UPDATE 1-DreamWorks shares rise 6.5 pct on takeover talk
* Goldman Sachs raises price target to $38
* Goldman Sachs raises chance of 'take-out' to 35 pct
* DreamWorks shares jump as much as 8 percent (Adds analyst comments, updates share price)
SAN FRANCISCO - Shares in DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc rose 6.5 percent on Monday on speculation it may become a takeover target, after Walt Disney Co said it will buy Marvel Entertainment in the year's biggest media deal.
Analysts said Dreamworks remained one of the few fair-sized, attractive acquisition targets left in an industry that has gradually consolidated over the past few years, and which is now struggling with falling advertising and a migration of viewers and consumers to the Internet.
Goldman Sachs raised its six-month price target on DreamWorks to $38 from $36, after Disney announced the $4 billion takeover. The U.S. investment bank also raised the chance of a take-out to 35 percent from 20 percent.
With Marvel out, DreamWorks is really the only logical choice for branded content with well-known, high profile franchises, said Marla Backer, Hudson Square Research analyst. Now that Marvel has been taken out, or once that deal is consummated, it really leaves DreamWorks Animation as the most attractive, independent studio.
Disney plans to buy Marvel, inheriting its stable of some 5,000 characters.
But the Disney-Marvel deal is not immediately expected to spur a wave of similar takeovers in the industry, according to analysts.
Shares in Glendale, California-based DreamWorks shot to as high as $34.26 on the Nasdaq before retreating to finish up 6.5 percent at $33.76.
We believe that today's announcement highlights the strategic value of key brands and pure-play content companies with established franchises to large entertainment companies, Goldman Sachs wrote.
We did not view Disney as a potential acquirer of DreamWorks given its Pixar acquisition, but we continue to believe that DreamWorks would be attractive to other large entertainment companies (or a foreign studio) without CGI (computer-generated imagery) animation capabilities. (Reporting by Clare Baldwin; Editing by Derek Caney, Bernard Orr)
© Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024. All rights reserved.