LOS ANGELES, Aug. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- City National Bank, America’s Premier Private and Business Bank®, today announced it has acquired Exactuals, a Los Angeles-based provider of innovative SaaS solutions for complex payments in the entertainment industry.
Exactuals’ innovative payment system, PaymentHub, allows studios, unions, guilds, payroll companies, music publishers, record labels, distributors and marketplaces to provide direct deposit payments, tax document management and online reporting to rights holders, performers, managers, service providers and independent contractors across the globe. In many cases, this automated system has replaced an outdated payment process, reducing or eliminating the need for costly paper checks and reporting. Exactuals’ system provides payments and reporting functions with greater security, accuracy, transparency and speed. Firms can process global payments through operating accounts at City National.
In addition to PaymentHub, Exactuals recently launched RAI, a sophisticated artificial intelligence tool used by record labels and publishers to optimize ownership metadata for the calculation and payment of royalties.
Mike Hurst will remain CEO of Exactuals. He and the firm’s other executives are being retained with multi-year contracts. The payments firm will continue to modernize the residuals and royalty payment process for the entertainment industry, and over time, it plans to expand to serve other businesses as a wholly owned subsidiary of City National Bank.
“Exactuals has developed a groundbreaking and unique payments and reporting platform that enhances security and reliability,” said City National Bank Chairman and CEO Russell Goldsmith. “City National has been a minority investor in Exactuals for several years, and the two companies have formed a strong partnership. Mike and his team are highly skilled, and we’re very pleased that they will be joining City National. This acquisition builds on City National’s history of serving the entertainment industry, and it is the latest example of our commitment to provide clients with premier service and state-of-the-art payments systems. We look forward to helping Exactuals as the firm continues to grow.”
City National anticipates additional revenue from Exactuals’ payment processing and also expects to increase deposits and enhance the services it can offer to the bank’s entertainment clients. The added financial strength of City National and its parent company Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) will enhance Exactuals ability to serve larger clients, while providing peace of mind to firms of all sizes.
“We are excited to bring our leading technology together with the most trusted bank in entertainment,” Hurst said. “This acquisition builds upon a five-year investment relationship between our two companies. Since 2013, Exactuals and City National have worked together to build revolutionary tools and services for our shared customer base in the entertainment space, and this acquisition will accelerate our mission to transform and modernize the industry for the better. With the combined strength of City National and RBC, we expect significant new growth as companies of all sizes move to process royalties and residuals through Exactuals with confidence.”
Exactuals was founded at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2011 with the goal of modernizing the entertainment payments space. The firm is headquartered in Los Angeles, has a growing office in Nashville, and employs about 40 colleagues. Exactuals is led by a team of software and entertainment industry veterans who have experienced the limitations of traditional payment solutions first-hand. Through its flagship product, PaymentHub, Exactuals processes a high volume of payments to rights holders, providing customers with a faster, more transparent, cost-efficient electronic process and the ability to utilize payment data as actionable intelligence.
In February 2017, City National participated in a $10 million round of funding for Exactuals. Exactuals then announced a long-term landmark contract with the entertainment industry’s largest union, SAG-AFTRA, and is working with them to offer direct deposit of residual payments to its 160,000 members.
Terms of City National’s acquisition were not disclosed.
About Exactuals
Exactuals provides innovative SaaS solutions used by film/TV, music and marketplace companies to manage residuals, royalties and other complex payments. Founded in 2011, the wholly owned subsidiary of City National Bank is led by a team of software and entertainment industry veterans with headquarters in Los Angeles and a growing office in Nashville. Previous investors include Entertainment Partners, TTV Capital, S-Cubed Capital and Stanford StartX Fund. For more information, please visit www.exactuals.com.
About City National Bank
With $48.8 billion in assets, City National Bank provides banking, investment and trust services through 72 offices, including 19 full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada, New York City, Nashville, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. In addition, the company and its investment affiliates manage or administer $64.9 billion in client investment assets.
City National is a subsidiary of RBC, one of North America’s leading diversified financial services companies. RBC serves more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the United States and 34 other countries.
For more information about City National, visit the company’s website at www.cnb.com.
Media Contact:
Debora Vrana, City National Bank, 213-673-7631
Debora.vrana@cnb.com