Yahoo News CAA Break Away: Primary Talent Exits to Go Indie
After closing a deal valued at $750 million to acquire its rival ICM Partners last June, the pieces of Creative Artists Agency’s megamerger are shaking out for Hollywood’s representation landscape. In the latest move, an ICM-owned talent agency is now breaking away after making a buyout offer to the Century City-based giant.
Primary Talent International, the U.K.-based music agency founded in 1990 and acquired by ICM just before the shuttering of major events and productions in March 2020, is exiting CAA and reestablishing itself under independent ownership, the firm said March 6. Nearly 460 clients, including The 1975, The Cure, Lana Del Rey, Noel Gallagher, Ziggy Marley, Mitski and Patti Smith will be staying with the newly independent Primary and leaving the CAA fold.
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Primary Talent had been run as an indie agency until it was snapped up by ICM with an eye toward bolstering ICM’s international touring business. That deal was unveiled right as the pandemic disrupted the touring industry, which is finally starting to recover. (On Feb. 28, the publicly traded Endeavor, owner of agencies WME and IMG, pointed to demand for live entertainment, music and comedy tours as having driven revenue at its representation business for its most recent quarter.)
Under ICM ownership the past three years, the London-based Primary Talent, led by CEO Matt Bates, operated under its own banner (as opposed to being absorbed by ICM Music) and had kept its own operations and website. The agency kept running independently even after CAA’s leaders, Bryan Lourd, Richard Lovett and Kevin Huvane, closed its deal for ICM after going through a monthslong antitrust regulatory review by the Department of Justice. Since the merger closed, and even before the ink was dry on the deal, some ICM agents had decamped to boutique firms or exited to work at management firms.
Bates will keep leading Primary Talent in its new era and ICM founding partner Rick Levy will serve as senior advisor. The firm won’t take on any outside financing as it sets a new course.
As part of the move, agents Laetitia Descouens, Sally Dunstone, Martje Kremers and Ed Sellers will be elevated to partner at the indie firm, which will have 35 employees at launch. (The combined CAA-ICM now has some 3,500 staffers.) Ben Winchester will be joining the board of Primary and former ICM agent Simon Clarkson, who led electronic music representation at the agency, will be moving to the indie firm.
“The pandemic changed the landscape of the music touring business, and we felt it was beneficial to return to our roots as the UK’s largest independent music talent agency,” stated CEO Bates. “In this new incarnation, Primary will be even better positioned to support the evolving careers of our artists and guide them wherever needed.”
