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[ford prefect]

It is insanely complicated, but one of the issues is of a foreign company taking ownership of a french company. The French government operate a protectionist agenda and can sometimes get narky about it.

Although Disney is American, the french have vetoed US takeovers of other companies (Pfizer) and would need to be consistent to be able to continue this!

[Rocketeer]

Funny though, as I doubt there'd be much opposition to TWDC taking over a company (theme park) that is already perceived to be American. i.e. Would there be much compliant that ED SCA would no longer French owned?

[ford prefect]

No, but how can they then justify future objections to other takeovers?

[Slimy yet satisfying]

Does anyone know when this 1 euro deal is going to be available to buy? I have a sneaky feeling that in response to this drop in price they will up the minimum holding again for membership to the shareholders club.

[never2old]

Does anyone know when this 1 euro deal is going to be available to buy? I have a sneaky feeling that in response to this drop in price they will up the minimum holding again for membership to the shareholders club.

Hopefully conditions wont change for existing shareholders. They already have something similar, if you owned shares before a particular date you need less shares to qualify (I forget the details but they're in the small print of their conditions). In any case, so far that's what they've said, that current members wont be impacted.

And the rights subscription will be sometime next year, they still need to get it approved by the works council and the shareholders (they will call for an extraordinary shareholders meeting)

[cazspence]

Does anyone know when this 1 euro deal is going to be available to buy? I have a sneaky feeling that in response to this drop in price they will up the minimum holding again for membership to the shareholders club.

They have said on the corporate site that nothing will change for current members, but they may have new regulations for new joining members.

[Anthony]

There were some interesting quotes from senior Euro Disney figures past and present in the Guardian article reporting this news.

Mark Stead, Chief Financial Officer:

"We need to get away from tired-looking assets and make them look new," Stead said. "We need to be ready for the 25th anniversary in 2017."

He said the park would bring in more Disney characters and trademarks, although new blockbuster rides were unlikely. [...]

Stead said: "We will be revamping attractions, bringing in new ride technology [and] new ride experiences. The look and feel will completely change. We hope to take technology from US parks and bring it here. We wanted to [do that in the past] and we needed to do that, but we haven't had the financial flexibility to do so."

Meanwhile, from Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, former VP Operations:

"They've been running that place since we left pretty much on autopilot. You walk around and it hasn't been maintained properly, it looks outdated and tatty. It needs a proper shakeup both in leadership and strategy," he said.

"The customers are more sophisticated, more focused on how to spend their money and their time and [management] haven't kept up with that. Every other service business has reinvented itself to attract more customers. That theme park hasn't."

• DLP Today — Press review: Euro Disney's €1bn recapitalisation in news articles and quotes

[Rocketeer]

Wow strong words from PY.... he's right though.

[Sulley's Arms]

Does anyone know when this 1 euro deal is going to be available to buy? I have a sneaky feeling that in response to this drop in price they will up the minimum holding again for membership to the shareholders club.

Does anybody know how many Shareholders Club members there are currently?  I had been expecting Salon Mickey to become quieter 2 years after the 100 share rule was brought in, but now I'm not sure!

[Jonjo]

So how many Shareholders on here will be voting in favour of this proposal from TWDC?

[Aladar]

there is one mistake here. The recapitalization is not of 1 Billion, but 1000 million (1.000.000.000). This is called 1 milliard.

1 billion is a million of millions (1.000.000.000.000)

[mickey_nl]

there is one mistake here. The recapitalization is not of 1 Billion, but 1000 million (1.000.000.000). This is called 1 milliard.

1 billion is a million of millions (1.000.000.000.000)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,000,000,000

[DisneyRon]

there is one mistake here. The recapitalization is not of 1 Billion, but 1000 million (1.000.000.000). This is called 1 milliard.

1 billion is a million of millions (1.000.000.000.000)

not exactly, there's this silly thing where there are 2 definitions of a billion, guess which one the Americans use.
So a Billion in this is case is €1,000,000,000 most of the English speaking world uses it like that.
Not the €1,000,000,000,000 it would be if you literally translated it into many other languages.

[cazspence]

That just a million? 1,000,000 a billion is 1,000,000,000

[DisneyRon]

That just a million? 1,000,000 a billion is 1,000,000,000

yeah, my apologies, forgot to add a set of 3 zeros.