BUSINESS HISTORY

Mr. Lewis Horwitz has had 48 years experience in bank and other institutional financing, 35 of which involved entertainment and entertainment related projects.

Mr. Horwitz was employed by Union Bank from 1958 to 1968. During his tenure, he held various positions in both the operations and lending areas of the bank.

In 1968, Mr. Horwitz joined Beverly Hills National Bank where he remained six and one half years in the capacity of Vice President and Branch Manager. It was there that Mr. Horwitz created and managed the first entertainment industry division for an independent bank.

In February 1974, Mr. Horwitz joined The First Los Angeles Bank as Senior Vice President. While there, he was charged with the responsibility for organizing, packaging, supervising and administering loans to be utilized in connection with entertainment and entertainment-related projects.

While at First Los Angeles Bank, Mr. Horwitz was recognized as a leading expert in entertainment lending and began lecturing and speaking throughout the U.S. and Europe on its many attributes. Mr. Horwitz has written several articles on various alternative methods of financing in the entertainment industry.

In 1980, he left First Los Angeles Bank to form “The Lewis Horwitz Organization (LHO).” LHO is a financial services company lending money primarily for motion picture and television production. The company packaged and participated loans with banks throughout the world.

In September of 1989, the Imperial Bank acquired 100% of LHO. LHO retained its focus as a highly specialized entertainment lender as a division of Imperial Bank. During its tenure with Imperial Bank, LHO became the premier lender to the Independent Film Community providing creative financing techniques for motion picture and television production. In April of 1995 Horwitz developed and granted the first gap loan by an American bank. This innovation created a new form of financing for independent films.

October 1st of 1999, the Southern Pacific Bank purchased LHO. The company, under the leadership of Mr. Horwitz continued to provide innovative financing for motion picture and television production while broadening its client base in other areas of lending in the entertainment industry.

On October 4, 2002, the Imperial Capital Bank purchased LHO. As President of the Entertainment Division, Mr. Horwitz employed 15 highly experienced lenders and administrative staff and provided financing for between 35 and 45 independent films per year. Financial structuring included Presales, Gap, Worldwide Co-Production, Tax Incentives and Government Subsidies.

On July 6, 2004, after 48 years of banking and 35 years of entertainment lending, Lewis Horwitz retired from the banking industry and became a film consultant. Horwitz’s company, LHO, was a highly respected and deeply appreciated industry institution and Horwitz himself is generally regarded as the father of Independent film financing having pioneered the use of foreign pre-sale contracts to collateralize film production loans as well as the use of Gap financing and tax incentive funding. His experience in the film and television industries as well as his knowledge and understanding of international distribution has resulted in numerous speaking engagements throughout the world. He is now consulting for number of independent production companies and Banks and providing expert witness testimony for law firms.

Mr. Horwitz is a past member of the Independent Film Industry Export Finance Task Force that was formed to study and create recommendations to increase American independent film exports to overseas markets. Mr. Horwitz is Vice Chairman, Finance of the International Film and Television Alliance (IFTA) and member of the Executive Committee. He is the Chairman of the Affiliated Financial Institutions and President of the IFTA Foundation. (The IFTA Foundation was established to meet the educational and charitable needs of the Independent Film Industry and it local communities.) He is responsible for the formation and structuring of the U.S. Export-Import Bank Film Production Loan Guarantee Program.