At DreamWorks Animation

I spent part of yesterday afternoon at DreamWorks Animation, walking around floors of the Lakeside Building.

The oncoming merger were on a lot of people's minds, and several staffers talked to me about it. One brought up the Hollywood Reporter article where some union rep speculated about the future of the studio ...

DWA staffer: That part where you mentioned layoffs, where you said two or three hundred people could go ...

Union Rep: I hope that didn't bother you. I pulled the number out of my backside. I'm speculating on what's going to happen. Chris Meledandri outsources Illumination Entertainment's work to Paris. ...

DWA staffer: No, I thought what you said needed to be said. There's going to be changes. Comcast is going to want to see profits on its investment. Believe me, people around here have thought about what's going to be happening. How could they not? ...

A supervisor said how there are six movies in work at the Glendale studio, all in different stages of production, and that crew is being hired for production work on a couple of them, and nothing is slowing down. I said that Jeffrey's still in charge until the end of the year. And Universal doesn't want to come in and stomp any golden eggs lying around in various production nests, what good would that do? They want to make money, after all.

The take of some senior staff is that change will come over years, not months. They thing that some administrative positions, merchandising position and publicity jobs will go away, since Universal can do those things over in Universal City.

So for now, everybody keeps on doing their jobs, and waits.

Then there was this:

Before it turned to a bigger, beefier offer from Comcast, DreamWorks Animation talked to the Chinese private-equity firm PAG Asia Capital about a buyout that would have taken the cartoon studio private, a source familiar with the talks confirmed.

PAG quickly faded into the background once the U.S. conglomerate trained its sights — and, eventually, a $3.8 billion all-cash offer — on the Glendale-based maker of films like “Shrek,” “Kung Fu Panda” and “Madagascar.” The Chinese investment firm came nowhere close to the Comcast offer, which amounted to a 51% premium for DreamWorks. ...

Jeffrey wanted to make the best deal he could get ... and he did. A couple of DWA employees said that the deal came together in four days (jibing with different industry reports) and that Chris Meledandri was informed of what was up when the merger talks were down the road a piece.