Montreal: SGF Tech, a subsidiary of Societe generale de financement du Quebec, has come on board as an equity partner in CineGroupe with an investment of $14 million. SGF, a Quebec government joint-venture capital fund, joins equity partners Lions Gate Entertainment and Fox Family Worldwide on the CineGroupe board.

CineGroupe will use the new funds to expand its 3D, live-action and F/X production infrastructure and to develop new business opportunities in the tough international animation marketplace, says Marie-Christine Dufour, the company’s communications VP.

CineGroupe will announce six new production starts this fall, including four or five animation series, three of them international coproductions: Daft Planet, The Three Pigs and the mini-episodic Edward.

CineGroupe’s new live-action division, CineGroupe Images, starts shooting 21 new half-hours of Big Wolf on Campus III this month, going through to December. BWOC is licensed to YTV in Canada and Fox Family in the U.S. CineGroupe Images production executives include Robin Spry and Marie-Claude Beauchamp.

Production is wrapping on Sagwa and The Kids from Room 402, and Dufour says the company is in advanced financing stages on the 3D animated feature film Pinocchio 3001 (working title).

CineGroupe employs 400. SGF has 52 international partners operating in Quebec and has consolidated assets of $2.2 billion. *

-www.cinegroupe.com

-www.sgfqc.com