>>11059465>AT&T was looking closely over their shoulder,People forget that AT&T only had the keys to the kingdom for about two years. Some of this started BEFORE the merger took place - admittedly some of it happened in that LONG time while Trump's DOJ was trying to prevent the merger from happening but it started beforehand, such as firing some of the higher salaried DC Direct people.
>>11059593>dc direct ... pleased with mcfarlanes resultsNot really.
It's the same thinking that Suits have where they strip companies, such as the Red Lobster hedge fund owners or the K-Mart and Sear's hedge fund owners selling off real estate those companies OWNED and then saddling the stores with expensive leases.
So then when something like the recent 99 Cent's Only implosion happens, Wall Street can point to 'bad management' or 'consumers have lost confidence' and stuff like that, VERSUS suits bought a successful, profitable company, by saddling it with debt, then walked away after taking a lot of money out.
>precisely because licensing out the brand is cheaper, easier and less risky.Both AT&T and DISCO have fired people, like the DC Direct staff (not just the toys and collectible peoples, but artists, people on the catalog sales, and other similar, related licensing type staff), because they had expensive salaries AND because to suits, getting RID of employees is an easy way to shore up a balance sheet for wall street. It has nothing to do with 'easier' or 'less risky' - although you are right, that SHORT TERM, it is easy CHEAPER because Wall Street will count salaries against WB/DISCO whereas they won't count LOST LICENSING fees, LOWER ROYALTIES, etc. against WB/DISCO.
Suits do this shit all the time and Wall Street still punishes the company and lowers the stock price (while valuing something like Nvidia and Tesla highly, relative to their income, cash on hand, etc.).
