Deals wrap: Fund manager Soros ending career
Billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros will be returning capital to outsiders and ending his nearly four-decade long career. In a letter to investors, Soros’ two sons cited tougher impending regulations on the hedge fund industry being the reason for returning the money. Soros said he will now only manage money for himself.
A study has found more than one-fourth of the 94 U.S. securities fraud lawsuits seeking class-action status and filed from January to June were related to so-called Chinese reverse mergers. Despite this surge in lawsuits, investors may have trouble recouping their losses even if they win.
Walt Disney Co., the majority shareholder of India’s UTV Software Communications, is proposing to buy most of the shares it does not already own in the company and delist them from all bourses. The deal has a market value of $826 million.
DealZone Daily
The world’s largest credit and debit card processor Visa is to pay some $2 billion for CyberSource, a company that helps retailers take online payments, including from mobile phones. Analysts estimate Visa already has 45 percent of the online market and the deal will only serve to boost the company’s position further.
The U.S.’s largest mall owner Simon Property Group has sent a revised recapitalization plan to rival General Growth Properties, which would see new investors, including Oak Hill Advisers, RREEF, ING Clarion Real Estate Securities and Taconic Capital, inject a further $1.1 billion into the business. Simon has already offered to invest $2.5 billion for about a quarter of its rival, while Paulson & Co — the U.S. hedge fund that bet against Goldman Sachs Abacus mortgage product — injecting a further $1 billion.
Film moguls Bob and Harvey Weinstein and backer Ron Burkle could reach a deal for Walt Disney’s Miramax Films within days, despite a rift between the Weinsteins and one of their minority shareholders Mark Cuban.
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In other media on Thursday:
Private equity firm Advent International is frontrunner to buy sofa chain DFS. Despite claims from the company’s founder Lord Kirkham that he is already “loaded”, the 500 million pound auction of the business has continued, the FT reported.
The FT also wrote that online grocery retailer Ocado is poised to appoint JPMorgan Cazenove, UBS and Goldman Sachs to advise on a possible 1 billion pound summer flotation.
Could Google/China bust up be bad for Disney’s bus stop?
Walt Disney is leading a group effort to buy into China’s largest bus-based digital media and advertising company, Bus Online. The investment would be peanuts for Disney, but the headache could wind up being jumbo sized because one of their investors in the bus deal, sources tell us, is Google.
Google threatened to quit China only a few weeks ago and the internet search giant is finalizing a deal that will let the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) help it investigate the corporate espionage attack it thinks originated in the People’s Republic. China has warned the U.S. not to make politics out of the Google issue, but it may be too far into the saber-jangling season for that, with Barack Obama having announced fresh U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan in his State of the Union address.
Though Google’s stake in the Bus Online deal is said to be small, even smaller than the tiny investment this will be for media giant Disney, it could just be big enough to cause headaches for Mickey and Co.
Bus Online is leading China’s media and advertising charge into this busy area of mass transit. It had revenue of only about 314.5 million yuan ($46.07 million) in 2009, but is the exclusive partner of state broadcaster CCTV and the official Xinhua news agency media content in advertising on buses. Sources tell us that senior Disney executives are set to fly to Beijing to meet media regulators to discuss Mickey’s long-term development plan in China, including the Bus Online deal.
The consortium planned to buy a stake of between 30 and 40 percent in Bus Online for more than $100 million via a purchase of old and new shares to be issued by the company in private placements. In November, Disney made a breakthrough deal to build one of its signature theme parks in Shanghai, marking a major advance for Western media and entertainment companies seeking to crack the tough Chinese market. With Google aboard, though, will the wheels of that bus come to a political stop?
Boys and girls, welcome to Disney’s Marvelous Media Machine
Walt Disney’s $4 billion offer for Marvel Entertainment would give it more than 5,000 comic book characters, including such mighty heroes as Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four. Disney’s Bob Iger told CNBC that the expanded roster will help bring more boys to the home of the Magic Kingdom, where Snow White, Cinderella and the Little Mermaid have long reigned supreme.
The cash and stock deal values Marvel at $50 per share, or a premium of 29 percent to Marvel’s closing stock price of $38.65 on Friday. The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies, and since Marvel’s CEO, Isaac Perlmutter, is also the largest shareholder of the company, it’s likely a done deal.
Marvel’s second quarter was a mighty one. It beat market estimates on strong DVD and pay TV sales of “Iron Man,” sending its shares to an all-time high. This year has been a lull for Marvel, with no new film releases due until 2010, when Iron Man 2 hits screens. Thor and the first Avenger movie, as well as Sony-produced “Spider-Man 4,” are slated for a 2011 release and an “Avengers” sequel is due in 2012.
Is this a game changer for Disney’s foes? Marvel rival DC Comics, with its stable of Batman, Watchmen and other, darker comic champions, is already a part of Time Warner. For the fantastic leap comic books have made to the big screen, this could be the last hurrah.
Marvel Technologies is up .50 on no other basis than that most major financial publications are erroneously citing their ticker (MRVL) instead of Marvel Entertainment’s (MVL) in the Disney story. Retractions and corrections before the major lawsuits start to fly?
