When George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 for $4 billion, he opted for a half cash/half stock deal, with $2.21 billion in cash and 37,076,679 of Disney shares, a very prudent move. This analysis from Celebrity Net Worth….
At the time the deal was closed, Disney was trading at $50 per share, so the “stock” portion was $1.85 billion. His 37 million shares represented a roughly 2.1% stake in the company. He was immediately the second-largest individual shareholder behind Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow. When Steve Jobs sold Pixar to Disney in 2006, he received 138 million shares of the company, roughly 7% of the total outstanding. Laurene inherited his stake after Steve’s death. Laurene has since sold off roughly half of the stake but she is the largest individual shareholder, owning around 4% of Disney.
Immediately before the Disney sale was announced, George Lucas’s net worth was $3.3 billion. After the deal was confirmed, we estimated his after-tax net worth at $5.5 billion.
Speaking of taxes, thanks to a tax loophole that was closing two months later, George actually saved around $100 million in taxes closing when he did. On January 1, 2013, business-friendly George W. Bush era tax cuts expired, at which point the long-term capital gains tax rate increased from 15% to 20%.
Disney Stock
“Star Wars” wasn’t the only franchise Disney bought for $4 billion. In 2009, Disney paid $4 billion for Marvel Entertainment. HOWEVER, at the time the deal was announced, several of the Marvel franchises had pre-existing deals with other studios.
2012’s “The Avengers” was the first Marvel movie to be fully produced and distributed by Disney without another studio taking a cut of profits.
Disney would go on to generate around $20 billion at the global box office from Marvel movies post 2012.
Disney has generated around $5 billion on post-Lucas “Star Wars” movies.
On November 12, 2019, Disney entered the streaming wars with the launch of Disney+. Ten million people signed up on day one. This week, just 16 months after launch, Disney confirmed that they’ve crossed 100 million paying subscribers to the streaming service.
So, how has Disney stock performed over the last decade? Below is chart. The arrow is the day George Lucas sold to Disney:
As you can see, minus a few months in early 2020 when basically every stock in the world tanked due to pandemic fears, Disney stock has been on a tear.
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