TORONTO – Canada’s largest pension fund plans to spend more than $288 million to become the largest shareholder in Entertainment One, a multinational film and TV content company that is based in Toronto and trades on the London Stock Exchange.

Entertainment One — which includes the former Alliance Films business — specializes in the acquisition, production and distribution of film and television content, with more than 40,000 titles in its portfolio.

Among them are the “The Walking Dead” television series and “The Hunger Games” film franchise.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board says it intends to acquire 52.9 million shares of Entertainment One Ltd. (LSE:ETO), or 17.89 per cent of the company, from British private equity firm Marwyn Value Investors LP, once regulatory approvals are in place.

CPPIB managing director Scott Lawrence said that, in his opinion, eOne is the best-positioned entertainment company that the retirement fund has encountered.

“We spent a lot of time confirming that in our due diligence and got comfortable with the fact that eOne is a diversified business, with exposure to many lines of business,” Lawrence said in a phone interview from India.

“Given that the company is in the content business, and the value of content is increasing in the present environment . . . the returns should be more than sufficient to compensate us for the risk.”

The CPPIB invests funds not needed by the Canada Pension Plan to pay current benefits and had $268.6 billion worth of investments as of June 30.

In London, eOne shares jumped after the transaction was announced and closed up 6.2 per cent from Tuesday’s close.

The deal with CPPIB will mark Marwyn’s exit from eOne. Other major investors in eOne include M&G Investment Management, with 6.22 per cent, and Capital Research Global Investors, with 5.43 per cent.

In January, eOne formed a partnership with The Mark Gordon Co. — which produced “Grey’s Anatomy” for TV and the film “Saving Private Ryan” — to create an independent studio to finance and produce film, network, cable and digital content.

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