Why did George Lucas sell Lucasfilm including STAR WARS franchise to Disney?

Yes, all Star Wars Fans are puzzled  (note the F in fans is in capital. This is deliberate as Star Wars Fans are almost like religious believers!)

Why did George Lucas suddenly sell away all rights to  Star Wars to DISNEY? And too add,  Indiana Jones?  And also my favorite visual effects company: Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) ? Just $4 Billion? Sounds small?

Not quite.

Being a cash plus  stock combo sale, Lucas has become the second largest independent shareholder of Disney, holding more than 2% equity. So ALL future profits of Disney from  Star Wars, Indy Jones series will CONTINUE to add to Lucas’ fat wallet, as Disney will make multiple reboots and sequels.

In addition, the sale was a master move by George Lucas in inheritance and estate planning according to experts:

Since none of Lucas’s three adopted children plan to take over his film empire, financial advisers say the strategy will save his heirs the the responsibility of managing their inheritance – and potentially going through the often long and fraught process of dividing it. “Mr. Lucas has obviously surrounded himself for years with world class legal, estate and tax advisers,” Wade Westhoff, a financial adviser based in Danville, Calif., says of the Disney deal. “This is a textbook example of exit planning for a private business owner.” (Lucas and a spokesman for LucasFilm were not immediately available for comment)

That Lucas struck a deal in 2012 may be no accident either, advisers say. Long-term capital gains tax from the sale of assets held more than one year are taxed at a rate of 15% for investors in the 25% income tax bracket or above (Lucas’s level), and zero for investors in the 10% or 15% bracket. Those rates are set to jump to 20% and 10%, respectively in January. “He probably wanted to take advantage of the lower rate on long-term capital gain while it’s certain,” says Bill Smith, managing director at CBIZ MHM, a national accounting and professional services provider.

Source:  Jedi Estate Planning

The Force… is pretty strong in George Lucas!

Filed under: Media & Entertainment, News, Business & Current Affairs, bob iger, disney, disney lucasfilm, george lucas, george lucas lucasfilm disney, iger lucas, indiana jones, star wars

Can Marissa Mayer rescue Yahoo?

marissa mayer in that famous red dress photo

Yahoo is still a profitable company that has a market cap of around $20 Billion, with $5 Billion annual revenues and huge traffic (more than 184 Million people globally visit a Yahoo! page every day). So despite losing relevance in the Google vs Apple vs Facebook vs Microsoft world, she will still have command over decent sized resources to do a massive turnaround.  At the least, with her $300 Million+ net worth, she has nothing to lose, and can only benefit from any upside from Yahoo.

Filed under: News, Business & Current Affairs, googirl, hot ceo marissa, Marissa mayer, marissa mayer hot, marissa mayer pregnant, marissa mayer red dress, marissa mayer sexy pic, marissa mayer yahoo ceo, marissa red, marissa red dress

R.I.P. Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011)

A true visionary… he will truly be missed. Where would we all be in the Internet industry without the desktop revolution he unleashed?

RIP Steve Jobs

 

Filed under: News, Business & Current Affairs, Apple, apple steve jobs, rip steve jobs, steve jobs, steve jobs apple home page, steve jobs apple homepage, steve jobs apple site, steve jobs dead, steve jobs death, steve jobs died

Warren Buffett on the “value of Gold”

Warren Buffett on Gold:

It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.

You could take all the gold that’s ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that’s worth at current gold prices, you could buy all — not some — all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take? Which is going to produce more value?

Source:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/18/pf/investing/buffett_ben_stein.fortune/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett#Dollar_and_gold

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India to unveil a new National Broadband Plan?

According to reports in new media (click to read GTB’s report on the same) India’s telecom minister, Mr. Kapil Sibal is all set to unveil a blueprint for India’s National Broadband Plan within next 2 months. The idea is to connect 160 million households with high-speed internet connections by 2014.  There is widespread support in the country  for such initiatives from  stakeholders like online publishers, media owners, agencies, students, consumers as well as industry bodies like the IAMAI which has been diligently pushing for a National Broad Plan with the  Indian Government and The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (or TRAI).

Check out the key statement in the IAMAI press release on the same issue (dated 22 July, 2010).

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has said that an independent agency can ensure national broadband connectivity across the country within 36 months. This was said by the association in its response to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) new set of recommendations on the National Broadband Plan 2010. IAMAI fully supports TRAI’s recommendations brought out in the consultation paper on National Broadband Plan. IAMAI is of the view that the TRAI proposal alongside and in parallel with the developments in the market place viz., arrival of 3G and BWA will be able to bring in a true broadband revolution in India.

Click on the link to Download and read the full TRAI  Consultation paper on National Broadband Plan

GTB’s report confirms that the Minister for Communications and Information Technology has consulted industry representatives to finalise the framework for the NBP and develop a strategy to roll out optical fibre.  According to the NBP, the fibre network will be FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGED AS A NATIONAL RESOURCE!!!

This is superb news for the entire Digital Industry in India.

Filed under: News, Business & Current Affairs, broadband connectivity, broadband government, broadband plan India, consultation paper on national broadplan plan, digital, IAMAI, internet connectivity, Kapil Sibal, mobile, National broadplan plan, NBP, NBP paper, online, technology, TRAI, trai paper