MGM EMERGES FROM BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION

Leo the Lion roared back to life on Monday as MGM said that it had emerged from bankruptcy protection with $500 million to fund new movies and television shows. The company is now owned by its previous lenders, who had agreed to swap debt for equity and installed Spyglass Entertainment chiefs Gary Barber and Roger […]

MGM SUBMITS “PRE-PACKAGED” BANKRUPTCY

MGM finally filed its “pre-packaged” bankruptcy plan today (Friday), following years of struggle to lift itself out from under a debt load that it occurred when its owners acquired it from investor Kirk Kerkorian in a $5-billion leveraged buyout in 2005. The filing came days after MGM creditors agreed to swap debt for equity and […]

WHAT’S ICAHN UP TO NOW?

While some reports indicated on Friday that activist investor Carl Icahn wound up supporting Spyglass Entertainment’s bid for MGM in exchange for a seat on the MGM board, other reports claim that Icahn is still attempting to buy up MGM debt in an effort to thwart the Spyglass deal and merge the studio with Lionsgate, […]

MGM CREDITORS APPROVE SPYGLASS DEAL

MGM creditors on Friday approved a prepackaged bankruptcy plan under which they would become owners of the beleaguered studio, which would be run by Spyglass Entertainment partners Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum. In doing so, they rejected an alternate plan pushed forward by activist investor Carl Icahn that would have merged MGM with Lions Gate […]

ICAHN MAKES NEW MGM MOVE, IS SUED BY LIONSGATE

Continuing to play a fascinating game of high-stakes chess, activist investor Carl Icahn on Wednesday made his third offer within a week to MGM debtholders. Icahn said he would pay 50 cents on the dollars to acquire MGM senior debt — if they submit the shares to him by Friday. (His previous offers stipulated minimum […]

ICAHN MANEUVERS TO MERGE LIONSGATE, MGM

As part of an elaborate maneuver to push forward a merger between Lions Gate Entertainment and Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Carl Icahn, who is already Lions Gate’s largest shareholder, has offered to buy $963 million of MGM’s debt for $433 million, or 45 cents on the dollar. Icahn already owns $500 million of the studio’s $4-billion […]

LIONS GATE OPENING ITS GATE FOR LEO

The mating of the lions has begun again — this time in earnest, it would appear. Lions Gate Entertainment, which operates the Lionsgate “mini-major,” has formally proposed a merger with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the home of Leo the Lion, under terms similar to those offered by Spyglass Entertainment — except in one important respect. Under each plan, […]

ARS GRATIA ARGENTUM?

The seemingly all-but-settled negotiations between MGM’s creditors and Spyglass Entertainment have been thrown into confusion following word that an Indian conglomerate, Sahara India Pariwar, had offered $2 billion to buy the company’s $3.7-billion debt and convert it to equity. The London Financial Times commented that the move “would deepen ties between Bollywood and Hollywood.” But […]

DEAL COULD RESTORE LEO’S ROAR

MGM’s lenders are now seemingly faced with a kind of Hobson’s choice: allow the studio to fall into bankruptcy and get little if anything from its liquidation or allow their $4 billion in notes to be converted into equity, bring in Spyglass Entertainment to take over management, and lend the new entity even more money […]

SPYGLASS MAY TAKE OVER AILING MGM

Spyglass Entertainment Co-chairmen Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum are reportedly close to closing a complicated deal under which they would end up running MGM, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Wednesday), citing people familiar with the situation. The deal would involve converting MGM’s debilitating debt into equity and Barber and Birnbaum receiving an ownership stake […]

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