Replies to post #50095 on Apple Inc (AAPL)

[acesteele]

WLD - Touche'

Disney's biggest changes in the last decade have come since Iger took over. The inane assumption that Linda makes that Steve Jobs joining the board would suddenly make DIS an AAPL computing company,and that he wields so much power are ludicrous. Roy Disney before him couldn't do it, Michael Ovitz couldn't do it, don't expect Steve to wave his hand & company's current IBM thinkpads will all be handed in for MacBooks. It's not going to happen. Steve owned Pixar, but John Lasseter is the one Disney cared about getting on board. All the previous Pixar movies weren't suddenly going to end up on Paramount DVD if Disney didn't buy Pixar. The characters already are in evergreen status thanks to Disney's daily exposure of them. ( If you've not been to the parks lately, there's Buzz Lightyear's Astroblasters Ride, The just opened Monsters Inc. ride @ California Adventure, & the re-tooled Disneyland Submarine ride now to feature the Finding Nemo characters (re-opening 2007).) Without the theme parks, who thinks about 10 year old movie characters? Is there a Paramount theme park that has rides based on RockADoodle? I don't think so. This is all about acquiring talent, the portion of character rights they didn't have, and synergy between the creators & the distributer, with the added bonus of a bit less operating tension. FWIW, Disney overpaid a bit, but will make it up on now keeping all of the all important plush (stuffed toy) sales profits.

[ljk]

Yes, you are one of the few who actually read what I said. :)

In all the times I've seen companies buyout others and promise they wouldn't change the company they bought, they always have, to the detriment of them both.

The other side is that, like in Apple buying NeXt, Disney bought a force that will consume Disney (for the better). With SJ's stake in being major shareholder and seat on the BOD, he is invested in forcing Disney to be better and better, even great. That he'll end up giving them strength.

This isn't impossible. Thuogh it seems a very daunting task indeed.

Iger's task is to bring creativity into Disney. And, in addition to Pixar's being the most creative and successful animation company around, and themeselves being the least, they have brought Jobs and Lasseter and Catmull into Disney, along with the Pixar team. What could be more creative than that? Talk abouot a transfusion of life blood!

Disney pays 7.4 Billion, seems llike a lot, but they immediately get back the over 1 billion in cash that Pixar held in its piggy bank. This reduces Disney's cost to 6.4 billion. Pretty big rebate there. And no coupons to fill out.

I know I'm bad with numbers but could I be missing something in that rebate thing?

On the other hand...

Lasseter has been given huge responsibilities for his creative attention, including the theme parks, which is a rather big job in itself. Will that dilute his attention from keeping the Pixar movies pure and perfect?

And there's the buyout company consuming the buyee company, from my first paragraph.

Of course, my burning question: how do I know when to sell my Pixar April call options?