Word: caa
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...surprise was Alan Ladd Jr., the chairman of the bank's MGM studio. "By the time the bank told me about the deal," Ladd says, "it was a fait accompli." He seems tentative about the whole thing. "I don't think MGM is for sale at this time." However, CAA sources confirm that Ovitz is indeed out to find a buyer...
...says it's "light stuff for Michael. He should be able to dash off this kind of advice on the car phone while he's taking his son to the ball game." Perhaps, but a fee of, say, $30 million would in fact represent a very significant fraction of CAA's annual revenues...
...CAA's rivals, particularly the folks at ICM, are doing their best to stoke these fears. Says Bill Block, a cocksure young agent at ICM: "This deal? It's like the Oliver North thing -- the full implications weren't brought out." Certainly, sour grapes and not simply righteous indignation plays some role: two years ago, ICM hired one of the Credit Lyonnais officials who was in charge of many of the bank's movie-industry loans during the go-go '80s, and it also happens to be making forays of its own in the ad game...
...energetically spreading the idea that Ovitz isn't minding the store. Says Block about CAA's extracurricular businesses: "Smart clients question what's the value-added service when senior agents are busy with outside deals, and they get shunted to junior agents." His boss Jeff Berg echoes that point: "My core business is managing the careers of talented people." This may be the major risk in Ovitz's expansive strategy; CAA clients could start to feel neglected and then restless, even if their fears were unjustified...
...CAA seems to be rising to the bait. "Those are the kind of guys," says one CAA executive of his ICM counterparts, "who steal scripts from one another's desks." The Ovitzites say Berg is ranting and raving to make himself seem like Mike's equal -- an idea they find absolutely absurd. "I will not be intimidated by the threat of failure," says Ovitz, with uncharacteristic heat, "or coerced by that kind of talk. I will do what I have...