Like $200 Million In Invesment Money Is Going To Make A Difference In Hollywood?

from the it'll-make-one-crappy-movie dept

We've discussed in the past the idea that Wall Street might start investing directly in movies, hoping that if that happened it would help kick the studios into realizing that their old model of doing things wasn't working out so well. With that in mind, it's not too surprising to hear that JPMorgan is planning to start investing in Hollywood, hiring some former Hollywood bigshots as advisors and setting aside $200 million for investments. Wait... $200 million? Isn't that what Hollywood insiders falsely insist a good movie has to cost to make these days? In other words, isn't that pocket change? It's hard to see how that kind of money makes any difference at all in Hollywood unless JPMorgan is really planning to embrace the Silicon Valley model of making films, where less money is put to more efficient work. Hopefully, that's where it's heading (though, hiring those bigshots suggests otherwise). If it's simply going to throw that money into the traditional Hollywood machine, it seems quite unlikely that it will last very long or go very far.

Filed Under: movies, wall street
Companies: jpmorgan

You Mean Wall Street Just Realized The Recording Industry Was In Trouble?

from the why-you-don't-trust-wall-street-analysts dept

You didn't have to be particularly insightful to realize a while back that the traditional recording industry was in trouble if it kept traveling down the self-destructive path of suing music fans and shutting down unique and innovative distribution tools. However, it appears that the folks on Wall Street are just starting to figure it out. Apparently, the recent defections of Madonna, Radiohead and other big name acts has Wall Street analysts finally suggesting that the recording industry's future isn't very bright, and thus downgrading the labels' prospects. The thing is, they should have realized that long ago. The big name act defections are simply the end result of a long chain of strategic blunders, despite any number of people presenting more reasonable plans forward. Again, this is focused solely on the record labels, not the overall music industry -- which is thriving. In fact, the record labels have had every opportunity to embrace these new tools and be a big part of online promotions -- but they chose not to. One would hope that with even Wall St. analysts telling them their strategy is wrong the record labels might wake up to the opportunity they've thrown away, but the labels themselves (with the possible exception of EMI -- which was recently taken over by private equity folks who seem to realize what's going on) have given no indication of any significant change in strategy.

Filed Under: downgrades, recording industry, wall street

Open Source Business Strategies Had A Bubble Too

from the now-its-growing-again dept

Matt Asay points us to a fascinating paper (pdf) by Oliver Alexy of Technische Universitat Munchen (TUM) Business School, that looks at how the stock market reacts to companies that announce open-source software releases. The paper looks at how stock prices move the day the news is released in an effort to gauge how Wall Street evaluates open-source-oriented business strategies. The study found a couple of interesting things. First Wall Street reacted positively to open-source announcements in 1999 and 2000, negatively in 2002-2004, and then positively again in the last couple of years. This suggests an open source bubble that coincided with the broader tech bubble. That was followed by a period of open source pessimism while the technology industry was in the doldrums. More recently, as open-source-related business strategies have matured, investor attitudes have become positive once again, and source code releases are rapidly becoming standard in some parts of the software industry.

Second, Alexy finds that Wall Street reacts more positively to business models that use open source as a way to directly cut costs or enhance revenue (for example by selling support services) than they do to longer-term strategies aimed at using open source as a "competitive weapon." Asay suggests the paper shows that a business will do poorly "if a vendor is more worried about pulverizing its competitors than it is in serving its customers," but that's not exactly what the paper is focused on. Rather, "competitive weapon" is used in the paper as a kind of catch-all term for source code releases focused on long-term strategic concerns rather than short-term revenue generation. For example, releasing a product as open source might help a company's preferred file format or networking protocol become the industry standard rather than a competitor's format. Alexy suggests that it's harder for companies to explain such long-range strategies to investors, and harder for investors to evaluate their effect on a company's bottom line. As Wall Street has become more familiar with the long-term benefits of open source software releases (for example, IBM's 2001 support of Eclipse) investor attitudes toward decisions to release software for long-term strategic reasons have become more positive.

Filed Under: bubbles, open source, stock market, wall street

Wall Street Looking To Continue Its Buy 'Em Up Then Break 'Em Up Strategy With Yahoo?

from the next! dept

In the past, we've joked about Wall Street's amazing ability to convince companies that they need to acquire each other and merge to bring out "synergies" and then convince those same firms to later break themselves up into separate companies to "release shareholder value." It's all part of the shell game, where the investment bankers on Wall Street get to take out their huge fees whether a company is being built up or broken apart. It looks like the latest such target may be Yahoo, as an analyst at Sanford Bernstein has kicked off the discussion by noting that the company could release shareholder value by breaking itself up into three companies. Which companies? Well, it would want to split up the search and the advertising parts of the business... you know, the same parts of the business that folks convinced Yahoo it needed to buy four years ago if it was going to successfully take on Google. Now, of course, the only way for it to successfully take on Google is to get rid of those businesses. Luckily, the folks on Wall Street will happily help with both ends of the transaction for a small significant fee. Sometimes I think I'm in the wrong business.

Filed Under: acquistions, investment banks, mergers, spinoffs, wall street
Companies: sanford bernstein, yahoo

Will Investors Pressure RIAA To Change Its Ways?

from the we-can-hope dept

The Motley Fool had an article last week predicting that the RIAA will soon be forced to abandon its lawsuit-happy business strategy, as a number of lawsuit targets have not only been winning in court but also getting their legal fees covered by the recording industry. The article makes a lot of points that Techdirt has been making for years, but a couple of things are particularly interesting about the article. First, the Motley Fool is a mainstream investment site that's read by a ton of people on Wall Street. If the financial press starts writing stories about how the lawsuits are a waste of money, these companies could start to feel increased pressure from their shareholders to find a new strategy. Secondly, the article makes an important point about the effects of file-sharing on musicians: file-sharing can hurt artists by reducing their sales, but it can also help them by getting the word out about their music. The former effect is more important to the superstars, who are already famous. But for up-and-coming artists, the benefits of greater exposure greatly outweigh any losses from their (already small) sales. Since most musicians aren't superstars, the rise of file-sharing may actually help the average artist, by flattening out the distribution of music revenues: Justin Timberlake won't be as rich, but up-and-coming bands will find it easier to reach new fans.

Filed Under: riaa, wall street
Companies: riaa

Wall Street Still Sending Some Cash Hollywood's Way

from the cruisin'-for-a-bruisin' dept

Just when it looked like Wall Street might be backing off from financing Hollywood films, Tom Cruise's film company, United Artists, has announced that it has raised $500 million from a group of investors put together by Merrill Lynch. Tom Cruise had had a longtime relationship with Paramount, although that was cut off, in part for personal reasons, but also because of doubts his ability to turn movies into hits. It's impressive that Merrill Lynch was able to pull together so much money, in times like these, for a proposition as shaky as investing in Hollywood blockbusters, but if things don't work out as planned, it could severely constrain future attempts at similar deals.

Filed Under: hollywood, wall street
Companies: merill lynch, united artists

Wall Street Banks Back Off Plans To Finance Films

from the no-motion-pictures dept

In the past year or so, there's been a surge of interest on Wall Street in financing Hollywood films. As the cost of making motion pictures continues to spiral higher, it makes sense that studios would look beyond its traditional networks to raise money. That being said, we had some hope that investment banks and hedge funds could be a positive force in the industry, since they'd likely be reluctant to write a blank check for some of the big budget, big star boondoggles that have characterized the industry of late. Well, it looks like we'll have to wait awhile before we learn how this plays out. The credit crunch has prompted Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank to postopone plans to raise $1 billion to fund films at MGM. The banks could still do the deal if they see a lot of investor demand for it, but that seems pretty unlikely in light of current conditions. Meanwhile, the Hollywood studios might have to make do with a bit less cash.

Filed Under: credit crunch, finance, hollywood, wall street
Companies: deutsche bank, goldman sachs, mgm

If You Can't Even Describe The Past, How Can You Predict The Future?

from the iPhorecast dept

When Apple reported its opening weekend iPhone sales, Wall Street was disappointed that the 270,000 figure it gave out failed to hit much loftier estimates. Of course, this raises the old question: did Apple miss estimates or did analysts mis-estimate? In a sense, the answer is always both, although its worth exploring why the numbers were so far apart. Looking into this question, Carl Bialik notes that Wall Street analysts basically got caught up in emotional hype, as each one tried to outdo each other by making bolder predictions. Their mistakes were exacerbated by the use of small sample sizes, which they mistakenly extrapolated across the country. Analysts make predictions about unit sales all the time for all kinds of products, but you have to wonder how they can accurately predict the future when they can't even correctly gauge what's already happened.

Filed Under: iphone, wall street
Companies: apple

More Banks Set To Establish Their Own Stock Exchanges

from the privately-public dept

Last week, private equity firm Apollo Management announced that it would sell shares of itself on a private stock exchange run by Goldman Sachs. Because the exchange is closed to most investors, companies listing on it don't have to comply with various government regulations, which they would if they were to list on, say, the New York Stock Exchange. Considering all of the headaches associated with being a public company these days, this option may look increasingly appealing for companies looking for an alternative way to raise money and give its owners liquidity. It's not surprising, then, that many of the big name investment banks, including Citigroup, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, and Morgan Stanley are all rushing to build out their own private, electronic stock exchanges. The question, however, is whether or not these various exchanges will be compatible or whether they'll be islands, with little inter-exchange trading. If they're the former, then a robust alternative market could flourish. If it's the latter, then the appeal to both traders and companies is likely to be limited.

Filed Under: banks, wall street
Companies: citigroup, goldman sachs