Sean Callagy

He's a tough Israeli guy from the Mossad war in 67, but he was a turnaround guy.

He had famously bought Remington when it was bankrupt and turned it around, things like that.

And he acquired Marvel in 1999 out of bankruptcy court for like $30 million.

So he had good vision on that, but he really cared about selling toys, and he doesn't like to spend money, and he's a very difficult guy to work with, but he and I fortunately have a great relationship, and it helps when you make somebody a lot of money.

But it was a lot to get there.

In fact, once I had the inspiration for Marvel doing its movies- So acquire for 30 million and then- Then he took a public again.

And at the time I met him, it was about 100 million market cap on the back of the Spider-Man license and things like that and the toys.

So 30 million to 100 million market cap and then sold to Disney for 4 billion.

Yeah, really $10 billion with the stock.

Talk about asymmetrical return.

Though I did speak to Bob Iger last week, and I introduced a friend to him.

Do you guys know who Bob Iger is?

Yeah.

Yes, who is Bob Iger?

He's the CEO of Disney, and he was actually my boss back in 96, 97, so I knew him well, and I love Disney.

Not as much as Sean, but close to Sean.

And I do love Disney, and so when I decided to sell Marvel, now we're fast-forwarding, I didn't shop it to any other studio.

I just went right to Bob, had a secret meeting with him, and within an hour, we came up with a deal.

And because he gave us stock, legally, we were a public company, you have to shop it to get the best price for shareholders.

But what I learned is if you have something that's subjectively valued, like stock, the board can make a decision that that's the best thing to do.