Potential Hasbro and Mattel Merger?

View attachment 74027​

According to a report today from Bloomberg Business, Hasbro (owners of the Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering brands) and Mattel have been in talks about a possible merger. The talks started in 2015, and were instigated by Hasbro.
The article listed the net worth and stock values of the two companies: "Mattel shares rose 1.7 percent to $32.29 at 4:26 p.m. in New York, valuing the company at about $11 billion and extending a streak that has seen the stock gain 19 percent this year. Hasbro rose 1.3 percent to $75.96 after climbing as high as $78.45, valuing the company at about $9.5 billion." Bloomberg experts say that a merger would allow for a stronger competition against Denmark's LEGO.

This isn't the first time that the two companies have talked about a merger.

The important question for tabletop gamers, should the merger go through, is how would the Wizards of the Coast​ division fare in all of this?

 

[CapnZapp]

Taking one gargantuan company and merging it with another gargantuan company is about as opposite as you can get with regards to "fostering healthy competition in the marketplace".

To be honest, I can see no other reason for the merger than precisely to get away from this...

 

[Reinhart]

What this is probably mostly about is that Hasbro just gained most of the Disney Princess line because Disney thought that Mattel was mismanaging it. Disney Princess is larger than any other Hasbro brand and this corporate conquest caused many Mattel executives to quit and even jump ship to Hasbro.

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-disney-princess-hasbro/

So now you have Hasbro in charge of Disney dolls, while Mattel is still doing a significant amount of the rest of Disney toys. They'd probably like to be able to coordinate and cooperate on leveraging that brand better.

The Bloomberg comment about competing with LEGO isn't totally bonkers. After its own brand recognition, one of LEGO's distinct advantages is the amount of Intellectual Property it's partnered with. LEGO makes sets that engage children but also appeal to almost any parent's nostalgia. Hasbro and Mattel have each been trying to leverage their various brands in a similar way for Kre-o and Mega Bloks. That's why there's Transformers Kre-o, Dungeons and Dragons Kre-o, Barbie Mega Bloks, and even Halo Mega Bloks.

Like [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] I'm not sure the SEC will approve of this merger. Yes, there are other toy makers in the market, but Mattel and Hasbro each dwarf most of them. Together, they'd probably make up 98% of what goes into retail toys aisles.

 

[Dausuul]

Ugh. I hope this doesn't happen. For WotC, I see very little upside and a lot of potential downside.

As far as I'm concerned, the current D&D team is doing pretty much everything right. Slower than I'd like, of course, but that's just me being an impatient gamer who wants everything now now now. At best, then, the merger beefs up the team a bit, lets them pursue some more product lines, but doesn't really change what they're doing. And there's a strong possibility that new management comes through like a tornado and wrecks shop.

 

[Dire Bare]

D&D Barbie anyone?

I was about to say that you are being ridiculous, but they did just announce Batman vs. Superman Barbie dolls, so . . . .

 

[Dire Bare]

They'll argue whether the merged company should be Hasbro-Mattel or Mattel-Hasbro and that will be the end of it. Barbie and GI Joe will continue to have to cross enemy lines to foster their forbidden love.

Edit HasMat?

I'm still scarred over 25 years later because my sister secretly married my GI Joes to her Barbies . . .

 

[Dire Bare]

Everyone that hopes for cross-pollination, we've not seen it within Hasbro since WotC got bought by Hasbro 10+ years ago. No GIjoe RPG, no D&D Monopoly. The best we can hope for is that it doesn't affect WotC and especially D&D. But I have my doubts...

Hasbro gave us D&D Kre-O (knock off legos), although I think that might be it so far.

There was a D&D Clue, but that wasn't a Hasbro product, I'm fairly certain.

 

[Sunseeker]

I would hardly call Lego niche. It is the largest grossing toy company in the world with one of the most valuable brands in all of entertainment.

What I mean is: what do they produce besides LEGO? Sure they've got everything from elves to ninjas and patent deals from Star Wars but they don't produce any other types of toys. So if you don't like having to assemble your toys, you're not going to buy anything from them.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm still scarred over 25 years later because my sister secretly married my GI Joes to her Barbies . . .

And now 25 years later the fashion wars have hit their peak.

 

[Mistwell]

By the way the two companies tried this in 1996, and there was concern about regulatory approval then before Mattel backed out. The market's even tighter now than it was 20 years ago.

I recently helped stop the merger of a class ring company with a graduation cap and gown company, where those two companies had less of a lock on the market than Mattel and Hasbro have on their market. I just have a hard time seeing them getting approval on this one.

I suspect this is because Mattel is in trouble.

 

[Xavian Starsider]

There was a D&D Clue, but that wasn't a Hasbro product, I'm fairly certain.

It was. In North America, Hasbro/Parker Brothers owns the publishing rights to Clue.