Another Voice
Charter Member of The Element
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2000
- Messages
- 3,191
As the deal now stands, The Walt Disney Company will cease to exist if the deal goes through. All of the current Disney shares holder will receive a fraction of a share of Comcast stock in exchange for their Disney shares and all together they will still only own 42% of the newly enlarged Comcast.
Disney will really earn its ® in that it will be a brand name only. There will be no business associated with it. Much like Touchstone is a label fixed to movies made by Disney Studios. A lot of people already believe Eisner accomplished a lot of this when he killed off the "Disney" parts of the company like Feature Animation and Imagineering. Comcast will simply finish off what little remains.
A lot is going to happen now. The Comcast bid was intentionally low in hopes of getting the company cheap. Their tactic is the same one Roy Disney used in 1984 when he orchestrated the take-over with the Bass Brothers and what Roy is trying now "we can run the company better than the current management, so give us your support". Wall Street like people who promise to makes them lots of money in the future and they will gladly chuck the current management overboard if they are convinced a new crew will do better.
But Wall Street likes people who say "I'll give you lots of money now!" even more. There will likely be other players moving in either by themselves or with others that will offer more money up front. No one business, including Comcast, is interested in everything that Disney does so it's possible to find lots of people to each buy a tiny bit rather than one huge company to buy the entire corporation.
There are many potential players out there. There's the Media Monsters like TimeWarner, Viacom and NewsCorp that might want to get even bigger just to support their bloat. There are smaller companies like NBC Universal and Liberty Media that might want to get bigger to avoid being eaten themselves. There are the Ego Kings like Barry Diller (Eisner's boss at Paramount) and Marvin Davis who still fancy themselves as The Mega Media Moguls out to build a personal empire. Then there are the wild cards like Microsoft that might want to try a new angle on the "content & distribution" myth.
Comcast's primary interest is in feeding its cable systems. They want to be like Viacom, News Corp and TimeWarner as a hallowed "owner of both content and distribution". ESPN, ABC, Lifetime, movies etc all being piped around the country on Comcast cables generating ever increasing torrents of profit. No one has ever made that business model work successfully; even Disney's pitiful efforts along this line have been a complete bust. Entertainment only works as a cottage industry. Comcast, like the others, is going to spend billions to learn a painful lesson.
The parks well Comcast is saying they want to keep them. Funny how the "rumors" are they spent the last couple years trying to get someone to buy them. Even Eisner, according to the "rumors", has more than a few schemes of selling/spinning off/dumping them. Properly run they are a massive cash cow and the sole reason why Disney is the only old Hollywood studio to remain independent into the 21st century. Only idiots think they are a bad business.
So naturally MBA's dreaming of Media Empire think they are a bad business. Plus Eisner has spent the better part of a decade diverting attention away from the flaming wreckage of ABC by blaming sniffles at WDW for all of Disney's woes. Too many people on Wall Street haven't bothered to understand the company and buy the simplistic (and self-serving) explanation. Comcast may have to keep the park simply because they can't find a buyer. The "rumor" was, back when this was going to be a friendly merger all the way around, the parks would be spun off into a separate company.
If Comcast or whoever ends up the winning bidder needs cash to close the deal, there will be a firesale of assets to raise the funds. The parks will be the first on the block because they will raise the most money and are the most easily broken up into bit sized pieces: the resorts to Mr. X, the parks to Mr. Y, the water parks to Mr. Z., etc. Other bits likely to go are Miramax (rumors already sat Harv is calling around to raise money), the cruise line, publishing and motion picture production.
What's really, really, really, funny is the though that Comcast can't sell the parks because they wouldn't want to license the Disney characters. But that's exactly the deal Disney has with the Oriental Land Company (Tokyo Disneyland) and Euro Disney SCA (Disneyland Paris). And, legally, The Walt Disney World Co. licenses the name and all the characters from Disney Enterprises Inc. Even before that, Walt Disney Production has to license the name "Walt Disney" from RETLAW. There is no reason why Comcast would not make a similar deal with a new owner of Walt Disney World.
I have not seen any indication that Roy Disney was "in" on today's announcement, nor have I heard any rumors beyond speculation. That could mean he's keeping a secret very well, or that he's as much taken aback as everyone else. Let phrase this starting with "it would be reasonable to hazard a guess that " Comcast has seen an opening. With Eisner flat on his back and the company still floundering (I'll get the "smoke and mirrors" quarterly results in another post), they see a chance to pick up Disney for a rock bottom price.
Eisner is no longer in a position to demand billions for his cooperation with the deal Comcast can walk right over his head and appeal directly to Wall Street. Eisner, through years of dithering and his every expanding greed, let the situation get out of his control. But in the weeks ahead, there is a strong chance that it will also get out of Comcast's control. It is impossible to accurately predict what will happen. But only thing is sure.
Disney is a philosophy now not a company.
Disney will really earn its ® in that it will be a brand name only. There will be no business associated with it. Much like Touchstone is a label fixed to movies made by Disney Studios. A lot of people already believe Eisner accomplished a lot of this when he killed off the "Disney" parts of the company like Feature Animation and Imagineering. Comcast will simply finish off what little remains.
A lot is going to happen now. The Comcast bid was intentionally low in hopes of getting the company cheap. Their tactic is the same one Roy Disney used in 1984 when he orchestrated the take-over with the Bass Brothers and what Roy is trying now "we can run the company better than the current management, so give us your support". Wall Street like people who promise to makes them lots of money in the future and they will gladly chuck the current management overboard if they are convinced a new crew will do better.
But Wall Street likes people who say "I'll give you lots of money now!" even more. There will likely be other players moving in either by themselves or with others that will offer more money up front. No one business, including Comcast, is interested in everything that Disney does so it's possible to find lots of people to each buy a tiny bit rather than one huge company to buy the entire corporation.
There are many potential players out there. There's the Media Monsters like TimeWarner, Viacom and NewsCorp that might want to get even bigger just to support their bloat. There are smaller companies like NBC Universal and Liberty Media that might want to get bigger to avoid being eaten themselves. There are the Ego Kings like Barry Diller (Eisner's boss at Paramount) and Marvin Davis who still fancy themselves as The Mega Media Moguls out to build a personal empire. Then there are the wild cards like Microsoft that might want to try a new angle on the "content & distribution" myth.
Comcast's primary interest is in feeding its cable systems. They want to be like Viacom, News Corp and TimeWarner as a hallowed "owner of both content and distribution". ESPN, ABC, Lifetime, movies etc all being piped around the country on Comcast cables generating ever increasing torrents of profit. No one has ever made that business model work successfully; even Disney's pitiful efforts along this line have been a complete bust. Entertainment only works as a cottage industry. Comcast, like the others, is going to spend billions to learn a painful lesson.
The parks well Comcast is saying they want to keep them. Funny how the "rumors" are they spent the last couple years trying to get someone to buy them. Even Eisner, according to the "rumors", has more than a few schemes of selling/spinning off/dumping them. Properly run they are a massive cash cow and the sole reason why Disney is the only old Hollywood studio to remain independent into the 21st century. Only idiots think they are a bad business.
So naturally MBA's dreaming of Media Empire think they are a bad business. Plus Eisner has spent the better part of a decade diverting attention away from the flaming wreckage of ABC by blaming sniffles at WDW for all of Disney's woes. Too many people on Wall Street haven't bothered to understand the company and buy the simplistic (and self-serving) explanation. Comcast may have to keep the park simply because they can't find a buyer. The "rumor" was, back when this was going to be a friendly merger all the way around, the parks would be spun off into a separate company.
If Comcast or whoever ends up the winning bidder needs cash to close the deal, there will be a firesale of assets to raise the funds. The parks will be the first on the block because they will raise the most money and are the most easily broken up into bit sized pieces: the resorts to Mr. X, the parks to Mr. Y, the water parks to Mr. Z., etc. Other bits likely to go are Miramax (rumors already sat Harv is calling around to raise money), the cruise line, publishing and motion picture production.
What's really, really, really, funny is the though that Comcast can't sell the parks because they wouldn't want to license the Disney characters. But that's exactly the deal Disney has with the Oriental Land Company (Tokyo Disneyland) and Euro Disney SCA (Disneyland Paris). And, legally, The Walt Disney World Co. licenses the name and all the characters from Disney Enterprises Inc. Even before that, Walt Disney Production has to license the name "Walt Disney" from RETLAW. There is no reason why Comcast would not make a similar deal with a new owner of Walt Disney World.
I have not seen any indication that Roy Disney was "in" on today's announcement, nor have I heard any rumors beyond speculation. That could mean he's keeping a secret very well, or that he's as much taken aback as everyone else. Let phrase this starting with "it would be reasonable to hazard a guess that " Comcast has seen an opening. With Eisner flat on his back and the company still floundering (I'll get the "smoke and mirrors" quarterly results in another post), they see a chance to pick up Disney for a rock bottom price.
Eisner is no longer in a position to demand billions for his cooperation with the deal Comcast can walk right over his head and appeal directly to Wall Street. Eisner, through years of dithering and his every expanding greed, let the situation get out of his control. But in the weeks ahead, there is a strong chance that it will also get out of Comcast's control. It is impossible to accurately predict what will happen. But only thing is sure.
Disney is a philosophy now not a company.
