Entertainment One
2019
$4.0B
Why
Expand Hasbro's entertainment and content capabilities.
Impact
The deal added debt and complexity and later led to impairments and asset sales. Both deals illustrate contrasting outcomes of Hasbros historical acquisition strategy -- one an enduring success, the other a costly and largely reversed misstep -- providing internal lessons the company has since applied to its more disciplined recent capital allocation approach.
Outcome
Hasbro sold much of eOne's film and TV business to Lionsgate; the remaining Entertainment segment generated just $76.8 million in FY2025, under 2% of revenue and still shrinking. The eOne experience became an internal cautionary case study at Hasbro about the risks of moving into capital-intensive production businesses far from the company's core competency in toys and games licensing. Hasbro continues to evaluate smaller, capability-focused deals in digital gaming rather than large-scale entertainment-production acquisitions following the eOne experience.