The co-CEO of Candle Media Kevin Meyer, spoke about Reese’s upcoming children’s book (and possible kids brand?) Busy Betty. Candle Media owns Hello Sunshine now.

Kevin Mayer, co-CEO of Blackstone Group-backed Candle Media, discussed the company’s 360 IP-investment strategy at the MipTV conference in Cannes on Monday morning.

Mayer was appearing alongside Moonbug Entertainment co-founder René Rechtman on a panel moderated by Variety international editor Manori Ravindran. Candle Media purchased children-focused brand Moonbug last year for $3 billion.

They previously bought Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine for $900 million.

Mayer also explained how Candle Media is focused on acquiring companies that have “synergy,” giving an example of Witherspoon partnering with Rechtman on a children’s series. “Reese Witherspoon has a fantastic idea for a new kids brand and she’s writing a book about it and she was going to make an animated series behind it,” said Mayer. (Last month Witherspoon announced she had written her first children’s book, “Busy Betty,” inspired by her own adventures as a child.)

“Moonbug specializes in kids animation and speaking to that audience and they have a huge built-in audience with which to promote new programming so of course Rene connected with Reese and one thing came to another and now Rene’s hopefully going to be – in the next many months – will be launching that new product with Reese and there’ll be a very substantial collaboration there.”

(Variety)