Sun Innovation, the Hong Kong-listed shell company that earlier this year acquired visual effects firm Digital Domain, is to be renamed Digital Domain Holdings Limited.
This weekend’s release of “Ender’s Game” on 3,407 screens through Lionsgate represents a major showcase for Digital Domain’s effects work. Digital Domain also part-financed the $110 million picture.
A proposal to change the Sun Innovation name will be put to shareholders at a special general meeting in Hong Kong on Nov. 28. The same meeting will also change the company’s Chinese name to 數字王國集團有限公司.
“With the completion of acquisition of 70% indirect ownership of Digital Domain 3.0 Inc… the group has expanded its principal business into the media entertainment sector. In order to align the company’s corporate image and identity with the group’s new business focus in the media entertainment sector the board proposes the name change. The board believes that the name change will benefit the company’s future business development and is in the best interests of the company and the shareholders,” Sun said in a circular.
The company will also change its logo website and stock market short codes.
Debt-laden Digital Domain Media Group filed for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September last year, before selling the assets of Digital Domain Productions and Mothership Media to China’s Beijing Galloping Horse group and India’s Reliance MediaWorks.
In July this year, Galloping Horse agreed to sell its 70% share stake to Sun Innovation, a Bermuda-registered scrap trading and car parks company whose main asset was its listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. At that point Digital Domain co-founder El Ulbrich stepped down as CEO. He was replaced by Sun Innovation candidate Daniel Seah, a senior mergers and acquisitions manager with Simsen International Finance Group, and who executed the complicated sale of Galloping Horse’s share stake.
The latest circular named Zhou Jian and Fan Lei as executive directors and Lau Cheong of Sun Innovation, with Duan Xiongfei and Adam Wong Ka Kong as independent non-executive directors.
“Ender’s Game,” on which Ulrbich is credited as producer and Galloping Horse’s Ivy Zhong is named as executive producer, is currently tracking for a $27 million opening frame in North America.