Carl Icahn is now offering 50 cents on the dollar for MGM debt in an attempt to bolster his position before
creditors vote Friday on a reorganization plan that puts Spyglass partners Roger Birnbaum and Gary Barber in the driver’s seat of the debt-hobbled studio. Icahn had previously been offering 45 cents on the dollar for debt, and the new offer comes with the stipulation that debt holders vote against the Spyglass offer. Lionsgate brass recently came out with an impassioned speech on why a Lionsgate-Icahn deal was better for creditors than the Spyglass plan which is half a year in the making. Considering how bitter the battle has been between Icahn and Lionsgate brass as he’s tried to take over the minimajor, doesn’t it sound like that couple you know, the one that is fighting constantly and decides that if they just went ahead and had a baby, everything would be perfect? MGM, which watched Mary Parent exit as its pic chief after she was stymied in her efforts to create a production slate for the Lion, needs a steady hand and many feel that the Spyglass guys would provide it. The prepackaged bankruptcy with Birnbaum and Barber has never been viewed as a permanent solution. It has always been viewed by insiders as “kicking the can down the road.” Bolder plays with an outside suitor like Lionsgate is necessary later on, but it doesn’t necessarily have to … Read More
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Carl Icahn and Lionsgate Redouble Efforts To Buy Up MGM Debt To Thwart Spyglass
EXCLUSIVE: Summit Walks Away From MGM To Go Back Into Acquisitions Mode
“Summit is pulling out because the process has gone on way too long and it’s become a distraction for the business,” an insider tells me this morning. Summit toppers Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger are still in acquisition mode, and the company will continuing looking for good deals in what is a very depressed showbiz marketplace where bargains are plentiful — especially film and TV libraries. The fundamental issue which MGM creditors had with Summit is that they would have had to give up too much equity in order involve the mini-major which remains flush with cash thanks to the Twilight franchise. “I’m not sure that Summit bowing out changes the Spyglass situation,” my insider added. For months now, Hollywood has known that Spyglass is the bigger creditors’ frontrunner to control MGM, which seems finally poised to plunge itself into a prepackaged bankruptcy, and then emerge with Spyglass partners Roger Birnbaum and Gary Barber starting production for the studio. But Summit has remained very much under consideration and hadn’t heard they’re out of it — at least not yet. So Summit decided to pull the plug on its own.
This lead group of MGM creditors (Anchorage Advisors, Highland Capital Management, and Davidson Kempner Capital Management who have banded together) would have Spyglass plan transform MGM into a pure production company and close down its marketing and distribution divisions. Coupled with the equity that Spyglass would bring to the table, a streamlined MGM would lower its debt and … Read More
Screen Gems Makes 'Vow' With Spyglass
EXCLUSIVE: Screen Gems will co-finance with Spyglass and distribute The Vow, the Michael Sucsy-directed film that will star Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum. The film is based on a true story of a newly married couple whose car is rear-ended by a truck. She loses all recent memory-including that she’s married–and they struggle together to gain it back. Spyglass put together the project, and Sucsy, who directed HBO’s Grey Gardens, is rewriting. This puts Clint Culpepper’s Screen Gems back in the Channing Tatum biz, after the Sony-based shingle distributed another romantic weeper, Dear John. Spyglass’ Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber and [...]