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Posts with tag Paul Allen

Should Steven Spielberg go public?

Steven Spielberg wants to reboot the DreamWorks brand, according to this article. He's not happy being at Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Paramount and not having full ownership of his films. What he wants to do now is see if he can summon $1 billion in financing to catalyze this new phase in his life.

Of course, the phrase "see if he can" is probably not the most accurate one to use when talking about Spielberg. When it comes to Hollywood, his word is scripture, and if he asks for financing, he'll have more takers than he can handle. After raising his billion bucks, Spielberg needs to decide which studio will be a perfect home for his new celluloid ambitions. Although the article states that there is a possibility he can land anywhere, to me, there's no ambiguity whatsoever.

Spielberg will end up at General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Universal (if I could be as sure about the price of oil as I am about Spielberg and Universal, I'd be a rich, rich man). He and his Amblin shingle have had a long relationship with Universal, and simply put, that's where he wants to be. It's funny to consider Disney (NYSE: DIS) and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) as potential new homes for DreamWorks. Disney definitely wouldn't want him since the Mouse is being very conservative in terms of film making, and although News Corp. would love to overpay for him (I think News Corp. enjoys overpaying for things at times), I just don't see Spielberg going to Fox.

Continue reading Should Steven Spielberg go public?

Oprah has left the building: NBC Universal (GE) buys Oxygen Media

Oh! Oxygen Media logoCall it "Girls Gone Mild." In 2000, Geraldine Laybourne, the former president of the Nickelodeon network for children, and Oprah Winfrey, who needs no introduction, got together to launch a media empire focused on women -- called Oxygen. The idea was to create synergies between TV and the internet. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) founder Paul Allen liked the idea enough he helped back the venture.

But the dreams never matched the reality. The sexiness of the idea -- a woman's media empire! -- never lived up to its potential. And today, NBC, a unit of General Electric (NYSE: GE), announced that it would buy Oxygen Media for $925 million.

Continue reading Oprah has left the building: NBC Universal (GE) buys Oxygen Media

Paul Allen to take Charter (CHTR) private?

In a filing with the SEC, billionaire Paul Allen has mentioned that he may want to take cable firm Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) private.

It is hard to see how he could manage that. The company has over $19 billion in debt and a market cap of over $1 billion. In the trailing four quarters, the company has only had about $550 million in operating income.

Allen will not be able to refinance the debt at better rates in such a tough credit environment. His management at Charter has spent the last two years restructuring the balance sheet to improve debt service. And, they have done a good job, so the payment picture for that pool is not going to get any better.

Selling the company would probably be hard. Even with some savings, no other large cable company will be able to offset the need to come up with $25 billion or more to buy a company with $1.5 billion in revenue.

Unless Allen wants to pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year to make sure that Charter does not default, the company isn't going private.

Paul Allen's activity in DreamWorks (DWA): Is it simply 'rebalancing'?

The LA Times is reporting that Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), is selling the majority of his stake in DreamWorks Animations (NYSE: DWA). His sale of 10-12 million shares in a company he founded probably raises some eyebrows and begs the question as to why he's selling out now.

Paul Allen has attributed this move simply to "part of an ongoing effort to rebalance." Interestingly, Allen said he also plans on leaving the company's board. While his exact reason is not given, one could presume it's due to the fact that he will now own less than one-half of what he owned when he was on the board.

It should come as no surprise that the stock has sold off about 7% so far today on this news. First off, the market is going to have increased supply of the stock until his shares are purchased by the market. This should create a mental ceiling for share prices as investors and traders will remain worried about "flooding" the market with supply. The worries that could be construed due to Allen's recent moves are also likely to weigh down the shares until the situation has blown over.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-215.458,376.24
NASDAQ-46.821,445.56
S&P 500-25.52845.22

Last updated: December 04, 2008: 08:55 PM

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