Who Owns What - EM.TV (gathered from data on EM.TV's website)
Note: some of these acquisitions of EM.TV might have already been sold since EM.TV's website has not been updated since 2001
Junior.TV GmbH & Co. KG
-Junior Umbrella Brand
-Junior Programs
-Junior.TV
The Jim Henson Company, Inc. (In the process of being sold)
Formula 1-Group (Sold)
Crown Media Holdings Inc. (8.2% stake) (Sold)
Constantin Film AG (16.6% stake)
EM-Supply GmbH
EM.TV & Wavery B.V.
EM.TV Images S.A.S. (50% stake - joint venture between EM.TV and Tele Images International)
OM-Oktoberfest Munchen Merchandising, Film und Fernsehen GmbH (50% stake)
Planeta Junior S.L. (50% stake - joint venture between EM.TV and the Barcelona-based Grupo Planeta)
Tele Munchen Gruppe (45% stake)
Yoram Gross-EM.TV Pty Ltd. (50% stake)
http://www.reuters.com/financeQuote...++%26++MERCHAND
Billionaire Saban eyeing EM.TV stake - report
Sun February 23, 2003 08:59 AM ET
FRANKFURT, Feb 23 (Reuters) - U.S. media billionaire Haim Saban is interested in buying a 25 percent stake in struggling German media rights group EM.TV AG ETVG.DE from its chief executive, a magazine reported on Sunday.
"A few weeks ago Haim Saban expressed in writing his interest in my stake," EM.TV Chief Executive Werner Klatten was quoted as saying by weekly Focus magazine.
Focus said that no talks had yet been held between the two.
Saban, who made his fortune with children's TV figures such as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, is currently in the running to take over German film and television rights company KirchMedia, after making a late bid to rival one from German publisher Heinrich Bauer Verlag.
KirchMedia Managing Director Hans-Joachim Ziems has said the two bids were roughly of equivalent value.
Banking sources have said Bauer offered about 700 million euros for KirchMedia's prize 52.2 percent stake in top German broadcaster ProSiebenSat1 PSMG_p.DE .
Bauer would also take a 52 percent stake in KirchMedia's film library, valued at 1.3 billion euros, but has not offered to inject share capital into the business.
EM.TV, formerly a high-flying stock on the Neuer Markt, has been struggling to recover from near bankruptcy since founder Thomas Haffa left in disgrace almost two years ago, having built up massive debts during an expensive acquisition spree.
Creditor banks agreed to extend a January deadline on a key loan until the end of April after EM.TV came up with half the 49 million euros it owes.
http://forbes.com/business/newswire.../rtr901338.html
Disney in talks to buy Muppets - sources
Reuters, 03.07.03, 8:51 PM ET
LOS ANGELES, March 7 (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co. (nyse: DIS - news - people) is in talks to buy Kermit the Frog and and other Muppet characters from Germany's EM.TV & Merchandising AG <ETVG.DE>, sources familiar with the situation said on Friday.
A Disney spokesman declined to comment and EM.TV could not be reached immediately.
One source said a deal could be announced as early as next week. Disney would pay $70 million for EM.TV subsidiary Jim Henson Co.'s rights to the Muppet movie catalog and characters but not Henson's special-effects workshop, the Creature Shop, the source said.
Another source said that talks between the two were on but that a deal was not close and other contenders were still talking with EM.TV. The German media company said earlier on Friday it had called off talks with a group of investors led by media executive Dean Valentine.
Another contender for the Muppets, Classic Media, is still in talks to buy a minority stake of up to 49 percent of Henson, the first source said.
Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service
Billionaire Saban bows out of Muppets sale--source
Reuters, 03.10.03, 6:03 PM ET
NEW YORK, March 10 (Reuters) - Haim Saban isn't green about children's programming, but he has decided not to make the rainbow connection.
The billionaire investor who built his fortune on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and is currently in a heated battle to acquire insolvent German media group KirchMedia [KRCH.UL] no longer wants to buy Muppet-makers Jim Henson Co., a person close to the situation said on Monday.
The withdrawal by Saban, who submitted a non-binding offer five months ago, is the latest blow in the protracted saga to sell the lovable kids characters at what likely will be a steep discount to what the current owners paid just three years ago.
Saban's decision comes days after embattled German media rights group EM.TV & Merchandising AG <ETVG.DE>, which owns the stable of singing puppets, including Kermit the Frog -- who famously sang "The Rainbow Connection" and "It's Not Easy Being Green" -- said it ended talks with Dean Valentine, the former television executive. Valentine had been aiming to buy a minority stake.
Sources said on Friday that Walt Disney Co. (nyse: DIS - news - people) is back in talks to buy all of Jim Henson Co.'s characters and its program library for $70 million.
Disney, Saban and EM.TV officials declined to comment.
Valentine said he is structuring a different bid and sources said privately held Classic Media, which owns the rights to children's characters, also is still trying to work a deal. Classic Media officials could not be reached.
EM.TV paid $680 million for Jim Henson Co. three years ago and has been trying to sell the business for more than a year. In the meantime, it has sold off chunks of the company, including the "Sesame Street" characters Henson created.
Critics say the sale has been painstaking because EM.TV has mismanaged the popular children's characters in the short time it has owned them.
As part of a recent financial deal with Sesame Workshop, EM.TV freed the owners of Elmo and Big Bird to create entertainment-type programming, which will compete against the Muppets franchise, said one person familiar with the arrangement.
Sesame, which produces the classic children's series "Sesame Street," had been allowed only to create educational programming with the characters, this person said.
A Sesame Workshop spokesman said executives were not immediately available for comment.
People familiar with the Muppets operations also have said the company's distribution and licensing deals are unfavorable and cannot be reworked for several years. They added that the company is overstaffed and that it needs a capital infusion to rebuild the brand.
Saban initially bid $128 million before completing due diligence last October and before EM.TV monetized a debt owed by Sesame that was to be a source of income for whomever bought Henson. He later reduced his offer to about $50 million, one source said.
Now, however, Saban is embroiled in a takeover battle for KirchMedia, grappling with a rival bidder, private German publisher Heinrich Bauer Verlag.
After meeting on Monday, creditors of the TV group, majority owner of broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 <PSMG_p.D>, demanded a decision from Kirch on the competing bids by the end of the week. (Additional reporting by Peter Henderson in Los Angeles and Sabine Bub in Frankfurt)
Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service
http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/3870740.html
Henson family buys back the Muppets
Greg Retsinas, New York Times
Published May 8, 2003
MUPP08
From their balcony seats, even Statler and Waldorf might like this news.
Three years after selling the Jim Henson Co. and its Muppets to a German media company for $680 million, Henson's family said Wednesday that it was buying it back for a fraction of that amount.
The deal, valued at $89 million in cash and assets, gives the children of the late Henson control of the company behind that most famous troupe of puppets.
The sale of the Jim Henson Co., which is based in Hollywood, by EM.TV & Merchandising of Munich must be approved by United States and international regulators. All five of Henson's children will have seats on the board.
"We, as the five of us, did own and operate the company for 10 years, and we're enthusiastic about owning and operating it again," said Brian Henson, who with his sister Lisa, the head of Jim Henson Pictures, will serve in "undetermined" management positions.
Jim Henson, whose puppet creations first appeared on television in 1954, died in 1990 at 53."
At the time of the Henson family's 2000 sale to EM.TV, then a high-flying company that was one of the stars of the New Market in Frankfurt before its stock crashed, there was hope that EM.TV's resources would allow the Muppets brand to expand even more, and provide the backing for movies, TV shows and myriad other products. But after just a year of ownership, EM.TV started trying to sell the rights to the Muppets to repay debt incurred in other ventures.
There were several near-sales of the Henson Co., including a bid by Dean Valentine, the former head of the UPN television network. Disney, a past bidder, was also seen as a strong potential buyer.
"None of that even got started," said Brian Henson of EM.TV's ambitious plans for the Muppets. "It was very sad when we watched EM hit financial problems. When the company was then for sale again, when that dragged on, it only got more and more painful. Eventually, two weeks ago, we thought, enough is enough."
EM.TV officials said the selling process took so long because some bidders were trying to take advantage of its need to finish repaying a $66 million loan.
"Our footprint in the kids' business and the entertainment field becomes a little smaller, but on the other side, we're in the process of building up a strong presence in the sports field," said Andreas Pres, EM.TV chief financial officer, referring to the company's recent purchase of Plazamedia, Germany's largest TV sports production company.
The sale does not include the Muppets characters created for "Sesame Street." Two years ago, EM.TV sold the rights to those characters to the Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization in New York that produces "Sesame Street." Those Muppets (Elmo, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie) do not include what are considered the "classic" Muppets -- Miss Piggy, Kermit, Gonzo and dozens of other puppets, including the aforementioned irascible two men in the balcony who live to criticize anything and everything.
Brian Henson said the Henson family's first goal would be to restructure the company and look for partners in ventures such as the marketing and distribution of its library of family-oriented programming and to focus on licensing and publishing projects. He said more TV and film features by the Muppets were likely.
Entertainment Weekly
May 23, 2003
SECTION: NEWS + NOTES; Pg. 11
LENGTH: 429 words
HEADLINE: Puppet Masters;
The Muppets are once again a family business, but will they get piggy with it?
BYLINE: Allison Hope Weiner
BODY:
Less than a week before Kermit and Miss Piggy were about to be sold by Germany's troubled, cash-strapped EM.TV & Merchandising to the New York-based Classic Media, Jim Henson's heirs made a successful last-minute $ 89 million bid for their father's old company--a fraction of the $ 680 million the family pocketed when they sold it to EM.TV back in 2000. (Granted, half of that was in stock, which is now worthless--and the buyback did not include most of the cherished Sesame Street Muppets.)
"It was a bold and nice move for his children to get it back," says the late Jim Henson's former manager Bernie Brillstein. "God knows they didn't have to do it." Other reactions were more cynical, with one television exec noting "With the return of the company to the family, it's like we're seeing Groundhog Day without the happy ending."
Indeed, long before the Germans came calling, the Henson company was having problems under the control of none other than the Henson children. "The company was extremely mismanaged. They didn't have the revenue to support their ridiculous overhead and they refused to fire anyone," charges one TV executive familiar with the company. "They lived off a financing-overhead deal with ABC for years and never developed anything commercial other than Bear in the Big Blue House."
Since selling to EM.TV, the Hensons have been concerned about how the German company was managing their father's legacy. "They started cutting off pieces of the company and selling them for cash," says Brian Henson. EM.TV also started carelessly licensing the puppets, even allowing Miss Piggy to appear in ads for Denny's, home of the Bacon Cheddar Burger. In 2001, EM.TV sold all the Sesame Street Muppet characters (except for guest stars Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy) to the Sesame Workshop, which produces Sesame Street.
"We stepped in because we couldn't see where the company was going and that made us uncomfortable," Brian Henson said. All five kids will now sit on the board; Brian and Lisa, a former Warner Bros. and Columbia executive, will serve in some management capacity. Their primary job: oversee licensing deals for Kermit and Miss Piggy and develop a hit to ensure that the Jim Henson Co. has some kind of future. Brillstein doesn't count them out. "They couldn't do any worse than the Germans," he says. "Although it's tough. It's like going back with your ex-wife. There's damage. Maybe you can straighten it out. It's hard to know."
As Kermit might say, it's not easy making green.