Encore: Hasbro vs Mattel | The Shotgun Wedding | 5

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 January 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A few months ago, Mattel’s revenues were just fifty million dollars behind Hasbro’s. But now that Hasbro’s swallowed Tonka—the classic maker of Nerf, Play-Doh, and Monopoly—Mattel is half a billion dollars behind, and CEO John Amerman isn’t happy about it.

Ever since Hasbro turned British fashion doll Sindy into a Barbie lookalike, the two toymakers have been at war. Now Amerman is looking to make a couple strategic acquisitions: one to put Mattel back in pole position, and the other, to spite Hasbro.

This episode originally aired on April 3, 2019.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to business wars at free on Amazon music.
0:04.8	Download the app today.
0:12.9	It's January 1991.
0:18.3	On the 15th floor of Mattel's Los Angeles headquarters, CEO John Amerman is on the phone, and
0:24.7	he doesn't like what he's hearing.
0:27.5	Talkers gone with Hasbro?
0:29.5	Why?
0:30.5	Uh, Tonka is, well, it was, America's third largest toy maker.
0:36.0	After overborrowing to buy Parker Brothers and Kenner toys, Tonka found itself hurtling
0:40.3	towards bankruptcy.
0:42.1	Amerman thought Mattel would be Tonka's savior.
0:44.9	After all, he offered almost $500 million for the company.
0:49.3	But it wasn't enough.
0:51.3	The acquisitions editor on the line tells Amerman that Hasbro won because it offered Tonka
0:56.5	cash.
0:57.5	In contrast, Mattel could only afford a part cash, part stock deal.
1:03.2	The silver-haired CEO seeds quietly for a moment, and then composes himself.
1:09.8	It just wasn't the outcome I was expecting.
1:13.5	It's all.
1:14.8	Thank you anyway.
1:17.6	Amerman hangs up in slumps in his chair.
1:20.6	Losing Tonka is a major blow.
	...

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