MGM sets Dec. 17 meeting for merger vote

Reuters/VNU
11/19/04 21:39 ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Film and television studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Inc. has set Dec. 17 as the date for a shareholder meeting to vote
on the $4.8 billion merger with an investor group led by Sony Corp
of America, MGM said in a federal filing Friday.

The meeting will be held at MGM’s headquarters in Los Angeles at 10
a.m. local time, and stockholders of record as of the end of business
on Nov. 5 are eligible to vote, according to an MGM proxy filed with
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

MGM’s board of directors has recommended approval of the merger in
which shareholders will receive $12 per share in cash. The investment
companies controlled by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, which own 69
percent of MGM’s common shares, have already agreed to support
the merger.

Sony’s partners are Comcast Studio Investments Inc, a unit of Cable TV
company Comcast Corp., and affiliates of Providence Equity Partners
Inc., Texas Pacific Group and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners. Sony
Corp of America is a unit of Japanese electronics company Sony Corp..

The merger agreement was announced in September and calls for the
Sony-led group to pay roughly $2.85 billion in cash for MGM and assume
about $2 billion in debt.