DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc beat rival bidders to buy Classic Media for $155 million to strengthen its array of entertainment characters, which will now include "Casper" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," the Wall Street Journal said.
DreamWorks will pay cash for the two-year-old rights-holding company, which is owned by Boomerang Media Holdings I LLC, a portfolio company of private-equity firm GTCR LLC, the journal said.
Classic Media will operate under the DreamWorks Classics brand and co-Chief Executives Eric Ellenbogen and John Engelman will remain as co-heads, though the exact organizational structure is still being sorted out, the newspaper said.
Classic Media formed in 2000, has more than 450 family entertainment titles and generated $82.2 million in revenue in the year ended Feb 29, 2012, the WSJ said.
DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told the Journal the deal "gives the studio a very deep character library that helps it rival Universal or Sony."
DreamWorks and Classic Media could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.
This article is copyrighted by Reuters
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