Vuori

Vuori
Formerly called	Vuori Ventures
Type	Julkinen osakeyhtiö
Industry	Conglomerate
Traded as	NASDAQ: VRIB
Fate	Universal Music Group, Horizon Capital and Crown Cellular spun off into Lotus, rest of the assets merged into Illustrious
Predecessor(s)	Styhon Battersea
Successor(s)	Illustrious (de facto) Lotus (legal)
Founder	Kasperi Salovaara
Defunct	2021
Headquarters	Hyvinkää, Finland
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Kasperi Salovaara (CEO) Oliver Watson (executive)
Products	Beverages Cars Pulp and paper products Mobile services Film distribution
Owner	Kasperi Salovaara (80% voting interest) Oliver Watson (20% voting interest, with 20% of all B-stock shares)
Divisions	Gurgel Motors Vuori Forestry Revolution Media Group
Subsidiaries	Crown Krafton Pearl Abyss Horizon Capital

Vuori Oyj (previously Vuori Ventures and Vuori Oy) was a holding company established by Finnish-Norwegian-Canadian entrepeneur Kasperi Salovaara, headquartered in Hyvinkää, Finland. Its holdings include Vuori Forestry - the largest pulp and paper manufacturer by production quantity, Revolution Media Group - the third-largest film rights owner and distributor by library, and Silvertop Unibrew.

History

Salovaara became interested in investment at an early age, and dabbled into business through the formation of Silvertop Brewery (which soon would evolve into Silvertop Unibrew) and Zoop Music Entertainment, even assisting Robert Stainton at forming TransNordic (which became Vuori Forestry).

After the success in establishing operations of Styhon Battersea, helping at the foundation of Gearbox Films, and becoming one of the richest billionaires, he decided to gain citizenship in Norway and Canada. He also assigned people to take care of his parts in various companies, including his childhood best friend Martin Glass, who became the Head of Gearbox Films's financing department.

The new holding company seperate from Styhon Battersea was soon named after the word "vuori" (Finnish for "mountain"), as Salovaara thought to form it as his very own, similar to OWL Ventures, as in "his own mountain to conquer". The name also is attributed to his Nordic origins.

As OWL Ventures grew larger in size and revenue, Oliver Watson arranged The Vanguard Group, BlackRock and Berkshire Hathaway to merge into a new Vuori division, which soon became Horizon Capital (mainly known as Horizon). After much debate and controversy, OWL Ventures and Vuori went public and BH/Vanguard's shareholders got shares in both companies to make up for the acquisitions.

After foundation, Horizon Capital acquired Lantern Capital and absorbed the company, while selling Lantern Entertainment to The Eclipse Group. Vuori also sold Mr X, Mill and Trace VFX to The Eclipse Group around the same time.

At the end of 2020, Salovaara, Lee Soo-man and Bang Si-hyuk announced to merge Big Hit and SM Entertainment into Vuori SM, a new division of Vuori, with around 10% being owned by the National Pension Service in South Korea. This was met with some controversy, especially from Oliver Watson and The Eclipse Group, who mentioned that Salovaara failed to mention about the formation to them.

On December 31, 2020, Oliver Watson, an executive at the company, bought out 20% in B and A stocks (latter are stocks with voting interest). In January 2021, Oliver's company Illustrious acquired many of Vuori's divisions, including StudioCanal, Vuori Forestry, Vuori SM, Krafton Pearl Abyss, Discovery, Vuori Media and a minority stake in the revived Gurgel.

Merger with Vivendi

During OWL Ventures's IPO, Vuori and Vivendi agreed on a merger, which would see Vuori taking on Universal Music Group, Gameloft and Canal+ Group, as well as other minor assets. The merger is set to finish at the same time as the merger with Styhon Battersea, and Vivendi's operations will stay in France, until the construction of Vuorensuu is finished.

During the merger, Vuori sold Havas Group to the Eclipse Group's advertising and branding division Axiom. Vuori also sold Editis and Dailymotion to OWL Ventures. Gameloft was also sold to OWL Ventures with the exception of studios in Montreal, Bucharest/Cluj, Barcelona and Tokyo, and the Modern Combat, Asphalt and Nights franchises, which went to The Eclipse Group. In return of studios in Indonesia, Vietnam and Ukraine, Krafton Pearl Abyss sold PUBG Corporation and Jam City's Burbank studio, while Vuori/Styhon Battersea sold off all of its golf-related assets, and Virgin Media Sport - both the production unit and TV channel - in Ireland.

StudioCanal, after getting acquired by Vuori, sold 50% ownership stake in the Carolco Pictures and De Laurentiis Entertainment Group film libraries to MGM Entertainment. This also resulted in Vuori getting a 25% stake in MGM Entertainment, while Illustrious received a 10% stake in StudioCanal.

Merger with Styhon Battersea

Shortly before the Vivendi merger announcement, Vuori announced its merger with Styhon Battersea, with Vuori being the surviving company. This was started due to Oliver Watson's dwindling presence in managing Styhon Battersea, which left Kasperi Salovaara disappointed, and led to them discussing the two companies's merger, in order to relieve Watson of some duties.

In October 2020, Styhon Battersea Digital Entertainment sold its podcast/audiobook division Bracket Media to Illustrious, in exchange of 50% in Newsfeed Media, which was sold to Vuori's Discovery division.

Merger with Illustrious

Between December 2020 and January 2021, Oliver Watson and Kasperi Salovaara started negotiations on the merger of Vuori into Illustrious, with exception of three assets: the 90% stake in Universal Music Group, and the divisions Crown Cellular and Horizon Capital. The merger is set to be finished, with a now-reformed plan of merging Styhon Battersea into Illustrious instead, before the end of Q2 2021. The Vuorensuu project would fall under Illustrious as well, with no changes to the name.

Corporate management

Kasperi Salovaara is both the founder and the CEO of Vuori. Oliver Watson of OWL Ventures has an executive position in the company as well. They both operate the company and Styhon Battersea out of OWL Ventures's offices in Toronto, as well as Vuori's headquarters in Hyvinkää.

Research and development

Vuori, in collaboration with Horizon Capital and Amber (division of OWL Ventures), spend a total of 50 billion dollars on research and development. These include package design, aerodynamics, artificial intelligence, big data and furniture design. Some, including furniture design, are to benefit work environments within the Vuori group of companies.

Equal pay

Salovaara commented on Twitter about his rumored payroll: "I usually gain a lot working at [Oliver Watson's] kagillion-dollar company, so to kinda balance that off, I split my proposed payroll as CEO of Vuori with every other employee. They're all as important as I am. The janitor, [Martin Glass], everyone. Everyone's salary is equal there. They have as much responsibility as I do."

Shareholders

Vuori's A stocks are held by Kasperi Salovaara, but following Vuori's own IPO on B stock, they managed to get investment from treasuries, banks, foreign investors, families and government investments (e.g. Temasek Holdings, NEC, Investor AB, the Dolan, Berlusconi and Anschutz families, ELAN Group, UK Government Investments and BNP Paribas) as well as former shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, BlackRock, Crown plc and Styhon Battersea, and former customers of BlackRock and the Vanguard Group. Most also invested in OWL Ventures, which is appropriately related to Watson and Salovaara's partnership.

Offices

Hyvinkää

Vuori is currently located in Hyvinkää, Finland, near the city center in a fully-bought apartment complex. It also houses OWL Ventures's European operations.

Vuorensuu

Codenamed as "Vuorensuu", Vuori began scouting for new locations for its new headquarters. It would host a full-fledged building for the Vuori Academy program, a Starbucks location, a new Silvertop brewery, a library, film studios, a pharmacy, a movie theater, a green wall, a private jet airport to transport foreign employees, a man-made river that would provide hydroelectricity, solar panels, wind turbines, as well as apartment complexes for its employees.

It will house Vuori, as well as new headquarters for Silvertop Unibrew, Crown, ZME and Vuori Forestry. It will also serve as a playground for urban development efforts, such as autonomous cars and alternate traffic lights meant to help colorblind people.

Vuori will be working on the project in collaboration with numerous companies, such as Vuori Forestry for landscaping and "urban forestation", a consortium of Helen, Suomen Hyötytuuli and Väre for wind and solar energy, JCDecaux for advertising-oriented furniture, Silvertop Unibrew for the brewery, Starbucks and Ben & Jerry's with Lidl for their retail locations, OWL Health for pharmacy services, Stadler Rail for in-campus monorail travel system, and Finnkino and IMAX for the movie theater.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vuorensuu project formed a larger team of health workers as well as experts in hygiene and public health.

Areas

Vuorensuu will be split into multiple areas:

• Sports area will be modeled after Olympic villages as well as standards for hosts of big sporting events, in order to house an annual sports competition between Vuori employees, and a bi-annual sports competition with employees of all Vuori and OWL Ventures divisions. Once construction is completed, it will start off with a special Goodwill Games event, before a two-year hiatus dedicated to planning the first Vuorensuu Games.

The Vuorensuu Companies

For this project, many subsidiaries were founded to take care of certain parts of the new location.

• Helen, Hyötytuuli, Väre and Vuori founded Vuorien Energia Oy (Energy of the Mountains) to sell extra energy. It's also researching ways to produce and use 100% renewable energy with Vuori Forestry.

• Vuori gathered an international team for planning and construction, which include NBBJ, Arup, Foster and Partners, Skanska, Populous and YIT. They all cooperate under their joint venture Vuorensuun Rakennus Oy.

• For residential areas, they were to be rented out to another LLC, Vuorensuun Asunnot Oy, run by Vuori, Sokos Hotels and Access Comfort Group, which took care of renting out apartments. They decided to experiment with AirBNB rentals for 15% of the apartments, once construction has been completed.
• The Vuorensuu science center, which will also house some of Vuori's R&D efforts, will be run in cooperation with Helsingin Yliopisto, SRI International and Heureka, under Vuorensuun Tiedekeskus Oy.
• Vuorensuun Ammattiopiskelu Oy runs the Vuori Academy program in Vuorensuu, as well as begins development on both a vocational college and an university of applied sciences, to streamline education within the area, with studies ranging from artifical intelligence, to life sciences and game design.
• Vuori Ice Arena will be a multi-functional ice arena meant for events like ice hockey and skating. It will be in the "sports area".
• Vuorensuun Yhteisverkko Oy is a joint venture between Telia, Crown Cellular, Digia, F-Secure and Elisa, to provide 5G internet and related services to the area, as well as participate in the development of Vuorensuu as a smart city.

Businesses and investments

Revolution Media Group

See also: List of assets owned by Revolution Media Group

Revolution Media Group, founded by Howard and Chance Styhon and bought by Salovaara before the founding of Vuori, is one of the largest international sales and film distribution companies by library and availability. They're also a leading producer of children's entertainment and factual content worldwide. They distribute Brittania Pictures's movies internationally, while Brittania distributes their films in Portugal and the UK.

In January 2020, they acquired distribution offices of Brittania Pictures in Africa (including South Africa and Egypt), Asia (including Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Singapore, Japan, Australia, Russia and Hong Kong) and Latin America (including Brazil). The deal also included Afpak Films - its distribution arm in the Middle East - and majority-owned CX7 Entertainment - which was a spin-off of Brittania Pictures's distribution offices in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Moldovia, Ukraine and ex-Yugoslavia countries.

They also acquired Brittania Pictures's distribution offices in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Ireland; the first two were closed shortly afterwards, with the latter two being merged into its own Fishfilm GmbH and newly-acquired Element Pictures respectively. They closed Brittania Pictures Japan, in favor of establishing a distribution deal with Longride; offices in Australia were merged into Australian Filmgroup, though select films are set to be co-distributed by Roadshow Films.

They also acquired Metropolitan Filmexport and Davis Films from the Hadida brothers, and Brittania Pictures France, and moved the two companies under Cinéa. Brittania France's distribution deals outside of Brittania, and "non-film import operations" of Metropolitan, will move to Cinéa. Brittania Pictures's Belgium and Luxembourg operations were merged into Cinéa Belux, which also moved under Cinéa.

In November, they acquired Madman Entertainment, PalmStar Media, Studio 100, FilmNation Entertainment, Scholastic, WildBrain, mm2 Entertainment, Boat Rocker Media, the Asia Pacific and South American operations of Fremantle and ELAN Group's media and entertainment divisions. Gulf Film became part of Afpak Motion Pictures, while ELAN Media became part of Viridian Group. They also acquired the pre-2016 DreamWorks Pictures libraries from Paramount Pictures and The Walt Disney Studios for €700 million. Revolution Studios will manage the DreamWorks library and owns its copyrights, while Amblin Partners has the "free reign over [the past films]".

Production and distribution deals

• Neon Society Entertainment (2022-present)
  • The Nothing Company (2019-2022)
  • Easykey (2019-2022)
• Vortex Drift (2020-present)
  • Jamie Shertick Productions (2019-2020)
  • Sandford Productions (2019-2020)

Distributed by Revolution Media Group

• Brittania Pictures (2020-present)
• EuropaCorp (2020-present)
• Studio Ghibli (2020-present)
• A24 Films (2021-present)

A24's films are distributed only in non-English-speaking markets and within all of the Oceanian territories, especially Australia and New Zealand.

Brittania Pictures's films will be distributed by Revolution outside Canada, United States, Portugal and the UK; where, within the latter two countries, Brittania distributes Revolution films instead.

International distribution of Revolution's films

• Columbia Pictures (the Philippines, 2020-present)
• NC Entertainment (South Korea, 2020-present)
• Illustrious Film Distributors (Japan, Nordic countries (including Iceland), Italy, 2020-present) - co-distribution deal
• Brittania Pictures (UK, Spain and Portugal, 2021-present)

Crown

Main article: Crown Cellular

Crown Cellular is the telecommunications division of Vuori, formed in August 27, 2020 as a public holding company, to hold telecommunications assets sold by Styhon Battersea to prevent antitrust violations. It manages the O2 brand in Europe and Asia, and holds shares in Orange Africa and O2 Latin America.

Before merger into Vuori, the majority stake in the company is held by Salovaara, who is also the founder of the company.

Joint ventures and stakes

Through its merger with Vivendi, Vuori inherited a 90% stake in Universal Music Group. Vuori also holds a 50% stake in Salovaara Watson, and a 50% stake in GlobalFoundries, the latter which was acquired from AITC around the time Styhon Battersea started merger into Vuori.

See also

• OWL Ventures
• Styhon Battersea