Witherspoon buys back Hello Sunshine after $900m 2021 valuation

Reese Witherspoon and France’s Mediawan agreed to buy Hello Sunshine from Candle Media, Inc reported Oct. 14, five years after Candle’s 2021 deal valued the company at about $900 million.

The terms were not disclosed, but Inc cited TheWrap reporting a low-to-mid eight-figure price; Inc said that comparison is imperfect because the 2021 figure valued the whole company and current ownership terms are unclear.

Witherspoon founded Hello Sunshine in 2016 as a media company focused on women’s stories. Candle Media, which is private equity-backed, bought a majority stake in the business in 2021.

Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine co-founder Seth Rodsky will join the company’s board, alongside representatives from Mediawan, according to the Inc article. Mediawan is a French production studio.

Hello Sunshine has produced titles including Where the Crawdads Sing, Big Little Lies, The Morning Show and Daisy Jones & The Six. It also operates Reese’s Book Club, which Inc said has millions of online followers and has helped novels move into film and television projects.

The reported price gap points to a reset from the streaming-era appetite for production assets. The precise economics of the new deal cannot be assessed from the reported figures because neither the ownership split nor the purchase price was disclosed.