Disney, Partner Set Stage for Magic Kingdom Expansion : Buyout of Wrather Is Completed
Walt Disney Co. and a joint venture partner completed the $152.3-million purchase of Wrather Corp. on Thursday, giving Disney acres of land for a possible expansion of its Magic Kingdom in Anaheim.
The acquisition, approved at a special meeting of Wrather shareholders, also puts Disney in charge of the Disneyland Hotel and gives it an interest in the Queen Mary and Spruce Goose attractions in Long Beach.
Under the transaction, Industrial Equity (Pacific) Ltd. of Hong Kong joins Disney as a 50-50 partner in a new company that will pay $21 a share for all of Wrather’s 7.3 million publicly traded shares.
The joint venture partners also assume debts and liabilities totaling about $100 million.
The sale transfers to Disney and IEP all of Wrather’s assets--including the 1,174-room Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, which is located on about 36 acres leased from Disney until the year 2054. Wrather also leases and operates the Queen Mary and Spruce Goose and operates a tour, hotel and other facilities related to those attractions.
Industry experts viewed the Wrather purchase as another move by Burbank-based Disney to expand its position as an operator of entertainment sites in Southern California.
In addition to a planned studio-tour and shopping complex in Burbank, the company has long been studying a major addition to its Anaheim theme park.
Wrather owns 26 acres south of Disneyland and has a long-term lease on 18 additional acres north of the hotel. With the acquisition of the Wrather land, Disney now has a total of 84 acres near the park that eventually could be used for expansion or perhaps for a retail and entertainment center.
“They need new attractions to keep up the level of interest,” noted David R. Kinkade, a leisure-time specialist with the Costa Mesa office of accountants Laventhol & Horwath. “They’re eventually going to expand the park . . . and I think it will work well for them.”
Wrather shareholders overwhelmingly approved the sale, with 84% voting in favor at a special meeting Thursday.
The stockholders’ nod was all but certain because the deal already had received the blessing of Wrather’s two largest shareholders: The Wrather family and a “related party” in September had agreed to sell their 2.8 million shares, which represented 38.8% of the stock outstanding. IEP, which owned 27.9%, or about 2 million shares, also was committed to the merger.
During the half-hour meeting, Bonita Granville Wrather, chairman and widow of company founder J. D. Wrather Jr., told the 60 or so shareholders who attended that the sale “is best for the company and its shareholders. . . . Disney has great capabilities and will take our properties onto greater heights.”
With completion of the sale, Disney regains free use of the “Disneyland” name for other hotels. “We can do anything we want” to develop hotels, said Richard Nanula, Disney’s manager of acquisitions and strategic planning. Nanula added, however, that Disney has no immediate plans to develop hotels in Anaheim “because the market is not strong enough for us. . . . But it’s nice to have the flexibility.”
Nanula also stressed that Disney has not yet made any specific plans for the Wrather properties. The firm has until Feb. 15 to submit a business plan to IEP. If Industrial Equity rejects the plan, it can buy all the Wrather shares that Disney owns for about $77.2 million.
If IEP, on the other hand, decides it doesn’t want more Wrather shares, Disney must buy all the shares now owned by IEP for about $83.2 million.
Industrial Equity is part of Brierley Group, a New Zealand-based group of investment concerns with holdings in about 30 U.S. firms. It is controlled by Ronald A. Brierley, a New Zealand millionaire.
