Solar Entertainment’s Jared Underwood Launches Solar Media Capital

It was announced today that Solar Entertainment Group's Jared Underwood has launched a full-service specialty financing entity titled Solar Media Capital and has hired former Comerica Entertainment Group executive Andrew Robinson to manage the new operation.

Solar Media Capital is positioned to participate in all levels of filmed entertainment financing, providing lending alternatives not consistently covered by banks or credit investors. Examples include single picture financing, (gap, super gap, tax credits, foreign rights sales), bridge lending, library loans, P&A funding, film ultimate lending, as well as distressed and/or special situations lending.

Solar Media Capital is a subsidiary of Solar Entertainment Group – a company backed by financial and strategic investors committed to skillfully vetted feature film investment opportunities. Among the investors and strategic partners are Edward Lawson Johnston, founder of the London-based merchant bank LJ Group, which has more than $7 billion of assets under supervision; the New York-based Shu family with major holdings in real estate and energy in the U.S., Romania and China; and Bobby Paunescu, the majority owner of one of the top ten private industrial conglomerates in Central and Eastern Europe, with businesses ranging from wind energy parks, insurance, transportation, hotels, agriculture, mining, real estate development, and media.

Said Underwood, "Solar Media Capital is an integral component of what we are building at Solar Entertainment Group. Now we can not only provide filmmakers with production services at our facilities in Romania, but also provide them with all their capital needs."

"Solar Media Capital will provide filmmakers with nimble, creative and comprehensive solutions to their financing needs," said Robinson. "I'm looking forward to continuing to work with and expand on the great relationships I formed through my years at Comerica."

Prior to joining Solar Media Capital, Andrew Robinson spent the past five years at Comerica Entertainment Group (CEG) as Vice President where he managed some of CEG's largest film industry relationships including Exclusive Media Group, Lionsgate, Nu Image, Relativity, and Tyler Perry Studios as well as its sports portfolio. During his tenure at CEG, he structured over $2.2 billion in loan commitments.

Robinson worked to structure the financing of many commercially and critically successful films including "The Hunger Games," "End of Watch," "The Expendables" and "The Expendables 2," "Good Deeds," "The Grey," "The Ides of March," "Madea's Big Happy Family," "Madea's Witness Protection," "The Mechanic," "Let Me In," and "The Woman In Black," as well as several yet to-be-released titles such as "2 Guns," "Agent: Century 21," "Broken City," "The Hunger Games 2: Catching Fire," "Iceman," "Killing Them Softly," "Last Stand," "Olympus Has Fallen," "Playing For Keeps," "Red 2," "Snitch," and "Ender's Game."

Robinson also managed syndicated transactions for leading independent film companies such as Cold Spring Pictures, Dark Castle Films, Lionsgate, National Geographic, Nu Image Films, Relativity Media, Revolution Studios, and Studio Canal.

Solar Media Capital principals Bobby Paunescu and Jared Underwood are also the principal investors in Solar Pictures, an independent film production and finance company (and subsidiary of Solar Entertainment Group), headed by co-CEOs Kearie Peak and Chris Taylor, that produces four to five movies a year with budgets up to $40 million. The company recently closed deals to finance and produce four new projects which will begin shooting in early to mid-2013. These include the suspense-thriller "Dark Corners," the conspiracy-drama "Jonestown," the action-thriller "Jet Black," and Bobby Paunescu's latest feature project, "The Girl Who Knew Too Much," (co-produced with China Film Group Corp) which Paunescu is writing and directing.

To post a comment, you must register and login.