Latest press releases from advertising financial market confirm Hallmark Cards Inc., in its profound interest, to acquire subsidiary Crown Media Holdings, Inc. – of which it claims to own almost half if not sole of its business (private) – set at approx. US$ 175 million.
INSIGHT: Hallmark holds nearly 90.3% stake in Crown (CRW). Meanwhile Crown has about 360 million shares outstanding, including Hallmark’s stake.Hallmark Capital Management Inc. cut its stake in shares of Crown Holdings, Inc. by 0.4% during 4Q, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Moreover, it owned approximately 0.18% of Crown Holdings worth US$12,501,000 as of its most recent filing with the commission.
[Exclusive from The Vista Voice: Crown Holdings last issued its Qearningsestimates on 03 Feb, 2016. In it the company reported US$0.70 earnings/share beating the Zacks’ consensus estimate of US$0.69 by US$0.01. The business had revenue of US$ 2.03 billion incomparison to the consensus estimate of US$ 2.15 billion. The revenue was BEARISH with 4.7% in comparison to the same Q last year. On average, equities analysts forecast that Crown Holdings would post US$ 3.82 earnings/share for the present fiscal year.]
A letter delivered by Hallmark to its board wrote down its interest to acquire the remaining stock of Studio City, Crown Holdings for US$ 5.05/share, i.e. a 2.4% premium over Tuesday’s CLOSING cost.
As for taking benefit of being the largest shareholder of Crown Holdings i.e. 90%, there’s no way why Hallmark cannot proceed with this so-called short form merger under Delaware law without any action or consent by Crown’s board of directors or the approval of other shareholders.
However, why does Hallmark want this acquisition anyway? Perhaps the deal might yield a great tractability through which it may respond to ongoing challenges and risks – as when entertainment and cable in in trans-version phase. Hallmark is not a fool in this case; it can protect its substantial investment in Crown and make decisions in light of what is best for Hallmark as a whole, without being constrained by public.
