Comment by divbzero
8 hours ago
Some of Disney’s most valuable properties—ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars—were acquired. FiveThirtyEight may be smaller, but it should be in Disney’s self-interest to set things right and earn a reputation for being a good home for acquisitions.
Berkshire Hathaway has this attitude, with the proviso that the corporate management at the acquired firm must be competent, and the firm be profitable and protected by a "moat."
It's amazing that they trot out Sees Candy every year for the shareholders' meeting when they own GEICO.
It seems that Disney isn't doing this quite right.
For one thing See's Candy is fundamentally a value-added operation and GEICO is a positive cash flow financial structure which remains competitive by trying not to remove as much value from the customer as the next guy.
See's Candy is also what Charlie Munger considered their shift from distressed companies to high quality companies; its sentimental on a company level because it represented a real shift in investment philosophy.
Sees Candy made the wiki.
Services & retailing: Ben Bridge Jeweler, Business Wire, Dairy Queen, McLane Company, NetJets, Oriental Trading Company, Pampered Chef, See's Candies, Star Furniture, WPLG
Manufacturing: Benjamin Moore & Co., Clayton Homes, CTB International, Duracell, Fruit of the Loom, Johns Manville, Lubrizol, Precision Castparts Corp, Scott Fetzer Company, Garan Inc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_Hathaway
Yeah, Disney, the company that recently tried to bankrupt several novelists by claiming that when they bought Star Wars, they didn't put themselves on the hook for respecting contracts that Lucas signed. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/sta...
Disney has never given a single f*ck about that reputation, but the chiefs who agree to these acquisitions never had to care about that.
> ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars
And all of those have declined in reputation since their acquisition or soon after.
That's not remotely true.
Disney bought ESPN in 1996, Marvel in 2009 (literally had 2 movies released here and one of them flopped) and Pixar in 2006.
For Pixar, they and Disney were joined at the hip even before acquisition. Besides distribution rights, Disney had full sequel rights to almost all of Pixar's catalogue at the time. Disney could have made a sequel to Finding Nemo, The Incredibles etc even without Pixar's blessing or involvement. There is quite literally no Pixar without Disney.
Marvel? Their most successful years were under Disney. ESPN did not become the media empire you know it as until well after Disney's acquisition either.
I specifically said reputation. Disney has a history of buying properties and squeezing every last dollar out of them until nothing is left but a husk of what they were at their peak. Disney certainly got their money’s worth out of those purchases. I’m not denying that. But the reputation of all of them has been on a steep decline even if there were temporary spikes after the acquisition.
I’ll grant you that “soon after” might have been a stretch for ESPN, but it’s obviously true for the others. Almost all of Pixar’s most enduring films had their start before Disney bought the company. The same is true with Marvel. Sure, Disney’s fanfare might have played before the Avengers films, but those movies were the brainchild of Kevin Fiege, who was already in charge before the Disney purchase. You can maybe claim Disney has a good eye for finding companies on an upward trajectory, but these are all examples of Disney management’s failure to be a long-term steward of their acquisitions.
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> earn a reputation for being a good home for acquisitions.
It's way too late for that to be possible any more.
They're running with their heads down, for at least as long as the current administration exists.