US investors to build global festival network with Hungary's Sziget
Reuters - 13/01/17
By Marton Dunai | Budapest
U.S.-based private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has bought a 70 percent stake in Hungarian festival company Sziget [...]
Sziget draws about 500,000 people every year to its flagship event in Budapest and thousands more to half a dozen other festivals around Hungary. Now in its 25th season, it has received several "best festival" titles from the European Festival Awards.
Rhode Island's Providence, which has total assets of about $47 billion under management, expects to build a portfolio of about eight to 10 festivals in a few years[...]
The companies did not disclose a purchase price.
The new investors will take the Sziget brand global, they said. In Hungary, the firm has controlled more than half of the local festival market, but international growth was too expensive, Sziget founder and co-owner Karoly Gerendai said.