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With his extensive knowledge of international finance, as well as his in-depth experience in the entertainment industry, Joseph N. Cohen is highly regarded for his investment banking and media expertise. A graduate of Yale and Oxford, Cohen has held senior positions at several of the leading investment banking firms, including N.M. Rothschild & Sons, Salomon Brothers, Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, Orion Royal Bank and Samuel Montagu. For the past thirty eight years he has focused his efforts on the entertainment and media industries and is active in motion picture, television and other media financing throughout the world.
Cohen began his career in 1969 as an investment analyst and portfolio manager at N.M. Rothschild & Sons in London. In 1973, he moved to Salomon Brothers in New York, where he supervised the firm's interests in the Far East, primarily Japan. At Salomon Brothers, Cohen worked closely with Japanese banks, trading companies and corporations. He was intimately involved in the creation of the certificate of deposit market for US branches and subsidiaries of Japanese banks and headed the team that launched the first US private placement for a Japanese bank-Bank of Tokyo.
He was named vice president of the international division at Kuhn, Loeb & Co. (later Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb) in 1976, where he specialized in bond issues for sovereign and international agency credits (including the management of direct and guaranteed bond issues by France, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Venezuela, European Economic Community, European Coal and Steel Community, European Investment Bank and the Asian Development Bank), reserve asset management for Central Banks and US debt and equity issues for foreign companies. Cohen was responsible for managing Central Bank portfolios in excess of $2 billion on behalf of Indonesia, Spain, Malaysia and the Philippines. His last two years with the firm were spent managing the Eurobond operation (underwriting, trading and sales) in London.
Cohen was appointed executive director in charge of US investment banking at Orion Bank in 1980. Orion at that time was the largest consortium merchant bank in the world and was one of the few non-U.S. investment banks to take an active lead management position of Eurodollar bond issues on behalf of U.S. corporations. Cohen was largely responsible for establishing Orion as a leading underwriter of U.S. corporate issues in the international capital markets and received particular recognition for a series of innovative issues on behalf of General Telephone and Electronics. From 1983 to 1985, he served as managing director of Samuel Montagu (New York). At Montagu, he was active in advising on a number of prominent leveraged buy-outs, including a high-profile management acquisition of Hills Bros. Coffee.
Cohen's involvement in the motion picture industry began in the UK in the early 1980s, where he pioneered the use of tax based lease financing for feature films and with several partners, including Samuel Montagu and Investors in Industry, financed over £400 million of UK-qualified production. Cohen also founded Canadian Entertainment Investors (C.E.I.), which was one of the leading financiers for the Canadian film and television industry and which pioneered the use of public limited partnership offerings to finance Canadian-qualified productions.
In December 1993, Cohen completed a four-year term as President and Chief Operating Officer of Largo Entertainment, the joint venture between JVC/Victor Company of Japan Ltd. and Hollywood producer Lawrence Gordon. Cohen advised JVC on the creation of Largo and under his tenure, Largo produced several major box office hits including Point Break, Unlawful Entry, and Timecop as well as the critically acclaimed film Malcolm X, which it co-financed with Warner Bros.
Cohen is also an active producer and financier of motion pictures. Producer credits include the Showtime Original Movie, Beyond Forgiveness, starring Thomas Ian Griffith and Rutger Hauer (1995), and Solo, starring Mario Van Peebles, for Sony Pictures Entertainment (1996). Executive Producer credits include Iron Eagle IV, starring Lou Gossett, Jr (1995); The Assignment, starring Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley, for Sony Pictures Entertainment (1997); Wing Commander, starring Freddie Prinze, Jr, Matthew Lillard and Saffron Burrows, for Twentieth Century Fox (1999); Delivering Milo, starring Albert Finney and Bridget Fonda (2001); Jane Doe, starring Teri Hatcher and Rob Lowe (2001); Fear X, starring John Turturro (2003); Masked and Anonymous, starring Bob Dylan, John Goodman, Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges (2003); and Words and Pictures, starring Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche (2014).
In 1996, Cohen retired as Co-Chairman of InterMedia/Film Equities to form American Entertainment Investors. ("AEI"). Cohen was instrumental in the creation of Alcon Entertainment, an independent production company established by Frederick W. Smith, Chairman and Founder of Federal Express Corp. AEI advises Alcon on all aspects of finance, distribution and strategic planning. Alcon's productions include the family hit My Dog Skip, starring Kevin Bacon, Diane Lane and Frankie Muniz; Lost And Found, starring David Spade and Sophie Marceau; the hit comedy Dude, Where's My Car? starring Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott; Affair Of The Necklace, starring Hilary Swank, the critically acclaimed Insomnia; starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hillary Swank; Love Don't Cost A Thing; Chasing Liberty; Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants; One Missed Call; Something Borrowed starring Kate Hudson; the highly successful P.S. I Love You, starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler; Book Of Eli, starring Denzel Washington; Dolphin Tale starring Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd and Harry Connick Jr; the hit sequel Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2; Beautiful Creatures; Transcendence starring Johnny Depp; and the blockbuster hit The Blindside, starring Sandra Bullock. Alcon also acquired North American distribution rights to the Bruce Willis action film Sixteen Blocks and the Nicholas Cage thriller The Wicker Man, both released in 2006. Cohen negotiated an output arrangement with Warner Bros on Alcon's behalf under which Warners distributed Alcon produced films throughout the world.
AEI also advises River Road Entertainment on all aspects of finance, distribution, and strategic planning. River Road's first film project was Brokeback Mountain, which won three Academy Awards, including Best Director for Ang Lee, and generated almost $200 million in worldwide box office, which represented 15 times its negative cost. River Road also co-financed the critically acclaimed Lust, Caution, directed by Ang Lee, and Robert Altman's Prairie Home Companion, starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Virginia Madsen, and John C. Reilly. Subsequently, River Road has produced and financed FUR, starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey, Jr.; the documentaries Chicago 10 and Food, Inc.; the highly acclaimed Into The Wild, starring Emile Hirsch and directed by Sean Penn; The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning; and the winner of the Cannes Palme d' Or Award, The Tree of Life, directed by Terrence Malick and starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. River Road also produced 12 Years A Slave, Academy Award Winner for Best Picture in 2014.
Cohen served on the Board of Exclusive Media Group from 2008-2013, a vertically integrated global film entertainment company, founded in 2008 with the backing of the private equity fund Cyrte Investments. Exclusive-backed films include: The Way Back; Let Me In; the critically-acclaimed The Ides of March, directed by George Clooney and starring George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti; The Woman in Black, starring Daniel Radcliffe; and End of Watch, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
AEI serves as advisor to Black Label Media, a major independent production company founded by Molly Smith, which has produced several high profile films, including Sicario, directed by Denis Villeneuve and starring Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin and Emily Blunt, Sicario: Day of the Soldado directed by Stefano Sollima and starring Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin who reprise their roles, 12 Strong directed by Nicolai Fuglsig and starring Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon, Only the Brave directed by Joseph Kosinski and starring Josh Brolin and Miles Teller and Demolition directed by Jean-Marc Valee and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts. Black Label also co financed the multiple Academy Award-winning film La La Land.
AEI advises a number of other independent production, new media and distribution companies on all aspects of finance, distribution, strategic planning and acquisitions.
Cohen is frequently called on to serve as an expert witness in complex litigation, and in that regard he has advised several prominent law firms including Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, Greenberg Traurig, Sidley Austin, Eversheds and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. He has also assisted the US Internal Revenue Service in evaluating the legitimacy of certain motion picture tax shelters.
AEI is frequently called upon to value film and television libraries and advise on the purchase and sale of such libraries. In 2001, AEI represented InterMedia on the acquisition of the Largo library.
In 2010, AEI advised Goldman Sachs and Assured Guaranty, the primary creditors of the Weinstein Company, on a restructuring of the company. AEI served as the Administrator of Portfolio Funding Company, LLC, which owns the pre-2011 Weinstein Company library until the library was sold to Lionsgate. Cohen has also been an advisor to a private equity firm Narrative Capital based in New York. Narrative acquires film, television and music libraries as well as being a hands-on investor in operating businesses with a broadly defined media and entertainment footprint. In 2021, Narrative acquired Sony's free to air television channels in the UK.
From 2006 to 2010, Cohen co-managed EF Solutions LLC, which invested in a broad range of project financings for the film and television industries, including super-gap loans, prints and advertising funding, bridge financing, monetizing soft money benefits and financing library acquisitions. EFS provided mezzanine financing for the 2008 Academy Award-winning film The Hurt Locker. AEI remains active in the mezzanine space and provided gap financing on a number of more recent films, including A Walk Among The Tombstones starring Liam Neeson and The Woman in Black 2, The Man Who Knew Infinity, starring Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel and Hotel Mumbai, starring Dev Patel and Armie Hammer.
Other prominent transactions in which Cohen has been involved include representing the Saleh family in the sale of the Angelika Theater; valuing Prism Entertainment after its bankruptcy filing; advising Pioneer Electronics with regard to Carolco Pictures' bankruptcy proceedings; raising debt financing for Showscan Entertainment and the Left Bank Group; advising on the construction of a major new international theme park; advising a major minority shareholder on the divestiture of his shares in a large regional broadcaster; advising a major public company on the sale of its television library; and advising two Hollywood studios on international co-financing transactions.
At InterMedia, Cohen represented such clients as JVC/Victor Company of Japan, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, Shepperton Studios, Japan Satellite Broadcasting, Penta Film, Showscan Entertainment, Scott Free Productions, Rizzoli Corriere della Sera, Alliance Entertainment, as well as several of the major Hollywood studios. Prominent transactions included the structuring and negotiating of U.S. theatrical, home video, and television distribution arrangements on behalf of Polygram International; advising an investment group headed by directors Ridley and Tony Scott on the purchase of Shepperton Studios; representing George Harrison on the sale of his film production company, Hand Made Films; and initiating and negotiating the sale of King's Road's library. Cohen also advised both Dean Witter and E.F. Hutton in the area of motion picture limited partnership investment.
In 2023 Cohen established a parallel advisory company to AEI, MediaRealm Advisors, to actively pursue film and television production opportunities.
In May, 2017 Cohen published Investing in Movies: Strategies for Investors and Producers which was designed to provide an analytical framework to assess the opportunities and pitfalls of investing in the film industry. In the beginning of 2022, Routledge published a second edition of the book, bringing it up to date with respect to the rise of the streamers, the effect of the pandemic and the recent changes in the Chinese film industry.
With a proven track record of creative and sophisticated financial strategies, Cohen is recognized as an innovative leader in the ever-changing market of entertainment and media financing. He is considered an authority on the subject and has spoken before the American Film Market, Wertheim Schroder/Variety Seminar, Paul Kagan Seminars, the L.A. County Bar Association, UCLA, Cinetex, Festival of Festivals, and other organizations in the entertainment business, and has published many articles in the field. Cohen is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences and was adjunct professor in The Peter Stark Producing Program in the University of Southern California Graduate School of Cinema/Television for sixteen years. In addition, he is a Trustee of the Yale Library Associates and was a member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. He is a past director of PacWest Bancorp and previously First California Financial Group and National Mercantile Bancorp.
