European production and sales studioVuelta Grouphas bought German producerTelepoolfrom Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smiths Westbrook.
The deal, struck through Vuelta subsidiarySquareOne, will see a combined business operating under the SquareOne banner.
We are grateful to Yoko Higuchi-Zitzmann for her leadership over the past two years.
Al Munteanu, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett SmithVuelta / Getty
Her respect from the creative community has been instrumental in Telepools success.
The new and expanded company will be active across distribution and production, said Munteanu.
We are eager to continue our collaboration on our projects going forward.
Will Smith and German-Swiss filmmaker Marc Forster had initially taken 50% each in the company in 2018.
Prior to that the company had beenowned by German public service broadcasters.
Outgoing Telepool CEO Higuchi-Zitzmann said: I am proud of everything we achieved at Telepool.
I am convinced that Telepool will continue to be in the best hands.
Lazard acted as exclusive financial advisor to Westbrook and Telepool.
