Buy low, sell high: Investor and media entrepreneur Byron Allen has sold all of the shares in Starz that he had acquired earlier this year from Steve Mnuchin, the former Hollywood producer who served as Treasury Secretary during President Trump’s first term.
He sold all 1.8 million shares of Starz he had owned over the course of August and September 2026, according to an SEC filing Thursday. Allen’s sale of the stocks added up to a total of $44.9 million, almost $20 million more than he paid for them.
In March, Allen Family Capital, Allen’s investment arm, acquired a 10.7% stake in Starz for $25 million in a private transaction with Mnuchin’s Liberty 77 Capital.
Separately, Starz reported third-quarter 2026 earnings results Thursday. The company, which separated from Lionsgate last year, narrowed its net loss in the period to $34.8 million (compared with a net loss of $52.6 million a year earlier). Overall revenue was flat at $322.4 million while streaming revenue of $226.6 million was up 1.7% year over year.
Allen is chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group, which owns 13 broadcast television stations and 10 networks, including the Weather Channel.
Allen also acquired a controlling 51% stake in BuzzFeed earlier this year. Under that deal, he paid $20 million in cash at closing and issued a $100 million promissory note due within five years (accruing interest at 5% annually). In July, BuzzFeed laid off 35% of its employees, cutting about 180 jobs across the company, including in its HuffPost and Tasty divisions.
Separately, Allen — a one-time standup comedian — has leased a two-hour nightly comedy block on CBS, taking over the time slot previously occupied by “Late Night With Stephen Colbert” with episodes of “Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen,” followed by comedy show “Funny You Should Ask.”
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