Marvel went bankrupt in 1996 and sold to Disney for $4 billion 13 years later
In 1989 Ronald Perelman bought Marvel for $82.5 million and called it a mini-Disney of intellectual property. By the end of 1996 it had filed for bankruptcy, and a toy company had to rescue it. In 2009 the real Disney paid $4 billion for what emerged from that wreckage.
Under Perelman, Marvel floated 40% of its shares in 1991 and went on a buying spree: the trading card firm Fleer, a stake in Toy Biz for toy rights, the Italian sticker maker Panini, Malibu Comics, a comic-shop distributor and SkyBox cards. Its holding companies also issued over half a billion dollars in bonds, with the proceeds passed up as dividends to Perelman's companies. Then everything soured at once. Distributing comics itself hurt sales just as the comics boom collapsed, the 1994 baseball strike gutted Fleer, and Panini suffered from weak Disney films it depended on for licences.
Marvel posted its first yearly loss under Perelman in 1995, cut 275 jobs in January 1996, and entered Chapter 11 that December. Carl Icahn bought its bonds at a fifth of their value, fought Perelman's rescue plan and won control of the board. The NYSE delisted the stock in 1998, and that June Toy Biz and Marvel merged to leave bankruptcy. Years later Perelman paid $80 million to settle claims that he had helped divert $553.5 million in notes.
The rebuilt company leaned on its characters. A Los Angeles attorney, Carole E. Handler, found a loophole that won back the Spider-Man film rights. In 2005 Marvel paid Stan Lee $10 million to settle his royalties dispute and renamed itself Marvel Entertainment as it began financing its own films. Disney agreed to buy it in August 2009, giving shareholders $30 plus about 0.745 Disney shares for each of their shares, and the deal closed on 31 December.
The Jack Kirby estate challenged Marvel's ownership of his characters until a settlement in 2014. Hong Kong Disneyland opened the first Marvel ride at a Disney park in 2017, and on 29 March 2023 Disney folded Marvel Entertainment's remaining units into its other divisions.
Source: Marvel Entertainment
