Montreal: Completion bond guarantor Globex Media Finance is officially open for business. The company incorporated last June, but only recently completed lengthy and necessary negotiations with reinsurer Lloyd’s of London. ‘I had to go at least nine times to London to finalize the deal,’ says Diane Dube, Globex Media’s cofounder, EVP and COO.

A new player in the completion bond sector effectively doubles the current offer, and should engender more competition to the benefit of producers in general.

Earlier this year, while not officially calling it a merger for legal reasons, Playback reported Film Finances Canada, also reinsured by Lloyd’s of London, and The Completion Guarantors joined forces, leaving the Canadian production industry with only one production completion bond source. TCG lost its reinsurer backer early in 2002 while Motion Picture Bond closed officially in the fall of 2002, although it had not signed any new business since early last year. The industry, which was seeing its fee rates significantly reduced, was hit with big-time payouts in 2001.

Globex Media will provide completion guarantees for films, TV series, documentaries, large-format movies, MOWs and animation productions. ‘Lloyd’s won’t touch multimedia,’ adds Dube.

At press time, Globex Media had not signed a formal bond agreement, but Dube says a couple of deals are actively in the works.

‘I’ll concentrate initially in Quebec, but I have a lot of contacts and will be looking at productions across the country. And I will be accompanying my clients in coproductions,’ she says.

Dube says the competition, namely FFC, might well welcome a new player in the bond sector. ‘It means they won’t have all the heat on their back and there will be two of us. Am I dreaming? Maybe. But if I were them I’d be happy to have a competitor. You don’t want to be alone in this game, it’s too tough.’

Globex Media and Dube are associated with Global-Expert Management Risk, a midsize brokerage firm in Montreal with 67 employees which acquired long-established industry insurance company Taillefer Desjardins about two years ago. Global-Expert president and CEO Jacques Brouillette is a shareholder in Globex Media.

Dube was VP and director of operations at the Montreal office of TCG from 1999 to the end of ’01. Earlier, she was VP and head of the entertainment group at the Banque National de Paris, after a term as a senior account executive at RBC Royal Bank.