The Holy Grail for a movie or television producer lies in creating a franchise that will result in multiple spinoffs. Walt Disney created the first spinoffs, featuring supporting characters, such as Goofy and Donald Duck, in standalone films after first being seen with franchise tentpole character Mickey Mouse. Star Wars, The Avengers, Star Trek, and other franchises that have successfully kept the brand while migrating to different characters maximize the viewing, merchandising, and ancillary revenues for a franchise concept. Spinoffs, which expand into separate entities, are a synonymous term in the finance world for a De-Merger.
A curious example of a De-Merger: When General Electric (NYSE: GE) was getting out of the financing business, it De-Merged to focus on manufacturing and energy. The De-merger of Synchrony Financial (NYSE: SYF) as a separate public company from GE was a successful spinoff. It was like rats jumping the ship, as GE cratered shortly thereafter. De-mergers work, and they don't. (But if you're an investment banker executing that de-merger, you get paid either way so...party on, dude.)
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![Finance: What's the difference between mergers and acquisitions?](https://media1.shmoop.com/video/thumbnails/COURSE.FINANCE.330_770x433.jpg)
Finance: What's the difference between m...22 Views
Finance allah shmoop what's the difference between mergers and acquisitions
all right people listen up Merger that's what's about to
happen here it's a merger acquisition that's what's about to
happen here Corporate america is kind of same thing when
two companies merge while they generally you know attracted to
each other hopefully respect each other they share stock or
combined the stocks of each side and you know combine
efforts and then and then cuddle afterwards if they're successful
at the merger than the combination of two roughly equals
yields more than the one plus one combo that made
them so two companies get together on generally equal ish
footing In that case acquisitions are a combining more like
that eating thing on much different footing The large company
eats or buys the target either using its more highly
valued stock currency or it's taft to do so Well
why would a company acquire another Well the target might
have one hundred employees ninety of whom can be fired
with massive expense savings after the acquisition For the acquirer
such that economically the acquisition won't just makes a whole
lot of financial sense acquisitions happen for market power reasons
As well like imagine the negotiating leverage that amazon would
have if it bought the next five biggest online retailers
Or maybe it'll just kill them Probably not legal for
them to buy him anyway given the monopoly like dominance
of amazon these days But wow that would be a
powerful set of acquisitions And that would be a good
reason for ems on to acquire a whole bunch Things
and bezos would grow even more powerful maybe too powerful
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