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Microcap & Penny Stocks : IATV - ACTV Interactive Television -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: art slott who wrote (4133)	1/23/1999 7:51:00 AM
From: Steve Hausser	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 4748

"The [program] guide, I believe, is going to be the gateway, from the user standpoint, to a world of interactive services.": Pete Boylan may be only 34, but the president/COO of United Video Satellite Group (UVSG) already has amassed an impressive deal record. The latest, although almost certainly not the last: UVSG's proposed $2.8 billion hostile takeover of Gemstar Inc., which essentially would give UVSG control of the country's electronic programming guide business. The proposed deal follows by about three weeks UVSG's $2 billion acquisition of News Corp.'s TV Guide assets. The TV Guide deal was a sea change for UVSG, transforming it from an affiliate of Tele-Communications Inc.'s TCI Ventures Group and Liberty Media Corp. into a firm co-owned and co-controlled by the TCI companies and News Corp. Public shareholders will own about 16% of UVSG. The TV Guide deal is a springboard for making UVSG and its Prevue Networks division a worldwide player, Boylan says. "What we can do globally with the guide business is limitless. What we can do to sell Coca-Cola on 20 platforms in 50 different languages is a hell of a challenge. But it's eminently doable if we're smart on how we execute." In many ways, Boylan is emblematic of the telecommunications/entertainment industry's new leaders: steeped in finance, he is opportunistic and persistent. "In the relatively short time [two years] that Pete Boylan was at Hallmark, it was clear that he was broadly talented but also had a particular talent for deal-making," says Hallmark President Irvine O. Hockaday Jr. That's exactly what Boylan enjoys most: "Building businesses, doing deals, looking at the Rubik's Cube 30 different ways--it's really a lot of fun," he says. "To build a new media company unlike anything that's ever been seen before is very exciting." UVSG is a portfolio company: the parent of 10 different businesses with common interests but somewhat different focuses. Boylan's mandate is to identify and exploit synergies among these different businesses. Boylan got his start in 1986 as a financial analyst at LaSalle Partners, then a private real-estate advisory firm. In quick steps, he moved to the company's Chicago-based mergers/acquisitions team, was promoted to associate and took charge of LaSalle Fund III, a $500 million investment vehicle. After opening LaSalle's New York office in November 1989, Boylan connected for what he calls "the lucky hit home run of a lifetime," landing Japan's Dai-Ichi Mutual Life as LaSalle's largest international client and investor. By the time Boylan was promoted to vice president in February 1990, his portfolio had ballooned to $5.2 billion. But by 1992, "I had grown tired of the East Coast and living on an airplane and [in] New York City," he says. So when an offer came from Hallmark Cards to rev up its struggling diversification efforts, he swapped New York for Hallmark's Kansas City, Mo., headquarters. There, Boylan's responsibilities included managing a $2.5 billion portfolio of media and communications investments. In two years, Boylan did 13 deals worth some $2.5 billion. In the process, he attracted the attention of then-UVSG Chairman Larry Flinn. But Boylan turned down a headhunter's initial approach. "I was having lot of fun at Hallmark," Boylan says. "I had great financial resources and all the toys. Being private, it was a place to make a great salary." However, he says, "I couldn't create substantial net worth [for himself]." The allure of owning part of a business grew on Boylan; when UVSG approached again, he said yes, signing on in October 1994. After a strategic assessment of UVSG, Boylan told Flinn he had two options: Stay a niche player or grow by taking on a strategic partner. Flinn eventually agreed to sell 40% of his supervoting shares to TCI. Subsequent deals between UVSG and TCI subsidiaries Liberty Media and TCI Ventures boosted TCI's stake to about 77% of UVSG's equity and 93% voting control. With the TV Guide acquisition, Wall Street "is putting a $3.5 billion enterprise value on the company, but that's still only a fraction of where we can take this thing," he says. "The [program] guide, I believe, is going to be the gateway, from the user standpoint, to a world of interactive services. If we play our cards right, execute strategy properly, there are tremendous line extensions into the interactive world we can develop here. We have two of the preeminent media companies domestically and internationally that have committed to work together to do so."