Comment by SimonPStevens | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SimonPStevens | Hacker News Reader

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In this case I think the primary reason is to protect the company.

Aardman is probably a fairly hot company right now. Probably prime for a purchase by one of the big studios. But then it would most likely just get broken up and turned into a mill for churning out look-a-like content. Or possibly even just a logo stamped on contracted out content. I believe the founders have been fairly clear in the past about not being interested in selling.

While the founders still own it they can just turn down these offers and stay independent, but soon they are going to retire and will have to give up ownership to someone. And that someone might just decide to take the big payout and sell. So this is their way of ensuring that the company continues to run as it is for the good of the employees. It can now only be sold if the majority of employees vote to accept the sale, and if they do at least they'll also be the ones to get any associated payout not just some profit driven owner.

> It can now only be sold if the majority of employees vote to accept the sale

Maybe I'd be wrong, but I feel like it would be far easier to buy a company from a group of middle-class minority shareholders than a couple wealthy owners. A big payout sounds easier to refuse if you're already satisfied financially.

Are we sure that remaining independent is the motivation here?

It’s not nessisarily a big payout when you get ~1/1,000 of it.

With 140 employees and assuming equal distribution of the 75% I believe they were giving out, it's around .5% ownership or 1/200. Not huge, but at a $100M buyout offer (didn't they have $25M in sales, and growing?), we're talking $500k a head. Even at a $25M buyout, its $125k a head. That type of money is enough for a middle-class family to usually succumb.

Those numbers seem rather high. Profits are on the order of £2.5m/year ~(3.25 million $) so / 140 and your talking a 23k/year annual bonus. On top of that selling the company likely means the jobs not only pay less, but are also worse.

Well sure but then you’re left with a company full of skilled people who the company depends on, that you just made financially independent.

Nice point of view. Buying the company for their talent would make the talent abandon the company. A self-defeating prophecy!

Either it's hard to create the content, or it is not.

If it's not hard, the studios don't need to buy Aardman. The IP they have is negligible, and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman (99% of the people would not know who they are anyway).

If it is hard, the studios would need to keep the employees who manage to do this hard thing, and it would be in the purchaser's best interest to manage it as if it were a butterfly.

You're making the big assumption that this potential buyer is rational.

> no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman (99% of the people would not know who they are anyway).

Speak for yourself, I know I certainly do.

He has a point that it is very niche though (I never heard of them for example)

Maybe it's not known by name, but there's certainly a "trademark" in the design & animation that I'd guess is widely recognized around the world(e.g.: I'm in Brazil and recognized only when seeing the article image), so I imagine there's a following. If you add that it's like an early hooker(i.e.: most watched as a child), then there's probably another multiplier for the brand/studio value right there.

Ditto

I can second this. I grew up with Wallace and Gromit (Canadian, here), and I've always loved their work.

Dudes, we are talking here about the creators of the (almighty) Shaun The Sheep !!!!

It is hard and risky to create quality animation movies. But it is pretty easy to milk a brand - just witness all the cheap sequels and spin-offs Disney have produced based on classics like Bambi or Cinderella. Disney (or someone similar) might very well buy Ardman to milk the IP.

> it would be in the purchaser's best interest to manage it as if it were a butterfly.

Maybe so, but there is no guarantee they will do that. Remember that Disney fired the whole hand-animation department, despite the whole company being build on hand-drawn animation.

This is not the only 2 options.

First the IP is not negligible, for a company like this the IP is their company.

Second Even if this mythical company buys them and has ever intention of "keeping the employees" and "allowing the company to run as before" a company that is consumed by a larger organization will over time loses its identity, it does not matter if both parties desire to "keep the magic" it never works. EVER. HR polices, Legal, management style etc from the larger parent ALWAYS makes it way to a subsidiary.

This sounds like exactly the attitude that Pixar bet against and won, as described in Lawrence Levy's book[1]. At the time it was thought that animation from anyone other than Disney had no goodwill attached to it.

Pixar was able to disprove that with their franchises and I think the same is true for Aardman with Wallace & Grommet and the spin off Shaun the Sheep series.

Aardman have a look to their work that people know and love.

Edited: because I'm a nitwit who put down the wrong author. Should be this book by http://lawrencelevy.com/book/

>Lawrence Lessig's book

Which book, please? Thank you.

My bad, should have been this book by Lawrence Levy: http://lawrencelevy.com/book/

I've corrected my post, thanks.

> Aardman have a look to their work that people know and love.

Which is either easily reproducible (my point A) or not (my point B). But the style of their movies is most likely not a protectable IP.

> no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman

That's exactly why we took the kids to Chicken Run, having seen no trailer.

If it looked exactly the same, but was not made by Aardman, would you not have gone seen it? How much is that marginal extra chance worth, ceteris paribus, that you would go see it because you recognize the name, exactly? Now multiply that by the proportion of people who would actually recognize Aardman as a brand name (i.e. less than 1.0).

Note that we're not talking about just the style of how the movie and the figurines look like, because the assertion which we're discussing stems from the axiom that it's easily reproducible. If it is not, then it drops to assertion #2 which does not talk about IP.

That is the value of the IP of Aardman, and I'd wager it's not worth an amount that would make a transaction worth it for the big studios talked about by the grand-OP (>$100MM).

Without seeing a trailer how would we know it looked exactly the same? Looking the same counts for nothing without script, voice acting, production values etc. Just look at some of the cheap junk Disney have turned out.

Aardman had almost complete 100% awareness in the UK thanks to Wallace and Gromit, and use of a national treasure or two for voice acting. The Creature Comforts ads that must have run for a decade or more - and still get voted in the top 5 best ads 30 years later, along with their other shorts and films. So it's difficult to generalise for areas that don't have the same love and awareness.

After 30+ years of Wallace and others, along with their production values and including plenty for the adults make it a safe bet. Like you'd also expect from Pixar. Thoroughly good it was too.

Taking the kids to a Disney movie is far more likely to give nothing to the parents, or turn out to be one of their cheapie efforts.

> If it looked exactly the same, but was not made by Aardman

Probably not, because we wouldn't know it is up to Aardman quality. In the UK particularly, Aardman is the Pixar of stop-motion.

> The IP they have is negligible, and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman (99% of the people would not know who they are anyway)

I'm guessing you're outside of the UK? I'd put my money on you being to ask 10 people at random here and at least half of them recognise the name for Wallace and Gromit if nothing else

> and no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman

From a UK perspective I think you're pretty wrong here. Aardman cant be separated from the style they've built over the last 30 years, and it's incredibly popular. Even if someone didn't recognise the name, you could show most people a even a single frame from one film and they'd recognise what it was immediately.

I think you might be mis interpreting the parent. They are presenting 2 options (either its hard or not), without a preferred option.

But yes I think you're right Aardman are instantly recognisable and not easily copyable.

I watch a movie because it's made by Aardman.

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