After the U.S. Department of Justice officially approved Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of MCA, the pace of the merger that the two companies were already advancing began to accelerate.
In the following week, Daenerys Entertainment continued to announce various news about corporate finance and personnel, which was dizzying, so few people realized what the news actually meant.
At the press conference on the day the acquisition was approved, Daenerys Entertainment CEO Amy Pascal announced that the equity delivery of Daenerys Entertainment to MCA shareholders will be completed before the end of February.
At the same time, all funds used by Daenerys Entertainment to acquire MCA will be obtained through loans.
The next day, Daenerys Entertainment once again announced that it will collaborate with legendary Hollywood director Steven Spielberg on two projects at the same time, namely the dinosaur science fiction film "Jurassic Park" and the story of the Holocaust of the Jews in World War II. "Schindler's List" of the past.
Although Daenerys Entertainment is not a listed company, the announcement of this cooperation has made the industry more optimistic about the new Daenerys Entertainment Group, which is suddenly saddled with an additional US$7 billion in huge debts. It's not just Daenerys Entertainment's partnership with Steven Spielberg, but also the other implications behind the Schindler's List project.
Subsequently, Daenerys Entertainment CEO Amy Pascal, whose contract is about to expire in March this year, announced her contract renewal.
For this powerful woman in Hollywood who single-handedly assisted Simon Westeros in building Daenerys Entertainment Group in just a few years, the terms of her contract renewal have become the focus of the most media attention, causing all kinds of speculation.
After a lot of discussion, the entertainment information section of the Yigrit portal finally revealed the answer.
Amy Pascal's new contract lasts for three years, with the basic annual salary increased to $750,000, and the sharing terms remain the same as the 1987 agreement.
Both belong to the Westeros system, and the news about the Igrit portal is actually equivalent to an official announcement.
However, the interpretation surrounding this contract has not stopped.
Most media had originally predicted that Amy Pascal's contract period this time was likely to be the usual five-year contract for Hollywood executives. The top leaders of several major Hollywood studios, including Michael Eisner, Peter Cooper, Snow This is true of the contracts of Leigh Lansing and others.
Therefore, the three-year period is very worthy of consideration.
Industry media do not feel that this is a sign that Amy Pascal may leave Daenerys Entertainment. Otherwise, it would be impossible for Westeros to give Daenerys entertainment even though its scale has expanded countless times. The female executive received the same salary contract of 5% of the company's net profit and the same amount of equity awards as four years ago.
You know, the profit dividend ratio of the heads of various studios in the industry is usually only 2%.
Even if Daenerys Entertainment will face great debt pressure in the next few years, resulting in shrinking profits, the salary contract, which is equivalent to 10% of the company's net profit, is definitely a generous sum.
So, let’s look back at Paschall’s contract length.
3 years.
Probably means another node.
As we all know, before a company's IPO, the contracts of company executives need to be readjusted.
Daenerys Entertainment has just merged with MCA. It is not wise to launch an IPO plan in the short term. Three years of digestion time seems just right.
At the same time, several in-depth cooperation agreements between Daenerys Entertainment and Panasonic also appeared in the media, and the outside world finally learned why Panasonic simply withdrew from the bidding for MCA.
In a series of news hot spots, negative news is naturally inevitable.
Before the acquisition was approved by the U.S. Department of Justice, Daenerys Entertainment had as many as 3,000 employees. The two companies had similar revenue in the past fiscal year, but MCA has more than 12,000 employees worldwide.
The reason why Westeros chose not to lay off employees after acquiring Bell Atlantic was mainly because the rapid expansion of the telecommunications industry in the fields of mobile communications and the Internet could naturally absorb Bell Atlantic's excess human resources.
Moreover, because he didn’t know much about the telecommunications industry, and Bell Atlantic didn’t need to lay off employees and cut expenses to solve its debt problem, Simon ultimately chose to remain silent.
MCA is different.
Because Daenerys Entertainment and MCA have a large number of overlapping functional departments, MCA itself, under the management of Lou Vassalman, who has long since lost his energy, inevitably has serious redundancy problems that are common in large companies.
Therefore, layoffs are inevitable.
"The Hollywood Reporter" first revealed that Daenerys Entertainment may carry out large-scale layoffs of up to 3,000 people in the new company after the merger is completed.
Employment issues have always been a focus of American society.
For politicians, employment rates are a reflection of their performance. For enterprises, ensuring employment is also a reflection of corporate image and social responsibility.
Suddenly, 3,000 people may lose their jobs, and all of Hollywood becomes restless.
The three major labor unions that were forced to give up blocking Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of MCA due to the situation immediately came forward to condemn the possible layoffs taken by Daenerys Entertainment. North American media and various labor protection organizations in California have also begun to pay close attention to this matter.
As things progressed, the new California governor who just took office at the beginning of the year and several California congressmen expressed concern about this matter.
After a few days of brief silence in the face of public pressure, Daenerys Entertainment quickly clarified that there were no plans to lay off as many as 3,000 people.
However, because the merger of the two companies brought about many duplicative jobs, Daenerys Entertainment had to make choices, but it can be guaranteed that the scale of layoffs will be strictly limited to 1,000 people.
At the same time, Daenerys Entertainment has also promised to create at least 1,000 jobs through its own business expansion in the next three years.
The number of layoffs has been reduced from the rumored 3,000 to 1,000. Although criticism is still inevitable, the outside world is obviously more accepting of it.
While the merger continues to advance, the February Valentine's Day schedule in North America has also quietly started.
Last year’s Valentine’s Day saw a box office dark horse like “Pretty Woman.” This year, films released by Daenerys Entertainment also received extra attention from the media.
However, compared to "Pretty Woman", the movie released by Daenerys Entertainment on Valentine's Day seems to be much less mainstream, called "Anti-Ghost".
Moreover, the most watched film in North American theaters is still "Home Alone" released during last Christmas season.
As of February 7, one week before Valentine's Day, "Home Alone", which is in its seventh week of filming, has once again made $12.93 million at the box office. In the seven weeks since its release, this phenomenal children's comedy has grossed a cumulative box office of $191.59 million.
On February 8th, the Valentine's Day schedule opened. "Twilight Zone" produced and distributed by New World Pictures, a subsidiary of Daenerys Entertainment, opened with 1,739 screens. At the same time, "George..." produced by Warner Bros. was also launched in theaters. Miller directed the high-budget fantasy adventure film "The Devil 2" and the romance film "LA Story" produced by Columbia Pictures' Tristar Company.
The fantasy-adventure feature film "The Great Enchantment," adapted from a famous German children's book, had a huge budget of US$26 million when it was first filmed in 1984. Although the North American box office was not very successful at the time, with only a little over 20 million, due to the excellent special effects scenes, it recovered about 100 million US dollars at the global box office.
This time, Warner has invited George Miller to direct "The Devil 2" and has once again invested a hefty budget of US$36 million. It can be said to be the most favorable box office contender for this Valentine's Day period.
However, the box office performance of several films during this Valentine's Day has surprised many people.
From February 8th to February 14th, the first week of the Valentine's Day period, the one that topped the single-week box office rankings was not George Miller's "The Devil 2", nor was it "LA Story" that perfectly suited the Valentine's Day atmosphere. , but it is the non-mainstream nonsensical and low-brow comedy "The Stars".
In its first week, this low-brow comedy starring "Saturday Night Live" TV star Mike Myers, which lacks a main plot and is scattered, actually took in $21.7 million at the box office in seven days.
Even with Daenerys Entertainment's consistently excellent publicity campaign, many film critics gave positive comments such as being fresh and interesting after the film was released, but no one expected that this alternative film lacked selling points no matter how it was viewed. Comedy movies can gross more than $20 million at the box office in their first week.
Within Daenerys Entertainment, although many people know that this project was personally selected by Simon, even Danny Morris, the president of New World Pictures, who is single-handedly responsible for the production of "Twilight Zone", believed that before the film was released, If this movie can get 50 million US dollars at the North American box office, it will be called a miracle. Several project leaders also set up a small bet for this.
Then, Danny Morris naturally became the loser, but he also lost happily.
The surprising box office of US$21.7 million in the first week, coupled with the film's media reputation and good topicality, means that "The Stars" has great hope of having a good long-term box office.
The local box office of 50 million may be just a guarantee.
However, because the content of the film involves too many jokes that only Americans can understand, the distribution team does not have high expectations for the film's overseas box office.
After "The Stars", the second place on the weekly box office list is not two new films, but "Home Alone".
In its eighth week of release, "Home Alone" lost its weekly box office title for the first time, but the box office decline still remained at a very good 21%, collecting another US$10.22 million.
At the same time, the film's total box office in North America also officially exceeded the US$200 million mark, reaching US$201.81 million.
According to the phenomenal box office momentum of "Home Alone", the film's total screen life can usually reach about 25 weeks.
It is not difficult to predict that after eight weeks of production, "Home Alone" will probably stay in North American theaters for another four months.
Although starting next week, the single-week box office of "Home Alone" will fall to less than 10 million U.S. dollars, it will be released for four months, during which it will also experience popular schedules such as Easter, which is also suitable for family fun. It is not difficult to accumulate another US$80 million in box office, and it is still expected to eventually reach the US$280 million box office level in North America in the original time and space.
With a production budget of US$18 million, it could earn US$280 million at the box office in North America alone. The crazy rate of return makes the entire Hollywood jealous.
Because of this recent series of events, coupled with the approach of a certain date, Simon, who has been trying to reduce his personal exposure, will inevitably become the focus of media attention again.
February 22nd.
Simon Westeros's 23rd birthday.
Although during this period, there was no shortage of media speculation that the Westeros system’s tens of billions of dollars in debt might drag down Westeros’ personal wealth. However, the fact is that it was only a month after the Gulf War broke out. Because of the successive victories of the multinational forces and the leading role in this war, the U.S. stock market quickly shook off the haze of the war and began to rebound.
In just one month, the Dow Jones Index rose 23% compared to before the war, and the S&P 500 Index's final rebound also reached 25%.
Let’s look back at this time.
Simon Westerloka decisively and quickly completed the acquisition of Bell Atlantic and MCA at the time before the outbreak of the war, which can be called a stroke of genius.
If the two acquisitions were delayed until after the war broke out, and they only increased by market standards, it would be impossible for Westeros to win over these two companies at the original prices.
After all, Westeros' original offer for Bell Atlantic only had a premium of about 30% of the stock price before the offer. Although the premium for the MCA acquisition is higher, this is also because MCA's stock price has been severely dragged down by the continued downturn in the U.S. economic situation for more than a year.
You know, two years ago, CAA president Michael Ovitz tried out MCA on behalf of Sony, and Lou Vassalman offered as much as $8 billion.
As for Bell Atlantic, Daenerys Entertainment got a huge advantage. If it were delayed beyond the war, Simon might have to pay an additional $2 billion for Bell Atlantic.
Now, just the natural rebound of the value of these two companies along with the overall economic situation in the United States has brought huge potential benefits to Simon.
If necessary, Simon can easily relieve the debt pressure facing the Westeros system by selling part of the shares of these two companies.
What's more, Simon doesn't actually need to do this.
After more than a month of financial review, Daenerys Entertainment’s 1990 financial report was finally released.
Throughout 1990, through huge profits from movies, TV, games, consumer goods, soundtracks, etc., Daenerys Entertainment's net profit last year finally reached US$1.12 billion, which was higher than the initial expectation of about US$1 billion. About $100 million higher.
Although most of Daenerys Entertainment's profits last year were quickly withdrawn and used for other investments within the Westeros system, next, with the subsequent income from various channels based on a series of blockbuster films in the past few years, only those with Daenerys Entertainment before the MCA merger, the company's revenue in 1991 was still able to reach the level of 1990.
Therefore, just the income from Daenerys’ entertainment contribution is enough to pay off the maturing debts of the entire Westeros system.
As the U.S. stock market continues to rebound and the original three-year commitment to not reduce holdings of technology stocks expires, Westeros can cash out huge amounts of money from the technology stock market at any time if necessary.
What's more, the two corporate giants Bell Atlantic and MCA acquired this time can continue to generate huge cash flows and profits.
Since tens of billions of dollars in debt does not pose a threat to the Westeros system, it is not difficult to imagine that Simon Westeros's personal net worth will not shrink as the overall economic situation of the United States recovers, but is more likely to continue Increase.