According to the Wall Street Journal, Hasbro may be offering itself up for sale in a leveraged buyout to Providence Equity Partners, which would result in taking the company private. There is speculation that the buyout is going through, while by the same token, there is also rumors that the buyout talks came to a halt in recent weeks.
The WSJ reports that:
A leveraged buyout of Hasbro, an S&P 500 company that owns the G.I. Joe, Transformers and Nerf brands, would mark the year’s largest private-equity deal.
In recent years, Hasbro has strove for more multimedia tie ins, with movie products from properties such as Transformers proving to be very profitable and successful even after the movies have hit DVD. Along with hits, there have been some misses as well.
So have at it Toyark’ers, would a leveraged buyout be a good thing, or bad thing for Hasbro’s properties?
UPDATE: Hasbro has released a statement (as reported on CNN.com and the WSJ) confirming that their board of directors met with an undisclosed firm regarding a privatization offer (Hasbro did not confirm or deny it was Providence Equity Partners). But the toy giant also denied that they would be pursuing any buyout deal, and further stated that they are not interested in taking the company private. However, industry analysts have commented that Hasbro might still be interested in taking the company private, but is just waiting for a better offer.
Will Hasbro Be Bought Out?
i have no idea what i just read.i know nothing about stocks and wall street and all that other nonsense
well it can be good or bad, going private might let hasbro manage and capitalize it's assets better (license the shit out of their properties), to better focus on project development and other inhouse things like speeding up production and building larger and bigger product bases (make more toys quicker and branch out into more stuff). going private should get rid of alot of typical stuff that is quite annoying like answering to stock holders every quarter and having major decisions made by shareholders not the actual individuals in charge of each dept. if you remove the shareholder control you can get more things done quicker with out answering and reporting to the committee that is only interested in the stock price and quarterly profit going up not creative or otherwise non fiscal driven endevours. (make us cash from these things you already have, don't make up new stuff unless it will rake in megabucks).
or it can go the opposite way of hasbro going completely stagnant and wave after wave of repaint after repaint, using the same toys over different lines - marvel legends showing up as "space ranger friend's main bad guy" etc...
it can go either way but i hope hasbro keeps stepping up their game.
This... I am unsure how to feel right now.
It's smart for Hasbro. Stocks are going to get killed next year when higher taxes kick in. Business is being pushed into 2010.
It's notable that ToysRus' capital group is looking to cash out and go public now.
I'm nervous about it, but I will hold judgment until confirmation on whether the deal was done or if it fell through.
buyout talks are common. you probably wouldnt hear about it much until its almost a done deal, but behind closed doors, most companies are usually in talks of something like this. most of the time, it wouldnt push through anyway because an agreement couldnt be reached. so i wont be surprised if nothing happens on this one anyway.
I have honestly no idea what's going on, so I can't pass judgement.
Just hope this turns out for the best.
Hasbro (NYSE:HAS) stated today that it is not having any discussions regarding the sale of the company. Hasbro confirmed that it had been approached by a private equity firm regarding a transaction, and said that its Board of Directors determined that there was no interest in pursuing such transaction.
yay
This is indeed good news, but analysts are stating that it just could be that Hasbro wants a better deal than Providence Equity Partners was willing to give at the time. Apparently, even though they were rejected by Hasbro, the private firm is still interested in pursuing a deal with Hasbro.
Hasbro held talks with firm, but won't pursue a deal - Jun. 24, 2010
Hasbro Won't Pursue Buyout - WSJ.com
What is a Hasbro?
:-/
Full Thread: Hasbro Possibly In Talks For Buyout
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