Guest ajc Posted December 27, 2013 Share Posted December 27, 2013 DreamWorks Animation Is Pioneer In "Cloud Atlas Strategy" "It would seem that multi-platform branding is all-the-rage. Marvel announced its big Netflix series deal to branch out four of its smaller-scale superheroes to compliment the current Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, which will all exist in the same universe as the ongoing feature films. The new Terminator reboot will exist both in feature film form and in an episodic television series. Everyone is wondering what kind of interconnected universe Warner Bros. is planning with its DC properties, specifically whether its present and future television universes (CW’s Arrow and The Flash, Fox's Gordon series) will exist in the same universe as each other and/or the Man Of Steel DC universe. But one of the first big tests for this new “Cloud Atlas strategy” (“everything is connected”) comes from the most unlikely of places: DreamWorks Animation..." http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2013/12/24/dreamworks-animation-is-patient-zero-in-franchise-interconnectivity/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 A key learning for me over the past couple of years is to be more patient after a purchase has been made and not be happy with a quick 20% or 30% gain. It takes a great amount of work to find undervalued well run companies with very strong franchises. As the underlying business improves and Mr Market falls back in love with the company moves in the stock price of 100% are not uncommon. +1 very true. I settle for the quick gains too often. I must learn to be more patient... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/business/media/a-tablet-for-children-that-comes-with-its-own-penguins.html?ref=business&_r=0 A Tablet for Children That Comes With Its Own Penguins Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted June 18, 2014 Share Posted June 18, 2014 DreamWorks Animation Aiming Beyond Film http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/business/media/dreamworks-updates-the-santa-mall-visit.html?ref=business Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted June 18, 2014 Share Posted June 18, 2014 what is so good about this one. Doesnt generate any FCF in last 3 years, trades on a expensive PE ratio. Looks like a crappy business. Latest 10q has negative gross margins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sportgamma Posted June 18, 2014 Share Posted June 18, 2014 what is so good about this one. Doesnt generate any FCF in last 3 years, trades on a expensive PE ratio. Looks like a crappy business. Latest 10q has negative gross margins. Thesis: future free cash flow from library is not reflected in income statement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted June 18, 2014 Share Posted June 18, 2014 Library revenue was 173 million$ in 2013? And they keep investing in new movies, some of them might be bad investments. The market also seems different then when buffett invested in disney. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwy000 Posted June 18, 2014 Share Posted June 18, 2014 They've had a couple of flops recently which has hurt the thesis (especially when you only put out 3-4 films per year). Cash flow should continue to be poor for the next year as these flops work through the pipeline but a couple of big wins this year should start to help. How To Train Your Dragon 2 should easily generate $500-600M at box office and big digital sales which will flow to cash flow starting next year. In addition, katzenberg has majorly diversified the revenue and cash flow streams with TV deals and theme parks (on which they get licensing revenue but take little financial risk). They bought a YouTube channel last year for about 1/10th of the value it would go for today. Finally, they have taken steps to reduce film production costs significantly without impacting quality. But bottom line, your point is correct - there's no free cash flow today and you are investing in the success or failure of a limited number of big budget items. But oh if they hit, they just churn out cash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klarmanite Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 Does anyone know what the fallout from the SEC investigation relating to Turbo might be? DWA has come down quite a bit. Starting to look interesting again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phaceliacapital Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/06/24/why-didnt-how-to-train-your-dragon-2-fly-higher/ I thought the entire 'small Disney' case was interesting, but the movie business is so much "hit or miss".. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jouni1 Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 this reminds me of LGF, which i failed to invest in when library revenues were getting to critical mass. somehow dreamworks worries me, as in that they don't care enough about making money. have to dig in to it a bit more over the week. price is going in the right direction now at least :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valueyoda Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 The problem primarily resides with the durability of the characters and the franchises. Neither the latest movies since Shrek or Madagascar have the magic "Disney" touch, nor do the characters in the film libraries purchased by Dreamworks. Unless Dreamworks gets its touch back in terms of the craft of storytelling, it will be hard to build durable franchises. The strength of Disney has always been that through good storytelling and character development they were able to build moats around individual characters that they could leverage across many platforms, but if the characters simply don't appeal to mass audiences, their earnings potential is limited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jouni1 Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 yeah i understand where you're coming from. personally i am fed up with disney's "let's make long haired people sing for 90 minutes" style of making movies. dreamworks has put out some great ones. i'm not sure it's cheap enough for investment yet, but i believe(or hope) there's room in the world for 2 profitable western animation studios. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregS Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 DWA looks interesting again in the teens. Looking at private market value, I would find it hard to believe DWA would be bought for less than book value considering much of its historical library is either $0 or very little on the balance sheet. Closer we get to book value the more attractive it becomes. Long term the key things to watch are China and TV (including digital channels) in the US. They are making big investments right now in China with Oriental DreamWorks but haven't harvested any of that investment yet. The potential is huge (though not without risk of course). The stock still trades on the boom/bust cycle of its movies so the volatility is crazy. The market is right to be skeptical right now because they are on quite a cold streak and haven't proven that increasing the number of movies they produce will be helpful to their movie quality or the bottom line. It's a hard company to buy and hold but we might get a good price soon with not too much downside. Anyone see details re the SEC investigation? Even if they have to write down Turbo a bit more it's noncash, so I'm not sure it's a big concern. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted July 30, 2014 Author Share Posted July 30, 2014 yeah i understand where you're coming from. personally i am fed up with disney's "let's make long haired people sing for 90 minutes" style of making movies. dreamworks has put out some great ones. i'm not sure it's cheap enough for investment yet, but i believe(or hope) there's room in the world for 2 profitable western animation studios. Have you seen Tangled? To me that was a return to form for Disney (though that was after they bought Pixar, so Ed Catmull certainly helped them refocus). I stopped watching Frozen after they started singing, though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted September 28, 2014 Share Posted September 28, 2014 also posted in Softbank thread... Japan's SoftBank in talks to buy DreamWorks http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/28/us-dreamworks-anim-softbank-idUSKCN0HN03F20140928 The talks were first reported by the Hollywood Reporter, which quoted an unidentified source as saying a buyout would value DreamWorks at $3.4 billion. The entertainment trade publication said SoftBank had offered $32 per share for DreamWorks, a substantial premium to the stock's Friday closing price of $22.36. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Hasbro in Early Talks to Buy DreamWorks Animation A Deal Would Bring a Diversifying Animation Studio Under the Fold of a Major Toy Maker http://online.wsj.com/articles/hasbro-inc-is-in-early-talks-to-buy-dreamworks-animation-1415850234 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 How Jeffrey Katzenberg Is Rewriting DreamWorks’ Script Animation-studio chief vows to refocus on films after empire-building period http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jeffrey-katzenberg-is-rewriting-dreamworks-script-1427682601 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sportgamma Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 "Joint ventures are tough.… It's like getting married," Fong said. "Instead of two people, you have two corporations getting married; we're the love child." The company has quietly dropped a film called "Tibet Code," which Katzenberg unveiled at a Beijing news conference in April 2013 alongside Han Sanping, then-chairman of the powerful state-run distributor China Film Group. The adventure story, based on a series of Chinese novels set in 9th century Tibet, has "all the makings of a world-class, quality, blockbuster franchise," Katzenberg told reporters then. He said the company could not come to terms with the producer who owned the rights to the book. The $330 million that DreamWorks and its Chinese investment partners invested in Oriental DreamWorks includes money to build and staff the Shanghai studio. Katzenberg declined to say how much money DreamWorks contributed to the deal, or how DreamWorks and its Chinese partners will divvy up revenue and profit. But he said DreamWorks' 45% ownership stake in the joint venture limits its financial exposure. "If it fails it will be a loss of our time and effort as opposed to damaging the underpinnings of the company," he said. "Not a huge downside, gigantic upside." Also boding well for the partnership, Katzenberg said, is a strong partnership with media mogul Li Ruigang, chairman of China Media Capital. "I feel like he has as much skin in this game and is determined that we win and succeed," Katzenberg said. "I just find him an excellent partner, even when we disagree." How DreamWorks fares in China will be important to its future, analysts say. "If China is going to surpass the U.S. box office in the next four or five years, having a strong foothold there is key," said Eric Wold, a media analyst with B. Riley & Co. "It could not only help turn [DreamWorks] around, it could be a major leg of the company." http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-china-dreamworks-20150609-story.html#page=2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haasje Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Interesting article. This part is also an important piece of info about ODW: The creation of Oriental DreamWorks has already resulted in preferential treatment for "Kung Fu Panda 3" in China. The movie's recent designation as co-production will allow the company to receive a larger share of revenue than foreign studios typically receive when their films are allowed into China under its quota system. Although Dreamworks is giving up 55% by going into China through a JV, it is also sharing the investments. Meanwhile, the way I understand this to work is that the % take on tickets almost doubles (close to the level that is standard in the rest of the world/U.S.) because of this setup. So that makes it a much better JV than you would think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted April 28, 2016 Author Share Posted April 28, 2016 On Twitter: "BREAKING: NBCUniversal to acquire DreamWorks for $41/share in cash" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 On Twitter: "BREAKING: NBCUniversal to acquire DreamWorks for $41/share in cash" http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-28/comcast-to-acquire-dreamworks-animation-for-3-8-billion Wished I didn't sell my shares back in the high teens ;D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sys Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 i've traded this off and on selling calls and puts. i made considerably less money that if i'd just held from when i first bought and sold today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
netnet Posted April 29, 2016 Share Posted April 29, 2016 i've traded this off and on selling calls and puts. i made considerably less money that if i'd just held from when i first bought and sold today. Said Yoda, "You are learning grasshopper." (oh, wait that was Karate Kid.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phaceliacapital Posted April 29, 2016 Share Posted April 29, 2016 i've traded this off and on selling calls and puts. i made considerably less money that if i'd just held from when i first bought and sold today. I think that's often the case.. I looked at it for the hidden value of the content library but decided to pass. Would never expected Comcast to buy it, guess media companies are not as dead as people thought them to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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