STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND GLOBAL COMPETITION INDIVIDUAL PAPER THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY AND ITS ACQUISITION STRATEGY: PIXAR, MARVEL & LUCASFILM Li Chi Ching Jane Strategic Management and Global Competition, Fall 2016 December 1, 2016 Abstract In this paper, I will analyze the rationale behind Disney’s acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm and the subsequent impacts they have on Disney as a whole. Disney has always been relying on its strategic model “The Ripple Effect” for sustainable growth—through creation of a film asset, value can be infused into an array of its related entertainment assets. And a popular film acts like a wave maker in creating ripples that go down to all of Disney’s businesses—success of films are central to Disney’s overall performance. Yet, the absence of successful films from Disney starting from the late 1990s stopped the Disney model from working, resulting in a decline in profits in various business segments within Disney. In light of this problem, Disney chose the path of acquisitions— Pixar was acquired in 2006, while Marvel and Lucasfilm were acquired in 2009 and 2012 respectively. All three acquisitions have one central goal—to find Disney’s way back to the wave makers, and hence make the Disney model work again. The announcement by Disney that it would buy its partner Pixar at $7.4 billion in 2006 once shook the world—many were either having doubts on how such an acquisition would turn out or considering the valuation as too high. Most acquisitions, particularly in media, are value-destroying as opposed to value-creating. Either Disney’s trampling of Pixar’s esprit de corps or Pixar animators showing resistance in the integration of technology and expertise with Disney would destroy the acquisition. However, evidence today shows the three acquisitions have so far been highly beneficial to Disney and have pushed Disney back up to its position as an entertainment giant. Ten years since the first acquisition of the animation studio Pixar, Disney has throughout this period successfully revitalized its own animation studio by learning and integrating Pixar’s animation technology, evidenced in Disney’s highly-recognized productions of Tangled (2010), Frozen (2013) and Zootopia (2016)—wave makers are again created form within Disney’s animation studio. On the other hand, the huge intellectual property that accompanied the acquisitions of Marvel and Lucasfilm has allowed Disney immediate exploitation of thousands of characters in generating revenues from films, merchandize production, theme parks and more—wave makers are directly collected from purchase of the two companies. In one sentence, with the accumulation of a rich reservoir of wave makers today, the ripple effect has come back stronger than ever for Disney. 2 1. Introduction Well-known all over the world, the Walt Disney Company (Disney hereafter) is an entertainment company that produces animation movies and extends them to its theme parks, merchandize and more. Disney was founded in 1923 by brothers Walt and Roy Disney initially solely as an animation studio, most famous for the creation of its mouse character— Mickey Mouse. Disney has over its 93 years of history, expanded into the world’s second largest media conglomerate after Comcast. Throughout the years, Disney diversified into a wide range of businesses that stem from its movie productions. It is now a multinational entertainment company headquartered in Burbank, California. Best known for its film studio—the Walt Disney Studio, Disney also has different operations in its five major business segments—Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, Studio Entertainment, Consumer Products and Interactive Media. By having Studio Entertainment as their foundation, the other business segments perform mostly as related diversifications that allow Disney to maximize revenue through having film-derived activities expand into these segments. Despite being one of the most well-known entertainment company across the globe, Disney has suffered from a rather long period of slow growth at the turn of the millennium, unable to capture the market by producing revenue-generating hits, intensified by lengthy internal turmoil for twenty years that involved the CEO of the time, Michael Eisner with Roy E. Disney, nephew of the co-founder of the company. However, from figure 1, it can be seen that after significant stagnation in growth, stock price began to rise continuously on an unprecedented scale after 2009, as it began to recover from the 2008 financial crisis—and my analysis is that this should be attributed to the current Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger’s acquisition strategy in incorporating Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm into its Studio Entertainment portfolio that created great synergy and brought about abundant revenue- maximizing opportunities that extended into Disney’s other business segments. Figure 1. Disney's stock price over the years. From Google Finance. 3 2. Problems Disney faced that led to the three acquisitions 2.1 The Disney Model—“The Ripple Effect” To understand the rationale behind the three acquisitions, it is necessary to first understand how the Disney model works. Unlike most movie companies which revolve around producing a number of movies every year and waiting for one or two that prove able to sell, every Disney movie is the first step in an entire package that has subsequent activities that will be realized in Disney’s other business segments if the movie turns out to be successful and gains popularity. As we can see from the strategic map of sustainable growth published in 1957 from Disney’s archives in figure 2, everything in Disney starts from the center—“theatrical films”, and from there value can be infused into an array of related entertainment assets like music, merchandize production, Disneyland, TV, publication… For example, Disney creates a Mickey Mouse movie, which gains popularity. From there, music CDs will be released; merchandizes will soon be found on the shelves in Toys R Us and Disney stores; story books and books on behind-the-scene production of the animation will be sold in bookstores; a new ride or even a new theme area will be built in Disneyland; there will be a new program in Disney Channel; new video games will be developed, and the list goes on. Despite being published half a century ago, the fundamental patterns and the underlying insight of the strategic map remains largely valid in reflecting the way Disney works. Figure 2. Disney's corporate theory of sustained growth published in 1957. 4 Therefore, the essence of the Disney model is that as long as there is a popular movie, there will be lots of other businesses that it can earn further revenue from. In other words, Disney’s strategy is related diversification—selling its customers the entire experience by having film-derived activities expand into its other business segments. Bob Iger, current CEO of Disney, once described the model as a “ripple effect”— “As animation goes, so goes our company. A hit animated film is a big wave, and the ripples go down to every part of our business—from characters in a parade, to music, to parks, to video games, TV, Internet, consumer products. If I don’t have wave makers, the company is not going to succeed.”1 As Iger said, there is one big problem to this strategy—also a fundamental problem in pursuing related diversification: all the eggs are in the same basket. When there are no good movies, meaning no wave makers, Disney’s other business segments will suffer as well. 2.2 The loss of wave makers—no more ripples (mid-1990s to mid-2000s) The Disney empire was rooted in animation and its classic characters—Mickey Mouse and friends, and the Disney princesses. Yet they do not generate revenues for the company forever—breakthrough ideas and new animations are always needed. After a few successful productions in the early half of the 1990s, including Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King(1994), Disney’s animation studio had not been doing as well since the latter half of the decade which lasted into the turn of the millennium. Disney was not producing blockbuster movies with attractive characters. At a low point, the 2002 film Treasure Planet turned out to be a fiasco that forced Disney to take a $98 million write-down. Quoting from Iger, “After ten years of The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, there were then ten years of nothing”.2 As a consequence of the under-performing animation studio, there was nothing to take advantage of in the related diversifications that Disney has, leading to a marked decline in profits in various segments as shown in figure 3. There were no ripples found across the Disney strategic map. 1 Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. 2 Ibid. 5 5,000 Studio 4,000 Entertainment 3,000 Consumer Products 2,000 Parks and Resorts 1,000 Media Networks 0 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Figure 3. Disney's decline in net income by business segments from 1997-2003 (USD million) 2.3 Growing competition in the industry On the other hand, Disney’s declining status as the top animation company in the industry was accelerated by the rapid rise of rival companies and their successful productions, such as The Ice Age series by Blue Sky Studios that debuted in 2002 and the Kung Fu Panda series by Dreamwork Studios. Its alliance company Pixar was also performing well with widely recognized productions like Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003) and The Incredibles (2004). Disney no long had any dominating power in the industry. 2.4 Lengthy internal dispute Further contributing to Disney’s decline, the company had been consumed by a lengthy internal dispute between the CEO of the time, Michael Eisner and Roy E.