Management changes at Lagardère Entertainment

Faced with major challenges in the audiovisual sector, Lagardère Entertainment is beefing up its international production and distribution capabilities.

As a result of the rapid development and strong momentum of its international production activities, Takis Candilis, Chairman of Lagardère Entertainment, just promoted Olivier Bibas to the position of General Manager of Atlantique Productions.

He thus joins Klaus Zimmermann, producer and General Manager of Atlantique Productions who came to the Lagardère Entertainment Group two years ago to develop international drama production. This Lagardère Entertainment subsidiary produced Borgia, Transporter, the series and Death in Paradise.

Philippe Perthuis will take over from Olivier Bibas as General Secretary of Lagardère Entertainment. He joined the Lagardère Group 15 years ago, and after spending part of his career as CFO for the TV channels and Magazines in New York, he now joins the executive board chaired by Takis Candilis and will be reporting to Christophe Thoral, Managing Director of Lagardère Entertainment.

Moreover, profound changes in the exploitation of rights led Lagardère Entertainment to restructure its distribution activities. Takis Candilis has appointed Emmanuelle Bouilhaguet to the position of General Manager in charge of sales and marketing in its long-time distribution subsidiary, Europe Images International.

For 13 years Ms. Bouilhaguet held positions of responsibility in the distribution arm of the Marathon International Group. Most recently, she was head of the Paris Bureau of Marathon International – Zodiak Rights. Ms. Bouilhaguet will be in charge of managing the teams of Europe Images International and will be reporting to Christophe Thoral, named Chairman of Europe Images International after Frank Soloveicik stepped down.

At the same time, the distribution of audiovisual cultural programmes such as music, opera, and ballet, theatre and circus performances will be centralised within Telmondis Distribution, a newly created entity.

On this occasion, a partnership agreement was signed with Bel Air Media, which recently entrusted distribution of its programmes to Telmondis Distribution. Antoine Perset will be in charge of this new unit in addition to serving as chairman of Telmondis Productions.