Walt Disney’s board of directors gave its nod of approval yesterday to acquire Pixar Animation Studios, although certain details still need to be worked out, The Post has learned.
Disney has been negotiating to buy Pixar in an all-stock deal valued at close to $6.7 billion, and an agreement could be announced as early as this afternoon. The two-day board meeting yesterday in California extended from Sunday evening through last night.
The deal would make Apple founder and Pixar Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs the largest individual shareholder of Disney and likely give him a seat on Disney’s board of directors.
The lucrative partnership between Disney and Pixar goes back to 1995 with the release of “Toy Story.” Since then, Pixar’s movies – which also include the blockbusters “Monsters Inc.” and “Finding Nemo” – have generated some $3.2 billion, a windfall shared by both companies.
The current pact, which is particularly lucrative for Disney – which shares in the profits and controls the rights to sequels – was set to expire in June with the release of “Cars.”
In January 2004 Jobs went public saying he was ending talks on an extension and would instead talk with other studios about a deal to distribute films.
But shortly after, ex-Disney CEO Michael Eisner – whose strong personality clashed with Jobs – came under attack by dissident shareholders seeking to have him ousted.
The talks with other studios never got far, and Jobs put those on hold in the hope that Eisner would be booted – which he eventually was.
When Bob Iger took over for Eisner last September, fixing relations with Pixar was a priority. The two sides talked about several options for extending their partnership, including a deal in which Disney would no longer share in profits but instead reap just a distribution fee.
The two sides cozied up in other ways: For example Disney was the first company to offer its content on Apple’s iPod when it made available the ABC shows “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives.”
Disney shares closed at $25.50, off 20 cents and Pixar closed at $58.27, down 19 cents.