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.
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