Leonine Holding

• 1. Introduction

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  Leonine Holding's earliest known production, made in 1970, adapted Jack London's novel The Sea Wolf for German television. Back then the company operated under a different name, Tele München, and looked nothing like the business it would become. Over the following decades it partnered with broadcasters, sold pieces of itself, and bought them back. It also passed through the hands of more than one foreign investment firm. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being Tele München altogether and took on an entirely new name. How did a small German producer of licensed television programming end up changing hands so many times, and what finally happened to it?

• 2. The Kloiber Era

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  In 1977, producer Herbert Kloiber and his business partner Fritz Buttenstedt bought Tele München outright. Three years later, in 1980, Kloiber's company launched its own theatrical distribution arm, Concorde Filmverleih, to get films into cinemas across Germany. In 1981, Tele München teamed up with cinema operator Hans-Joachim Flebbe to acquire cinemas in Hamburg, Berlin and Braunschweig.

  By 2011, the company turned back toward production investment. In July of that year, Tele München Group announced a 33 percent stake in the German television producer Odeon Film AG. By that November, it had increased its holding by acquiring another 40 percent, becoming Odeon Film's biggest shareholder.

  That production stake sat alongside a much longer list of television and radio investments the company was chasing at the same time.

• 3. Shifting Broadcast Partners

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  In 1985, Tele München became a partner in the television station Sat.1, then sold its stake a year later to launch its own channel, musicbox. That same year, the company acquired Munich's private radio station Radio Xanadu, later rebranded as Radio Energy.

  In 1987, Silvio Berlusconi's company Fininvest bought 50 percent of musicbox, laying the groundwork for what became the channel Tele 5. A year later, in 1988, Axel Springer Publishing House and the broadcaster CLT both became partners in Tele München. By 1989, half of the company had been sold to Capital Cities/ABC.

  In 1991, Tele München sold its Tele 5 shares back to Axel Springer. The following year, in 1992, it joined CLT, Bertelsmann, the Bauer Media Group and The Walt Disney Company to found the television channel RTL II. By 1995, Tele München and Bauer Media Group had founded another station together, called Tm3.

  In 1996, Herbert Kloiber bought back the company's shares from Capital Cities/ABC and took over Bauer Media Group's stake in Tm3 as well. A year later, in 1997, Tele München took a stake in the Hungarian private broadcaster TV2.

  In 1998, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation bought 66 percent of Tm3, then took full ownership of the channel by 2000. In between, in September 1999, Munich entertainment company EM.TV and Merchandising AG announced it had taken a 49 percent stake in Tele München Group.

  On the 28th of April 2002, Tele München relaunched the Tele 5 channel under its own control. The company later moved into streaming, launching a service called Filmtastic in 2017.

  Today, Leonine still holds a 31.5 percent stake in the renamed channel RTL Zwei, alongside two streaming services called Home of Horror and Arthouse CNM.

• 4. KKR Assembles Leonine

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  In February 2019, the New York investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, known as KKR, agreed to buy Tele München Group outright. The deal included the group's world sales division, Tele München International, along with its Concorde Filmverleih and Concorde Home Entertainment units. It also covered an 85 percent stake in Odeon Film, the production subsidiary Clasart Film- und Fernsehproduktions, plus stakes in RTL II and Tele 5. KKR bought all of it from longtime owner Herbert Kloiber, with the sale expected to close in April 2019. At closing, Fred Kogel was named the new chief executive, while Kloiber's son, Herbert L. Kloiber, stayed on to run Tele München's production subsidiaries.

  Four days later, KKR agreed to also buy Universum Film and two streaming channels from RTL Group's German division, Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland. That division is now known as RTL Deutschland. KKR planned to merge Universum Film with Tele München into one company, keeping Bernhard zu Castell on as its chief executive.

  By late March 2019, KKR had also bought the Cologne-based producer i&u TV. Its founder, well-known TV host Günther Jauch, remained in charge afterward. In April 2019, KKR acquired the Munich producer Wiedemann & Berg Film, whose TV arm, W&B Television, became a joint venture with Endemol Shine Germany. Founders Max Wiedemann and Quirin Berg stayed on as managing directors, and one of them also took charge of the wider group's feature film production.

  In September 2019, KKR renamed the combined company Leonine, organizing it into three divisions: Distribution, Production and Licensing. As of the 1st of January 2020, Concorde Filmverleih, Concorde Home Entertainment, Tele München International and Universum Film merged into one unit called Leonine Distribution. That new division also carried the group's stakes in RTL II and Tele 5. The Production arm grouped i&u TV, Wiedemann & Berg Film Production and Odeon Film together as Leonine Production, though each kept its own name.

  Two months after the rename, Leonine bought back the remaining share of Wiedemann & Berg's former television division from the Dutch group Endemol Shine Group. That reunited Wiedemann & Berg Film with its old television arm, Wiedemann & Berg Television, inside Leonine Production.

  Under this new distribution arm, the film Yakari, A Spectacular Journey reached audiences in August 2020, carrying the Leonine Distribution name for the first time.

• 5. Trimming Broadcast Growing Production Labels

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  In 2020, Leonine sold its free-to-air channel Tele 5 to the American broadcaster Discovery Inc, now known as Warner Bros Discovery. The sale closed through Discovery's German arm, Discovery Deutschland, by September of that year. As part of the deal, Discovery signed a long-term licensing agreement with Leonine for scripted programming.

  In December 2020, Leonine Studios acquired the Munich entertainment producer SEO Entertainment. Its managing director, Gillad Osterer, stayed on and began reporting to CEO Fred Kogel.

  In July 2021, Leonine and the French company Mediawan rebranded their joint production venture as Mediawan & Leonine Studios. The same announcement covered a majority stake in the British producer Drama Republic, Leonine's first move into English-language television. Founders Greg Brenman and Roanna Benn continued leading Drama Republic after the deal.

  In March 2022, Leonine Studios rebranded its unscripted television label Odeon Entertainment as Madame Zheng Production. Tina Wagner, formerly of RedSeven Entertainment, and Nina Etspüler, formerly of Red Arrow Studios, took charge of the renamed company. Both had already been serving as co-heads of entertainment at Leonine.

  In May 2022, Leonine Studios acquired the Berlin-based producer Hyperbole Median. It continued operating independently inside the group's production division.

  That string of deals stopped short of one genre Leonine had not yet touched: animation.

• 6. Building an Animation Arm

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  In July 2019, Hans Ulrich Stoef, a former co-founder of Made 4 Entertainment and onetime chief executive of Studio 100 Media, founded Toon2Tango. Two months later, in September 2019, the Munich studio appointed fellow Made 4 Entertainment and Studio 100 veteran Jo Daris as its chief creative officer.

  In October 2022, Leonine Holding bought a 25 percent minority stake in Toon2Tango, its first move into animation production. On the 18th of December 2023, Leonine took full ownership of Toon2Tango and launched an in-house division, Leonine Animation Studios GmbH, to house it. Stoef and Daris continued running Toon2Tango under the new animation division.

  In March 2025, Toon2Tango joined forces with Mediawan Kids & Family, the division that owns the French studio Method Animation. Toon2Tango's shows moved to Mediawan Kids & Family Distribution, making the German studio a subsidiary of Mediawan's kids and family arm.

  Toon2Tango's slate includes Monster Loving Maniacs, running since 2023 on Super RTL and broadcasters abroad including Nickelodeon Italy. Its series Grisù has also aired since 2023, on the German channel Kika and Italy's Rai Yoyo. The 2024 series Agent 203 airs on Super RTL and Rai Gulp, co-produced with Mondo TV, V House Animation and Cosmos Maya.

  Two more Toon2Tango projects, Littlest Robot and Eldrador, remained in development with production partner Method Animation.

• 7. Mediawan Takes Control

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  Starting in October 2023, Leonine began distributing home media releases from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

  In March 2024, Leonine Studios launched a new documentaries division, Leonine Documentaries. Former Constantin Film executive Jochen Koestler was named its president.

  In April 2024, the French media company Mediawan agreed to acquire the rest of Leonine Holding. Mediawan had already held a 25 percent stake in Leonine since 2020 and was itself backed by KKR. The deal, an all-stock transaction for an undisclosed sum, still needed approval from German authorities and would extend Mediawan's reach into German production and distribution. Leonine kept its own name, and founder Fred Kogel joined Mediawan's executive team while continuing to lead Leonine's operations.

  Outside film and television, Leonine also held Load Studios, a digital media venture, and Storied Media Group, which develops media projects for other producers.