06.17
The Salford Star Rocks And Shows Where Pinewood Studios, 007 James Bond 24 and the next ‘Pirates of The Caibbean’ May Be Heading.
Jonathan Stuart-Brown for Save The British Film Industry.
Magnificent article by The Salford Star.
http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=1007
The scenario that Pinewood and Shepperton Studios are headed sooner or later for the North-West (especially Media City Salford) is reinforced by the fact that Warren James Holdings is the new buyer of Aberdeen Asset Management 10% of the company and this company also has an extensive property in this Stockport-Manchester-Salford vicinity. It has over 100 jewellry shops in the North West. Their regional brand will gain in value in proportion to its juxtaposition and strong association with 007 James Bond.
The link with ‘Diamonds Are Forever’, and ‘Goldfinger’ will soon make this brand a household name in the UK and internationally.
The purchase of 17.2% of Pinewood Shepperton plc shares could potentially derail property developer Peel Holdings’ plan to take full control of the business and to deregister it from the Stock Exchange.
Peel Holdings, owned by John Whittaker and a Saudi company, has made a 200p-a-share takeover bid for Pinewood Shepperon. It has 63% of the shares in the bag for the shareholder vote UNLESS someone offers 251p a share or The Office of Fair Trading intervenes.
If the 251p offer emerges from a third party or The OFT intervene on June 22, then 30% of the 63.3% comes back into play.
Peel needs 50.1% of the shares to takeover the company. But it needs 75.1% to take it off The Stock Exchange and be rid of the need to publish its every business move in advance. It needs 90.1% to compel minor shareholders to sell all the remaining shares to it.
The new 17.2% player Warren James Holdings is buying at 210p a share. It will not sell at 200p a share next week. This may embolden the minor shareholders to reject the 200p a share offer from Peel. If 8% more shares do reject the bid, then the company stays on the Stock Exchange.
Peel will have to offer a really attractive premium over 200p after the takeover to get rid of the remaining shareholders.
Warren James is a really successful retail business and as well as expanding rapidly, it is also cash rich and can play the very long game with this shareholding. They could even make a counter-bid to take over the company before June 24 (which would need around £125 million including existing sums spent on their shareholding) or indeed make an offer to buy Peel out at a later stage when Peel may need cash themselves to finance other businesses in their varied portfolio.
Warren James Holdings may just want to give third parties such as Mohamed Al Fayed fresh encouragement to pay 250p a share, or indeed another bidder get motivated to bid more than 210p a share.
Indeed Warren James Holdings will have lots of options, maybe more than Peel, and they all look attractive.
In a statement this morning, Peel urged Pinewood shareholders who have not yet accepted the offer to “do so without delay” before 1pm on 24 June.
Well they would say that wouldn’t they !
Shareholders looking for more than 200p in the short and longterm can just say ‘No’.
If Peel do not put Pinewood and Shepperton into the 160 spare acres they have at Media City, and The Salford Star notes they claimed they will fill them quickly, then which media companies are left to move there ? The BBC and ITV have already taken tenancies in part but there is a massive amount left.
http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=1007
Peel has 27 000 acres in its portfolio, mostly in the North-West. It needs to drive tenants to its lands.
The Scotsman has probably got the most telling quote, and Warren James fancy a longterm association with the studio associated and identified with 007 James Bond, and the aspirational Hollywood star customers. The A List stars and the glamour of the huge back catalogue and future franchaise sequels such as ‘Pirates of The Caribbean’, ‘Mission Impossible’, ‘The Mummy’, ‘X-Men’ can do wonders for a jewellry brand.
http://business.scotsman.com/retail/Jeweller-raises-studio-stake-despite.6787016.jp
Guy Lightowler, head of commerce for Warren James, said the Pinewood stake was va “strategic holding”, adding: “We have been a shareholder since 2007 and we continue to believe in the long-erm value of the company.”
He described speculation that Warren James was trying to force a higher offer from Peel or believed a rival bidder was about to enter the fray as “reading too much into the situation”.
Warren James really many see a very longterm association with Pinewood Studios. Moreover unlike Peel, they do have lots of cash, they do not have huge loans at interest, they are not as bothered by any future interest rate rise, they have no urgent need to fill a huge property portfolio by dragging in media types to rent and buy apartments and to attract in hotels, shops, etc to serve them.
If they can hang around, they may end up buying Peel out if they hit a rough patch and interest rates rise.
If the OFT block The Peel bid, then Warren James may be in perfect pole position to move in.
http://business.scotsman.com/retail/Jeweller-raises-studio-stake-despite.6787016.jp
The Express note the two big shareholdings (Peel and Warren James) post-takeover which will have over 80% of the shares are both in the North-West and the expansion of the Pinewood and Shepperton brandname is a scenario which meets the wider business needs of both major shareholders.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/253430/Pinewood-stake-battle
For once The BBC is accurate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13807257
“The deal is also subject to an investigation by the Office of Fair Trading into whether the acquisition will give Peel an unfairly dominant position in the media industry.
The company – which is chaired by billionaire proprerty tycoon John Whittaker – also owns the site of the Media City development in Salford, at which the BBC is a major tenant.
Pinewood has studios in Buckinghamshire, and at Shepperton and Teddington in Middlesex”.
By the way we understand why Aberdeen Asset Management wanted out. This Board at Pinewood is just not worth the effort. The company with a real high calibre board could make hundreds of millions a year but they would need to focus on movies and not property values.
http://blogs.news.sky.com/kleinman/Post:ccc41f47-a530-4092-9ac6-d8eee0ec77ec
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8cc91cb0-9916-11e0-acd2-00144feab49a.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/96351ece-9836-11e0-ae45-00144feab49a.html
http://www.shropshirestar.com/business/city-news/2011/06/17/new-twist-in-pinewood-bid-saga/
Jonathan Stuart-Brown
www.savethebritishfilmindustry.com
[...] who felt their film, tv, or media business would be affected by the takeover later this week. http://www.savethebritishfilmindustry.com/2011/06/the-salford-star-rocks-and-shows-where-pinewood-st... The OFT even extended the time for submissions from May 23 to June 21. No one can have any [...]
A great company, and I personally hope they do relocate. I live in Manchester and visited Media City the other week. It’s such a perfect spot and they’ve done a great job to accomodate such businesses. And with Manchester city centre down the road there will be plenty of great places to record street shots. Personally I would have liked to see the back-end of the Northern Quarter (behind the main streets there’s a bulk of land with nothing but car parks) used to house a film studio, considering this area is always being used for filming, it seems to make perfect sense.
Anyone still concerned about the recent moves up north, don’t worry, there are plenty of businesses to go around. And with Manchester’s popularity currently booming there are hundreds of talented people in the area ready to take on media and film jobs and help support and expand England’s fantastic filming industry.
Everyone wishes Salford, Manchester and the North West well, and no one here disputes the talent in the region.