Yes, there is life after disney: DIC president Bob Brooks relied on in vestment banking background to cut deal that released his company from the ties that bound it to the Walt Disney Co. (People).

BURBANK'S DIC Entertainment Corp. isn't just another cartoon studio, says its president, 32-year-old Brad Brooks.

It's a licensing, merchandising and cartoon-making juggernaut that until two years ago was a seemingly forgotten subsidiary of The Walt Disney Co.

DIC CEO Andrew Heyward sold the studio to ABC/Capital Cities Inc. in 1995. Disney acquired ABC in 1996 and continued to run the studio with what some at DIC have labeled benign neglect until Heyward bought the company back in 2000. Neither Hayward nor DIC officials would disclose terms of that deal.

A one-time analyst with the investment banking firm of Donaldson, Lujkin & Jenrette who joined DIC as a financial consultant in 1996, Brooks put together the deal that allowed Heyward to reacquire his former studio. Today, Brooks heads up a company that is projected to make more than $50 million this year, double its sales from last year.

Last February, DIC was poised to acquire Golden Books and its library of characters like "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman," but was beaten out by Random House, a unit of Bertelsmann AG. That deal has been one of the few setbacks for the growing company.

DIC's strategy, Brooks says, has been simple--acquire bankable properties and sell licensing rights to them at the same time you turn them into successful cartoon series such as "Inspector Gadget," "Madeline" or "Super Mario Bros." This fall, its "Liberty's Kids" cartoon will premiere on the Public Broadcasting System featuring the voices of a number of top Hollywood stars.

The company has also moved to purchase rights to such properties as the 1980s icon "Strawberry Shortcake" and "Mommy and Me" line of toddler products to go along with "Madeline," "Sonic the Hedgehog" and its other licensed properties.

Question: People don't often hear of a CEO selling his company to a corporate powerhouse like ABC/Cap Cities (eventually acquired by Disney) and later buying it back. Yet that's what happened with DIC. Why?

Answer: In some ways our relationship with Disney is now better than ever, which is sort of ironic. A lot of that evolved because ABC Cap Cities went into a partnership with DIC and when Disney bought Cap Cities, DIC was sort of an afterthought in that transaction. As a result, DIG never really got internal sponsorship at Disney. Andy had real vision and entrepreneurial aspirations about what he wanted to do with the company and felt it wasn't really being meaningfully enhanced.

Q: How has the company changed since leaving Disney?

A: We're sort of emerging from the initial stage of reconstituting a lot of the system and infrastructure that Disney used to provide for the company. To us, because we' re independent and we're able to be nimble and be aggressive and opportunistic, we think we have an opportunity in the children's space.

Q: How difficult was it to find financial backing to buy the company back?

A: We were fortunate that we had Chase (Manhattan Bank). They were experts in the content and library lending space and were comfortable getting into aspects like that, unlike a traditional commercial bank that doesn't really understand the entertainment business.

Q: Were there any negative ramifications from breaking away from Disney?

A: In some ways it was the reverse. Nickelodeon doesn't want to buy content from Disney so, in a way, we had a broadening out of opportunity and we were able to sell to Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and whoever else may be interested in our content.

Q: What happened with the Golden Books deal?

A: In some ways it was disappointing, but in others it was the best thing that could have happened. The Golden Books library was very attractive to us because it represents a lot of classic and enduring characters that, year in and year out, have a lot of appeal. That's what really drove our interest and its appeal.

But Random House pursued their own bid in conjunction with a company called Classic Media. They were willing to pay a substantial amount to assure that there wasn't going to be another player in that market. So we got to the point where it didn't make economic sense for us.

Q: Animated features have had it rough lately with "Powerpuff Girls" and "Hey, Arnold" tanking. Why is that?

A: It's sort of what happens in Hollywood. They find a good thing and they replicate it 100 times and they saturate the market and people just don't go see it.

Q: The company has diversified into merchandising and children's products. What's the reason for moving so far away from your core business of licensing and producing cartoons?

A: This year we're doubling revenue from last year, we'll double again next year, and that's in a very tough environment. That's largely a credit to the business areas that we're getting into and also to the ancillary business that we are really focused on.

Our basic strategy is to continue to create and build brands that endure over time. The kids business can be very ephemeral and it can also be very long lasting, like Disney that has properties that are 60 years old. Pooh is 75 years old.

A lot of that is because the kids' population turns over, but also because the character resonates on a very basic level. One cornerstone we have is Madeline; it's a 60-year-old property that has sold over 10 million books.

Q: "Liberty's Kids" is getting a lot of attention. How was that developed?

A: It started when Andy went to Washington, D.C. with his kids and realized that there was no content out there to teach kids about all these incredible events that had gone on in American history and how universal these themes were. He started developing that and PBS came along and loved it.

Q: How do you go about developing these properties?

A: We poll all the various units here. We get financial estimates from home entertainment, licensing, TV sales, the costs of production, of what it would produce and roll it up into a discounted cash flow model and have it make sense, assuming that we think it's content that is viable and that it's something that appeals to kids. The team's been here for 18 years and they know extremely well what works with kids.

Q: Do you still want to pursue that age 5-and-under audience?

A: "Mommy and Me" is part of that strategy. For us, it's a unique 0-to-3 segment that can grow to the 0-to-5 space. There is no real media brand that caters to that market. We feel that it's very special and differentiated, that it allows parents to almost every day experience and interact with their child through media, like bath time, meal time and sleep time.

Q: You've become the "go to" guy when it comes to managing the business. How has it been?

A: In a lot of ways it's exhilarating and terribly rewarding, but in other ways it's been a lot of pressure and you have to learn to trust your instinct. It is a lot of responsibility and a lot of people are relying on you to bring a vision and a clarity to what we're doing here.

But I have to credit Andy for having the confidence in me. I really defer to Andy's experience and judgment.

Q: How has the market changed over the last few years?

A: From a TV point of view, the biggest impact in this town is vertical integration. We are, in a sense, swimming against the current because we are an independent and Viacom, Warner and Disney, their mandate is to use internally generated content as much as possible. The challenge on us is finding things so compelling that they need to reach out on their own to acquire something from us.

Q: Has the business been impacted by the weak economy of the last two years?

A: We're definitely seeing an impact. We've had problems this year when the master toy licensee (DIC's toy developer and manufacturer) went bankrupt this year and we had to switch over. But we're hoping to transition this year successfully. The international market remains a more vibrant market to deliver independently produced content and is more active for us than the domestic market.

Q: Were you impacted by the economic turmoil of Sept. 11?

A: Not as much, only because we're a licensing company. We pick a show and license it to a broadcaster to get our fee and they take the advertising risk.

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Brad books

Age: 32

Title: President, DIC Entertainment Group,

Education: M.B.A. University of Chicago; B. A. in history, UC Berkeley

Most admired personn: Ted Turner 

Personal: Marrid one child