MGM Walks Away from Vivendi Bidding

[EUROPA]

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/030729/media_vivendi_mgm_8.html

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (NYSE:MGM - News) on Tuesday abruptly withdrew from the auction for Vivendi Universal's (Paris:EAUG.PA - News) U.S. media assets, saying Vivendi's price was too high.
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The move by MGM to drop its $11.5 billion offer narrows the list of declared bidders to four and cuts the chance of higher offers in the auction's second round that, sources close to the bidding have told Reuters, Vivendi wants to wind up by mid-August.....

I was wondering how this was going to effect Disney. When is the Current MGM/Disney Studios contract up?

 

[Planogirl]

This is too bad. I thought that MGM and Universal would make an interesting partnership. Do you know who the other four bidders are?

Maybe MGM and Disney will make up now?

 

[N.Bailey]

I know that Microsoft was interested in purchasing Vivendi for the videogame market. Vivendi makes a LOT of computer and video games which would give MS some exclusive 1st party titles for their Xbox.

I'd heard that Vivendi didn't want to break the company up and that it was an all or nothing deal. Who knows if that's true though?

I really don't know if MS wants to go into the theme park business, but they are part owners of MSNBC and have MORE money than they know what to do with (they do still have to answer to stock holders though). With that in mind, I won't be surprised if they end up with it. Not to mention that if it is an all or nothing deal, one company could buy it and sell off whatever they're not interested in.

Time will tell though.

 

[d-r]

Do you know who the other four bidders are?

I think it is Liberty Media, Viacom, GE/NBC, and Marvin Davis.

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=376473&highlight=+vivendi

 

[N.Bailey]

[I think it is Liberty Media, Viacom, GE/NBC, and Marvin Davis.]


GE and Microsoft own NBC, MSNBC, etc.....

I'm wondering if somehow MS isn't involved unofficially in this deal? I know they want the videogame market. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.