Contract certainty.
Structural protection.
Capital efficiency.
A senior-secured bridge-lending strategy purpose-built for institutional investors.
A €50 billion annual
European production market.
Large, growing and resilient. Spanning film, television and streaming. Underpinned by predictable state and public-sector funding and by long-term policy priorities.
European film, television and streaming production is a multi-segment market with contracted cashflows from public funding and sales agreements — not from consumer demand. The sector generates approximately €100 billion in annual revenue and is large, countercyclical and historically resilient.
It is also a domestic-first asset class. European production incentives and subsidies are legally mandated domestic transfers, insulated from global trade tariffs, supply-chain shocks and cross-border geopolitical pressure.
This is an under-the-radar market: less crowded than the US equivalent, less visible to generalist institutional capital, and with limited competition for the specialist credit positions ML Capital targets.
The result is a defined niche with deep barriers to entry, where dedicated specialists earn an information and execution advantage that generalist managers cannot replicate.
Funding committed,
funding released —
and the gap between.
European producers must bridge the gap between funding that has been contractually committed and funding that is actually released on delivery. ML Capital lends into exactly that gap.
Subsidies, incentives and pre-sales contracts cover roughly 70–90% of a production's budget — but the great majority of those funds are released only on delivery.
Productions need senior-secured short-term loans to start work. The contracts that will repay those loans are already signed, with state and public-sector counterparties and investment-grade distributors.
Banks can no longer fill this need. Post-2008 regulation has pushed specialist bank teams out of European entertainment finance — the number of active specialist banks in the sector has fallen from more than 20 to a small handful — a permanent reduction in capacity.
The financing need has not disappeared. The capital to meet it has.
Senior-secured bridge finance,
against contracted cashflows.
Loans typically €2.5–€10 million, with 6–20 month terms. Short durations allow capital to be redeployed multiple times over the fund's life.
Why it works.
Repayment certainty
Repayment is tied to signed contracts with state and public-sector counterparties and investment-grade distributors — not to box-office outcomes.
Multi-layered protection
Every position sits behind proven and widely-accepted instruments: completion bonds, receivables liens and credit guarantees.
Capital efficiency
Short tenors mean capital recycles through multiple productions, multiplying its working life within the fund.
Genuine diversification
Returns are driven by completion guarantees and contracted state cashflows, with low correlation to equity-market volatility, rate cycles and consumer spending.
Three tiers.
Senior secured
is the foundation.
Senior secured anchors every transaction at no less than 70%. Mezzanine and profit-participation share the remaining 30% — with profit-participation capped at 10%.
Senior secured ≥ 70%
The core of every position. First in the repayment waterfall, fully collateralised against state and public-sector contracts and investment-grade counterparties.Mezzanine
The principal share of the remaining 30%. A measured layer secured against contracted receivables from substantial corporate counterparties — sales agents and distributors.Profit-participation ≤ 10%
A small, selective layer offering controlled access to upside in the event of commercial success — sized to preserve the senior-debt risk profile.Double-vetted
deal flow.
ML Capital's pipeline is sourced through formal partnerships with selected leading European film sales companies — pre-vetted, contract-backed and aligned with the fund's discipline.
Partners are selected to cover distinct market segments and geographies. Projects reach ML Capital already vetted for commercial viability and backed by advance distribution and public-funding contracts — a double-vetted pipeline.
Where appropriate, partners commit capital alongside ML Capital, aligning incentives across project selection, delivery and repayment. The result is a defensible, hard-to-replicate sourcing advantage.
An AI-ready underwriting platform.
Proprietary tools parse budgets, contracts and schedules to enable consistent, scalable underwriting — disciplined deployment at speed, with a defensible data and process moat.
ESG and governance, institutional-grade.
Because ML Capital finances productions drawing on European public funding, EU green-production and ESG standards are built in. Governance is institutional: LP Advisory Committee, annual general meeting, quarterly reporting and real-time tracking of contracted receivables.