Latham and Skadden use the force on Disney's $4bn Lucasfilm purchase
Latham & Watkins and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom have taken starring roles on The Walt Disney Company's $4.05bn (£2.5bn) acquisition of Lucasfilm, one of the most high-profile M&A deals of the year. Lucasfilm, which is 100% owned by chairman and founder George Lucas, is the production company behind the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film franchises. The stock and cash deal will see Disney pay approximately half in cash and issue around 40 million shares.
October 31, 2012 at 05:32 AM
3 minute read
Latham & Watkins and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom have taken starring roles on The Walt Disney Company's $4.05bn (£2.5bn) acquisition of Lucasfilm, one of the most high-profile M&A deals of the year.
Lucasfilm, which is 100% owned by chairman and founder George Lucas, is the production company behind the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film franchises. The stock and cash deal will see Disney pay approximately half in cash and issue around 40 million shares.
Latham took the lead role for Lucasfilm, with a corporate team led by Silicon Valley partners Christopher Kaufman, Tad Freese and Jamie Leigh.
The US firm's team also included intellectual property partner Anthony Klein in Silicon Valley, real estate partner David Shapiro and environmental partner Karl Karg in Chicago, tax partner David Raab in New York, employment partner Linda Inscoe in San Francisco, and antitrust partners Joshua Holian and and Susanne Zuehlke in San Francisco and Brussels respectively.
Meanwhile, Skadden led for Disney with Los Angeles corporate partner Brian McCarthy heading up the firm's team.
Other Skadden lawyers on the deal included New York corporate partner Howard Ellin, New York intellectual property and technology partners Anthony Dreyer and Stuart Levi and counsel Elaine Ziff, Los Angeles tax partner Kenneth Betts, Washington DC antitrust partner John Nannes, EU/competition partner Frederic Depoortere in Brussels, US West Coast compensation and benefits partner Joseph Yaffe and LA employment partner Karen Corman.
Following the deal, Disney now plans to release Star Wars: Episode 7 in 2015. Lucas said: "For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next. It's now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers."
The acquisition comes after the Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment for $4bn (£2.5bn) in 2009, as well as animation company Pixar for $7.4bn (£4.6bn) in 2006. The Marvel deal saw now-defunct firm Dewey & LeBoeuf take the lead role for Disney – a longstanding client of M&A heavyweight Morton Pierce, who is now at White & Case – while Skadden and Dewey both advised Disney on the Pixar acquisition.
Earlier this year Latham, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer were among a host of firms to pick up advisory roles on a €1.33bn (£1.05bn) debt refinancing for Euro Disney. The deal saw parent company and majority shareholder The Walt Disney Company provide Euro Disney with the loan alongside two of its French subsidiaries, with Cleary leading for Disney.
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