The Heroes
So Marvel is getting acquired by Disney ($4 billion and some change). Personally, I like the idea. It will make life easier as now I do not have to think who owns a specific comic character. If Marvel shareholders approve the deal, they would receive $30 per share in cash and 0.745 shares of Disney for each share of Marvel that they hold. The deal is valued at $50 per Marvel share, more than a 29% premium, based on Friday’s closing price. Shares of Marvel (MVL) soared 26% in morning trading.
But the story is even better. Marvel, once a bankrupt company and the target of a how-to-mess-a-company book that was acquired for $82 m (and change) is now sold.
“When Ron Perelman bought Marvel in 1989, he described the company, home to heroes like Captain America and the Fantastic Four, as “a mini-Disney in terms of intellectual property.” His junk bonds and grandiose expansion plans swiftly raised Marvel’s market value to over $3 billion, but also brought its debt past $600 million, at which point corporate raider Carl Icahn smelled blood. He managed to wrest control of the company from Perelman, but the takeover process dragged Marvel through bankruptcy court for years. “
As a person interested in business strategy, I can only admire the level of thoughts, planning and execution my colleagues delivered. (I’m also jealous for the amount of fun and satisfaction they had during this fun ride).
Raviv, coauthor of several books on Israeli politics (Every Spy a Prince; Behind the Uprising), turns to high-stakes finance for his first solo effort, a feisty account of Marvel Comics’ meltdown in the 1990s (and slow resurrection, thanks to the success of the movie X-Men and the buzz over this summer’s Spider-Man flick). When Ron Perelman bought Marvel in 1989, he described the company, home to heroes like Captain America and the Fantastic Four, as “a mini-Disney in terms of intellectual property.” His junk bonds and grandiose expansion plans swiftly raised Marvel’s market value to over $3 billion, but also brought its debt past $600 million, at which point corporate raider Carl Icahn smelled blood. He managed to wrest control of the company from Perelman, but the takeover process dragged Marvel through bankruptcy court for years. Raviv’s depiction of this clash of the titans is rooted in the perspective of Marvel investors Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad, whose other company, Toy Biz, made action figures based on Marvel heroes. Their underdog efforts to rescue the company from the Perelman-Icahn conflict, then get movies made to sell comics and action figures, are viewed with sympathy perhaps, in fact, too much sympathy; outlandish claims like Spider-Man is “maybe the best known intellectual property character, on a worldwide basis” routinely pass unchallenged. Fans of the cutthroat finance genre will find much to enjoy in the boardroom confrontations, but those unfamiliar with Marvel may wonder what all the fuss is about, as Raviv’s overview of the comics and the characters tends to treat their popularity as a given without exploring the nuances of their success.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
http://www.amazon.com/Comic-Wars-Tycoons-Battled-Empire/dp/0767908309