REPORT: LIONSGATE TO ACQUIRE TWILIGHT STUDIO

Having failed in its effort to acquire MGM last year, Lionsgate is expected to announce as early as this week that it will be be buying Summit Entertainment for $400 plus the assumption of $300 million in debt, published reports said over the weekend. Lionsgate had spent much of the past year fending off takeover [...]

WITH ABDUCTION TANKING, LIONSGATE WARNS OF BIG LOSSES

This weekend’s failure of Abduction made it three money losers in a row for Lionsgate, and the mini-studio wasted no time in filing a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying that, as a result, it now expects to lose $40-50 million in the current quarter. The filing is required by the SEC in [...]

ICAHN SHUTS LIONS GATE BEHIND HIM

The bitter battle between Carl Icahn and the top executives of Lions Gate Entertainment has ended, with Icahn agreeing to sell nearly all of his 33-percent stake in the studio at 7 percent below Tuesday’s closing price and both sides agreeing to drop their lawsuits against one another. Icahn’s surprise move on Tuesday came just [...]

STOCKS FALL; MEDIA STOCKS FALL FARTHER

As the overall stock market experienced another plunge in its recent roller-coaster ride, some investors in media stocks hung on for dear life Thursday. The Dow Jones U.S. Broadcasting & Entertainment Total Stock Market Index fell 4 percent, but media companies that rely the most heavily on advertising revenue plunged far more deeply. For a [...]

NY COURT TOSSES OUT ICAHN’S LAWSUIT AGAINS LIONS GATE

Agreeing with a decision by a British Columbia court, the New York State Supreme Court has tossed out a lawsuit brought against Lions Gate Entertainment by dissident investor Carl Icahn. Icahn had sought to overturn a debt-for-equity swap by the company that had reduced his holdings in Lions Gate to 32.8 percent from 38 percent.In [...]

ANTIOCO AND ICAHN WRITE BLOCKBUSTER POST MORTEMS

Former Blockbuster CEO John Antioco and corporate raider Carl Icahn face off in the current edition of the Harvard Business Review in separate articles over the collapse of the movie rental chain. Antioco makes the case that after Icahn bought up 10 million shares of Blockbuster in 2004 he and his handpicked board members began [...]

WILL BLOCKBUSTER SHUT DOWN?

In what appeared to some analysts as yet another step toward the disappearance of the familiar blue façades that have been a part of the U.S. retail scene for the past quarter-century, Blockbuster on Tuesday agreed to sell itself to a so-called stalking horse consortium of its debtholders for $290 million in a deal that [...]

LIONS GATE FIRES NEW SHOTS AT CARL ICAHN

Lions Gate Entertainment wants the U.S. District Court in Manhattan to require Carl Icahn to disclose information about whether he entered into a secret agreement with MGM creditors to merge the studio on his terms with Lions Gate, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Tuesday). In its court filing, Lions Gate also accused Icahn of [...]

ICAHN PREPARES FOR NEW LIONS GATE BATTLE NEXT YEAR

In a MacArthur-like “I shall return” pronouncement, Carl Icahn on Tuesday vowed to resume his battle with Lions Gate Entertainment management next year. Noting that the New York Supreme Court had agreed to hold a full trial on his complaint that Lions Gate had wrongfully diluted the value of his shares by conducting what he [...]

ICAHN ADMITS DEFEAT — FOR NOW

Carl Icahn has thrown in the towel in his long fight to take control of Lions Gate Entertainment. He acknowledged on Monday that his unsuccessful effort to persuade a New York court to issue an injunction that would have the effect of blocking the company’s equity-for-debt swap with Mark Rachesky, Lions Gate’s second-largest shareholder behind [...]

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