Same Sunday, Los Angeles.
Michael Ovitz watched James Raybould's "Today Show" interview in its entirety over breakfast, and naturally he didn't believe James' ambiguous response at all.
According to recent news, Daenerys Entertainment is preparing to bid for MCA. This is an indisputable fact.
He originally planned to spend time with his family over the weekend, but because yesterday the "Hollywood Reporter" suddenly revealed Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition intention and today's "Today Show" interview, Ovitz had to continue working on the weekend.
From the second half of last year to now, CAA's team has been busy for a full year on the MCA acquisition.
If this acquisition fails, not only will the entire team's year's work be in vain, but it will also mean the loss of tens of millions of dollars in consulting fees, which is not what Ovitz wants to see.
However, Ovitz also understood that the problem he faced at this time was very difficult.
During Panasonic's initial contact with Ovitz last year, it expressed its willingness to make an offer of up to US$90 for the acquisition of MCA. Based on MCA's total share capital of nearly 100 million shares, it is equivalent to a total transaction value of US$9 billion.
However, as Japan's economy has continued to deteriorate over the past six months, Panasonic's attitude has become increasingly conservative. On the other hand, the outbreak of the war in Kuwait caused the U.S. stock market to plummet across the board. At the close of trading last Friday, MCA's share price had dropped to US$36, making it even less likely for Panasonic to offer another US$90 per share.
The problem now is that we must speed up the advancement of this acquisition and at the same time urge Panasonic to further increase its offer for MCA.
Before eight o'clock in the morning, Michael Ovitz arrived at CAA's headquarters in Century City. Members of the core team of the MCA acquisition case had also arrived. Also arriving at the same time was Yoniko Keitani, the representative of Panasonic for the acquisition.
The meeting to discuss various response strategies lasted all morning, and Ovitz also had a phone call with Panasonic President Akio Furui in Osaka at noon.
Akio Furui has been hoping to enter the United States since he became president of Panasonic in 1986, but was suppressed by the conservative Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita until last year.
However, what disappointed Ovitz was that Akio Furui did not accept his suggestion to increase the offer price per share to $75 to complete the transaction as soon as possible, and at the same time, he did not intend to give up the acquisition because of competition from Daenerys Entertainment.
After a busy morning, it was finally decided to start a new round of negotiations with MCA next Wednesday to further discuss the details of the acquisition.
After lunch, we saw off Yoniko Qinggu, a core member of the MCA acquisition team, Michael Ovitz, Bob Goldman, CAA’s financial director and one of the founders, and two other executives, Sandy Kleeman and Ray ·Kertzman returned to the morning meeting room again.
Panasonic's attitude towards the acquisition was not resolute enough, which made everyone a little worried.
Everyone gathered around the conference table and waited for the secretary to serve coffee before leaving. Bob Goldman suddenly said: "Many people in Hollywood probably don't want to see Daenerys Entertainment expand anymore."
Sandy Kleeman, who helped Ovitz create CAA's corporate agency business, said: "So what, do you think Warner, Fox, MGM, and Columbia will now come out to oppose this acquisition
This summer, "Sleeping with the Enemy" and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" in Daenerys Entertainment's 10-film plan have both achieved success. Not only Fox and Disney have benefited from it, but also Warner, MGM, Columbia and other companies. All work closely with Daenerys Entertainment.
Ray Kertzman said at this time: "There is also Paramount. The failure of the two projects of "The Rocketeer" and "Firebird", Martin Davis must be very dissatisfied with Westeros."
Sandy Kleeman said: "Paramount is simply not enough."
Bob Goldman added at this time: "You got one thing wrong. Those who can prevent a studio from being merged are not necessarily companies in the same industry. I mean, the three major labor unions in Hollywood."
After Bob Goldman finished speaking, the other three people in the conference room all looked astonished for a moment.
Daenerys Entertainment was at odds with the Writers Guild of America because of the strike two years ago. Currently, Simon Westeros continues to suppress star pay through long-term contracts and strictly controls film production costs in terms of budget. Although these are against the system The development of the studio is beneficial, but it has obviously harmed the interests of the Hollywood Writers Guild, Directors Guild and Screen Actors Guild.
What's more, for two consecutive years, Daenerys Entertainment has accounted for most of the top ten spots in the U.S. box office list. With such a market share, if it were to merge with MCA, it would obviously constitute a monopoly.
If the three major labor unions file a lawsuit with the federal Department of Justice at the same time, and with the cooperation of Hollywood studios such as Paramount, it will be very possible to block the acquisition of Daenerys Entertainment.
"I remembered the proposal made by Texas Republican Senator Peter Briggel last Wednesday," Ray Kertzman quickly mentioned another matter. Seeing the other three people's confused looks, he said: "I'll have someone collect some information for you later. In short, the White House probably doesn't have a good impression of Westeros right now. In this case, the Department of Justice may not easily approve Daenerys Entertainment's application to acquire MCA."
"There's also the matter with Dustin, Cruise and others last year."
"Matthew Broderick, do you remember that young man?"
“…”
“…”
The four of them discussed it for more than ten minutes. Michael Ovitz quickly made a decision and said: "Bob, you are familiar with Martin Davis. Ask him to talk as soon as possible. Sandy and Ray, you two are responsible for contacting people in Washington, and I will personally communicate with the three major labor unions and Dustin."
After finalizing these, the four people quickly began to act separately.
The weekend went by in a blink of an eye.
Monday, September 10th.
Following last Saturday's "Hollywood Reporter" exposure of Daenerys Entertainment's intention to acquire MCA, the "Wall Street Journal" also exposed the progress of the MCA acquisition on Monday, conclusively stating that the Panasonic acquisition team will formally launch the acquisition of MCA this Wednesday. negotiation.
Michael Ovitz called Lou Vassalman directly after the news broke in the Wall Street Journal, accusing him of leaking the information and threatening to cancel Wednesday's agenda. Lou Vassalman firmly denied Ovitz's accusations. After several disputes, Wednesday's meeting will continue as usual.
However, after continuous media reports, the news that Daenerys Entertainment and Panasonic may bid for MCA has finally been put on the table.
On Monday morning, as soon as the North American stock market opened, MCA's stock price began to rise rapidly.
After a day of trading, as of the afternoon close, MCA’s share price had soared from US$36.75 at the opening to US$41.25, an increase of 12%. By the close of trading on Wednesday, MCA’s share price had risen to US$46.75, basically returning to the level before the outbreak of the Kuwait War. .
Due to the time difference between the east and west coasts, when the top executives of Panasonic and MCA concluded their negotiations on Wednesday, the stock market on the east coast had already closed.
Moreover, things also showed signs of taking a sudden turn for the worse.
MCA President Sid Sheinberg bluntly stated at the press conference after the meeting that Panasonic's offer lacked sincerity. MCA's recent stock price has been seriously underestimated due to force majeure factors. If Panasonic refuses to increase the offer, the transaction between the two parties may be stranded. .
At the same time, Sid Sheinberg also said at the press conference that MCA is a very good company and he very much looks forward to other companies being interested in this company.
The purpose of these last words is obvious.
The media then continued to expose more specific details of the talks.
MCA Chairman Sid Sheinberg expected a price of US$80 per share, but Panasonic was only willing to offer US$60 per share. There was a huge gap between the two parties, so the talks ended on bad terms.
Because of the failure of this meeting, MCA stock gains slowed significantly the next day.
Although it is clear that Panasonic cannot give up the acquisition so easily, and MCA will not easily drive away Panasonic, a competitor that can push up its stock price, many people still turn their attention to Daenerys Entertainment, looking forward to Simon's move. .
Escaped from the intense media scrutiny during the first week of the release of the Forbes rich list, Simon remained in New York this week.
When the news came that Panasonic and MCA were apparently at a stalemate after their first public talks, Simon completely let go and waited patiently for the right time. During this period, Janet personally helped him select and arrange one meal, reception, party and other activities one after another.
It is impossible to quickly accumulate a huge net worth without a corresponding network of contacts. It is also not a wise move to leave the network of contacts to the executives of the affiliated companies to take care of it.
Every time Simon goes to Melbourne, the Johnston family will arrange similar activities for Simon to participate in. Janet has completely inherited the family's vision and skills in building a network. Women can help Simon avoid many useless interactions just by relying on their instincts. When it comes to socializing, you don’t need to blindly explore in and out of various circles like many newly wealthy people do.
To further confuse the media and public, Simon also attended a party hosted by Steve Ross at his home in East Hampton, Long Island.
Immediately afterwards, news emerged in the media that Daenerys Entertainment may seek to merge with Time Warner.
Everyone in the circle knows that Steve Ross is a very power-hungry person, and Simon will not let go of control of Daenerys Entertainment, so the possibility of a merger between the two companies is very low. However, there have always been more people in this world who don’t know the truth.
Time Warner's stock price also began to rise after relevant news emerged.
Neither Daenerys Entertainment nor Time Warner has clarified this. Simon is trying to confuse the public. Ross hopes that there will be some good news in Time Warner, even if it is a false good news, it can make the head of Time Warner The pressure is reduced a lot.
After completing the Time Warner merger after many twists and turns at the beginning of this year, due to internal management struggles, deterioration of the external economic situation, and significant increase in corporate debt, the synergy effect that all parties expected before the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Bros. was that one plus one is greater than two. It did not appear, and Time Warner's stock price continued to fall.
Currently, Time Warner, a media giant with total assets of nearly US$25 billion, has a market value of just over US$8 billion and liabilities of more than US$10 billion. Compared with before the merger, when Paramount Communications tried to intercept the acquisition, the asking price for Time Company alone reached 10.7 billion US dollars.
In recent months, some media outlets have compared the Time Warner merger to the Reynolds-Nabisco merger a year earlier.
Frankly speaking, because the internal situation of Time Warner is so complicated, even if Steve Ross is willing to sell the company, Simon will not do it easily.
After two tumultuous weeks, Simon left New York again on September 17, flying to San Francisco on the West Coast.
A few days ago, in exchange for maintaining Larry Ellison's control of Oracle, he once again exchanged all the board seats of this company, and let Carol Bartz, who is in charge of the software business of Igret Corporation, serve. Simon also It's not aimless.
Database software is widely used on Internet sites, and having Carol Bartz serve as Oracle's director can further strengthen the relationship between Oracle's database software and Igret's World Wide Web technology.
On the other hand, Oracle's upcoming layoffs are mainly concentrated in the software sales department. It just so happened that Carol Bartz was building Eagle's software sales network, and this time he could poach a number of available sales department employees from Oracle nearby.
Although Oracle has made major mistakes in its sales strategy in the past two years, there is no doubt that its performance has grown rapidly. This is largely due to Oracle's sales team.
In addition, Carol Bartz was inspired by Simon's explanation of the concept of 'cloud computing' in the memorandum left by Simon at Eagle, and hoped to build Eagle's software department into a one-stop world wide web-based A technical Internet site technical support company provides users who want to build websites with a complete set of solutions involving software and hardware, rather than simply selling related software products.
Different from the original time and space, Igret Company almost monopolized the technology patents related to the World Wide Web at this time.
Although Simon tried to keep an open mind as much as possible, just thinking about the explosive growth of websites based on World Wide Web technology in the coming years made Simon realize what Carol Bartz's vision would mean if realized. What a huge benefit.
Moreover, this is definitely not something that Ygritte and his family can accomplish. All the new technological enterprise resources under the Westeros Company must be combined.
Of course, this plan cannot be accomplished overnight.
Simon rushed to San Francisco, not only to listen to Carol Bartz's business plan, but also to mediate the dispute between Carol Bartz and Jeff Bezos again.
The last time Simon invested US$50 million in Igret, most of the US$35 million was allocated to the network department. Carol Bartz believes that his software department is the most important at this stage and should be allocated. To get more funds, so after Simon left last time, he and Jeff Bezos "struggled" to split the funds equally.
Both Carol Bartz and Jeff Bezos have very strong personalities. Within a few months of joining the company, they had unknowingly marginalized Tim Berners-Lee, the CEO, to the position of chief technology officer. official status.
Tim Berners-Lee is a technical geek similar to Apple founder Steve Wozniak. He found that he really couldn't control his two nominal subordinates, so he simply He did not participate in the dispute between the two and concentrated on the research and development of a series of World Wide Web technology projects that he was responsible for.