Film Finances Buys Media Guarantors To Lead Bond Market
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- Film Services International, parent of Film Finances, is acquiring Media Guarantors from insurance brokerage CAC Group for an undisclosed price, merging the two to create a leading global completion bond firm for independent film.
- Media Guarantors founder and CEO Fred Milstein will lead the combined entity as CEO, with Film Finances EVP Steve Berman as president and current Film Finances President Greg Trattner elevated to Executive Chairman across the broader family of companies under group CEO Peter Coleman.
- CAC Group bought Media Guarantors in 2024 as its first entertainment-sector acquisition, and CAC itself merged with rival broker Baldwin Group earlier in 2025 — corporate churn that frames the sale.
- Film Services International, now wholly owned by financial and insurance platform A-CAP, acquired Film Finances and its related post-production companies — Pivotal Post, EPS-Cineworks Digital Studios, Buff Dubbs + DAMsmart, Silver Trak Digital, and LiquidLight — in fall 2024 through a prepackaged bankruptcy that detached the business from troubled PE owner 777 Partners.
- Film Finances joined STX Entertainment in January when the production company relaunched under A-CAP ownership, a transaction that saw STX founder Robert Simonds and CEO Noah Fogelson exit the company.
- Completion bonds guarantee a film is finished on time and on budget, with the bond firm on the hook for overages — protection that independent producers and financiers often cannot secure financing without.
Why it matters: For independent producers and financiers, the merger consolidates two of the few remaining completion bond specialists into a single platform under A-CAP, which since 2024 has been stacking financing, physical production, and post-production assets into a one-stop shop — the executive's stated goal of accelerating data-driven risk assessment means bond underwriting will be integrated with the group's broader production services.
