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UPDATE: Not surpisingly, Lionsgate said it was “disappointed” by today’s Canadian regulatory ruling. “The Board and its advisors are reviewing the decision of the BCSC and considering all of Lionsgate’s options, including applying for an appeal of the BCSC decision.
“The Board continues to recommend that shareholders vote FOR the approval of the Shareholder Rights Plan at the Special Meeting of Shareholders which is scheduled for May 4, 2010.
In addition, the Board continues to recommend that shareholders reject the Icahn Group’s unchanged, unsolicited offer to purchase up to all of the common shares of Lionsgate for U.S.$7.00 per share because it is financially inadequate, opportunistic and coercive, and is not in the best interests of Lionsgate, its shareholders and other stakeholders. The Board strongly recommends that shareholders protect the value of their investment by NOT tendering their shares into the Icahn Group’s offer.”
5:00 PM: You know that poison pill that looked like it could end Carl Icahn’s attempt to take over Lionsgate? Well, it’s null and void now thanks to a new ruling by the British Columbia Securities Commission, that province’s regulatory body. (Lionsgate is incorporated in Canada as well as the United States.) This clears the way for Lionsgate shareholders to consider Icahn’s $7 per share offer which expires Friday. What will LG management do now?
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Of course! It’s not rocket science. It’s just business.
Get their resumes ready?
I am a New Yorker so I know of Icahn’s reputation and connections….
Carl Icahn is known for ” hostile take over “. This is his strategy with other business deals as well! He is a bully and will use ” baseball bat New York style ” to get things done!
Lionsgate should look to Rupert Murdock, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or even the prince of Abu Dahbi for money, make an offer to buy out his shares and get him out of the company.
Carl Icahn is not a creative person, he is a typical New York business man ( making money by screwing people over and out of money ), he is very cut throat and an idiot when it comes to creative visions, he will destroy the film company if it goes into his hand! His approach of ” hostile take over ” on Lionsgate is merely the thrill of the chase to see if he can win, it is about winning to him because he already has so much money, so it is not about money. For others in Lionsgate is about their hearts, souls, careers, visions and it is their love because is what they do for a living ( film making), it means something to the people at Lionsgate, it is also their livelihood. It is very sad to see this a**hole tries to steal their vision / company for fun or the thrill of winning, especially when film making has absolutely no meaning to him!! I wish Lionsgate the best, and they should get another billionare to buy out Icahn’s shares and throw him out of the company! Make the a**hole an offer he can’t refuse and get him to leave! Tell him his $7 a share is an insult and a joke! Nothing in life is free! They should destroy him! Give him a heart attack from stress, after all he is very old….:)
I hope they fend him off. That guy is a nightmare. He’d ruin the company.
They should call it a day. Let Icahn get stuck with the hot potato.
The capital requirements of moving to the next level are now staggering and they will end being merged with someone else and surviving as a label a la New Line.
Per ‘Crewman’ in “The Hunt For Red October”: “You arrogant ass, you’ve killed US!”
In order to benefit from Canadian subsidies, and Canadian tax benefits and other Canadian financing structures (all of which drive production out of Los Angeles to….well, Canada, of course), Lionsgate zealously guards its Canadian corporate citizenship…thereby subjecting it to the fair-minded mewling of Canadian regulators, who then invalidate the kind of management-friendly corporate organizational gambit that has been commonplace in the U.S. since the 60s…BAZINGA!
I “don’t have a dog in this fight,” but, in general, I think runaway production hurts all of us as members of the Californian polity (and hurts the “below-the-line” folks whom we ALL depend on most of all), and I feel that a certain poetic justice is being worked here. (BTW, I also think that people who “greenlight” a production mounted in Vancouver should be forced to eat one meal at the Sutton Place Hotel for every meal they eat in Los Angeles for a year. Vancouver would be back to focusing on building the legal-marijuan industry rather than the film industry by 2012.)
I’m just sayin’…
@WaW
Sure, I don’t see any problem there, other than a couple of minor items like, the US has unfettered access to the Canadian market (roughly 90%of all box office), and is counted as anywhere from 10 to 15% of the weekly gross of all domestic theatrical. There is also the embarrassment of those pesky Canadians showing up as the largest buyers during the upfronts. There are a ton of Canadian TV groups who would dearly love to shut out as much US product as possible out of a fairly lucrative market for US TV, and have that money go into domestic production. After you finish with the Canadians, I hope to see you in Tokyo where you quite rightly will convince the Japanese to take their Auto Plants out of the US.
I believe Lionsgate and Icahn deserve each other. Remember, we are talking about the distributors of SAW and Tylor Perry movies. Not much love for filmmaking here. LG is known as a distributor of last resort, a spot the Weinstein brothers used to have to their own.
I believe anything that is coming to Felt and Burns is well deserved.
Go Carl!!!
Upsetting to see Icahn have any chance at this mini-major. He’s lost so many bets recently – a la Yahoo – that he’s almost doing this just to have one win.
Time to retire, Carl…
Let your son Take Two.
I feel really sorry for most the board members. Sad thing is everyone will take it out on Bret.
They have to clean house and start fresh now or Bret will be backstabbed fore the rest of his life.
They all need to go anyway.
Lionsgate better greenlight a shitload of movies before Friday, because with Icahn in control, everything will screech to a halt.
If LG had a solid track record of putting out hits instead of stinker after stinker they wouldn’t even have this problem. I’m pretty sure Icahn will succeed in taking over, but if by some miracle he doesn’t, LG should take this as a lesson and get their act together. If I was running this company I’d fire the entire development/production team and hire a fresh team of creative minds. I know interns and recent film grads who’d make better movies.