For more complete information on what Disney went through -- you can check
out _Storming the Magic Kingdom_, it tells the story of the takeover bids
and such, but here's a brief run down - off the top of my head.
In the early 80's Disney stock was valued at approx. $60 -- where it had bee
for the longest time. Some speculators Saul somebody amongst them - began
to figure in their head that the bits and pieces of Disney (theme parks,
studio operations, film and tv libraries) were worth much more than the
stock was valued at - especially since Disney was a financially conservative
company, generally speaking, and didn't carry much debt around.
So, the plan was hatched to buy Disney out - using junk bonds (yep, Boesky and
Milken both had bit parts in this drama). Disney got nervous, dumped E. Card
Walker and Ron Miller, picked up some other guy as CHair of the board (an architect, I belive). And Roy Disney (Walt's nephew and large shareowner in Disney
as well as Shamrock productions -- began making bids to get the management
changed at Disney -- working for Eisner and Katzenberg.
During this time, Disney bought out Arvida Corp (mostly in Florida - land
developer) and a greeting card company (Gibson, I think) to increase debt
and make themselves less attractive to takeover. The speculators eventually
lost out to Roy Disney and the Hunt Bros. of Texas (silver fortune) who came
into Disney as "white knights."
The stock went from $60 to around $45, and then after Eisner and Katzenberg
were in place and Disney was safe, it started it's big time climb. Also,
at some point it re-organized from Walt Disney Productions to Walt Disney
Company - this was after Eisner/Katzenberg were in place.
