Major Talent Agency Launches Financing Unit : * Entertainment: ICM may gain greater negotiating leverage when it doesn’t have to rely on the major motion picture studios for funding.

With financing for independent movie and television projects getting scarcer, one of Hollywood’s leading talent agencies has opened its own financial services unit.

Frans J. Afman, who revolutionized independent film financing as an executive at Credit Lyonnais Bank Nederland in the 1980s, will head the International Creative Management division.

Afman will seek domestic and international backing for projects at ICM, which represents such stars as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson. The well-known banker, who has worked out of the Netherlands, will also move his base of operations to Los Angeles.

“What this means is that we will have a full-time expert working at the agency to help put together independent entertainment projects in the motion picture and television areas,” said Jeffrey Berg, ICM’s chairman. “I regard this as a major strategic step for the agency.”

Talent agencies such as ICM have edged closer to the banking side of the business in recent years as financing has taken on a more international scope. Michael Ovitz, chairman of rival Creative Artists Agency, brokered the sales of Columbia Pictures Entertainment and MCA to the Japanese. And CAA agent John Ptak specializes in assembling independent financing packages.

Jeffrey Logsdon, an entertainment analyst with Seidler Amdec Securities, said agencies gain greater negotiating leverage when they don’t have to rely on the major motion picture studios for financing. The agencies also gain a financial interest in the product, Logsdon noted.

ICM’s move into financial services comes as studios such as Walt Disney Co. and Paramount Pictures are cutting back on the “package” deals that were common in years past. Under those arrangements, agencies assembled the major talent for a particular movie from their own rosters. Although lucrative for the agencies, the packages proved costly for the studios.

Analysts say agencies may have better luck pushing their packages if the studios don’t have to foot the entire bill. “The implication is that there’s an affinity of business interests between investment banking and agenting,” said one analyst who requested anonymity.

Afman said he expects to be involved in large and small financing deals. The Dutch banker has vast experience in such projects.

“It’s not always just a matter of finding investors and banks prepared to fund,” he said. “It also has to do with bringing parties together. I’ve been involved in hundreds of movie projects, and no two were identical.”

Afman is credited with pioneering entertainment lending to smaller companies when he worked for the Rotterdam branch of Credit Lyonnais. Film companies backed by Credit Lyonnais include Carolco Pictures, Morgan Creek Productions and Castle Rock Entertainment.

Afman, who became known as “the banker who reads Variety,” left Credit Lyonnais in 1988. The bank has since seen several of its entertainment clients go under. It has also suffered negative publicity from its deep involvement with Giancarlo Parretti, whose Pathe Communications Corp. purchased MGM/UA Communications Co. for $1.4 billion in November, largely with Credit Lyonnais backing.

Afman, who says he had no part in the Parretti deal, has run a lucrative consulting business in the years since leaving Credit Lyonnais. He recently helped secure the rights to “Terminator 2” for Carolco. Afman said his ICM deal will allow him to retain all of his existing clients.