Disney eats Pixar - BREAKING NEWS
Filed under: Animation, Deals, Disney
Various outlets are
reporting that Disney has confirmed that it
will buy Pixar. As part of the deal, Disney will shell out the nice round number of $9.85 billion to hand over control
of their existing animation division to Pixar's Ed Catmull and John Lasseter. In addition to taking over Disney
Animation, Lasseter will also become the principal creative director of the Imagineering group – which
presumably means we can look forward to The Incredibles House at Disneyland sometime in 2012. Apple/Pixar
mastermind Steve Jobs, who owns 50 percent of Pixar shares, will take a stake in Disney worth about $3.7 billion. He'll
also join the Disney board. Though the deal is not exactly a surprise, it still qualifies as another bold move from new Disney chairman Robert Iger, who will seemingly stop at nothing to distance himself from his ousted predecessor, new CNBC personality Michael Eisner. Disney stock rose a whopping 1 cent this afternoon after the announcement.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-24-2006 @ 7:32PM
Spytap said...
Wait, if they're shelling out 9.85 Billion, and Steve jobs is a 50% stockholder...doesn't that mean he'll be taking a 9.85 / 2 = 4.925 Billion dollar stake in Disney? This transaction is a stock-buying transaction no?
Reply
1-24-2006 @ 8:02PM
MosquitoControl said...
The good behind this is that it sounds like Eisner's beancounters, the ones that sucked the fun out of Disney, are being kept very distant from Pixar.
The bad behind this is that Eisner wasn't smart enough to try this before he shut down Disney's traditional animation studio and invested in an expensive CGI studio, losing tons of their best creative minds and killing an entire medium in the process.
Reply
1-24-2006 @ 8:14PM
marty said...
Variety stated that the buyout was US$7.4b so US$3.7b stake for Jobs is right. I think the US$9.85b claimed here is wrong.
Reply
1-24-2006 @ 8:55PM
John Frost said...
It's $7.4 billion, but $1.1 billion of that is cash. So Disney is really only having to spend $6.3 billion to get Pixar.
Having Lasseter as Chief Creative Officer for Animation is a boon! Let's hope they give him free reign to put a leash on some of those sub par projects that we've seen from Disney the last 10 years or so.
Reply
1-24-2006 @ 10:52PM
Benny Reseda said...
The $9.85B figure is in Australian dollars; it was an Australian article that had that. The US figure is the $7.whatever billion.
Reply
1-25-2006 @ 12:16AM
Finished.Law.School said...
All Pixar movies will now suck.
Reply