DreamWorks Stock Jumps on Buyout Report

The stock of DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. soared Wednesday following reports that the Glendale studio had attracted the interest of Comcast Corp. DreamWorks’ stock increased $5.08, or nearly 19 percent, to $32.20. Comcast’s stock increased less than 1 percent, but it also reported strong earnings. Comcast of Philadelphia on Wednesday did not talk about the possibility of any deal for the DreamWorks, first reported late Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal. The Journal and other media outlets reported that Comcast, the cable TV and media giant, offered $3 billion for DreamWorks, an amount larger than its market cap of $2.75 billion. The appearance of a potential buyer is not new for DreamWorks. In September 2014, Japanese telecommunications and Internet company SoftBank Corp. made an offer to buy the studio in a deal valued at $3.4 billion. Two months later, Hasbro Inc., the second largest toymaker, was in discussions on a merger but those talks did not lead to a deal. These buyout offers came at a particularly glum period for DreamWorks, which was reeling from poor box office results on several films that resulted in write downs. In a restructuring of the feature film division, the company saw top executives leave as it cut the number of feature films released, closed an animation studio in Redwood City, laid off about 500 employees and sold its Glendale campus.