JIM HENSON CO. Family takes back Muppets it sold

The Henson family has bought back the Muppets at a discount.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
After nearly two years of looking for a home, Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog finally are returning to their kin.
The family of late Muppets creator Jim Henson has bought back the company they sold in March 2000 to Munich, Germany-based EM.TV & amp; Merchandising.
The Henson family said it would pay $78 million in cash for the characters, the TV and motion-picture production companies and the special-effects unit known as the Creature Shop. That's far less than the $680 million EM.TV paid for the Jim Henson Co.
Not included in the sale are Sesame Street characters such as Big Bird and Elmo and other assets EM.TV previously sold for approximately $300 million.
The sale caps a painstaking process by EM.TV to find a buyer for the struggling Los Angeles company, whose suitors had included Walt Disney Co., billionaire media mogul Haim Saban, Classic Media and a group led by former head of the UPN network, Dean Valentine.
Couldn't stand it
Brian Henson, son of founder Jim Henson, said the uncertainty about the fate of the characters was too painful to watch.
"We felt like enough was enough," Brian Henson said. "We weren't confident where this blind bidding process was going. We decided to get it and run the company again."
The Hensons sold their business in 2000, believing that the Muppets would find a thriving home in the German media company.
Instead, EM.TV became saddled with debt and was unable to restore the magic to the Muppets franchise, which was hugely popular on television in the late 1970s and early '80s.
"We sold the company to EM.TV on high-flying plans that they had, and then it totally crumbled into itself," said Brian Henson, who will be involved in managing the company with his sister, Lisa.
Last year, EM.TV was set to sell nearly half the company to an investment group led by Valentine, but that deal unraveled. Then, in March, Disney Chief Michael Eisner hinted at the company's annual meeting that Disney had revived its long-standing interest in the assets. Disney agreed to buy Jim Henson Co. for $150 million more than a decade ago, but negotiations collapsed after the Muppets creator died suddenly in May 1990.
This time, Eisner was said to be reluctant to invest the kind of money needed to turn around Jim Henson Co. A Disney spokesman declined to comment Wednesday.
Debut and show
The Muppets made their network TV debut in 1956 on "The Steve Allen Show," and "The Muppet Show" ran in first-run syndication from 1976 to 1981. Since then, however, Jim Henson Co. has struggled to make its characters connect with younger audiences.
The buyers include five Henson children. The sale agreement still requires approval by EM.TV shareholders.