CAA and the Barbelling of the Talent Business

Bryan Lourd
CAA's Bryan Lourd. Photo: Michael Kovac/Getty Images
Matthew Belloni
June 30, 2022

Tim Cook and Eddy Cue. Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch. Bryan Lourd and Chris Silbermann?? 

It’s happening. At the Allen & Co. mogul retreat next week in Sun Valley, the CAA contingent will be perhaps the most intriguing executive pair strolling that traditional resort-casual perp walk past the gawking media. Lourd, who now runs Hollywood’s largest talent agency (with Richard Lovett and Kevin Huvane), is set to attend with his longtime rival and new colleague Silbermann, whose $750 million deal to sell ICM Partners to CAA finally closed on Tuesday. Let’s hope they can find matching half-zips.  

At this point—after nine months of waiting for the U.S. government to fumble through its review, ask tons of uninformed questions, and finally bless what is, in the grand scheme of corporate America, a pretty unremarkable transaction—it’s not worth rehashing the economic and personality forces that led CAA to inhale its lesser rival and burp out 105 unemployed staffers.