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May 25, 2006
Lions at the Lionsgate: an analyst says yes, Icahn
A multitude of emails in various inboxes this morning from "Richard Alan Incorporated Founder and CEO Richard A. Dorfman"'s publicistas: he has strong opinions about investor Carl Icahn tearing down The House of SAW, after acquiring "4.1 million shares of Lions Gate [sic]Entertainment at a cost of just under $42 million. As a result, Icahn now owns a nearly 4% stake in the last remaining major independent film... and distribution company in the United States." Specific analysis of Lionsgate's valuation follows before Dorfman's esteeming of the company's many titles. his "Film Library For Dummies" explanation is a sturdy basic read, followed by this: "So, what is Lions Gate [sic] worth? ... [I]t’s hard to say for sure other than that it’s going to be worth what the highest bidder is willing to pay for it in an arms length transaction. [We can] get some idea of its value based on [the fund controlled by] George Soros... 
one of the savviest investors in the world [acquiring] the DreamWorks library from Paramount for $900 million... [W]ith just 59 titles, it in no way comes close to having the breadth or depth of the 8,000 titles in Lions Gate’s [sicsic] would have to involve an auction to extract maximum value. This should be possible since there are likely to be plenty of potential bidders, including studios, cable operators and private equity players, all of whom could bid alone or... as part of a consortium. I suspect cable operators in particular will be eager to participate in the bidding since the Lions Gate [sic] library is well positioned to serve as the foundation for one or more new cable channels... "I would not be surprised to see Lions Gate [sic] bring $2 billion or more in a sale, which would translate into a stock price potentially in excess of $16 per share... [T]his conclusion is not based on any rigorous financial analysis. Instead, it reflects a common sense approach that takes into consideration the history and dynamics of recent transactions as well as the current state of the motion picture industry."
Posted by Ray Pride at May 25, 2006 04:08 PM
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