Comcast, the cable and broadcasting giant, is in talks to acquire DreamWorks Animation, the leading production house of classy animated films. The acquisition deal is worth $3 billion according to reports.
DreamWorks Animation has a market value of $2.34 billion and this might take the upper graph today as the deal will be finalised. As far as Comcast standing is concerned, it owns the NBCUniversal and has a successful animation unit with Illumination Entertainment, the creators of the Minions franchise.
Therefore, this move would provide DreamWorks Animation, CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg a strong buyer after continued efforts of searching for a potential one. There is a treasure of creations like Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon and Madagascar at DreamWorks and this deal may facilitate the diversion of all of these according to the decisions of Comcast.
Comcast may even combine the company with its own animation division Illumination Entertainment as the genre is the same and huge franchises are in store. However, moves and decisions can be just speculated as Comcast is set to report its financial results today.
It is not even clear what this deal would mean for the veteran leader Jeffrey Katzenberg himself and how it would affect his position and functioning. But reports reveal that Katzenberg has been constantly holding talks with few players like toy maker Hasbro and potential buyers in China to sell off his company.
Katzenberg has steered the Glendale film studio through a number of financial challenges during the past few years as he formed a joint venture in 2012 with Chinese companies to build a Shanghai-based studio, Oriental DreamWorks. In 2013, DWA also bought the digital content company Awesomeness TV and signed a multiyear deal to provide original content to Netflix.
So, both the players involved in this deal are well furnished at their own place in their own way. Whether this move will benefit or work around in the opposite way is a secondary question as the main dilemma now lies whether this deal will be finalised or just blown away like the rest.
