Comments (5)

• All this goes to show you that these big wigs who reportedly have a lot of noney don’t. The banks have the money and they loan it to them with the promise of making more money. This is what happened to the folks at Enron and all these other corrupt corporations. Screw ‘em all.

  Comment by A WGA Writer — October 21, 2008 @ 10:59 am  Reply to this post

• It gives you a good idea of the way wall street sees Hollywood. “we got to sell something we don’t really care about” “hey how about Lionsgate?”.

  Comment by Un Francais a Hollywood — October 21, 2008 @ 11:48 am  Reply to this post

• There is no truth to the rumor that the Scot Paper Company bought the Lionsgate stock shares to make toilet paper from them.

  Scot is making tissue paper out of them.

  Comment by ReelBusy — October 21, 2008 @ 8:50 pm  Reply to this post

• Wall St. doesn’t treat Hollywood any different than any other sector. French guy – when you borrow against your stock and it declines to under a certain limit you get a margin call. Lots of stocks have declined massively based on forced liquidations. Ask Sumner Redstone or John Malone about this next time you bump into them at the Grill. Leverage…great when your stock goes up – deadly when your stock goes down.

  Comment by longridge — October 22, 2008 @ 10:08 am  Reply to this post

• To: A WGA Writer

  Your notion that companies that use financial tools are somehow corrupt, is totally ignorant. Lines of credit, loans, etc. are standard business practices. Borrowing against an asset for leverage is certainly not corrupt. It can have its downside, as we see, but it’s upside is there as well. Simple risk/reward scenario. You never hear when things go right do you? Which would be the majority of the time.

  Corruption at Enron was from another beast – that of arrogant morons who kept the stock propped up by nefarious means. They were crooks, pure and simple. Call it what you want – even use the word “greed” if that floats your boat – but to paint a really wide brush stroke in assuming all corporations are corrupt is nonsense.

  Some day, if you are so inclined to use your own capital to your benefit, form one and go make a movie or whatever. You’ll see the anal exam that comes with running one. Lawyers, CPA’s, local/federal taxes, due-diligence for investors, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes you end up paying everyone else before you ever make a dime, but that’s another story for another time.

  Maybe you are more comfortable being a “worker bee” and not giving it a shot yourself? Complaining about the evils is simply easier?

  Comment by ordinaryjoe — October 22, 2008 @ 1:57 pm  Reply to this post