William Morris Endeavor Entertainment LLC (WME), the talent agency backed by private equity firm Silver Lake, is near a deal to acquire peer IMG Worldwide for around $2.3 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. An announcement on the sale of IMG could be made as early as Wednesday, the person said on Tuesday, adding that negotiations were still being finalized. The source asked not to be identified because the talks are confidential.Spokespeople for IMG, WME and Silver Lake declined to comment.IMG, whose clients include top tennis player Novak Djokovic and supermodel Gisele Bundchen and which owns the rights to numerous sports league, would be a significant boost to WME, which already represents some of Hollywood's biggest actors.A consortium of talent agency ICM Partners Inc and private equity fund manager Carlyle Group LP were also finalists in the auction, as was takeover firm CVC Capital Partners Ltd, which had teamed up with Chernin Group LLC, people familiar with the matter told Reuters previously.
Shares of CG traded higher by 1.86% or $0.63/share to $34.53. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $23.85 and as high as $37.89. On average, 489064 shares of CG exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 1003277.
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