Sony To Acquire MGM, Comcast also in deal - Amusement Business (http://www.amusementbusiness.com/amusementbusiness/industrynews/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000641746), 9/24/04

MGM and Sony Corp. has issued a joint statement announcing that they have reached an agreement to sell MGM to Sony and a handful of co-investors. The deal to sell MGM for about $4.85 billion -- $12 per share, plus the assumption of about $2 billion in debt -- was approved by MGM's board of directors in a recent meeting.

Two points of interest:

1. With this acquisition, Sony boots its entertainment library with 4,000 MGM and UA titles, and gives Sony's Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment a new and valuable stream of product for DVD releases.

2. Comcast, who is also part of this deal, now also gets new content (which it tried to do with an unsolicited bid for Disney earlier this year). The deal calls for a joint venture between Sony and Comcast -- managed by Comcast -- "establishing new cable channels featuring Sony Pictures and MGM content."

Doesn't Time Warner own most of the old MGM library? Does Sony now get co-ownership of that?

Doesn't Time Warner own most of the old MGM library? Does Sony now get co-ownership of that?

No, this deal only gives Sony ownership of most of the UA library (among others, all the James Bond films) and the MGM films produced since the Turner acquisition of MGM in the mid-80s. It also gives them ownership of most of the Orion and Hemdale libraries, which had also ended up at MGM/UA. That adds such films as "Dances With Wolves", "Silence of the Lambs", "The Terminator", and quite a few Woody Allen movies.

It is a decent library, but it isn't nearly as extensive or valuable as the older MGM library that Turner purchased, which finally ended up at Time-Warner.

-Jeff