William Morris

1How Endeavor took over William Morris

• Ari Emanuel's blow-up in the first meeting delayed the deal four years. Ari says he handled the 2003 merger meeting badly while Patrick Whitesell was perfect. The tantrum pushed the merger out until William Morris was in disarray, and it was done around 2009.

  Ari says going crazy does not always work and calls it "a horrible game of chess." Quote: "I played a horrible game of chess there."

  David Senra▶ 24:50

• Endeavor spent four years weakening William Morris before the merger moved. After the 2003 attempt was laughed off, Ari and Patrick spent four years taking clients and agents from William Morris and listening to the street. When dissent grew inside the rival, one of its important agents told Ari it was time to try again, and the deal then took about six months.

  Ari and Patrick went in as the conquerors. Egon Durban's capital later let them economically incentivize everyone and take control. Quote: "stealing clients, weakening them"

  David Senra▶ 24:17

• David Geffen told Ari to stop freezing and merge. Ari was frozen over the merger, afraid that if Endeavor was not safe he was not safe. Geffen cut it down to one move: "just merge with William Morris, get in traffic and get hit."

  Ari says he should have listened years earlier. He and Patrick did merge with William Morris and won the culture battle.

  David Senra▶ 40:25

• Ari won over William Morris's revenue-generating executives before the deal closed. Even after both boards approved, senior William Morris equity holders said it would not work. Ari met separately with the heads of the music and non-scripted businesses, who "hated leadership," and let them into the plan.

  He also negotiated supermajority rules so the old chairman could be forced out. The board had five votes against Endeavor's four and a quarter each, and the chairman did not have the two thirds needed.

  David Senra▶ 27:00

• Ari paid $44 million in buyouts and calls it his best deal. The old leadership could not stay, so Endeavor paid out departing executives. In the 2008 and 2009 crisis, with banks refusing loans, Ari and Patrick wrote checks of $24 million and $20 million, plus other costs of roughly $80 million.

  Ari reframes it as buying a century-old roster for almost nothing. Quote: "It was the greatest deal that Patrick and I ever did." It led to the IMG deal.

  David Senra▶ 31:56