Marvel’s 5,000 characters joins The Walt Disney’s stable
The Walt Disney Company, a leading family entertainment and media enterprise serving the global audience has completed the acquisition of Marvel Entertainment Inc.
The completion of the acquisition was made after receiving the approval from the Marvel shareholders for the deal.
Walt Disney announced the plan to acquire the world’s leading character-based entertainment company in August 2009. The deal required consent from the shareholders, which was received on 31st December, 2009.
In a statement released by Marvel, it said shareholders approved the $4.3 billion deal announced in August under which the comic book giant and its stable of action heroes will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney.
Under the terms of the agreement signed between the two entities Marvel shareholders will receive a total of $30 a share in cash, plus approximately 0.7452 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own, says the statement.
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Marvel is the creator of some of the most popular characters such as X-Men, Iron Man, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Thor and Spider-Man among other characters. According to the company information on the Marvel site, it is home to over 5,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years.
Marvel Inc also includes other businesses, i.e. licensing, movie production and publishing.
Marvel was founded in 1939 as comic book publisher Timely Comics. Isaac Perlmutter, Chief Executive for Marvel and 37% stockholder will continue to oversee Marvel’s business after the Disney acquisition. The deal is expected to strengthen Disney’s position as a leading global provider of high-quality branded entertainment and build long-term shareholder value.
With this acquisition Disney would probably explore almost all the characters of Marvel Comics but has assured that there would be no “disneyfication” of Marvel’s properties, which remained a concern for the fans of the Marvel characters across the globe. This is Walt Disney’s largest acquisition after Pixar Animations around three years ago. Pixar has created animated movies like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Up and WALL-E.
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