Daniel Timmons, 35
Senior vice president of the entertainment industries group Bank of America Merrill Lynch, downtown Los Angeles
Residence: Pasadena
Education: B.S., business finance, and B.A., German,
California State University, Chico
Years in Industry: 10
Production Companies Financed: Skydance Productions, Participant Media, DreamWorks Studios, Village Roadshow Pictures
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has been a longtime lender to the film industry. But the growth of the company’s practice in recent years can be attributed in part to Daniel Timmons.
After working for Bank of America for four years in New York, Timmons was asked to move to Los Angeles in 2005 to help ramp up the company’s entertainment financing division.
Timmons, 35, is responsible for managing and growing Bank of America’s client portfolio, which includes DreamWorks Studios and Australia’s Village Roadshow Pictures.
“There’s been an opportunity to really build the group from what it was to where it is today,” Timmons said. “The bank is very dedicated and focused on this sector of the industry.”
Bank of America has a long history of working with the entertainment industry. The first film it financed was Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in 1937 after Disney ran out of money for the project.
Today, the bank has one of the industry’s largest books of business, with more than $1 billion in commitments to some 30 sales agents, independent producers and foreign distributors. The bank invests as little as $15 million to well in excess of $150 million in individual companies who work in all genres.
As many large foreign banks have shut down their entertainment financing divisions, Bank of America has grown its client base.
“We view this as an opportunity,” Timmons said. “We’re very actively deploying new capital.”
He prefers to work with well-capitalized, independent producers who release only a handful of pictures a year and doesn’t place much emphasis on the genre they may specialize in.
The bank also backs foreign distributors. For example, he recently provided one of the largest independent Canadian film distributors with a three-year revolving line of credit to obtain various film rights for Canada, the United Kingdom and Spain.
Timmons didn’t plan on having a career in the entertainment industry. In college, he studied finance and German. And before joining Bank of America, he was a high tech consultant for Accenture. That experience is reflected in his attitude toward the red carpet, which he has walked down for several premieres
“I’m not one of those who get star struck,” he said. “For me, it’s more about the business, the folks who are running the production company.”
And if there’s one minor downside to working in the industry, Timmons said, it’s how his colleagues scrutinize his personal choice in movies. He names the cult classic “The Big Lebowski” as his favorite.
“It’s a running joke in the office,” he said. “It’s just not a typical movie that people throw out in corporate America.”
