Ethical Capital Partners

Last updated
Ethical Capital Partners
Company type Private
Industry Equity firm
Founded2022
FounderSarah Bain
Headquarters Montreal, Quebec,
Canada
Key people
Rocco Meliambro (Chairman)
Fady Mansour (Managing Partner)
Mike Cosic (Chief Financial Officer)
Solomon Friedman (Partner, VP Compliance)
Derek Ogden (Partner, VP Law Enforcement Relations)
Subsidiaries Aylo
Website www.ethicalcapitalpartners.com

Ethical Capital Partners is a Canadian private equity firm best known for its acquisition of Aylo, the owner of Pornhub. [1]

The company is chaired by businessman Rocco Meliambro. [2]

History

The company was founded in 2022 in Montreal. In March 2023, ECP acquired Aylo for an undisclosed sum. [3] The transaction occurred following a series of lawsuits against Aylo (formerly MindGeek) for hosting unlicensed or non-consensual content on its website. [4]

Related Research Articles

Grass Valley is a manufacturer of television production and broadcasting equipment. Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, it was formed by the March 2014 merger of the original Grass Valley with Miranda Technologies, which were both acquired by American networking company Belden in 2014 and 2012, respectively. In February 2018, owners Belden merged Grass Valley with newly-acquired Snell Advanced Media. On July 2, 2020, Grass Valley announced the completion of its acquisition by private equity firm Black Dragon Capital from Belden Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blackstone Inc.</span> American alternative investment company

Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate. Blackstone is also active in credit, infrastructure, hedge funds, insurance, secondaries, and growth equity. As of June 2023, the company's total assets under management were approximately US$1 trillion, making it the largest alternative investment firm globally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TPG Inc.</span> American investment company

TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American private equity firm based in Fort Worth, Texas. The firm is focused on leveraged buyouts and growth capital. TPG manages investment funds in growth capital, venture capital, public equity, and debt investments. The firm invests in a range of industries including consumer/retail, media and telecommunications, industrials, technology, travel, leisure, and health care.

Bain Capital is an American private investment firm based in Boston. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, crypto, tech opportunities, partnership opportunities, special situations, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry sectors and geographic regions. As of 2022, the firm managed approximately $165 billion of investor capital. The firm was founded in 1984 by partners from the consulting firm Bain & Company. The company is headquartered at 200 Clarendon Street in Boston with 22 offices in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apax Partners</span> British private equity firm

Apax Partners LLP is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London, England. The company also operates out of six other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Munich and Shanghai. As of December 2023, the firm had raised and advised funds of approximately $65 billion (USD). Apax Partners is one of the oldest and largest private equity firms operating on an international basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CVC Capital Partners</span> British private equity and investment advisory firm

CVC Capital Partners is a Luxembourg-based private equity and investment advisory firm with approximately US$155 billion of assets under management and approximately €157 billion in secured commitments since inception across American, European and Asian private equity, secondaries and credit funds. As of 31 December 2021, the funds managed or advised by CVC are invested in more than 100 companies worldwide, employing over 450,000 people in numerous countries. CVC was founded in 1981 and, as of 31 March 2022, has over 650 employees working across its network of 25 offices throughout EMEA, Asia and the Americas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sun Capital Partners</span> American private equity firm

Sun Capital Partners, Inc., is an American private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts. Sun Capital was founded in 1995 by Marc J. Leder and Rodger Krouse, former classmates at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and investment bankers at Lehman Brothers.

Platinum Equity, LLC is an American private equity investment firm founded by Tom Gores in 1995, headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. The firm focuses on leveraged buyout investments of established companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Andell Holdings is a private investment firm and one of the nation's leading family offices. Andell invests directly in private and public companies and real estate, acquiring control and minority stakes, as well as with top-tier investment managers. Andell's real estate platform includes a variety of investments across all asset classes and throughout the capital structure. Andell has been helmed by co-founder Andrew Hauptman since its inception in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BC Partners</span> Private equity firm

BC Partners is a British international investment firm with over $40 billion of assets under management across private equity, credit and real estate in Europe and North America. Its global headquarters are in London. The firm invests across all industries. BC Partners was founded in 1986 and has offices in New York, Paris and Hamburg. Since inception, BC Partners has completed 113 private equity investments in companies with a total enterprise value of €145 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Private equity in the 2000s</span> Aspect of history

Private equity in the 2000s represents one of the major growth periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital expanded along parallel and interrelated tracks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silverfleet Capital</span>

Silverfleet Capital is a regionally focused European mid-market private equity firm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francisco Partners</span> American private equity firm

Francisco Partners, legally Francisco Partners Management, L.P., is an American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. It was founded in August 1999 and based in San Francisco with offices in London and New York City.

One Equity Partners is a private equity firm with over $10 billion in assets under management which primarily deals with the industrial, healthcare and technology sectors in North America and Europe. One Equity Partners was the merchant banking arm of JPMorgan Chase, focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in middle-market companies. Formed by Bank One in 2001, the group has offices in New York City, Chicago, Sao Paulo, Vienna, Hong Kong and Frankfurt.

Castle Harlan is a private equity firm based in New York City. The company focuses on buyouts and growth capital investments in middle-market companies across a range of industries. Founded in 1987, Castle Harlan invests in controlling interests in middle-market companies in North America and Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia through Castle Harlan Australian Mezzanine Partners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aylo</span> Internet pornography company

Aylo is an adult entertainment conglomerate owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners. It is primarily involved in internet pornography, operating a number of video sharing websites, and pornographic film studios such as Brazzers, Digital Playground, Men.com, Reality Kings, Sean Cody, and WhyNotBi.com, among others. Aylo's headquarters are located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, but the company's corporate structure is divided among entities domiciled in a number of other countries.

Sycamore Partners is an American private equity firm based in New York specializing in retail and consumer investments. The firm has approximately $10 billion in aggregate committed capital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Searchlight Capital</span> British private equity firm

Searchlight Capital Partners is a private equity firm based in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

Feras Antoon is a Syrian-Canadian pornographer, and the co-owner and CEO of Aylo, the world's largest pornography company, which runs sites including YouPorn and Pornhub. He created his first porn website in the early 2000s before co-founding Brazzers, which specialized in the MILF segment of porn distribution. He and David Tassillo later bought Manwin from Fabian Thylmann.

GirlsDoPorn was an American pornographic website active from 2009 until 2020. In October and November 2019, six people involved were charged on counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion. In December 2019, two more individuals were charged with obstruction of sex trafficking enforcement. The website was removed in January 2020 after 22 victims won the civil case against the company. According to the United States Department of Justice, the website and its sister website GirlsDoToys generated over $17 million in revenue. Videos were featured on GirlsDoPorn.com as well as pornography aggregate websites such as Pornhub, where the channel reached the top 20 most viewed, with approximately 680 million views.

References

  1. Mann, Jyoti. "The fund that just bought Pornhub owner MindGeek won't say who's running the company due to 'unfortunate stigma,' report says". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-04-20.
  2. Milmo, Dan (2023-03-17). "Pornhub owner MindGeek sold to private equity firm". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2023-04-20.
  3. Goldsmith, Jill (2023-03-16). "Pornhub Acquired By Canadian Private Equity Firm Ethical Capital Partners As Netflix Doc Debuts". Deadline. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  4. Nilsson, Patricia (2023-03-16). "Pornhub owner sold to Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital". Financial Times. Retrieved 2023-10-26.