Pinewood Buys Full Control of Shepperton Studios Site

U.K. studio facilities giant Pinewood Shepperton, the British studio home of the James Bond franchise and the recently finished shoot of Star Wars: Episode VII, has bought out its joint venture partner in the Shepperton Studios site for $57.7 million (£36.8 million).

The deal with clients of Aviva Investors makes the company the sole owner of the partnership that owns the site.
In 2006, Aviva and Pinewood formed a 50-50 joint venture to hold and develop the land and buildings of Shepperton Studios under a 999 year lease. At that time, Aviva made a total payment of $47.8 million (£30.5 million) and a long term loan of $31.4 million (£20 million) to the partnership.
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The partnership has invested some $15.4 million (£9.8 million) in new developments at Shepperton over the years and "has achieved consistent earnings growth through optimizing occupancy of the studio’s soundstages and ancillary production facilities," the company said.
Said Ivan Dunleavy, CEO of Pinewood Shepperton: "The purchase of Aviva’s interest in [the partnership] will give the company full control over the Shepperton site and future investment in the facilities there. We thank Aviva for their contribution and investment in Shepperton Studios over the past eight years."