Originally Posted By paulyahoo It's not 1st April today, but the following news is quite laughable: France's Le Monde newspaper reported yesterday that Euro Disney could soon be the target of a hostile takeover bid from Center-Tainment, a Swiss leisure group. The report was based on an e-mail received from Center-Tainment, apparently in error, which said the bid will be launched today. Journalists are to be invited to a press conference in a Paris hotel, which has confirmed having received a reservation for a conference room, according to Le Monde. <a href="http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2006/11/30/afx3215217.html" target="_blank">http://www.forbes.com/business /feeds/afx/2006/11/30/afx3215217.html</a>
Originally Posted By leemac I suspect because TWDC could block any potential takeover. Their stake is sufficient enough to deter would-be predators.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 Anything that might force a change of management and get Karl Holz and George Kalogridis out of the company can only be a good thing.
Originally Posted By Westsider George Kalogridis was a Vice President of Disneyland back in '99 to '01. They booted him back to Florida in October of '01, after the fallout from 9/11 and DCA's first disastrous summer. Is he really in Paris now?
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 ^^Yes, he is, Westsider. Disney seemingly awards incompetence. George was first demoted to VP of Downtown Disney, which lasted for all of 3-4 months before becoming VP of the Travel Company (another demotion) where his job was basically to manage the call centers in Orlando and Tampa. But since things like the Big Brother Destination Disney program, Magical Gatherings and Extra Magic Nights came out of his department, not to mention a big upswing in sales (due largely to the resurgence in tourism after the 2001-03 period, but didn't stop him from taking credit for the $$$) ... he wound up in Paris as No. 2 to another Florida reject in Karl Holz. Truly sad how people can screw up so royally and still manage to have these kinds of positions. Iger has loads of deadwood to clear when it comes to parks and resorts. Incidentally on George K, he was VP of Epcot from 1995-2000 when he got the Sr. VP of DL promo ... it came largely due to two reasons: the increase in attendence his park experienced as the result of being the center of the Millennium Celeb AND the pintrading craze that he was a large part in creating. He also is the dude who told the LA Times that when DCA opened and hit capacity every day, that guests could always walk across the esplanade and settle for DL! Yeah, another great thinker in the exec suites.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 Oh, and while I don't think this takeover is realistic at all, I'd love to see a group with the ability to run the place the way it should be, take it over. Most Disney fans in the states would take having OLC run the parks here without even a thought because they've seen how bad things can get.
Originally Posted By paulyahoo As I know, corporate structure of DLP is very complex. It's not easy at all to take over the resort. Also nobody knows who hides behind Center-Tainment which seems to be a shell company.
Originally Posted By Park Hopper There was something about the bid being delayed because of a sick lawyer.
Originally Posted By TDLFAN If some other company is capable of handling DLP and best of all...keep it clean! Then I am all for it. Since it's obvious even Disney can't handle the requirements of running their parks in magical top form. I suggest they give it to OLC to operate.
Originally Posted By Park Hopper Problem is we don’t know anything about this new company. They were apparently formed just last September with the sole goal of making a take-over bid for DLP. The company will not divulge any information about itself. It won’t say who the investors are, who the company officers are, or anything specific about their experience in the leisure industry. For all we know they could move in and start building steel roller coasters and Tilt-o-Whirls.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 ^^There are certainly provisions in Disney's contracts to prevent such action. I am all for a takeover IF it means getting rid of the WDW management and having the park restored to its original state.
Originally Posted By Park Hopper I don’t know, Spirit, reading all those articles, it seems the folks at Center-Tainment think they have a way to get around Disney. They say they are prepared to run the place without TWDC. How they can do this or even IF they can do this, I don’t pretend to know. But people usually don’t expend that much time and money if they don’t have a solid strategy in mind. Anyway it will be interesting to see what happens.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 ^^Knowing Disney's legal team, I can't believe there would be a way to do an end around TWDC ... anything's possible, though. I just want the place run the way it should be. It is an amazing resort. To allow it to decay as it has, is just unforgivable.
Originally Posted By leemac <<They say they are prepared to run the place without TWDC.>> As far as I know there hasn't been an official approach as of yet. I should find out on Monday. No idea what crackpot legal advice they are getting but a change of control will revoke the licensing agreement and TWDC could opt to prevent the acquirer from using the characters (and hence could not even open the gates). They would have to negotiate an assignment on that contract to have any hope of taking over EuroDisney. It is exactly the same with OLC in Japan.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 ^^That's what I thought. I can't imagine any way a company could come in and take over without making a deal with the Mouse.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj It wouldn't be far-fetched to think that any takeover might involve the selling off of the French Disney property to developers. I imagine that the property there is very valuable -- maybe more valuable than the parks business itself.
Originally Posted By Park Hopper ^^ in which case Center-Tainment wouldn't care if Disney let them open the gates or not.
