MGM watch: It ain’t over till it’s over

The fate of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., which controls half of the 007 franchise, remains unsettled as one Indian company and a well known corporate investor figuratively kick the tires.

First, from a Sept. 19 Bloomberg.com story about Sahara India Pariwar:

Sahara India Pariwar is in discussions on “mutual interest” with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., a spokesman for the Indian company said in response to reports that it had bid for the studio’s debt.

“It’s too early to comment on the issue,” Abhijit Sarkar, head of corporate communications at Sahara India Pariwar, said in an e-mailed statement today. He didn’t give details.

You can read the full story BY CLICKING HERE. Two days earlier, the Associated Press had a story a version of which YOU CAN READ BY CLICKING THIS LINK. The story began like this:

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Sahara India Pariwar, an Indian conglomerate with real estate and media holdings, says it has made a $2 billion bid to buy the debt of struggling Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.

It was unclear how MGM’s committee of creditors views the offer. A spokeswoman for the studio declined to comment.

All of this comes when Spyglass Entertainment has been reported by various media outlets as having a tenative to take control of MGM THAT WOULD INVOLVE MGM MAKING A “PREPACKED” BANKRUPTCY FILING. So far, there has been no official announcement from MGM, other than a Sept. 15 statement that the studio got another extension on making debt payments.

But that’s not the only potential complication. On Sept. 17, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES REPORTED THAT INVESTOR CARL ICAHN WAS BUYING UP MGM DEBT.

Here’s an excerpt:

Icahn previously accumulated and then sold debt in MGM earlier this year. In the past few weeks he has acquired what one person close to the situation described as a single-digit percentage in the studio’s nearly $4 billion worth of debt.

There’s no indication that Icahn wants to play a role in MGM if the company goes ahead with current plans for the top executives of Spyglass Entertainment to take over following a pre-packaged bankruptcy. The investor may just believe he can make a profit given the current trading price of the company’s bonds.

We don’t know precisely what all this means other than MGM’s fate, along with that of the cinematic James Bond, isn’t settled. Don’t make plans for attending the premier of Bond 23 yet.