She is the most well-known piglet that children love and adore in the world today. And now more than ten years after producing the world's most popular pre-school porker, Neville Astley, Mark Baker, and Phil Davies - the creators of Peppa Pig - will receive a windfall of $71.1 million each after yielding majority stake to British film and TV distribution company Entertainment One, New Zealand's Stuff reports.
The deal came as a result of the Peppa Pig founders sealing a deal with E-One, in a bid that will let the entertainment company own 70 percent of the animation company and thus control efforts in doubling Peppa Pig's success over the next five years.
Neville Astley and Mark Baker, the show's directors, and Phil Davies who produces the show, had already held half of the rights to the animation program through their holding company, Astley Baker Davies, with E-One, the same company that also distributes the Hunger Games franchise, holding the other half.
However, this week, E-One successfully raised its stake to 85 percent, by launching a rights issue, the UK Daily Mail reported. Such a move allows existing investors to buy four new shares for every nine they own. If they don't, they will have their shares diluted.
Nevertheless, the original Peppa Pig founders (who also produced the animation series Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom) will still retain a 15 percent stake on top of a five percent cut coming from royalties out of the Peppa Pig franchise sales. The British porker's franchise is vast, spanning, toys, apps, DVDs, baby bath products, children's clothing and bedsheets.
As a result of these turn of events, E-One expects Peppa Pig to be transformed into a $1.98 billion global brand in the mid-term, the Daily Mail reports.
To ensure this continuity and to keep the Peppa Pig brand fresh, the founders have been tasked to produce 52 new episodes of Peppa Pig, Darren Throop, E-One's CEO reveals. At the moment, the animation and voice-overs for these new episodes are currently underway and the finished episodes scheduled to be released in the spring of 2016, Stuff reports.
