After a brief stint with Vancouver’s InternetStudios, film-financing expert Robert Beattie is returning to his roots in his new role as the first Canadian rep for American gap finance pioneer The Lewis Horwitz Organization.

With its newfound presence in Canada, LHO, a division of L.A.’s Southern Pacific Bank, will be able to expand its reach to Canadian producers looking beyond the Canadian funding system to make their movies and TV programs. The Canadian film and TV industry will also have a much easier time borrowing money against unsold rights, as the 21-year-old LHO is a leader in gap financing – a model Canadian banks have traditionally shied away from.

Based in Vancouver, Beattie says he’s looking in his first year to finance, or cofinance, 10-12 Canadian-based, commercially viable projects with budgets in the US$4 million to US$6 million range.

‘I’m interested in productions originating in Canada, not necessarily Telefilm films, but definitely Cancon, coproductions and non-content with a Canadian component,’ he says.

‘We’re going after mostly the traditional financing structures from the LHO model. Our sources of repayment are from foreign distributors, as opposed to the Canadian TV model where there’s a large participation from sources in Canada.’

The timing of this move into Canada, says LHO executive VP Art Stribley, is primarily a function of Beattie’s availability.

‘We’ve known Robert for many years and on many occasions tried to recruit him down to L.A., but he never wanted to move. Had he been available to do this any earlier we would have started this years ago.’

Without a presence in Canada, LHO has been involved in financing Canadian projects for at least 10 years, working with such companies as Alliance Atlantis and Cinepix Film Properties/Lions Gate Films, as well as such notables as David Cronenberg. But bringing on Beattie as a Canadian rep will help the company expand its share of the market, says Stribley.

‘And it’s a tremendous benefit to Canadian producers, because LHO has tremendous relationships with the international market and specifically with Germany, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Japan and Latin America,’ says Beattie, who before taking off last year to head up InternetStudios’ entertainment finance division spent four years as senior VP of AAC’s film financing subsidiary, Equicap Financial Corporation.

Prior to that, Beattie, a chartered financial analyst, spent six years with the Royal Bank of Canada as a team leader and comanager of the Toronto Media and Entertainment Finance Group, financing independent producers as well as some of the country’s largest publicly traded film and television companies.

As such, says Beattie, ‘I’m bringing relationships with producers and other financiers to the table.’

But while the Canadian production economy may be ripe, Stribley doubts there’ll be an influx of U.S. lenders moving in. ‘Most of the other lenders aren’t as focused on expanding outside the U.S. marketplace. Most are very small pieces of large banks, whereas we’re 20% of the size of a relatively smaller bank. This gives us more flexibility.’

The Southern Pacific Bank is capped at US$2 billion, with LHO ringing in with approximately US$140 million in totals.

Being considerably smaller than Canadian banks, LHO has little competition in Canada, with the exception of Comerica/Imperial Bank’s Independent Film Financing, run by Laura Polley, FIDEC and Equicap.

‘There’s really not tons of people locally who have backgrounds in facilitating the kinds of deals that we do,’ says Beattie. Which is another reason why, he adds, American entertainment financing outfits would have a difficult time setting up representation here. ‘The lead time is long to establish a presence in any market. And in this case, you need someone who understands the Canadian industry, who has a track record in organizing financing for Canadian producers.’

Regardless, competition for Beattie spells more opportunity for LHO to cofinance deals, specifically with Equicap.

Among the films financed by LHO currently in production in Canada are Baby Geniuses II, starring Jon Voight, and Unleashed, starring Jamie Pressley, Simon Rex and Voight. LHO also provided the financing for the feature Jeepers Creepers, which, at press time, was holding the number-one spot in the U.S. box office.