Disneyland Paris Hostile Takeover!

[The Merman]

This is an article from www.dlp.info that has officialy been confirmed treu by EuroDisney!

EuroDisney S.C.A. has released an (in the English version)
6 line press release stating that it is aware that a company listed on the public stock exchanges of Frankfurt, Germany and Zug, Switzerland scheduled a press conference for November 30, 2006 to make a public "unfriendly takeover offer for Euro Disney" but also states that it has been unable to obtain any further information from that company and therefore will continue to concentrate on the operation and management of the Disneyland Resort Paris.
While EuroDisney S.C.A. does not provide any further information regarding the company making this offer, Reuters has provided further information in an (in the meantime) updated story. The announcement has been made by Center-Tainment, which according to its own website is a holding company for companies active in the field of indoor and outdoor family entertainment. Nevertheless the website does not provide any information about any companies that would already be part controlled by Center-Tainment or any proof that the company is in fact experienced in this field.
The company according to Reuters claims that the target company has been informed about Center-Tainment's strategy and that the target's investment bank had been in contact with them and was now preparing a defence. Nevertheless Center-Tainment is confident that it can finalize the takeover in the reminder of 2006 and will gain an amount in the double digit million range if its 5-year plan for the target is executed.
So far the only result of the offer was a jump of the EuroDisney shares by 28.75%, equaling 2 Euro-cent to 9 Euro-Cent.

I doubt Disney will sell after the millions that they have poured into the park. Or the company would have to buy 51% of the public share to grab hold of the company. But that is very unlikely. If they made a secret deal with the Sheik whom owns 10% then they only have to buy 41% of the public shares.

Oh the stock has jumped to 0,09 eurocent per share.

[Big Disney Fan]

Oh, dear, this is awful! What will Disneyland Paris do?!?

[AwallaceUNC]

Wow. Where's Roy Disney -- we need SaveDisneylandParis.com now. Hopefully this will go the way of the Comcast deal (i.e. in Disney's favor). I'll be quite sad if it doesn't.

-Aaron

[Raydawggie]

Wow, really shocking. I wonder what the state of the Disney parks is coming to when stuff like this happens....

[Big Disney Fan]

Disneyland Paris is doomed!

[The Merman]

Disneypark Paris was the gem of all Disney parks due to the detail on ever aspect in the park. I have not been to Disneyland HongKong which is the new addition but I can safely say that Disneyland Paris was one of the most detailed parks ever. But it never got out of debt after the huge construction costs it took to make the park. Now I just hope that if the park gets taken over, that it will not be changed! Can you imagin if they decide to change some theming? OMG help!

[Gurgi30]

In a hostile takeover would the new owners have the rights to use Disney theming, names, and characters? These are owned/copyrighted franchises so I don't know what the rulings would be but I can't see Disney just letting them use whatever they wanted. It's been a long-time since my college class on mergers and acquisitions so my knowledge on this is a bit rusty.

[goofystitch]

There won't be a hostile takeover. Disney is a big enough company to fight a smaller company attempting to take over part of it. Disney may have lost money with Disneyland Paris, but it can't be doing that bad if they keep plussing it and recently added a second park. Disneyland Paris is an outlet for not only people in France, but all of Europe. Disney won't let it be taken over. If Disney didn't want it anymore, they would tear it down and sell the land. Not unload the whole thing onto another company. I don't feel there is any reson to worry. As long as there are Disney parks, they will all be owned by Disney. The parks are the company's number 1 source of income.

[darth_deetoo]

Just reading the articles, and it doesn't seem like much to worry about. The company who are trying to take over have seen their share prices drop in the last few days, and Disney seem ready to defend against any hostile takeover. Having been there earlier in the year, in the off peak season, and seeing how busy the park was then, and how business seemed to be booming - I'm sure the Park's fortunes are on the turnaround. I'm sure I'd read that financially their performance was improving, and there wouldn't be all this investment in the park in new attractions if they weren't confident of it's future.

[Disney-Fan]

I never understood why Disney didn't just buy it completely (instead of, say, wasting money on yet another failing network / business proposition). I hope this turns out for the best and that Disney gets to keep the majority of the shares.

[jwa1107]

In a hostile takeover would the new owners have the rights to use Disney theming, names, and characters? These are owned/copyrighted franchises so I don't know what the rulings would be but I can't see Disney just letting them use whatever they wanted. It's been a long-time since my college class on mergers and acquisitions so my knowledge on this is a bit rusty.

In a hostile takeover, it is controlling interest in the company that is purchased and it would not affect any licensing/usage agreements for Disney owned characters. The controlling interest owner would still have to abide by any terms of a licensing agreement already in place.

[AwallaceUNC]

There won't be a hostile takeover. Disney is a big enough company to fight a smaller company attempting to take over part of it. Disney may have lost money with Disneyland Paris, but it can't be doing that bad if they keep plussing it and recently added a second park. Disneyland Paris is an outlet for not only people in France, but all of Europe. Disney won't let it be taken over. If Disney didn't want it anymore, they would tear it down and sell the land. Not unload the whole thing onto another company. I don't feel there is any reson to worry. As long as there are Disney parks, they will all be owned by Disney. The parks are the company's number 1 source of income.

You're probably right about this. I guess the question is how far is Disney willing to go to fight them off? The PR alone is probably incentive enough for them.

-Aaron

[MichaeLeah]

The parks are the company's number 1 source of income.

Do you know that for a fact or is it based on intuition or assumption? I am not trying to challenge you. I have often wondered how much Disney is making/losing in different areas of the company. Do you know what percentage of their income is from the parks?

[Disney-Fan]

^ It's true, in large part because of Disney World. I doubt that place could loose money if it wanted to. It's a huge cash cow.

[darth_deetoo]

Quoted from the DLP Info website:-

As the smoke cleared it seems not much is left of the much hyped pre-announcement of an "unfriendly" takeover offer by the unknown Swiss company Center-Tainment for EuroDisney - and not much has changed, at least for EuroDisney.
In fact the share price of EuroDisney returned to its more regular 7 Euro-Cent after temporary gaining 2 Euro-Cent once the real bid failed to materialize. But the real looser here must be Center-Tainment. The lack of any real bid caused its stock price to plunge to a disastrous 0.35 Euro at 7.00 pm on December 1, - roughly 1 percent of its all time high of 34.50 Euro - bringing it's market capitalization down to 6.50 million Euro compared to 350.79 million Euro for EuroDisney.
This development might also be partially due to the fact that the French market regulator AMF (according to another report by Reuters
) required Center-Tainment either to submit a formal bid before Monday or refrain from any attempts to takeover EuroDisney for at least six months. The spokesperson also ruled out the concept of a bid offering shares of Center-Tainment, as hinted at during yesterday's press conference. As Center-Tainment is listed on the unregulated market segment in Frankfurt it would have to make a cash offer as "share swap offers" are only accepted from companies listed on regulated markets.
Nevertheless so far Center-Tainment has not reacted publicly to the demands of AMF ... so another final act might be coming up.


It sounds very much as if it's business as usual for DLRP.

[goofystitch]

MichaeLeah wrote:

Do you know that for a fact or is it based on intuition or assumption? I am not trying to challenge you. I have often wondered how much Disney is making/losing in different areas of the company. Do you know what percentage of their income is from the parks?

I read it in Newsweek a few years back. I can't find the article, but I did find this MSNBC article. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14262634/) that gives a break down of earnings from this year for the whole company.
Net Revenue: $8.62 billion
Studio Revenue: $1.7 billion
Domestic Theme Park Revenue: $2.7 billion
Television Revenue: $2.7 billion
Consumer Products Revenue: $445 million

So the parks and it's television networks are tied at the moment for Disney's number 1 source of income, but years back when ABC was floundering and Disney Channel didn't have "High School Musical" type programs, the parks towered above the rest of the company financially. Disney World is the number 1 vacation destination in the country.