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(You
MAY need the FREE QuickTime
plug-in to view and hear s90tv) top top top top top • 102 TODAY'S
PUZZLE? This
Week's
Cover
Dear Editor LookRadio • 120
PIXELS 3 columns _________ •
•
As previously speculated, Disney's purchase of
Pixar - to be completed this summer - will be an
all-stock one worth about $7.4 billion. Though no
layoffs have been announced, the purchase of Pixar
is expected to have a major impact on the employees
of Disney's existent animation division. Right now,
however, only the top level is changing: Steve Jobs
is joining Disney's board (and, as previously
mentioned, will be one of the company's biggest
shareholder), and Pixar's heads are sliding into
the leadership positions of the newly-created Pixar
and Disney animation
studios. More
Articles • Converging
News 052006 / TeleCom BuyOuts, Spinoffs and Asset
Seizure Boom Respectfully
Submitted top top 40 40+110+570=720
- 107 Show Biz smart90.com/tvimagazine/2006/0506/107DisneybuysPixar
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1.
Feature Story / BURBANK
-
4th week of 2006: Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive
Robert A. Iger said in a joint statement with Steve
Jobs, the CEO of both Pixar and Apple Computers,
that Disney is buying longtime partner Pixar
Animation Studios for $7.4 billion in stock in a
deal that could restore Disney's clout in animation
while vaulting Pixar and Apple CEO Steve Jobs into
a powerful role at the media
conglomerate.
Hong
Kong
Triad
/
"Jockey Club"
RadioPlayMusic
• •
As for John Lasseter, the Executive Vice President
of Pixar, he will become chief creative officer of
the animation studios and principal creative
adviser at Walt Disney Imagineering, which designs
and builds the company's theme parks. Lasseter
began his career as a Disney animator and is the
creative force behind Pixar's films. He will report
directly to Iger.
• •
Disney's purchase of the maker of the blockbuster
films "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo" would make
Jobs Disney's largest shareholder. Jobs, who owns
more than half of Pixar's shares and also heads
Apple Computer, will become a Disney
director.
•
•
"With this transaction, we welcome and embrace
Pixar's unique culture, which for two decades, has
fostered some of the most innovative and successful
films in history," Disney Chief Executive Robert A.
Iger said in a
statement.
• •
Disney has co-financed and distributed Pixar's
animated films for the past 12 years, splitting the
profits. That deal expires in June after Pixar
delivers "Cars," and it had once appeared the
companies would not renew it amid friction between
Jobs and former Disney CEO Michael
Eisner.
• •
But the talks revived under Iger, who became Disney
CEO last October. Disney, the theme park owner that
also owns the ABC and ESPN TV networks, and Pixar
had discussed a new relationship for
months.
Part
02 /As is common in
Hollywood, the ability to give a film the go-ahead
comes with a caveat: Disney Chief Executive Bob
Iger still would have final approval over anything
set in motion by Lasseter, who would be chief
creative officer at Pixar and Disney Animation, as
well as at Walt Disney
Imagineering
•
•
In announcing the deal this
week, Iger and Pixar Chief Executive Steve Jobs
said Lasseter and Pixar President Ed Catmull would
take the reins of Disney Animation from its leader,
David Stainton. Catmull would report to Iger and
Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook, and Lasseter
would report solely to
Iger.
•
•
The filing with the
Securities and Exchange Commission said the
acquisition would be jeopardized if Iger, Lasseter
or Catmull quit or died. The same would hold true
if the majority of Pixar's seven directors and
creative executives, including "Finding Nemo"
director Andrew Stanton, "Monsters, Inc." director
Pete Docter and "The Incredibles" director Brad
Bird, left the combined company.
•
•
For the time being, at least, it appears
that Disney has locked up Lasseter's services for
only five years. In an interview transcript filed
with the SEC, Iger said Disney would pick up the
animation guru's current 10-year contract, which
expires in 2011.
•
•
It is unclear whether Lasseter, the only
Pixar senior executive with an employment contract,
might be able to negotiate a longer and more
lucrative pact if the sale goes through as
expected.
•
•
The director of the "Toy Story" hits, "A
Bug's Life" and Disney-Pixar's upcoming summer
release "Cars" already is rewarded handsomely, with
a $2.5-million salary and 5% annual increases. He
also enjoys a rich package of stock options and
bonuses based on the domestic performance of his
movies. When he inked his 10-year deal in March
2001, he received a $5-million signing
bonus.
•
•
Lasseter and Catmull, who would remain at
Pixar's headquarters in Emeryville, Calif., were in
Burbank on Wednesday to meet with Disney's
animation troops. While there, Lasseter said a
version of "Toy Story 3" that Disney set in motion
last year without Pixar's input would be scrapped,
according to a person familiar with the matter.
More than 100 Disney employees have been working on
the project for months.
•
•
According to the filing, if the deal goes
through, Lasseter would sit on a new committee that
would oversee feature animation at Disney and
Pixar. The committee, which would include Jobs,
Catmull, Iger, Cook and Disney Chief Financial
Officer Tom Staggs, would approve all film budgets,
oversee Pixar compensation packages and help
maintain the company's creative "culture." The
group is expected to meet at least once a month in
Emeryville.
•
•
Under Disney's ownership, the SEC documents
indicate, the traditionally free-spirited Pixar
would retain its compensation philosophies and
practices, including its refusal to grant
employment contracts (other than Lasseter's). Pixar
also would continue to give employee stock options,
bonus plans, medical benefits and other policies
for at least five years.
•
•
Disney said the deal would lower earnings over the
next two years, but that the deal would add to
earnings by 2008.
• •
"It's something Disney had to do," said Harold
Vogel, a media analyst with Vogel Capital
Management in New York. "It's good for both
companies."
• •
The deal received the blessing of Roy E. Disney,
nephew of company founder Walt Disney and a former
board member who once also oversaw animation at the
company.
3.
Editor's Note / Roy
Disney and former board member Stanley Gold led a
shareholder revolt against the company in part over
what they saw as a deterioration of the
relationship between Pixar and Disney under the
reign of Eisner.
•
•
"Animation has always been the heart and soul of
the Walt Disney Company and it is wonderful to see
Bob Iger and the company embrace that heritage by
bringing the outstanding animation talent of the
Pixar team back into the fold," Roy Disney said in
a statement.
• •
With Pixar, Disney gains a company that has
produced a long-running string of animated
blockbusters. Iger wants to strengthen Disney's
animated features, the hallmark of the company
since its founding and a steady source of
characters for Disney's theme parks and other
units.
• •
Pixar has served as Disney's de facto animation
unit for a decade. Two Pixar movies, "Finding Nemo"
and "The Incredibles," have won Academy Awards for
best animated feature film.
• •
Pixar films also have been a financial windfall for
Disney, which receives 60 percent of the
profits.
• •
By contrast, Disney's own animation unit has
struggled, producing some modest successes, such as
2002's "Lilo & Stitch," and many flops,
including "Treasure Planet" and "Home on the
Range."
• •
Its first fully computer-animated effort, "Chicken
Little," grossed more than $100 million
domestically since its release last year and will
likely be profitable. But that figure falls well
short of the more than $200 million domestic gross
of 2004's "The Incredibles."
• •
Pixar also benefits from the deal by cashing in at
the top of its game, before it produces the
inevitable box office disappointment, Vogel
said.
• •
"Eventually, we know that after six huge hits,
there would be a film that would come along that
would be less good than what they had," Vogel
said.
• •
With Jobs, Disney also tightens its link with Apple
Computer, the innovative technology company behind
music and video iPods.
• •
Jobs could help Iger push his plans to marry films,
TV shows, video games and other content to
computers, iPods, handheld game consoles and even
cell phones.
• •
Disney and Pixar had been discussing an extension
of their distribution deal since early 2003. Last
year, analysts said striking that agreement was
Iger's top priority.
• •
The talks stalled in 2004 after Pixar demanded that
it own 100 percent of all future films and pay
Disney a straight distribution fee, similar to the
deal "Star Wars" creator George Lucas had with
Twentieth Century Fox. Pixar also wanted ownership
of all the films already produced as well as two
that were remaining under the existing agreement at
the time.
• •
The deal has been approved by the boards of both
companies and needs only the vote of Pixar's
shareholders to go through. And, Since Steve Jobs
personally owns just over 50% of Pixar stock, it's
safe to say that the Disney/Pact is a done
deal.'
•
•
If it bails out on the deal,
Pixar would be required to pay Disney a penalty of
$210
million.
•
•
In the regulatory filing,
Pixar sought to safeguard its independence as it
joins the world's second-largest media
conglomerate. The studio would continue to be
called "Pixar" and the branding of its previous
films and products "will not be altered." However,
future films produced by Pixar would be branded
Disney
Pixar.
•
•
Perhaps most symbolically,
the agreement guarantees Pixar a concession that
costs nothing but means much to the people who work
there.
•
•
Referring to the huge
black-lettered logo that greets visitors as they
approach the entrance to the studio's Bay Area
compound, the agreement stipulates, "The Pixar sign
at the gate shall not be
altered."
•
•
The two companies will remain separate, with Pixar
keeping its brand name and headquarters in
Emeryville, near San Francisco. Maintaining Pixar's
unique creative character was a priority in the
talks, executives
said.
•
•
"Most of the time that Bob and I have spent talking
about this hasn't been about economics, it's been
about preserving the Pixar culture because we all
know that that's the thing that is going to
determine the success here in the long run," Jobs
said on a conference call with
analysts.
• •
Under the deal, Burbank-based Disney said it will
issue 2.3 shares for each share of Pixar stock. At
Tuesday's closing price of $25.99 for Disney, Pixar
shareholders would get stock worth $59.78, a 4
percent premium over Pixar's closing price of
$57.57. The deal was announced after the markets
closed for the day. Pixar gained 2.5 percent to $59
in after-hours trading, while Disney fell 14
cents.
P
Josie
Cory
Publisher/Editor
TVI Magazine
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Disney buys Pixar for a solid $7.4 billion. Steve
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Disney board member,
John
Lasseter
will head Disney Animation, Robert A. Iger said in
a joint statement with Roy
Disney
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