“The Walt Disney Co. is in serious talks to buy Pixar Animation Studios Inc., the maker of the hit movies ‘Toy Story’ and ‘Finding Nemo’ among others, following months of exploring how to continue their profitable film distribution partnership, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Citing unnamed people familiar with the plan, the Journal said Disney would pay a nominal premium to Pixar’s current market value of $6.7 billion under the deal being discussed in a stock transaction that would make Pixar chief executive Steve Jobs the largest individual shareholder in Disney,” The Associated Press reports. “The Journal said the outcome of the talks isn’t certain, and that other options are possible.”
“Jobs is the largest shareholder in Pixar, with more than 60 million shares, or 50.6 percent, according to Pixar’s filings with securities regulators last year. At its current share price, his stake is worth about $3.44 billion,” AP reports. “Jobs is already a force in the media business as he also heads Apple Computer Inc., which reported Wednesday that first-quarter income nearly doubled on record revenue and big demand for its iPod music players… The Journal said the companies are still haggling over a price, and any major moves in Pixar’s stock price could disrupt negotiations. The newspaper said the two sides could decide on a less-ambitious plan, including an agreement for Disney to distribute movies that Pixar finances and makes.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews reader “Scott” for the link.]
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Why do I think the last sentence is much more likely?
Say it ain’t so Steve…. Say it ain’t so…
The deal would hurt both Disney and Pixar. Why would either of them want to do this?
i agree– Pixar’s edge would probably go right down the tubes if Disney becomes the master. Disney pretty much destroys all that it touches these days..
Mr Jobs – Him heap big tree!
I like this and I don’t think it hurts Pixar. I want Jobs focused 100% on Apple. I also think that Jobs may be getting tired of having to run 2 companies and he is 50. I think his heart will always be with Apple first.
If this deal goes through say goodbye to pixar’s innovative and creative ideas.
The first thing a company does when it buys another company is get a new boss in to run the show. His job is then to get rid of staff that they dont need. He would probably replace pixar’s award winning team with disney drones from their annimation school in the US and pixar would become a sub standard animation house like disney is today.
John Lassier and his team better start sending off their cvs’.
Is it really so hard to distribute movies that Pixar would be lost without a distributor like Disney? I think this has a lot to say about the movie business. I hope Jobs can find a way to open it up.
The moment Disney gets its hooks into Pixar’s decison making process (read:creative process) the magic is over.
There’s nothing that kills a good idea faster than handing it to bean counters and marketing people.
If Disney buys Pixar, Jobs would be one of Disney’s biggest shareholders. Disney would rather do a stock swap than give cash. Jobs would then become a Board Member and possibly Chairman of the Board. His time will still be shared between two companies.
The way I see it, if he becomes Disney’s largest shareholder he’d have MORE rather than LESS worries.
On the other hand, think of the cross-marketing opportunities for the mouse alone: Snow-White iMacs with Mickey Mice. Might as well merge with a bio-gen company too to breed an apple with a bite already on it.
Here´s the inside scoop…
The next Pixar film “Cars” is a dog.
Steve wants to sell now before it comes out and people start saying “Has Pixar lost the Magic?” and comparing it to Dreamworks.
Steve wants to move up in the movie biz world, cement his relationship with the Disney empire for Apple so he has more clout in Hollywood so he can snare Sony into his iTunes world.
Pixar to Disney is a done deal. The question is will Pixar´s (the creative genius at Pixar) John Lasseter be given the title of “President of all Creativity” at Disney.
Ummm, Queezzie . . . source?
Stress causes cancer and Steve had it. Ditching Pixar would net him a great hunk of doe, reduce his stressful commitments and let him focus on Apple. I’m for it!
Makes me wonder if Steve might be getting ready to leave Apple to run Disney? Didn’t he say at the end of the keynote “I may not get another chance to talk to you before then, but April 1 will mark 30 years of Apple” or something to that effect? Maybe I’m smoking too many tea leaves but I’m just sayin….
Remember how Apple “bought” NeXT? NeXT ended up taking over Apple. I don’t see any other way it would happen with Disney. Jobs/Pixar would come on board, fire the “idiots” in charge, reorganize and make Disney what it should be, a great American Family film company. Jobs wouldn’t do it any other way.
Disney gets pixar, so disney in returns open the floodgates of every show ABC and ESPN or anything disney owns open for itunes. Those are the terms to make itunes bigger have the biggest selection of programming for itunes out of any entertainment distrubution system out there for a while. He can then license ABC and ESPN stuff to other wannabe TV and movie distrubuters like Yahoo and google.
more mohooyah coming in this way
Some of you have short memories. Remember when NeXT took over Apple? Yes, I said that correctly. Apple may have purchased NeXT, but Jobs took over Apple along with his key people from NeXT. It was like as if Apple paid Jobs/NeXT to be purchased.
I think the same thing would happen with Pixar/Disney.
After the merger, Jobs would be the top boss at Disney and those at Pixar would be given power positions.
It makes sense because it allows Pixar to do more and have more creative power. The road ahead now is one where they can’t distribute themselves and if they partner with another, they’ll find that at some level they’ll always have to compromise.
However if they take over Disney, they’ll ultimately be in full control of *all* aspects of their productions from creation, distribution, marketing and everything right down to the character costumes on Disney’s Main Street.
Jobs has never micromanaged Pixar. He’s had a much different role and personality as CEO of that company than he has at Apple. I think the same would happen at Disney. He’d be involved in things that are core to his passion and give full autonomy to the crap he could care less about (like hotels and cruise lines).
This would still allow him to be Chairman at Disney *and* CEO of Apple. As Apple moves further from being just a computer systems company to being a media systems, content and services company, this will ultimately benefit Apple as the two corporations would be very closely tied if not ultimately merged.
What s/he said.
Some of you (Macslut and followers) are smoking too many of Donald Duck`s droppings.
Disney is not just an animation studio.
Steve has his hands full with having to get Intel Macs to work….having no choice but to go to Intel.
However, I do believe Steve had a change of vision and realizes the computer company idea (box and software) have reached a dead end and he is moving Apple into a media distribution company (iPod, mini mac and other on the way).
Eventually Disney will swallow up Apple. (Say about two years from now.)
Then Steve might be a position to be the head cheese (as Mickey would call him) at Disney.
i have often quipped how it would be a fun challenge to put the magic, quality, and innovation of Walk Disney Himself back into Disney.
Stay tuned, maybe i can pull it off….
And the combined companies would be known as…Dixar?
An early front-runner for worst new corporate name of the year…
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Disney can go to hell.
If Jobs becomes the largest shareholder, he should fire everyone at that f***ed up company and start form scratch. Pixar will be ruined.