NBCU’s Fandango Acquires Brazilian Ticketing Site Ingresso

Daily Variety
By Todd Spangler
September 25, 2015

 

Fandango has made its first international acquisition: NBCUniversal’s movie info and ticketing division is buying Brazilian entertainment-ticketing service Ingresso.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Fandango is acquiring Ingresso from parent ecommerce company B2W Companhia Digital, based in Rio de Janeiro.

Ingresso, which has more than 6 million registered users, claims to be Brazil’s largest online and mobile movie-ticketing service. It also sells tickets to concerts, soccer matches and cultural events including the Rock in Rio festival. Fandango points to Brazil’s large moviegoing population, which accounted for some 40% of Latin American box-office receipts in 2014, according to Rentrak.

“We see this as an opportune moment to expand outside of the United States,” Fandango president Paul Yanover said in announcing the pact. “Latin America presents the next logical growth area for Fandango, and we look forward to extending our leading online and mobile ticketing capabilities to Brazil’s entertainment fans.”

Upon the close of the deal, Fandango plans to bring its U.S.-based resources to bear on Ingresso.com, including leveraging its Movieclips channel on YouTube (acquired last year from Zefr) to as well as its marketing and product-development expertise.

Fandango expects the Ingresso acquisition to close in the fourth quarter of 2015, pending regulatory review and other usual closing conditions. Raine Group and G5 Evercore advised Fandango on the transaction.

In the U.S., Fandango reaches 42 million unique visitors per month, according to comScore. It has deals with theaters to sell tickets for 27,000 screens nationwide.