Then, on January 27th, I was the first to tell you that construction magnate Ron Tutor and Tom Barrack's Santa Monica-based Colony Capital led by former Disney CFO Richard Nanula had joined together to negotiate the acquisition of Miramax from Disney. And so that deal finally gets done today after so many frustrating and annoying stops and starts, and bidders and runners-up.
All in all, $660 million is a very good price for Disney because film library values have taken a hit as DVD/video has flattened. True, Disney once placed a sky-high $1.2 billion pricetag on the Miramax library. Then the company hoped to get around $800 million, then $700 million, for Miramax, and this number comes awfully close to that. The final figure exceeds the $625M-$650M which the Weinstein brothers/Ron Burkle/Fortress-Colbeck partnership seemed ready to pay until talks broke down. Due diligence showed that Miramax is sitting on a lot of cash, as much as $300M in receivables. Also, I'd learned that Disney stood to make even more because it also collected distribution fees on theatrically released Miramax and non-Miramax films it distributed on behalf of the buyer for up to a year.
[Source: Dealine]