Last week, Deadline.com reported that Summit had been said to send out “very preliminary” feelers to Disney about buying the Miramax name and library. Today, The New York Times reports that Miramax has attracted seven to 10 interested bidders, according to a mergers and acquisitions expert with knowledge of the process.
Initial discussions, says the Times, indicate a price of over $700 million for the Miramax name and its 700-film library.
However, The Wrap reports that several insiders think the $700 million price is too high because the library’s cash flow is not close to the $300 million estimated in the NYT. It’s more like a third of that sum, according to sources who spoke to TW.
According to two people who have had access to the financials, the library threw off about $100 million in net cash flow for the year, says The Wrap. The Wrap also notes that the various bidders — including Relativity Media, StudioCanal and activist investor Nelson Peltz — are valuing Miramax at somewhere between $380 million on the low end to about $500 million on the high end.
Harvey and Bob Weinstein are not among the bidders, so far, the Times says. The paper adds that other interested parties include several private equity groups.
Disney expects to move forward with the more serious bidding inquiries in the coming days with a potential sale coming within a few months.
