Arundel Partners
Edgefield Consulting
09/25/98
As a new business opportunity arises, so do some of the uncertainties that come along with it. Our company has been brought in to evaluate some of these uncertainties that come along when unchartered territory is explored. Arundel Partners has an idea that has great potential, but there are a few problems that must be addressed in order for the idea to become reality. First, we will look at potential limited partners. More than likely general partners will not have experience or specialized knowledge in the movie industry. They do not currently see the value in sequel rights, how they will be able to make money off of these investments in the rights, or understand why studios would
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This would help give Arundel Partners an advantage while negotiating because studios would normally misprice the rights to be lower than actuality, since it is not normality for them to assign a value to sequel rights before the first film was in production. Through the use of a simple Net Present Value (NPV) calculation, we can determine the expected profitability of the hypothetical sequels in question. The NPV is calculated by discounting future cash inflows and outflows by a rate that is adjusted for riskiness of the investment, the required rate of return. In this case of purchasing movie sequel rights the discount rate is 15 percent. We are expecting to produce every film sequel that has a positive NPV, when computing the NPV of this investment decision in the first assumption. That is, every sequel that we predict to be profitable. However, we must take into account that we are buying the rights to all of the possible sequels, even if they are not profitable. When we sum up all of the positive NPVs, 25 in total, then we must divide that number by every film in which sequel rights were purchased, 99 total. Even if a sequel is deemed unprofitable and not produced, we have already purchased the rights it. This strategy would provide a positive NPV of $4.35. However, producing 25 films is not very feasible due to
Arundel can make money selling the rights to a higher bid. Another option to make money is by producing the sequel exercising its rights but this will depend on if the net present value of the production movies is higher than the amount of buying the rights. If the future positive cashflows are undervalued Arundel can seek an arbitrage
1. Why do the principals of Arundel Partners think they can make money buying movie sequel rights? Why do the partners want to buy a portfolio of rights in advance rather than negotiating movie-by-movie to buy them?
In this case, a movie industry analyst is asked to evaluate a proposed venture in which a group of partners would purchase the sequel rights to movies produced by the major studios. Your objective is to 1) discuss and evaluate the basic concept; 2) determine the value of the sequel rights on a per-movie basis; 3) evaluate the possible upside and potential drawbacks to the proposed plan. As you will see, the ideas here incorporate elements of capital budgeting coupled with a “real options” analysis.
Arundel should make an offer to buy sequel rights as the average NPV (on a per film basis ) is $5.51 mn (this is the value calculated using real options method).
The maximum per-film price for the sequel rights that Arundel Partners should pay is $5.12M.
With the purchase of sequel rights, what Arundel is achieving is to have a call option on the revenue that each movie brings. This helps to remove the uncertainty and risks associated with producing a movie, especially with regard to moviegoers’ taste. With the sequel right, Arundel will only exercise this option to produce a sequel if the first movie proved to be popular and the sequel is hence predicted to bring in profits. This provides downside protection, as huge losses (due to high production costs) associated with a failed movie will be avoided.
Key Issue 2: Is $1b appropriate to enhance UST’s firm value and ultimately shareholder value?
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