Disney Buys Pixar: It’s Official
Yes, yes, after months of rumors, it is finally official: Disney has bought Pixar. The price tag on Pixar ultimately closed at $7.4 billion. This is probably the most surprising piece of news since the Autodesk/Alias buyout. A few weeks ago I would’ve put money on the deal falling through. Pixar just seemed so independent, so we-don’t-need-Disney. It wasn’t just a Steve Jobs farce to raise the value, I heard it two years ago from Ed Catmull in a lecture he gave at my school. I guess they really had me convinced that Pixar really was going out on their own. Granted the deal is greatly in Pixar’s favor…and now Ed Catmull is the president of both company’s animation studios, so he really has nothing to complain about. Jobs is the biggest Disney shareholder and is probably the biggest winner of all. Interestingly enough, years back he actually tried to sell of Pixar to Microsoft and HP. Good thing for him, neither of them went for it.
Well what can I say? All the computer graphics businesses are assimilating.