Chapter Five Hundred and Eighty Fourth Count You Ruthless

Although Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and Tom Murphy's Metropolitan Media do not have absolute control over the TV network, the close to 40% stake in the two companies means that after Buffett negotiated with Firefly privately, It would be a no-brainer to lobby the board to agree to the deal.

However, the inside of the TV network is definitely not monolithic. Although Buffett has a tough attitude, it does not mean that the other major shareholders of the TV network do not want to reach this deal with Firefly, especially since Firefly Pictures has achieved huge profits for many years since its establishment. At the end of last year, even in the process of Buffett's single contact with Firefly, shareholders publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with Buffett's behavior of concealing negotiation information.

After Firefly Pictures released its 1993 financial report, many investment institutions holding shares in the TV network hoped to facilitate this transaction. , even if the original shareholders of the TV network only hold 30% of the interests of the integrated company, as long as the profit of Firefly does not change much, the annual profit dividends of shareholders are almost the same as in the period, and they can get from this Cash-plus-equity transactions take large sums of money for other investments.

After Firefly Pictures and Buffett failed to negotiate and publicly released an offer to buy, the network's board of directors quickly passed a resolution agreeing to start negotiations with Firefly Pictures.

On February 10, after receiving the official reply from the TV network, Katzenberg and the chief lawyer of Firefly Pictures, Edward Lewis, led the acquisition team to New York to start formal acquisition negotiations with the parties.

Because the network's equity and debt situation is not as straightforward as Firefly's, Firefly also invited Morgan Stanley's team as a consultant under Chris' help.

During the original acquisition of Disney, the two parties had a very pleasant cooperation. Although the Firefly Films at this time has not been what it used to be, its own rich administrative resources make Firefly no longer rely solely on Morgans in this acquisition. Danley's team, but Morgan Stanley is still very enthusiastic, and the whole Wall Street can see it. This is Morgan Stanley deliberately courting Firefly Pictures.

Because Firefly will definitely launch a large-scale debt financing plan in order to complete the acquisition after the negotiation, and the issuance of stocks and bonds as an agent is the main business of investment banks, and the profits obtained from this are also much richer than the occasional corporate mergers and acquisitions. .

Eric didn't rush to New York with Katzenberg. Instead, he communicated with Katzenberg on the phone every day about the progress of the negotiations.

Of course, before Katzenberg left New York, the executives of Firefly had already discussed in detail the bottom line of Firefly's acquisition. After many discussions, Eric authorized Katzenberg to sell a maximum of 25% of Firefly's shares. . As for cash, it is relaxed within 10 billion US dollars.

Of course, this data is not arbitrarily determined.

Both Firefly Films and TV stations are in a period of very good performance. Therefore, no Ruihui doubts that after the merger of the two parties, the effect of one plus one is greater than two. Under the best performance expectations, once the two sides merge, Firefly will form a powerful alliance. Profits in the next few years are likely to reach $2 billion. In this case, the proportion of shareholders who own 25% of the shares will be equivalent to the annual income of holding TV networks at this time, so this data is relatively easy to accept.

certainly. What will happen in the future, except for Eric who can see the future, no one can predict, maybe the revenue and profit of Firefly after the merger will explode again, or maybe under the heavy debt burden of tens of billions of dollars after the acquisition , the fireflies will walk towards the meeting.

Eric himself has always been very optimistic about this transaction. Although the performance of the original time and space Disney has been in a slump for many years after the merger, this is more of Michael Eisner's personal reasons. After Michael Eisner stepped down, The Disney Group quickly came to life. Both in terms of scale and profitability, it will be far behind the giants such as Time Warner and News Corp., all of which are enough to prove the correctness of this acquisition.

As for the huge debt burden after the merger, Eric did not take it to heart. The late 1990s will be the most rapid period of economic development in the United States. All economic sectors, including the entertainment industry, have grown substantially. Coupled with Eric's layout in the high-tech industry, even if Firefly is really in a dilemma, Eric can easily raise enough funds from other channels to resolve Firefly's problems. Crisis, what's more, the possibility of such a thing happening is not high.

from last year. Eric has repeatedly requested to expand the 3D animation production department of Firefly Pictures. However, in this era, 3D animation technology has just emerged. Except for Pixar, there is no large-scale 3D animation company in North America or even in the world. Eric can only adopt the mechanism of internal cultivation. While expanding the scale of Pixar, Disney's hand-drawn animation department also stopped the recruitment and training of hand-drawn animators, and gradually tried to convert to computer animation.

While maintaining close contact with Katzenberg in New York, Eric has recently focused his attention on his animation department. To this end, he also personally took the lead in organizing the exchange meeting between the two departments of Pixar and Disney animation.

The "Lion King" produced by Disney's animation department has been completed, and the early publicity has begun. In addition to "The Lion King", Disney Animation also has several animation sequel projects including "Aladdin's Lamp 2". Because retraction animations have a longer production cycle than 3D animations, these projects were finalized before Firefly Pictures acquired Disney, but aside from these, Eric has stopped approving new hand-drawn animated film projects and has made no secret of it Said that if Disney's existing hand-drawn animators are not willing to receive training in computer animation production, after the hand-drawn animation film projects in their hands are all completed, these people can only produce low-cost animation projects for Disney Children's Channel in the future.

Most of Disney's hand-painted animators are not too old, and coupled with very skilled drawing skills, it is not too difficult to complete the training of computer animation production software. In order to avoid the backlash of hundreds of hand-painted animators, Eric also promised to give these people sufficient time to learn and adapt, and to fully pay for the expenses required during the training.

The Pixar staff who participated in the exchange meeting came out of the Disney Animation Studio headquarters in Burbank one after another, and John Lasseter, who walked side by side with Eric at the forefront, said: "Eric, although no one has publicly refuted it just now. , but I feel like a lot of people in the studio are still very resistant to that transition. Maybe you're going to have a little trouble."

Eric is of course also aware of this. Disney Animation Studio has more than 700 hand-drawn animators. Although more than 70% of them are in their 30s, some are even old people from the Walt Disney era. It is definitely impossible for these people to adapt to the new animation production method, so it is almost inevitable that they will be eliminated in the future. In this case, no one will wait to die. The reason why Eric did not refute when he spoke. Mainly because the various advantages shown by Pixar's 3D animation are almost overwhelming, and Eric's decision is a bit sudden. This 'early bird'.

"They all understand the advantages of 3D animation over hand-drawn animation, both in Toy Story and A Bug's Life, so this transition is bound to happen." Eric and John Lasseter Walking and said: "If this transformation can't be completed, Firefly will have to cut them off, and I have done what I can do. The existing hand-painted animation projects in their hands can last at least two years, and time is not enough for them. It’s very loose. If it is really abolished. I don’t think they will be cornered. Major TV stations need a lot of hand-painted animators to make children’s cartoons.”

John Lasseter, who has worked in Disney animation for a long time, sighed slightly when he heard Eric's words. But he is very clear that capital is ruthless. Although Eric is not a harsh boss, he is not a philanthropist. It is very difficult to achieve this level. If it is other companies, if they are not optimistic about the prospect of hand-drawn animation, they may directly announce layoffs, and will never give employees such a loose adaptation time.

It's still early. Because of their busy work, John Lasseter and others did not plan to spend the night in Los Angeles. Eric also specially arranged a business jet under Firefly Pictures to send the group back to San Francisco.

Eric had planned to personally take John Lasseter and others to the Santa Monica Airport, but had just arrived at the parking lot. Eric saw Elizabeth with the toad mirror walking down from a red BMW sedan, beckoned to Eric, and walked over.

"Eric, I think we have to go to Santa Monica by ourselves," John Lasseter said to Eric with a smile when he saw Elizabeth's slim figure. The others also laughed lightly.

Eric waited for Elizabeth to come over and took the initiative to introduce the two parties. Seeing the girl's speechless appearance, Eric had no choice but to give up the idea of ​​sending John Lasseter and others. I didn't care too much about the details. After saying goodbye to Eric, they all got in the car and left.

After everyone left, Eric and Elizabeth walked to the red BMW, smiled and tapped on the hood, asking, "New car?"

Elizabeth put on the toad mirror again, raised her chin and teased, "I bought it half a year ago. In the eyes of a guy who never cares about others, it's not a bad thing to say that it's a new car."

Eric looked around, squeezed Elizabeth's chin, and said with a smile, "Don't you think that if you ask me for something, you should put away the 'little paw'?"

Elizabeth opened Eric's hand with a snap, and said with a confident look, "We have completed the acquisition of Miramax."

It was about time to get off work. Eric didn't want to be surrounded by people. He opened the car door and sat in the red BMW. He smelled the faint scent of women in the car, and asked Elizabeth who followed him: "Oh, how much did it cost?"

Elizabeth started the car, slowly drove out of the parking lot, and said: "100 million US dollars to acquire 90% of Miramax's shares, the Weinstein brothers retain 10% of the shares and continue to manage Miramax's business."

"It's a bit expensive, but it's a good choice for the Weinstein brothers to keep some shares, otherwise if the two of them leave, Miramax won't have much value."

Elizabeth said: "If the two of them leave Miramax, they will be of little value, and with the entire News Corporation as their backing, the mercenary brothers will not leave so easily."

Eric said: "The Weinstein brothers have suffered enough from the lack of funds and channels in the past few years. Of course, it will be very pleasant to cooperate with 20th Century Fox in the first few years, but people are ambitious, and you can't tolerate this. After the ambition for the brothers, everyone will break up."

Elizabeth personally participated in the negotiation of the acquisition of Miramax, and of course she knew very well what kind of people the brothers were: "If that's the case, you can leave if you want, and Fox can't let them turn against customers."

Eric watched Elizabeth turn the steering wheel onto the highway, and then he remembered and asked, "Where are you taking me?"

Elizabeth said in a confident tone: "The company's executives have decided to let the Weinstein brothers be the producers of "Braveheart" themselves. This project is the first thing you liked, so let's have dinner and chat. ."

Eric was 'shocked' by Elizabeth's natural tone, and asked weakly: "This, Firefly and Fox are competitors after all... Do I count as an enemy by doing this?"

"Forget it!" Elizabeth nodded vigorously: "If you don't want to, the woman named Sophie Marceau can go back and forth."

"Okay, count you as ruthless."

"Humph……"

The meeting place was chosen at an exquisite French restaurant in Beverly Hills. Seeing Eric's arrival, the Weinstein brothers seemed very enthusiastic, while Mel Gibson seemed a lot colder, and Eric could also feel that this guy was not successful. Lost in nature, that is, emotional intelligence is too low. On the other hand, Mel Gibson's agent named Ed Limato was very enthusiastic. Eric happened to have this person in his memory. It seems that Ed Limato has been a Mel Gibson's agent since the early 1980s. The agent, until his death, has served as Mel Gibson's agent for more than 20 years. Edlie Mato is 20 years older than Mel Gibson. The relationship between the two is like a father and son. It's just that I don't have the exact date of Edlimato's death in memory. If Edlimato's death coincides with the date of Mel Gibson's career decline, then Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise's encounters are too similar. At the same time, it once again proves how important a good broker is. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to the starting point () to vote for recommendation and monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users, please read it.) (To be continued.)