By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
Wildbrain Ltd. says it has agreed to sell its stake in the popular global brand Peanuts to Sony Music and Sony Pictures.
Wildbrain currently owns 41% of Peanuts Holdings LLC, which is the holding company for the Peanuts intellectual property, originally created by the cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. The Canadian brand company has now signed a definitive agreement to sell Peanuts to Sony for $630 million Cdn., or just over $457 million USD.
The family of Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts, retain their 20% stake in the brand.
The attraction is obvious for Sony, as Peanuts remains a popular evergreen brand with a powerful licensing component.
For Wildbrain, the deal will eliminate all of the company’s debt, with approximately $40 million left over to expand its operations and promote its other brands.
“These funds, plus annual interest savings and incremental balance sheet capacity, will fuel growth in wholly owned franchises, including Strawberry Shortcake and Teletubbies; expanding the Company’s premium digital content network and ad footprint (YouTube, FAST, AVOD); and investing across emerging technologies to drive innovation and efficiencies,” the company said.
Josh Scherba, President and CEO of WildBrain, says the sale follows years of solid growth for the Peanuts brand.
“Over the past several years, we’ve successfully executed a strategy to drive growth for our own and partner entertainment properties, harnessing our capabilities across franchise management and consumer products licensing, content distribution on our premium digital network, and production at our studio,” Scherba said. “The strength of this platform has been proven by the growth in revenue we’ve driven for Peanuts, achieving a record high for the brand in fiscal 2025.”
For that reason, it’s notable that the agreement with Sony will not mean that WildBrain is stepping away from its long partnership with the Peanuts brand. Under the agreement, WildBrain will remain as a multi-year partner to Peanuts for key services, including:
- Exclusive licensing agent through WildBrain CPLG for consumer products in all current territories across Europe, the Middle East, China, and Asia Pacific (excluding Japan & ANZ);
- Exclusive production studio for new Peanuts content-including the previously announced feature film-under an expansive partnership with Apple TV, recently renewed through 2030; and
- Distributor of WildBrain-produced Peanuts content and continued management of the Snoopy YouTube channel.
Shunsuke Muramatsu, President and Group CEO, Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), says the agreement will allow Sony to take the Peanuts brand to the next level.
“With this additional ownership stake, we are thrilled to be able to further elevate the value of the ‘Peanuts’ brand by drawing on the Sony Group’s extensive global network and collective expertise,” Muramatsu said. “Together with SPE, and backed by WildBrain’s continued partnership, we will continue to embrace new opportunities to ensure that ‘Peanuts’ remains a relevant and beloved presence across generations, reaching new audiences and sharing the timeless charm of the ‘Peanuts’ gang for years ahead.”
Sony Pictures president and CEO Ravi Ahuja echoed that sentiment, saying Sony’s plans is to maintain and grow the Peanuts brand as a top children’s entertainment property for many decades to come. “Peanuts is enduring and iconic,” Ahuja said.” We value the deep collaboration we have with our SMEJ colleagues and look forward to building on their meaningful partnership with WildBrain and the Schulz family.
Peanuts Marks 75th Anniversary With Global Wave of Partnerships and Experiences
“With our combined strengths, we have the unique capability and extraordinary opportunity to protect and shape the future of these beloved characters for generations to come.”
Created by Schulz and first introduced as a comic strip in October 2, 1950, the Peanuts gang has been an indelible presence in pop culture via its TV series on specials (currently available as part of a deal with Apple TV), consumer products, amusement park attractions, cultural events, social events, social media, and comics from traditional to digital formats.
Scherba says the sale provides a means to continue growing the Peanuts brand, while also providing a significant war chest for WildBrain to continue growing the other brands it still owns.
“Selling our stake in Peanuts crystallizes the brand’s value, eliminating our debt and providing capital flexibility to reinvest in high-growth, high-margin opportunities, especially for IP that we own outright, such as Strawberry Shortcake, Teletubbies and others in our deep portfolio, such as Degrassi, Inspector Gadget and more,” Scherba explains.
As well, Sony and WildBrain are long-term partners on Peanuts productions, and that’s expected to continue.
Back in 2017, WildBrain originally acquired an 80% stake in Peanuts and 100% in the Strawberry Shortcake brand for a combined price tag of $448 million. The remaining 20% of Peanuts remained in the hands of the Schulz family.
The next year, in 2018, WildBrain sold 39% of Peanuts to Sony for $236 million, a move that also cemented their long-standing partnership.
With this latest sale to Sony, Scherba says WildBrain has owned more than $1 billion from its investment in Peanuts, including through the sale of the asset and revenue distributions to WildBrain over the years. Scherba also says that story isn’t over, as he expects Sony will continue to grow the brand.
“Sony has been an excellent partner on the Peanuts brand for many years, and we’re confident that Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang are in good hands,” Scherba said. “Since we originally acquired the brand in 2017, we have materially grown its audience through an expansive partnership with Apple TV for new content, including a new feature film currently in production, and also through growing a robust licensing program across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific.
“We’d like to thank Tim Erickson and the Peanuts Worldwide team, as well as the Schulz family, for their incredible collaboration on these endeavors. We look forward to working with them and the Sony team as valued partners to continue driving global growth for Peanuts in the years to come.”
In the meantime, WildBrain says it intends to continue duplicating the success of Peanuts with its other brands. The company is already seeing rapid growth for its Strawberry Shortcake and Teletubbies brands, and says the funds it gains from the Peanuts sale will be used to accelerate that growth.
The company says that sale provides WildBrain with the capacity to invest between $50 million to $100 million in growth opportunities.
“At WildBrain, we are building the family entertainment company of the future, propelled by beloved franchises scaled across our unique, integrated platform,” Scherba said. “In the past year alone, we’ve delivered nearly 200% growth for Strawberry Shortcake and more than 60% for Teletubbies.
“Our flywheel strategy drives fandom and brand affinity, turning that into high-margin, repeatable profit,” Scherba added. “We have built a successful, brand-agnostic platform, and I’m confident we can replicate the success of Peanuts to unlock the value of our deep portfolio of IP. Going forward, as we lean into key opportunities to accelerate growth, we will continue to look for strategic ways to simplify and focus our global business.”
The Company will hold an investor webcast with presentation on December 19, 2025 at 10:00 am ET to discuss the transaction and strategic road forward for WildBrain. Listeners can join the webcast at the following link: https://www.gowebcasting.com/14568
The webcast will also be archived at the above link, and the slide presentation and transcript will be archived on WildBrain’s website at wildbrain.com.