The story
Vic Atkinson founded the company.
Atkinson was hospitalized after overseeing the production of two segments for Heavy Metal. He recovered and oversaw The Christmas Raccoons before leaving the company and selling his share to Bill Stevens. Atkinson did not like the direction the company was heading in and stated that "I won't produce garbage" while Stevens says he left over disagreements regarding growth and financial risk. The Christmas Raccoons cost $700,000, The Raccoons on Ice cost $850,000 and the episodes of The Raccoons cost up to $415,000.
F. R. Crawley, who was $1.2 million in debt, sold his company to Stevens for $1.
Merilyn Read acquired the rights for Babar the Elephant and discussed creating a special with Atkinson-Crawley. Babar and Father Christmas was one of the most expensive specials at the time, with a budget of $600,000.
Sheldon Wiseman and Kevin Gillis formed Hinton Animation Studios, which recruited from Atkinson-Crawley's employment. In 1987, Stevens attempted to aid the financial ailing company by raising $6 million through a public offering under the name The Crawley Group, but the stock market crashed three days before his presentation. The company had $4 million in debt by 1988, and owed a large amount of unpaid wages causing more employees to join Hinton Animation.
From Wikipedia’s article on Atkinson Film-Arts, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4