LandonToei Co.

LandonToei Co., Ltd (dba Landon Toei Co.) is a Japanese-American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at Toei Animation's offices in Oizumi.

= History: = The company formerly known as Landon Studios was founded in September of 1915 by Eli Walker & Marc Donnaway. Marc had dreams of starting an animation business by watching short films at the local movie theater with his wife Eli, after gathering $175,000 from his father and by finding odd jobs around town, he opened Landon Studios along with his wife.

Where did Landon come from in the name?

The "Landon" part of the name was decided by Eli Walker when she wanted to name the studio after their son (who was 3 at the time), Marc wanted to call his studio "The Barrel". When Marc couldn't decide what to call it, he finally agreed with his wife and name the studio after their kid (Coincidently, that kid became the CEO in 1944). Cartoon Character

The cartoon character of "Landon" was created in 1916 by Marc, himself. Marc was looking at and observing Landon's behavior and he found out that he wasn't like most kids his age. Landon didn't play with wooden toys or anything like that, he was playing with cotton from the bathroom cabinet and was always adventurous. That uniqueness gave Marc an idea for a Mascot of the studio, he got to work with 4 fellow colleagues to create the first Landon cartoon in 1918.

Acquisition history (It's not all of them, but these are the most notable ones)

Landon Studios decided to expand further in 1920 by acquiring a struggling animation studio in Japan for ¥200,000, which bolstered Landon Studios' presence in Japan.

Landon Studios then acquired a local theme park chain in 1926 near their (now former headquarters) in Lanity, GA for $5 million and they kept expanding operations to the point where they found a new industry to tap into.

The next acquisition was a massive one at the time, where they payed $6 million for radio and tv company Rourk Industries in 1952 (The radio and tv stations ended up being sold off to other corporations). This marks a new form of entertainment to tackle on.

Landon Studios expanded into retail in 1989 when they acquired Max's for $80 million.

= 2012 merger of Landon Studios and Toei Company: =

In 2005, Landon Studios' current CEO Marke Frinste decided to call Noriyuki Tada one day to have a friendly meeting with one another (how he got the number is completely unknown). The meeting turned out really well and both liked each other immediately.

In 2006, Marke thought about the meeting he had and decided to call Toei and inquire about a business partnership. They agreed after a friendly conversation between to two companies had ended.

The partnership would allow Landon Network to be aired as a block on Toei Channel (Toei Company's offical TV channel), This marks the first time Landon Network would be available in Asian territories. Landon Studios would distribute some of Toei Company's catalog for the next 7 years. (The contract ended in 2013, but the license came back in 2014 after the merger finished).

On August 8th 2012, CNBC made a rumor of Landon Studios and Toei to be negotiating a merger. Landon Studios dismissed the rumors, but the rumor became reality in October when they revealed on their annual report by accident to have plans of merging with Toei. Landon Studios came clean and said that the statement about this deal was true and decided to announce it publicly on November 4th. This deal was valued to be worth roughly ¥378.1 billion ($3.6 billion dollars) and the deal between the two came with a surprising addition in which Landon Studios would acquire the remaining 83.91% of TV Asahi, Toei did not already own. The deal included Toei Channel, Toei Animation, Toei Advertising, Toei Labo Tech, Toei Satellite TV Company Ltd, & T-Joy Co., Ltd to be folded into the LS umbrella among many other subsidiaries pending regulatory approval.

Approval Process:

LS had received the green light from the US Department of Justice for this deal in February 2013

In April, it got approved by the Brazilian & Argentinean Governments.

China approved the merger in May under the condition that Landon Studios sell it's stake in CCTV back to the Chinese government.

The EU approved this merger in July without any hesitation.

Japan tried to block the deal but LS had ties with Japan since the beginning and this merger would help establish a bigger friendship between the two cultures. Marke hugged the then Japan president at the time Masaaki Yamazaki at the end of the approval process in December.

After all of that, the merger closed on December 31st 2013 with the company beginning to trade with Toei's old stock number and to close the Frankfurt stock the next day, along with LS on the NYSE.

The company began operations on January 1st 2014.