![]() ![]() ″What we’re doing here is not unlike any business enterprise,″ said Matheson. Noting that they already have production experience, Matheson and Grodnik sound confident they’ll succeed. division that has produced hits like ″Good Morning: Vietnam″ and ″Who Framed Roger Rabbit.″ ″We’ll come up with our own version of the Touchstone label,″ said Matheson, referring to the Walt Disney Co. National Lampoon will continue making comedy films under its flagship label, but Grodnik and Matheson also want to do more serious pictures and action movies. Grodnik said he expected that ″the movie company will strengthen the magazine and the magazine will strengthen the movie company.″Īmong the people working on movies for National Lampoon - 11 are in development - is Matty Simmons. ″We’re not in here to do a Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (deal) where we’re going to piece this thing apart and sell if off,″ he said, referring to the investment firm that has financed multibillion dollar takeovers partly through the sale of corporate assets. Would they sell the magazine or other National Lampoon assets? ″The magazine’s always been known as the cutting edge of comedy in America,″ said Matheson, but ″the proper attention wasn’t paid to staying on the cutting edge.″ Matheson and Grodnik admit they have little experience with magazines, but with an injection of outside capital - which Batchelder will arrange - they want to hire people who can revive the magazine’s former glory. ″The company needs direction, money and management,″ Grodnik said. National Lampoon magazine, known for salacious humor after its founding in 1970, has lost readers over the years. Like other corporate acquirers, the men who now control National Lampoon must try to turn the business around. So he sold his 8.7 percent stake March 16 to Grodnik and Matheson at $6 a share, or more than $761,400. Simmons said he was tired of trying to run the movie production company in California and the magazine in New York, and wanted to concentrate on filmmaking. Simmons may have balked at first, but he says now, ″The idea came from me of them buying my stock and taking over the management of the company.″ ″It became very obvious to him that we’re not going away,″ Matheson said, adding that their voting stake ″became irresistible. ″It wasn’t a takeover,″ Simmons said in an interview.īut Matheson acknowledged that, ″It was a surprise (to Simmons) that we came in with over 21.5 percent of the voting stock,″ and that it took some pressure to move the National Lampoon founder. Grodnik, Matheson and Simmons downplayed any resemblance between this deal and a classic takeover fight. The agreements gave the pair control over 18.5 percent of the stock, and a 3 percent stake they bought boosted the figure to 21.5 percent.Īt that point, late last year, they approached National Lampoon founder and chairman Matty Simmons and said they wanted to join the company’s management. These stockholders had bought at $7 or $8 a share, Grodnik said, and ″they wanted some relief.″ ![]() With Batchelder’s help, Grodnik and Matheson persuaded nine National Lampoon stockholders to assign the pair their voting rights. ″It was the best company that we came up with.″ ″It fit all of our needs and purposes,″ Matheson said. Was it a coincidence they chose the producer of ″Animal House?″ ![]() They settled on money-losing National Lampoon, whose stock price was languishing at around $2.50 a share. Grodnik quoted Batchelder as telling the pair, ″Just find a company that has an operating history and that you feel is undervalued in the marketplace.″ They retained Batchelder, telling him they wanted to raise $50 million to form a production company.īut Batchelder said it made more sense to buy an existing company rather than start from scratch - a lesson many corporate acquirers and entrepreneurs have learned. Matheson and Grodnik, an independent film producer, hankered for their own movie company after they co-produced the film ″Blind Fury.″ Yet the pair won National Lampoon through some tried-and-true methods of corporate acquisition - perhaps because they were schooled by David Batchelder, ex-adviser to another renowned takeover strategist, T. ″We want to build a company,″ Grodnik said in an interview, with Matheson chiming in: ″a significant entertainment company.″ ![]()
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