“What will happen now that Pixar is no longer under contract to Disney to create animated movies?”
Nice question. Here it is the answer reported by the telegraph: Disney has purchased Pixar Studios.
The board of Pixar Animation Studios, the digital animations company, is set to meet tomorrow to approve the company’s $7bn (£3.9bn) takeover by Disney.
The all-share deal will make Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, around $3.5bn and the single largest shareholder in Disney. Jobs created Pixar in 1986 when he paid $10m for the computer animations division of Lucasfilm, owned by Stars Wars creator George Lucas.
Anyway I’d be cautious:
…negotiations may be over, that seems likely but is not official, and both boards are meeting sometime this weekend to consider the deal, but we still have no firm idea what the deal is. And there is nothing certain that the boards will approve the deal. (Although Jobs essentially is the Board at Pixar with 51% of the stock.)
I do doubt that Disney, if they bought Pixar outright, would pay only its current Market Cap of $6.7 Billion. It will be somewhere north of $7.5 Billion, but done in a stock swap.
I still think a partial acquisition with a renewed distribution agreement would be the best for both companies. A merger is fraught with too many risks and no assurances for Disney. But one thing is for sure, Steve Jobs will come out on the top of any deal.
From The Disney Blog
I heard about speculations that Steve Jobs, as the largest disney shareholder, could shake up Disney… Let’s see.