Peter Loehr is leaving his position as managing director of CAA China, the agency’s seven-year-old outpost in Beijing.
It’s understood he’s leaving of his own accord and moving to one of the fast-emerging Chinese funds and studios that have been revolutionising the Chinese film business over the past year.
The move is not totally unexpected given the rapid development of the mainland Chinese film industry and the huge demand for executives of Loehr’s calibre. Loehr has worked in China for nearly two decades, first as a producer, then establishing the CAA China operation in 2005.
At CAA he introduced the concept of packaging to China and worked on dozens of movies featuring CAA’s Asian client list, ranging from small local hits to big-budget international co-productions such as John Woo’s Battle Of Red Cliff and Rob Minkoff’s Forbidden Kingdom.
Prior to joining CAA, his credits as producer include Zhang Yang’s Shower and Sunflower and Roger Spottiswoode’s The Children Of Huang Shi.
Industry sources say that CAA will continue to keep its China operation running with a team of agents with different specialisations similar to the set-up in Los Angeles. During his tenure at CAA, Loehr trained up agents such as Jonah Greenberg who helped arrange Chinese financing for the upcoming Tom Tykwer and Wachowskis picture Cloud Atlas.
Neither CAA or Loehr were available for comment.
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