MG Siegler on (bleh!) 500ish/Medium:
As we saw a couple days ago at Disney’s D23 Expo, the last deal is the focal point for the company for the foreseeable future. And it’s looking like it may be the steal of the bunch.
He goes on to write why he thinks the Lucas/Disney deal was such a steal.
Me, in November 2012 here on my beautiful personal blog:
So Disney, without a doubt, got a steal of a deal. But, we have to look at this transaction a little differently than just looking at the face value because Lucas took half of the money in Disney stock.
The $4 billion was split; half cash, half stock. Disney is promising to make Star Wars a much more international hit. As it stands, a huge percentage of the revenue from Star Wars comes from toys bought in the US. Disney can bring Star Wars to China, Japan and other nations where toys are a huge hit. Just not Star Wars toys. And, presumably, they can do something special in all of their parks worldwide to bring people into the parks. They can also fund, manage, and distribute new Star Wars releases, movies, games, toys – and George Lucas doesn’t have to lift a finger.
Not to mention Disney’s market cap zoomed up well over $4B the very next day after the initial announcement… one could argue they’ve already made their money back from the transaction in value. Now we’ll start seeing it earn that money back in actual revenue.