Amid Lawsuit, Gersh Has a Deal to Buy A3 Artists’ Departments

Erik Hayden
·3 min read

Less than a month after a lawsuit was filed against the chairman of A3 Artists Agency seeking to block its sale, rival Gersh says it has closed a deal for the digital and alternative departments of the talent firm.

Some forty five staffers — twenty five of which are agents — will move over to the Beverly Hills-based Gersh as part of the agreement, bringing the total number of employees at the agency to around 350, with about 125 agents.

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“The combined resources and expertise within the agency will unlock unparalleled opportunities for our clients,” said Bob Gersh, David Gersh and Leslie Siebert, co-presidents of Gersh, adding, “A3’s leadership team cultivated two outstanding departments. Their demonstrated success quickly positioned them as compelling additions to the agency.”

As part of the deal, A3’s Jade Sherman joins Gersh as senior partner and head of digital, while Alec Shankman arrives as senior partner and head of alternative. Senior agents heading to Gersh include Keith Bielory, Mark Turner, Melissa DeMarco, Sam Schmidt, Marienor Madrilejo, Jared Thompson and Matt Sorger.

The buy marks the first big swing since investment firm Crestview Partners secured a major stake, 45 percent, in Gersh last July. The cash infusion marked the first time Gersh took on an equity partner since its founding in 1949.

The agency has explored deal options around town, looking to expand through acquisitions including in live entertainment, sports and music representation in a bid to scale up to challenge the Big 3 talent firms in Hollywood (CAA, WME and UTA). What it ended up finding in assets of A3 — known until 2020 as Abrams Artists Agency — has become contentious.

In early December, A3 agency partners Robert Attermann and Brian Cho sued A3 chairman Adam Bold and aimed to block the sale to Gersh in a complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. The agency, founded in 1977, had been sold by namesake founder Harry Abrams in 2018 to Cho, Atterman and Bold. The decision-making on strategy between those partners broke down since that time.

The A3 partners claimed in the Dec. 4 filing that when COVID-19 hit stateside in 2020, dealing a blow to film and TV production and with it the talent representation industry, “Bold should have cut costs. He did nothing of the sort. Instead, Bold hired a team of new agents for well above market rate, driving A3 further into the red.”

Atterman and Cho alleged then that “Bold has secretly negotiated to sell A3’s most profitable divisions and its best agents to a competitor,” Gersh, “providing key Gersh personnel with A3’s proprietary and trade secret information, including A3’s contracts, agents’ salaries, and current and upcoming client projects.” The duo, longtime veterans of Abrams Agency, alleged: “It has become exceedingly clear that Bold intends to siphon the proceeds of the A3 sale to himself and drive what remains of a once-great company into bankruptcy.”

While there was no mention of the suit made in the deal unveiling, A3’s Bold stated on Tuesday, “We built remarkable digital and unscripted departments and I can’t wait to see what my team does in combination with Gersh.” An agency spokesperson did not comment on the status of the lawsuit.

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