Steve Jobs, the largest shareholder at Disney
Here’s how Steve did it :
Steve Jobs was the single largest individual shareholder in Disney and it all started with this $5 million check.
The year was 1986 and Steve Jobs was in exile from Apple. The company that would one day become Pixar was called Graphics Group.
Graphics Group was owned by Star Wars creator George Lucas. George Lucas was getting divorced and needed to sell off some assets. Steve Jobs agreed to give George Lucas $5 million and invest another $5 million in the company.
This was not the first time Steve Jobs had expressed interest in the technology behind Graphics Group. When he was still at Apple, Jobs tried to get Apple’s board to buy the company. They turned him down. This is Steve explaining why he was interested in acquiring Graphics Group:
“These guys were way ahead of us on graphics, way ahead. They were way, way ahead of anybody. I just knew in my bones that this was going to be very important.”
Steve would eventually invest $54 million of his own money in Pixar. After several years of failing to sell The Pixar Image Computer, Pixar decided to go all in on making films. After years of poor sales and rising expenses they were short on cash.
To solve this problem Steve signed a deal to produce 3 animated films for Disney. The first of these movies was Toy Story — the world’s first computer animated feature film. Now here is where this story gets really interesting: Steve decided to capitalize on the publicity of Toy Story’s release and take Pixar public at the same time.
Toy Story was released on November 22, 1995. Pixar went public on November 29, 1995. Steve’s two partners — Ed Catmull and John Lasseter — did not want to go public. They thought it was too early. They wanted to do a few more films first. Then Steve laid out his strategy and told them what was likely coming from Disney. Steve said let’s assume Toy Story is a big success (it was — grossing over $370 million). When that happens the CEO of Disney — Michael Eisner — will realize he inadvertently created a rival for Disney Animation.
Pixar only had to make two more films for Disney and then they’d be free to do as they like. Steve said Eisner’s next move would be to try and renegotiate with Pixar and keep Pixar close to Disney. Steve said if they went public and had more money they’d be able to negotiate better terms with Disney. Steve wanted a 50/50 split with Disney on returns. In order to request this Pixar had to be able to put up 50% of the production costs. Going public would allow Pixar to afford this.
The time is now Steve said: “This is our moment.” And he was right. Toy Story was a massive success and Pixar’s IPO raised $140 million — the biggest IPO of 1995.
A few months later Eisner approached Jobs and said he wanted to keep Pixar as a partner. Eisner accepted Steve’s 50/50 deal. This partnership wasn’t going to last. Steve Jobs and Michael Eisner couldn’t get along. A few years later negotiations broke down completely and Pixar started looking for other partners. Then Michael Eisner got fired. The new CEO of Disney was Bob Iger.
When Bob Iger found out he was going to be the next CEO he called his daughters first. The next person he called was Steve Jobs. He told Steve he valued Pixar and wanted to make a deal. This is Bob explaining why he felt Disney needed to buy Pixar:
“Michael [Eisner] didn’t understand that Disney’s problems in animation were as acute as they were. That manifested itself in the way he dealt with Pixar. He never felt he needed Pixar as much as he really did. Every negotiation needs to be resolved by compromises. Neither one of them [Eisner and Jobs] is a master of compromise.”
How did Bob Iger realize how badly Disney needed Pixar? By watching a parade at Hong Kong Disneyland Iger realized that the only characters in the parade that had been created in the past decade were Pixar’s:
“A lightbulb went off. I’m standing next to Michael [Eisner], but I kept it completely to myself, because it was such an indictment of his stewardship of animation during that period. After ten years of The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, there were then ten years of nothing.”
Bob begins to negotiate with Steve to buy Pixar and does something very unusual:
He tells Steve how badly Disney needs Pixar. Even more surprising this tactic worked. This is how Steve reacted:
“That’s why I just loved Bob Iger. He just blurted it out. Now that’s the dumbest thing you can do as you enter a negotiation, at least according to the traditional rule book. He just put his cards out on the table and said, ‘We’re screwed.’ I immediately liked the guy, because that’s how I worked too. Let’s just immediately put all the cards on the table and see where they fall.”
Disney purchased Pixar for $7.4 billion in Disney stock. And Steve Jobs went from the single largest shareholder in Pixar to the single largest individual shareholder in Disney.
(Reference : this was first published by David Senra )
