talks with Staggs and Mayer till the deal fell aside in October.

Sources instructed Selection that Staggs and Mayer’s enterprise paid $60 million for a roughly 10% possession stake. The deal values the corporate at just below $600 million.

Mayer and Staggs are being financed by private-equity big Blackstone Group. Their media enterprise made headlines final yr when it bought Reese Witherspoon’s manufacturing firm Hiya Sunshine in a deal valued at $900 million and adopted that up with a $3 billion deal for Moonbug Leisure, the kids’s TV firm behind “CoComelon” and “Blippi.”

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith had been in talks to promote a minority stake in Westbrook late final yr.

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Westbrook Inc. is comprised of a manufacturing studio, Westbrook Studios, and a digital arm, Westbrook Media. Upcoming tasks for the corporate embody the motion movie “Emancipation,” which can seem on Apple TV+ and star Will Smith, in addition to the “Recent Prince” reboot “Bel-Air’ that may premiere subsequent month on Peacock.