Chapter Five Hundred and Eighty Second Very Safe

After having an early Thanksgiving dinner with the women in Malibu, Eric rushed to New York with Xiao Nizi.

East Hampton is more suitable as a summer retreat. In winter, there is a desolate scene of smoke and grass everywhere. If coupled with a heavy snow, it will be even more deserted. After the winter, Virginia and Joanna moved with their two little guys to Southampton, which is relatively densely populated and has better infrastructure.

Thanksgiving night was still very lively. Although the two women gave the workers and nannies a day off, Chris and Emily came over, plus Eva Pakula, and Xiao Nizi and Her two twins follow, and a large crowd fills the dining room.

"When I was in college, I deliberately studied Buffett's deeds," Chris said enthusiastically about Buffett's acquisition of Firefly, which has been making waves in the media in recent days: "The reason why Buffett can rely on diversity The main reason for the accumulation of his current wealth is that he is pure enough, and he can concentrate on investing to the extreme. Anyone who knows Buffett knows that Buffett almost regards investing as his life. The only pursuit in the world is that, as a rich man with billions of dollars in wealth, he is unwilling to spend a penny to improve his life. His personal life is very simple, even his eating habits are terrifyingly simple. The main theme of his life is reading. There are countless financial reports, from which to select suitable companies for investment. This kind of research from the fundamentals of a company can best judge the development potential of this company, apart from professional stock trend analysis. Buffett has been on the right track most of the time for decades."

Everyone listened to Chris with great interest, but the little girl who was sitting next to Eric eating turkey said abruptly, "I heard that he broke Solomon."

Solomon Brothers was the king of Wall Street in the 1980s. When Solomon was in its prime, investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan, and Lehman could only be regarded as Solomon's younger brothers. However, Salomon was investigated for a false bidding case in 1990, and then it declined rapidly. In less than four years, Salomon Brothers has been reduced to a second-rate investment company. in the case of false bidding. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway happens to be Solomon Brothers' largest shareholder, and during the investigation, Buffett personally took over all of Solomon's management, if only superficially. The Solomon Brothers really fell at the hands of Buffett.

Hearing Xiao Nizi's words, Chris shook his head and said with a chuckle: "It's not as simple as you think, this is mainly because Solomon is too limelight. Take the fake bidding case three years ago for example, the federal government The Securities and Exchange Act stipulates that an investment bank can only underwrite 35% of each issuance of treasury bonds at most, but Salomon Brothers obtained 85% of the bond distribution share through false bidding, and then sold it to other investment banks to earn huge amounts of money. The price difference, similar things happened frequently throughout the 1980s, so after Solomon was investigated, other capital forces came to attack. Of course, Buffett's later disposal measures also made a big mistake, Solomon just recovered past investigation,

Buffett couldn't wait to break Wall Street's rules and slashed Salomon employees' salaries and dividends, eventually causing a large number of employees to leave and lose these talents. Solomon also completely lost the capital to make a comeback. I heard that Solomon has recently become a target of Citibank, and it is estimated that it will not last for a few years. "

After Chris finished speaking, the restaurant was quiet for a moment, and even the two little guys felt the abnormal atmosphere and stared at their mother with wide eyes.

In the end, Emily, who was still straightforward, said with a smile: "Eric, it seems that you have to be careful too. The limelight of fireflies seems to be too much."

Eric took a sip of red wine nonchalantly, and shrugged: "Every year on Wall Street, large and small investment companies close down, but have you ever seen a big movie company that was crushed by its peers?"

Emily retorted bluntly: "Aren't RKO, Lianmei, and now MGM all about to collapse?"

Hearing his girlfriend's words, Chris couldn't help turning his head away. Eric looked at Emily and said with a smile: "Yeah, but they can't play in Hollywood because of their own problems."

Chris also said to his girlfriend at this time: "Most of the investment banking business is virtual financial products, and most of these products come from other companies. They make profits from commissions from stock issuance, bond underwriting, corporate mergers and acquisitions, etc. But They themselves do not have much output. Once the investment bank has a crisis, the external company will not let it act as an agent for related business in the principle of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages. Therefore, it often causes a chain domino effect, which may easily decline. .But film companies like Time Warner, Firefly and Viacom, which just acquired Paramount, have formed a complete industry chain internally. Unless it is a bankruptcy crisis caused by huge investment in huge projects and huge losses, it will not be so easy. Overwhelmed by external forces."

"I've also seen some news recently," Emily said with some dissatisfaction: "An article in the New York Times two years ago analyzed that if Firefly Pictures continues to expand, it is likely to violate federal antitrust laws and be punished. Forced separation."

If the company is split due to the anti-monopoly law, the company's major shareholders can only choose to keep one company's shares, and the other company's shares must be forced to sell, which does not mean that a major shareholder like Eric can continue to retain the split after the split. two companies.

Emily's words seemed to come up with some ideas, and Chris also showed concern, looked at Eric and said, "I think this is indeed an issue that needs to be carefully considered, Eric, before the acquisition, your last 100% sure it won't cause this problem."

Eric has also studied the relevant anti-monopoly laws, but he is more aware of the development trend of the major integration of the US media industry in the next ten years, so he said relaxedly: "Don't worry, there will be no problem, in fact, I think the integration of media channels It is more in line with the interests of the federal government, what do you think?"

No country's government does not want to control the channels of public opinion, and the so-called freedom of strict opinion in any country is relative. Being in Wall Street, where the collision of information is the most intense, Chris knows this very well, so he nodded and smiled: "It seems so."

Virginia saw that Eric and Chris were inexplicably playing dumb puzzles, and said dissatisfiedly: "Gentlemen. If we go on, we won't understand, so let's talk about something light."

Eric nodded: "Well, well, today's turkey tastes good. Than... um, it tastes good, not bad."

Eric almost blurted out the "strange-smelling turkey" that a few women messed around with the night before. Fortunately, he stopped the conversation at the last moment, but Virginia still sensed something. He gave Eric a big white eye. Others in the restaurant laughed when they saw Eric's uncomfortable expression of holding back a sentence.

Although it was only nine o'clock after dinner, I didn't know when it was snowing outside the house. It would have taken two hours to get back to Manhattan from the easternmost point of Long Island. It would definitely take longer if the road was slippery in snowy weather. , and it was very unsafe, Eric invited Chris and Emily to stay.

The villa is very big and the room is enough, neither of Chris refused.

The women went their separate ways after dinner, some watching TV. Someone was watching the dining area in the kitchen, and someone was watching the two little guys. Eric and Chris sit by the old-fashioned fireplace in the villa and chat about the acquisition of Victoria's Secret parent company LTD.

During this period of time, Chris has been secretly absorbing the shares of LTD. It is expected that after the new year, he will be able to formally join the board of directors of LTD with his holdings, and then launch an acquisition offensive.

As the largest individual shareholder of LTD, Leslie Wexner holds 35% of the shares, so the success rate of this acquisition is not 100%. Although Chris is full of confidence, he is still frank with only 70%. Be sure, once Leslie Wexner pulls shareholder support of more than 51% of the shares, then he can only give up the acquisition. but. It is this uncertainty that makes Chris look so high-spirited, and if everything goes so well, it seems a little too boring. And, even if the final acquisition fails. If LTD wants to redeem the shares in Firefly Investments, it also needs to pay a certain price, so this acquisition will not bring any loss to Firefly Investments.

The two chatted until late at night before Eric came to the bedroom.

In the center of the big bed lay a little guy, and Joanna leaned sideways beside Hawaii with her head on one hand. She was reading softly with a book in her hand, and when she saw Eric coming in, Joanna put down the book and said, "You should sleep with Vicky tonight, Emily and the others are here, they can't be seen by others. joke."

"Okay, let me kiss our little baby first," Eric smiled and lay on the bed, came to Hawaii and kissed the little guy's pink face, took the book in Joanna's hand and read it At first glance, it turned out to be a "Andersen's Fairy Tales".

Shaking the book, Eric asked with a smile, "How can we read this kind of book to our little princess?"

Joanna smiled and took the book back from Eric's hand and said, "What else to read?"

Eric was lying beside the little guy, watching Hawaii's beautiful blue eyes dangling between him and his mother, and continued with a smile: "Anything will do, but it's better not a fairy tale, it will teach bad children , if my daughter grows up and learns the fairy tale princess and elopes with the groom, I'll go crazy."

"You always think about these messy things," Joanna patted on Eric's shoulder, glanced at the book in her hand, frowned her beautiful eyebrows, and said solemnly: "Then I will go to the bookstore tomorrow to see, Is there anything suitable to read to Xia Xia?"

"Are you serious?" Eric raised his head: "It's just a joke. Besides, the little guy may not be able to understand it, right?"

Joanna retorted: "Of course I understand, Xia Xia is very smart."

Eric remembered Hawaii's reaction when he heard Joanna's reading voice, and realized this, nodded in agreement, took the "Andersen's Fairy Tales" from Joanna's hand, and said, "Let me read a paragraph to the little baby too. , listen to Dad's voice."

Joanna pulled a pillow and put it next to Hawaii, lay down on her side relaxedly, and said with a smile, "Aren't you afraid that she will learn badly?"

"Don't be afraid, if a groom dares to seduce my daughter, the five legs will be discounted together."

"Ha ha……"

Eric said, and turned to "The Snow Queen". This story is about the friendship between boys and girls. Well, the subject matter is healthy and uplifting, very safe, that's all.

...

After Thanksgiving, the Los Angeles side began to implement a media promotion plan. It seems that suddenly, Firefly Pictures, which had been very conservative in terms of information disclosure, began to make a high profile. As a member of Firefly Pictures, Michael Lynn even went into battle for the first time. He appeared on a TV network's financial talk show and talked about the "unknown" secrets in the development of Firefly Pictures. "Variety" magazine also gave Firefly Pictures a high valuation of 25 billion US dollars in an article, which made Eric, who saw this manuscript, slandered, more or less, why 250 100 million. However, he also knew that this was the data submitted by Firefly. Since the manuscripts were all sent out, Eric did not correct anything.

At the same time, Katzenberg has maintained close contact with Buffett, and the two met three times in Los Angeles in just one week. However, from every e-mail Katzenberg wrote to Eric, there was no progress in the negotiations. Because of the sudden outbreak of media public opinion, Buffett also seemed to have entered a wait-and-see stage.

Because of Eric and Katzenberg's high-profile contacts with Buffett one after another, the stock prices of the three major TV networks that had risen in unison have undergone different changes. The stock prices have begun to soar, while CBS and CBS have experienced a sharp decline. News Corp, which owns the Fox network, also suffered.

Eric continued to accompany women and children in Southampton, and occasionally made a trip to Manhattan for some parties. The little girl who lived with Eric couldn't stand the lonely and boring life in Southampton. The next day, she went to Manhattan with her two little valet. Eric knew that the girl had friends all over the world, and she also had her own in Manhattan. residence, so I didn't ask.

Although Thanksgiving has passed, the festive atmosphere shows no signs of disappearing, because Christmas is not far away, and Christmas seems to be more lively than Thanksgiving. (To be continued.)