Disney needed to get to 95 percent ownership in order to remove the stock from trading and to implement a mandatory buy-out of the remaining shares in the company. Disney exceeded that target and today announced that it will complete that mandatory buy-out — at the same €2 a share price — by June 19.
This completes the process of Disney assuming full ownership of what has become its most disappointing multi-gate theme park resort. Hobbled by decreasing tourism in Paris, due to to fears of terrorism coupled with sluggish economic performance in much of Europe, Disneyland Paris has not helped its cause in recent years with any major new attractions that have wowed fans.
With outside investors no longer in the picture to muddle financial planning, Disney is now free to spend whatever management feels it can justify to boost the park, however it wishes to spend it. Disneyland Paris recently refreshed several areas of the park in preparation for the recently-launched 25th anniversary celebration. With clear rights to use Marvel characters, as well as Star Wars, in Paris, Disney has the ability to expand the presence of its most popular franchises at the resort.
The Disneyland Paris Resort will be the first of Disney's theme park resorts outside the United States to be wholly owned by the company. Hong Kong Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland are jointly owned with local governments, and the Tokyo Disney Resort is wholly owned by Oriental Land Co. and operated under license from Disney.
Rival Universal in 2015 paid US1.5 billion to buy a controlling stake in USJ Co., which owns Universal Studios Japan, and in 2011 bought out former partner Blackstone Group to take full ownership of Universal Orlando. That leaves Universal Studios Singapore as the only Universal park not majority-owned by Universal parent Comcast.
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The Walt Disney Studios park is full of bizarre dated (and pointlessly large) attractions. Disney has lots of room to play and expand, so could be a fantastic space to experiment and innovate in the near future.
As mentioned by others, the quality of the staff is at best mixed and in many cases dreadful, foot is generally expensive and average at best. Disney studios is at best a few hours of your time
It's a mixed bag but has lots of potential as long as Disney are willing to invest in it.
Then build a copy of Indiana Jones Forbidden mountain besides Indy`s rollercoaster, and at the other side build a copy o Disney Sea`s Voyage to the center of the Earth. Copycats, with low development costs.
In the Studios, instead of an expensive redesign, just add copycats of Toy Story mania and Soarin over the World. That will do. Leave Marvel for latter.
Probably better that way. The revenue based license fee and the advertising effect for other Disney products always are a natural cause of conflict with outside shareholders as long as the park is doing so bad. It hastn been bad enough to make closing down a better option anytime in recent years however, since the park is still able to gerate some miniscule positive ebitda.
Its sort of weird to expect a 2 week stay at a high end hotel in Paris to be cheaper than one in Orlando by the way.
If you ever visit again, I'd recommend skipping the DLP on-site options and taking a look at the Serris and Val d'Europe areas. There are some great hotels and apartments there at low prices. Most are close to the RER stations and offer free shuttle buses. And, if the weather is decent, are even within walking distance - which isn't something you can say for WDW options.
As for the "Disney should have built in Spain" argument... Central/Northern Europe has a consistently strong theme park market, year-round, as it did prior to DLP's arrival. That's simply never been the case for the Mediterranean. Every one of Spain's three major parks - each of which was backed or managed by a major industry player - has suffered intense financial pressure since opening.
Suggesting Disney should have built such a huge enterprise in an area that is almost entirely devoid of tourists outside of peak season makes zero sense. There's a long list of things they could have done better when developing EuroDisney, but building in such a temperamental and seasonal market would only have compounded the problems.
Gabriel - I'd say that's the right approach. There's plenty of beauty in the place, but it's not yet worth of a dedicated trip. The city of Paris itself however is totally worth it! A true one-of-a-kind.
Personally I think DLP is worth a visit if you're in the area or based in Europe and can't afford the time or money required to visit 'the real thing.'
There are some great theme parks in Europe, for some reason DLP is the most visited and I can't fathom it. It's numbers have been dropping for the past 5 years but other parks numbers have remained fairly constant, I presume the same people visit those parks again and again but DLP is a 'one and done' deal.
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My friend went, together with her son to DLP just after the "Paris attack". She was forced to hand over her injections (she had official doctor notices) also food she needs to eat little bit off (again for medical reasons). She got sick and no one wanted to help her.
The pool at the hotel was closed every day because a kid "pooped" in there. The list goes on and on. When back she wrote a letter and Disney offered another stay for free but her son now rather goes to the Efteling then to set another foot in DLP.