Amazon in Running to Acquire Landmark Movie Chain | Hacker News Reader

Amazon in Running to Acquire Landmark Movie Chain

bloomberg.com

92 pointsrchaudhary105 comments

Why is Amazon expanding into brick and mortar with Whole Foods and now Landmark? Have they really saturated and squeezed all they can out of digital?

I like Apple's strategy better of sitting on piles of cash until they know what to do with it.

They don't have to be finished with digital (and they clearly aren't) to start expansion elsewhere. Amazon is a slow and steady machine that eats entire industries, often planning 5 years ahead.

Jeff Bezos is an amazing risk taker who has no problem spending billions on experiments to find the next area of growth. Apple is now sorely lacking this kind of leadership which has led to a relatively "meh" level of product output these days.

>entire industries

They dominate e-commerce and cloud hosting. But have they really had much success elsewhere?

They pretty much own the Audiobook market with Audible all of the publishers licence them their collections, Kindle is the largest E-book market along with the E-reader market. The kindle fire is pretty much the market leader in sub $100 the bargain bin tablet segment last I checked.

Really? I pretty much exclusively buy from iBooks. Is there any data to back your claim up?

Between Audible and Amazon directly they account for ~50% of audiobook sales[1].

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-13/amazon-tu...

Not the parent commenter, nor do I have data, however, I can also provide my own anecdotal experience like yours.

Everyone I know who is a heavy reader of ebooks uses Kindle, and usually also has a Kindle e-reader (with the E-Ink screen). From my own experience the people I've met who primarily use iBooks are the more "casual" readers who read several books a year, whereas the Kindle users tend to read many more than that. The e-ink screen is critical for literary enthusiasts as it's the closest thing to a real book, but is digital.

They don't own the audiobooks I buy.

https://www.downpour.com

>>But have they really had much success elsewhere?

The word 'e-commerce' might look as one word here, but if you see what it takes to make it run, there are several big constituent parts of it, each of which could be a big business in its own right.

I imagine at some point, Amazon could likely offer shipping-as-a-service like Fedex or UPS. Or its supply chain or warehouse management expertise.

In fact aws was born when they realized they could rent out servers and infrastructure service they were using in Amazon.

That's actually a myth.

https://www.networkworld.com/article/2891297/cloud-computing...

But still brings us back to my original point, they have shown success in two markets. Not really everything they try. They have some tough competition in ups, FedEx, USPS. And the stories I've heard so far of Amazon handling its own deliveries aren't sounding promising.

Not much other success of global consequence, no. It's a myth that Amazon is gobbling up the world. People just like to throw around dramatic statements about big expansive corporations. It plays well to people's fears. You see it in all instances, without exception. Microsoft previously swallowed the world up and took over all businesses (as declared by numerous magazine covers in the 1990s). The dramatic performances put on about how Microsoft was going to own everything, is farcical in hindsight (and it was a joke then too). The exact same thing will hold true about Amazon. They won't own everything and the world will in fact keep on spinning, they're just the latest Big Corp in a very long line of them. Their run will fade just the same, too (20 years ago Walmart was going to own everything in retail and they were supposedly unstoppable, the headlines of dread were non-stop; Sears before that).

They have plenty of competition in cloud (they are in fact persistently losing market share). Their realm of dominance so far is ebooks and online traditional retail. There is nothing else that they truly dominate.

Amazon has overwhelmly failed at their ventures. They fail frequently and it gets entirely ignored by the doomsayers. They don't just take over industries, they flop at it routinely.

>> Amazon has overwhelmly failed at their ventures.

Amazon has a market capitalization close to a trillion dollars. Their failures are part of their strategy, as I mentioned, because they are unafraid of sinking billions in experiments to find growth, and the strategy is clearly working.

Of course Amazon will not be around forever, just like any other company, but I fail to see how that is relevant to the discussion about their current growth.

Their failures prove that no matter their market cap, they will have a hard time expanding outside of the few things they do well.

How so? They successfully expanded into IT/cloud infrastructures and services, consumer electronics, original video/music production, live/game streaming, brick & mortar grocery, and adtech.

The failure is a feature not a bug.

They also bought twitch, which I'm sure they have some business ideas to increase twitch's userbase past gamers and to target mainstream audiences.

> I like Apple's strategy better of sitting on piles of cash until they know what to do with it.

This is exactly the wrong strategy. Money is nothing compared to investing in business'.

Unless it is "diworsification," where companies or individuals water down successful investments with tons of bad ones.

A bit like Daimler-Benz between 1985-95 when they tried to get into aerospace and electronics under CEO Edzard Reuter, which failed miserably and cost the company around 25 Billion dollars. Some called it the biggest destruction of capital in Germany in peacetime

GM, which was perhaps the most powerful corporation on earth at the time, made the exact same mistakes. They bought Ross Perot's Electronic Data Systems. They bought Hughes Aircraft (Hughes Electronics, DirecTV, etc). That was all in the mid 1980s at the end of GM's run when they had no idea what to do with their position and riches (the Japanese would solve that 'problem' for them shortly thereafter).

I guess at some value of money the best way is to just create a hedge fund, and put your riches into diversified instruments. Sure it won't give you exponentially increasing riches, but at least you will likely see a percent or two worth returns above inflation. And given how big the money would be, it would workout just fine.

Also its just plain scary how much money one can lose and quickly.

The fusion between Daimler and Chrysler has been estimated to cost 75 billion and failed too. It was a complete disaster in the name of "shareholder value"

I'm sure they have it invested in bonds or some minimal appreciating investment to fight inflation.

Many businesses have headed south by expanding into less profitable or unfamiliar business segments.

They own their own asset management company, which last year managed $268bn: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braeburn_Capital

Investopedia says the largest hedge fund in the world last year had $122bn under management: https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-are-biggest-hedge-fun...

I'm guessing they exclude Apple because it's private and outside investors can't invest in it, but Apple's is twice as big as the biggest public one.

Apple's wealth is staggering, but I take solace in the fact that the wealth is spread out quite a bit with the largest individual shareholder only having around a million shared.

The largest institutional shareholders are Berkshire Hathaway and vanguard, which are also owned by lots of investors and have minority stakes.

I worry a bit more about large companies with individuals who have outsized control (like Amazon or Facebook).

Yea apple has like $200b+ in us treasuries, corporate bonds, etc.

That's not always the case. It is better to sit on cash than buy a business and have it be a flop. Everything has to be a calculated strategy, not simply a matter of buy everything and hope it works out for the best.

Nothing about Amazons growth suggests a 'buy it all and hope' mentality. Quite the opposite: Amazons strategic positioning in multiple aligned markets gives them a very real chance at creating significant sustained competitive advantages.

Whole Foods 2030 is gonna be darned hard to compete with without your own cabal of smart app developers, AI assistants, world class delivery infrastructure, and a massive captive subscriber base. And that's before we consider value adds (get anything from Amazon along with your groceries, get your lifestyle groceries via subscriptions, buying whole coordinated lifestyle blocks of products), and, oh yeah, maybe the greatest logistical management system the world has ever seen.

Amazon is making the undies of many a board member chocolate brown for good reason. Because of what Amazon is, Amazon can become very, very, scary in new markets in a short time.

Yeah, if they get it right. Google, Apple, etc. have all stumbled trying to make a splash in a new market. They've of course had wild successes too. Seems premature to portray Whole Foods 2030 as practically unbeatable.

There are so many things that need to go right and for Amazon as a company it'll be their first time in a large scale brick and mortar retail economy.

Sure they could hit a home run but I don't think it's a guarantee.

Definitely, and the only way to get there is to keep experimenting even at a large scale. I think Bezos mentions it quite a bit that a lot of larger companies don't get (because they are most of the time not founder controlled and run), as you get larger you have to make larger and larger bets.

It will be darned hard to compete in the high end markets that whole foods serve. But big players like Walmart already have a strong hold in the lower end markets that won't be affected by whole foods.

> Have they really saturated and squeezed all they can out of digital?

They have about half of US online retail. Returns on expansion probably get a lot smaller at that point.

Yes, but you're thinking local. Amazon could go global. It's still pretty tiny in most other countries. Not that I'm looking forward to a global e-commerce company, just saying that would probably be a better strategy for them.

>>Amazon could go global.

Amazon is already global. In India they are now competing with the likes of Walmart and Flipkart.

And India is a huge market, not just for their ecommerce buisiness, but also for other offerings like aws and prime.

But online retail is still small compared to all retail.

And Amazons entry into retail foreshadows an awesome and terrifying hybrid online/real-world juggernaut who can use its drones & delivery fleet to get your cheapo purchases to its stores as you're finishing up shopping, or bring it all back to your place along with your groceries if you want to go out for dinner, all under the umbrella of an integrated subscription service.

Why would a company need to "saturate and squeeze" one market before going after another? The business world isn't a place where companies politely wait their turns...

Presumably Amazon thinks Landmark could help its overall media/Prime strategy, just like it thought Whole Foods could help its grocery/Prime strategy. Doesn't matter if it's digital or not as long if it thinks that's the smartest investment to be made at the time.

They have a supply chain for content/products why not have the option to sell it through any medium including cinemas/stores. Brick and mortar isn't going away and they want their cut too.

Whole Foods allowed Amazon to move into grocery delivery much quicker and bigger than they would have otherwise. That purchase made a lot of sense because even though Whole Foods is brick and mortar it extended Amazon's online offerings.

This is more of a head scratcher. The only thing I can think of is adding 1/2 tickets a month to Prime benefits. I suppose it also makes them more competitive in buying/producing content because they can get part of the theater sales.

Wouldn't surprise me. Amazon looks like it has dominated the ecommerce and cloud market already, so now it wants to branch into physical locations now. There's more room for oppurtunity and they haven't saturated those areas yet

In many ways, Amazon is becoming a real estate company now. For some reason I imagine Amazon's next big purchase is going to be gyms, it just makes the most sense to which market segments they are heading towards now(consumers who are on the middle-end to higher end spectrum). Its probably going to something like gold's gym or LA fitness. I mean they have "Amazon GO" stores already, which works perfectly next door to gyms because of its smaller footprint.

I also wager Amazon will want to expand into the oil & gas as well afterward. We'll see the equivalent Amazon version of Wawa gas stations. Its differentiator is going to be based on its own technology + ideas from Japan's technology innovations. This will also be a test-bed infrastructure for electric vehicles and its footwork into the car industry, 30-40+ years down the road.

Amazon probably is looking to convert its whole foods store into its "Amazon GO" concept, although this is a long process in the making. Wholefoods 365 (the ones after the merger) might be the testbed market first though, not the original Wholefoods. I've done some actual work with Amazon here too

Amazon is already in the police survelliance market in orlando. Everyone's face in downtown is under high resolution CCTV's routed through AWS. More real estate means more areas to use it too. We have China as a test market for social media credit scores already, amazon is just potentially laying more footwork for the American market if it ever pivots and gains wider acceptance.

Amazon's long term goal is to essentially have everything "essential" route through them. It'll be like a black mirror episode in the making. Bezo want influence, the best way to do this is dominate every major market sector that people deal with daily/weekly. 20 years from now, you'll deal with Amazon on a daily basis even if you didn't want too, because there's no better alternatives.

Companies like facebook, google, amazon etc have far more power and influence on different levels than many countries. Why build a country when you can build a global business empire? At least that's how I imagine Bezos is thinking

If you are sitting on piles of cash, you are basically admitting that you no longer know what to do with your business, as you have zero ideas in how to invest that money and make it grow.

You might call it clueless, or you could say they're waiting to see a better deal at a good price. Some years are better for this than others.

So Berkshire Hathaway is clueless?

Umm, yes? They have a 100 billion dollars of cash on hand.

Or in other words, they have no idea what to do with that money, so they rather have it waste away, and lose money to inflation.

Berkshire Hathaway has basically admitted that it has no idea what to invest in. Because if it DID have an idea of what to invest in, well then they would put their money into that, as oppose to continuing to set it on fire due to inflation.

Perhaps in the PAST they had a good idea of what to invest in. But those days are no longer.

Past performance is not a prediction of future performance.

Having cash on hand as an investment company is not prima facie evidence of cluelessness, IMO. Mr Buffet is famously patient and selective about what Berkshire invests in. If he believes that overall assets are inflated beyond reason and that too much other money is sloshing around chasing companies, it’s entirely reasonable to wait on the sidelines until a moment when his capital is properly valued.

Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

It is however a reasonable predictor of future performance, IMO.

Berkshire Hathaway isn't a company like Amazon or Apple. They don't have a business or a product to invest in. They are a investment company, which has to identify successful businesses and invest there.

Also after a while so you sort of max out of how much you can play that game over the years. And Warren Buffet is a man who is very picky about where he puts his money.

Its hard to get a never ending supply of companies with Moats.

BH have huge cash reserves to hoover up cheap stocks during a crash.

They wait for the right opportunity to come along and pounce. You appear to know very little about how they operate.

Compare their growth over the last 5 years and you will see the difference.

Not really fair to compare companies that started decades apart as it's easier to grow when you're smaller.

There are startups that have 5x+ growth YoY, but it's not sustainable and it doesn't mean they're outperforming Apple or Amazon. It's just a factor of starting from a much smaller number.

Amazon wasn't the tiny startup you are making it out to be. In fact its market cap was larger than Apple's through the late 90s to mid 2000s. Apple has seen sustained but slowing growth since ~2008, while Amazon has absolutely exploded in the last 3-5 years. Here's a 10-year stock chart for comparison: https://i.imgur.com/PKLfYbG.png

I think the point is that just because Snap, Inc. [or insert unicorn here] had rapid growth over the last few years doesn't mean it's a better or stronger company than those it outpaced.

Past stock prices unfortunately are not guarantees or even good predictors of future success.

I think the other point is that Apple started decades before Amazon. I'd be curious to see a year 1-24 side by side comparison (adjusted for inflation). So, '76-'00 for Apple vs. '94-'18 for Amazon.

Companies grow slower as they age so saying Amazon's 24th year outpaced Apple's 42nd year isn't really apples to apples.

Similar to Buffet's. But he is buying back Berkshire because he believes the market is over valued.

why would you do buybacks when the price is overvalued? if anything, its going to drive up the price even more '

I think he sees other stocks as overvalued and his own as the best value - I guess!

The difference in strategy is why Apple sells toys and Amazon has an empire.

An empire of garbage knockoffs ‍️

Man, it really seems like amazon is just going to be everything at some point. In, say, 20 years will some meaningful percentage of all the money I spend somehow funnel through amazon? Kind of seems that way.

You wake up in the morning. "Alexa, make me a coffee." As you settle into your Amazon Auto - self-driving, of course - with a warm cup of Prime Espresso, your car's HUD lights up with a reminder. "Don't forget, your monthly electricity bill is due in 3 days! Thank you for being a customer! Echo Energy". Agh, more bills to pay. Luckily, you've been able to refinance your loans through your local BoA (Bank of Amazon) branch so you have more than enough to cover your living costs.

To be honest though, I personally wouldn't mind Amazon controlling more aspects of my life for now at least, however threatening to various liberties that might be. My overall experiences with their customer service have been stellar, which is much more than I can say for some of the other monopolistic companies I have to deal with.

You're lucky - Amazon actually give a shit about the US.

They launched in Australia (the newspapers were predicting the end of retail). They have what, 30% of products available here? Then they launched Prime - except they obviously haven't hired anyone who has used Australia Post before. You can't expect a Prime 2 day delivery if you use standard Post.

All this, and they thought restricting access to the US version was a good idea.

Amazon Australia: death by 1000 paper cuts.

When eBay looks like a better option, you've really screwed up.

>You can't expect a Prime 2 day delivery if you use standard Post.

You can't even get Express Post items in 2 days about half the time, even tho they "Guarantee next business day delivery"

Not sure if this applies to this scenario, but tricky wording related to 1 day delivery landed amzn in hot water in the UK. In this case, they meant one day after dispatch, not one day from order placement.

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-45183887

Prime Espresso is actually scary, since coffee is one of the three products in 1984...

> In, say, 20 years will some meaningful percentage of all the money I spend somehow funnel through amazon?

Amazon already has 5% of the total retail market in the US. I consider that a meaningful percentage.

More anecdotally, one of the discord servers I'm in recently had a trend where people shared their total yearly spend on Amazon. Upwards of $10-20k were not uncommon. (The data source is definitely biased though, as it's more of a hobby-related discord == upper middle class segment).

How are they getting their yearly spend? I would be interested in my yearly spend (over the years) and to see how it's grown/shrunk.

They are already getting into Too Big to Boycott territory. If you factor in the indirect support we all give by interacting with paying users of AWS, that day may already be here.

I doubt that the US or EU will allow such a megacorp to exist. It would be a threat to the free market and even democracy.

The EU doesn't have an issue with megacorps per se. It's businesses that abuse their market position. This is the crucial point that many Americans miss when they moan about the EU interfering with American businesses.

Source: I work for a monopoly in the EU and while my company is heavily audited and regulated to ensure we operate fairly, we are still free to run as a monopoly.

Yep, they want a cut of as many economic activities as possible, for example, AWS takes a cut of all online businesses! See https://stratechery.com/2016/the-amazon-tax/

You could always null route their ip ranges: https://ip-ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json

Isn't that Bezos' declared goal? To have a cut from all economic activity.

I hope they can collaborate with Netflix on this, much like they're collaborating with Microsoft on a bridge between Siri and Cortana. I'd like to see Black Mirror on the big screen.

Netflix is an Amazon Prime video competitor.

I know that Netflix is making some pretty nice bank, and has a very high valuation, but I find it shocking that they're still independent and that Amazon (or whoever owns HBO these days), hasn't made it their lifes mission to takeover Netflix and its juice global subscriber base.

Amazon dollars & infrastructure, Netflix's AWS-based tech, combined with Prime content & subscribers would seem to be a highly profitable arrangement for all concerned...

I think that was their point, as they mentioned a collaboration between Siri and Cortana, two largely competing products.

Yep. It's an example of collaboration in the face of fierce competition. BTW I meant Alexa and Cortana. Oops.

Why Netflix? MoviePass already has a deal with Landmark and Amazon could buy them for pocket change today.

What’s preventing that right now?

Probably because everyone has already watched it, or watching individual episodes or entire seasons are not really suitable in a movie theatre.

Amazon is buying urban, high end locations. First Whole Foods, now Landmark. Clearly shows which customers they see as high value.

Not to mention if they own the real estate that has value both as an asset in addition to being a foothold into meat space.

1) This would be a solid purchase. Hell, I've often thought about buying Landmark myself. (But alas, slightly short on funds @ present)

2) This would address a problem that Netflix had/has w/awards (your 'film' isn't because it didn't premiere (exclusively) in theatres and contract negotiations, e.g. 'Crazy Rich Asians'.[1]

While I am no longer gung-ho on Amazon due to some personal customer experiences, I can't say that this isn't a smart move; it is.

[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/crazy-rich-asians...

Some of my favorite theaters are landmark and I would be very disappointed if they get bought out by a FAANG type.

I think we need a Paramount decree for studios/streaming.

Why do you prefer Landmark to continue to be owned by Mark Cuban instead of Jeff Bezos?

It's not like it's a mom & pop operation... I'm sure MBA types are running it either way, so what's the difference?

Landmark has made good choices so far, and play some of the best films you can't find anywhere else. I'm also worried that Amazon will decide that it's more profitable to just have em switch to playing comic book movies nonstop like every other theater.

I don't think there's any reason to worry... indie films are Landmark's entire (seemingly successful) business model, their theaters are located exactly where people who want to watch those movies live, and Amazon is producing award-winning independent films like Manchester by the Sea.

Turning Landmark into an AMC clone would make about as much sense as converting Whole Foods into Walmart-type stores. Which is to say, basically zero business sense.

It seems like Cuban owns it for its own purpose.

Amazon acquiring a theater means they want it to fit in with the rest of their media business.

I don't want Landmark to be retooled to fit Amazon's purposes.

In five years, people will be able to watch amazon content on large screens whenever they wish and manybe amazon will air new episodes on a large screen after you verify that you are a prime subscriber or something. I see poeple living in thessse theatres.

Brilliant.

Is this contingent on the Paramount decree being overturned, or would it simply require some special approval?

Ha! If this happens, they'll probably end up doing MoviePass better than MoviePass.

I wonder how this might affect MoviePass' long term plan of strong arming theaters

I think MoviePass is already probably more worried about short-term survival than their long-term movie ticket world domination aspirations.

Movie pass has never really been able to strongarm theatres they've peaked already now its just a slow decline to oblivion

Presumably not under the Trump administration, but you would have thought that each of these steps that Amazon takes into connected areas is a step closer to an anti-trust investigation?

By definition any kind of merger or aquisition is gonna get you closer to an anti-trust investigation.

That said: anti-trust is all about monopoly and abuse of monopoly power. Expanding into connected markets is desirable, abusing monopoly to hamper competition while doing so is illegal. Amazon is not a monopoly [https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-stock-price-not-a-mon...], and isn't expanding anywhere they'd become one easily.

That said, again: even if there is a marginal monopoly in their sprawling Empire, and they abuse it, and an investigation is carried out, and prosecution is recommended... Amazon has more money than god. Expect a half-decade long trial with multiple appeals and unsatisfying judments that are easily covered out of their cash-on-hand. Remember the DOJ v Microsoft? I can't even see us getting halfway to that kind of action (as lame as that judgment was... MS should have been split in three).

>Amazon is not a monopoly

That article just describes Amazon as not a monopoly in retail as a whole in the U.S.

The issues here are that Amazon's film business includes them being studio, streamer, retailer and now maybe cinema owner. They also manufacture player hardware which you may need to access their service.

I wanted to watch an Amazon series, but their app wasn't available on my streaming box (and I doubt any technical justfication for this), so I had to buy an Amazon Fire stick, but that was OK because I could use it to watch YouTube as well. Except once Amazon had me, they removed the Google devices from Amazon, and Google retaliated by removing YouTube from fire. This starts to feel a lot like anti-competive behaviour. It reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Patents_Compa... In certain sectors of retail Amazon certainly do have much higher market share than the cited article suggests, like computer equipment for instance, although I don't have figures to hand.

My biggest concern is around the Amazon marketplace. By controlling the marketplace and being a seller into the marketplace Amazon can monitor an independents sales on a per-product basis. And once they see you doing well selling widget x, they can get widget x built in China and sell it directly and for less, thereby squeezing you out of the market. For lots of smaller distributers Amazon is their biggest channel.

So when you say Amazon is not a Monopoly, that is an opinion and one I disagree with.

This is not going to happen. Film producers are not allowed to own distribution. This goes back to the early decades of Hollywood.

"Not allowed" by whom? Industry practice? At this point with the modern distracted, over-stimulated consumer, I would assume that these sorts of gentlemen's agreements are headed out the window

Also there are multiple examples of production companies owning their distributors which predate Netflix - think Disney and Buena Vista

Not allowed by the Supreme Court. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_system

That's an incorrect conclusion you're drawing. That ruling doesn't apply an inherent legal barrier to Amazon's situation with Landmark at all. It does not ban movie production companies from owning distribution. An anti-trust review for a given context would be required to determine whether a combination is in violation of anti-trust laws. The Supreme Court in the Paramount case found that particular scheme was in violation, that is all.

This also had the key component of studios holding exclusivity rights and only showing movies in their theaters.

Isn't that what Netflix/Amazon Prime Video are doing? Aren't they owning the distribution of their in-house produced shows?

Yes, they are. But that is because it is a new distribution channel that hasn't yet met controversy. I believe producers will be forced to divest distribution once again within the next 5-10 years, whether theatres or digital.

The newspaper made some sense in a newsvertising sort of way, the grocery store chain was a stretch, but a movie chain is just hubris. "I'm good at computer stuff, so I'm good at everything!" Things haven't been going so well at the grocery either, have they?

https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-employees-reveal...

I only expect things to get worse. Oddly enough, this story really is beginning to sound a lot like manna,

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

The newspaper, like Blue Origin, is a private investment of Bezo's and not part of Amazon.

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