Bac Films sold to HLM Conseil after receivership

What's the deal? France's Paris Economic Activities Court has approved the sale of independent film distributor Bac Films to investment bank HLM Conseil, led by investment banker Jérémy Langlois. The company had been in receivership since April 2025.

Who's involved? Bac Films was created in 1986 by French producer and distributor Jean Labadie and has distributed more than 550 films since. Its recent slate includes Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest , Jean-Baptiste Durand's Junkyard Dog , and works by exiled Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov.

What's the endgame? Langlois said he wants to "offer an optimized management solution for film catalogs." Beyond the 150 titles already acquired for around €130,000, HLM Conseil plans to buy new catalogs and grow the number of films it handles through new mandates, co-distribution deals, and fresh portfolio acquisitions.

Why now? The court ruling ends more than a year of receivership. "This legal recovery, leading to a sale plan, constitutes a significant step for the independent cinema industry, in a year particularly dense in terms of business failures," said the group's advisor, Farid Fatah.

The backstory: Bac Films was once part of the VivendiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → group before listing on the stock market in 2000 under the name Bac Majestic. Producer David Grumbach bought the distributor in 2013 and delisted it, turning it into an independent group under its current name.

The signal: The sale shows how independent distributors are being folded into financially driven ownership at a time of rising business failures in cinema. HLM Conseil's catalog-focused strategy reframes a storied film brand as a portfolio asset to be managed and expanded.

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