Lionsgate investors have given their backing to the proposed full separation of Lionsgate and Starz into standalone publicly-traded companies.During a special shareholders meeting on Wednesday, shareholders voted overwhelmingly for the planned splitting of the studio business and Starz, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Other proxy resolutions, including voting in a new slate of board of director nominees and another on executive compensation, also received strong approvals by a majority vote.The vote tallies from the shareholders meeting were released by Lionsgate as part of an SEC filing on Thursday. Investors voted on a proposed formal separation of the studios business, to be called Lionsgate Studios Corp., and its media networks business, mainly Starz, which is to be renamed Starz Entertainment Corp.As part of the separation proposal, 72.5 million class A shares were voted in favor of the transaction, while 128,587 voted against. And 125.9 million class B shares voted to support the transaction, while 922,864 shares voted against.The proposal required two-thirds of the votes cast to support the transaction to secure overall approval. Lionsgate shareholders also overwhelmingly approved combining the studio’s two classes of shares into a single class structure to bolster the stock’s liquidity.After the separation, Lionsgate will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol LION, while Starz will trade on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol STRZ. Earlier, Lionsgate spun off its film and TV studios business in a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) to create a separately traded public company, with an eye to a formal separation from Starz down the road.That allowed Lionsgate Studios to launch as a standalone company with a listing on NASDAQ, with its biggest assets being a vast library of movies and television franchises. After the closing of the planned formal separation to create the two separately traded public companies, the goal appears to be creating two companies so investors can value the Starz and studio assets separately amid a contracting media and entertainment landscape and financial markets uncertainty.
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