chanster

Sony in Talks to Buyout MGM
By REUTERS

Published: April 21, 2004



NEW YORK, April 21 (Reuters) - Legendary movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is in advanced talks to be bought by Sony Corp. and two buyout firms in a deal that could be worth close to $5 billion, sources close to the deal said on Wednesday.

The buyout firms, which include Texas Pacific Group and Providence Equity Partners, are in discussions with billionaire financier Kirk Kerkorian to buy his stake of more than 70 percent in MGM, sources said.

Current talks involve the three partners splitting a $1.5 billion cash payment and borrowing the rest to finance the deal, sources said.

Texas Pacific Group declined to comment. Providence Equity and MGM could not be reached for comment.



Now maybe we get Rocky IV SUPERBIT.!!! Yes.!

Peep

Last month the hot rumor going around was that Warner Bros. was going to buy either MGM or their library. Oh well, less work for me.

QuiGonJosh

so sad! MGM has been putting out some great DVD's...

SFranke

You'll still get good DVDs, you'll just have to wait for CTHE to release the inferior versions first.

Jackskeleton

Didn't sony just sell the Culver Studios for 125mil ?

I bet Devil's going to be happy about this if it's true

devilshalo

Damn.. we like pissing Krekorian off I guess.

First, we make a Bond film.. now we say FU and buy the studio AND piss off the Broccolli's even more cuz we'll own the Bond franchise??

I thought we were still looking to make a deal with Pixar. (Eventhough we just started out own Animation unit)

necros

I thought of that song "I'm turning Japaneese" as soon as I saw this post.

reubs82

This would suck on so many levels, the main one being that it's Sony buying out MGM.

I can't wait for the Usual Suspects, Thelma and Louise, and Rain Man superbits to come out using screw job transfers from the MGM releases.

Am I the only one who hates the idea of HUGE corporations buying out other things just because they can?

Neeb

This would finally give Sony their James Bond franchise they've been lusting after since the Kevin McClory deals fell through.

Jackskeleton

Yeah, but what will they have to let go of to be showing a profit at the end of the day?

jaeufraser

While I would say these companies all consolidating into big coporations is bad, I'd be more pissed if it was dreamworks than MGM. MGM is a horribly run studio, and quite frankly I don't mind seeing SOME company turn them around. Save for Bond, MGM is practically dead anyway.

I was thinking great! maybe they'll fix up the Bond franchise. But, then I thought, why would they...it makes a shitload of money.

John Spartan

Is the Bond franchise worth $5 billion? Didn't MGM sell off most of their film library already?

Josh-da-man

The big question is, will Sony discontinue all of the existing MGM DVDs, commission sub-par pan and scan transfers, and jack up the prices?

beefjerky

YES! If this goes through, I can finally watch Breakin' 2 - Electric Boogaloo in high definition, Blu-ray glory.

Flave

I would imagine ONE reason Sony wants to do this is to get another major studio on-side with BluRay.

This would make 2 out the 5 majors siding with BluRay and if they could get one more studio to come on-side, they would be the prohibitive favorite to win the upcoming hidef DVD war.

DonnachaOne

Bond Superbits...

I jest, surely.

NitroJMS

MGM actually has the largest film library of any studio. They lost many of their pre-1986 films due to a bad deal with Turner and Time Warner, but they still retain all of their newer material, plus all of the works from United Artists, Orion, and a few other smaller companies they've swallowed up. They have almost 4,100 titles total, compared to about 2,000 at Warner. They also have tons of TV shows in their archives which make a pretty penny in syndication and home video sales.

devilshalo

Funny that Sony Studios already occupy what was once MGM Studios.

Peep

Are you talking about titles already released on DVD? because Warner Bros. alone probably has at least 15 times the number you list. And that's only feature tiles, not TV series. And it doesn't include any of the other companies (like HBO, Cartoon Network, etc) that are part of Warner Home Video.

NitroJMS

Here's the press release from when MGM bought out Polygram a few years ago:

http://www.dvdfile.com/news/web_wire...ram_buyout.htm

It looks like they actually own somewhere in the ballpark of 11,000 titles when you account for home video releases and such.

Jackskeleton

and only 7 of them are actually good.

Peep

Still seems less than Warner's 30,000+ titles.