Poll: Effect Of Disney Selling Majority/Complete Ownership of WDW

[Raineman]

Most of the Disney theme parks outside of the US have, or have had, majority ownership by a corporation other than Disney. The general opinion is that most of the non-US Disney theme parks are better in almost every way then WDW-cost vs value, show quality, better attractions, etc.
If (and I'm sure it's a big if, not trying to start a rumor here) Disney were to sell majority or 100% ownership to another organization, what would the effect be on the quality of guests' experience at WDW?

 

[eliza61nyc]

I can't imagine how that would be accomplished. Isn't Iger and Steve Jobs widow two of the largest individual stockholders?

I've only been to Paris disney but I definitely do not think it's better than wdw so I'll vote probably they same.

Question, the general opinion here is that they are better, t hat does not mean the general wdw visiting populace feels the same. lets just say folks here are more emotionally invested in Disney than the average guest. How many of the average american gets to Tokyo, so how would they even know

 

[larryz]

But those foreign parks were custom built for those companies who exist primarily to run the parks. Consider selling the Disney parks to some conglomerate or holding company -- if you can't get a company with a vested interest in the parks to stay on top of things, how you gonna get a third party who's leasing the name to do it?

The other option is to do what Busch did -- sell off as an interim measure to forming a company like SeaWorld Inc...

 

[PiratesMansion]

Based on watching investment trends and on my own personal experiences, I would say that getting another partner involved COULD make for a better experience.

If Disney had 100% control of Hong Kong, it probably would not have build the three mini lands and not be in the midst of a larger expansion. The government is driving the expansion. Disney is still largely averse to spending money when it feels it doesn't have to, and any partner who 1) is pushing for expansion, and 2) is putting up a good portion of the bill will result in more attractions being built vs if Disney was building and investing all by itself.

How much control does Disney have over the Tokyo parks? 0%. And those parks are easily the best Disney parks in the world: everything is quality, they're staffed to ridiculous levels, and at half the admission price of the US parks (although that is roughly true for all of the Disney parks in Asia).

Until very, very recently, the parks that were getting more investment, and better investment, were those properties in which Disney worked with another partner.

And I can tell you that the Asian parks are all much more pleasant to experience right now, even in heat and humidity and epic crowd levels, vs the US parks.

Now in fairness, this didn't work so well in Paris, but in my (very limited) understanding of what happened there, I believe that Disney's overbuilding of hotel rooms and crippling licensing fees crippled that association's efforts. But someone with more background on that should expound on that.

Ultimately I think that at this stage it would be beneficial for the parks to have a partner. However, WDW is so lucrative for them that I doubt they'd ever seek one. Sure, they like free money for essentially doing nothing (see Tokyo), but if they were to give up ownership, that would mean less money coming directly into their pockets. I think it's unlikely, even though it would likely result in better parks.

 

[AndyS2992]

Pfft, Disneyland Paris was operated by a third party who pretty much ran the parks in to the ground in recent years. Not entirely their fault having to work with the little money they had (from the overbuilding of hotels in the early years) however Disney now has full ownership and the place is a hell of a lot better now and will continue to get better with the millions now being invested in regular refurbishments, enhancements and expansions.

 

[thomas998]

I can't imagine how that would be accomplished. Isn't Iger and Steve Jobs widow two of the largest individual stockholders?

I've only been to Paris disney but I definitely do not think it's better than wdw so I'll vote probably they same.

Question, the general opinion here is that they are better, t hat does not mean the general wdw visiting populace feels the same. lets just say folks here are more emotionally invested in Disney than the average guest. How many of the average american gets to Tokyo, so how would they even know

Easily accomplished. Most likely way it would be done is by the Disney Company splitting up the company into different parts. It has been done with other companies in the past when it became apparent that the value of the companies as stand alones was greater than the value of the large conglomerate. One example would be GMAC which was once part of General Motors but was split off. In that instance I believe it was accomplished by giving every GM shareholder a proportionate share of the new GMAC. There are other more recent examples, many of which have happened in the past few years with energy companies that will sometimes cut themselves apart when they believe one segment of the business is holding back another.

If it were to happen you could easily see the parks and resorts as a stand alone with the media possibly being split between the creative side and the network/sports side.

The only thing that usually keeps things like this from happening is the ego of the CEO in charge of the conglomerate as they often don't want to see themselves being the captain of a smaller ship.

 

[Chef Mickey]

WDW is massive in comparison to other Disney resorts. I estimated at one point WDW is responsible for more revenue than all other Disney properties combined.

Based on $4.5B in operating income in 2018 and WDW being responsible for perhaps $2.3B of that, WDW I would say is worth something like probably worth something like $40-50B alone.

That said, any buyer would need serious cash to make it happen. There are limited buyers. A company like Apple could do it, but it’s a relatively low margin, capital intensive business.

It would be much more likely Disney retained ownership but had a management company run park operations.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I can't imagine how that would be accomplished. Isn't Iger and Steve Jobs widow two of the largest individual stockholders?

You think the guy who already tried to sell off the parks would object to selling off the parks?

Pfft, Disneyland Paris was operated by a third party who pretty much ran the parks in to the ground in recent years. Not entirely their fault having to work with the little money they had (from the overbuilding of hotels in the early years) however Disney now has full ownership and the place is a hell of a lot better now and will continue to get better with the millions now being invested in regular refurbishments, enhancements and expansions.

Disneyland Paris was owned by a separate company but it was managed by Disney due to the unique nature of an SCA. Letting the parks rot was part of the debt that Disney saddled the other shareholders with and then, after Disney bought the debt, Disney’s plan to take complete ownership by having a case to end the ownership caps.

 

[Smiley/OCD]

It won't happen...the parks/resorts division makes too much money for the company...when they were pumping out Hollywood flops and losing money, the P/R division was one of a select few that was still making money, and I'm sure $$$$ was "siphoned" off to make the mistakes look better.