Sep 01 2009
Disney announces deal to buy Marvel
You can see the Associated Press’ take here and The Wall Street Journal has more here (subscription required?). I have a few thoughts below.
- Disney is paying roughly $50 per share, which is a 29% premium over Friday’s closing. If you own Marvel stock, you will come out ahead quite nicely on this. It was trading around $25 earlier this year.
- I am cautiously optimistic that Disney knows how to buy a successful firm without ruining what made it successful. For example, Pixar’s movies didn’t drop in quality after the Disney buyout. (Nor have they released a lot of straight-to-DVD sequels to successful movies).
- I doubt this will have a noticeable impact on Marvel’s products. Even the movies.
- I think Disney is the biggest loser here. It’s betting 4 billion dollars that it can leverage Marvel’s characters better than Marvel did. I’m skeptical.
