Marvel and Toy Biz :: essays research papers

My previous two columns create focused on the story of my short-lived involvement with a convocation of investors seeking to purchase Marvel Comics in January, 1998. As I related last time, my role in examining the Marvel documents was to analyze the licensing division with an meat as to how much potential revenue we could anticipate from this area. In the end, I had to tell my fellow investors that there re each(prenominal)y wasnt a whole the great unwashed of licensing potential left. Either the rights were hopelessly entangled due to bungling on the part of Marvels legal staff, or that most of the decent licensing properties had already been sell for many years forward, in exchange for upfront cash payments in previous years. The whiz area that held some potential was the possibility of someway breaking the ToyBiz royalty-free licensing agreement. That pass not only gave ToyBiz the rights to produce any and all Marvel goldbricks in perpetuity, but also granted them a adj ust royalties rate It seemed quite plausible to me that the bankruptcy court had the discretion to avert such an encumbering agreement. That, in fact, was exactly what investor/raider Carl Icahn was seeking in his reorganisation plan for Marvel. He was so sure he could have the toy contract terminated that he bet upwards of $200 meg of his money, and that of closely allied investors, by purchasing Marvel bonds at agony prices. It was exactly the prospect of losing their sweetheart agreement which made ToyBiz owners Isaac Perlmutter and Avi Arad passionately commit to purchasing Marvel. ToyBiz was almost completely dependent on its Marvel license for its survival, so there was no way they could give up on this deal. That is why Perlmutter arranged his own financing group, and ultimately bid everyplace $400 million for Marvel. Returning to our investment group, while I was practice the licensing agreements, the bankers whom I accompanied to the Marvel bankruptcy trustees office went over the financials. We were in the beginning going to work through the night to establish a criteria at a lower place which we could craft a bid for the company, or some part of the company. We halt for lunch at 1 PM, however, and it quickly became apparent from our conversations that no one in our group thought Marvel was worth anything near what Icahn and Perlmutter were bidding.