Los Angeles International Airport.
Olivia lived in Angle Manor for ten days, and then planned to return to London.
Eric wanted to use his private jet to send her back, but the relationship between the two parties has never been made public. Olivia was worried that people who wanted to take Eric's private jet would notice, so she still chose a commercial flight.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the VIP lounge at Los Angeles International Airport, watching Olivia's flight slide off the runway and rush towards the clouds, Eric turned and left.
Today is already May 21, another Friday.
Although the one last night was very painful at the time, it didn't actually hurt any bones or anything like that. After three or four days of rest, it was fine. However, Eric still 'rehabilitated' at home for a long time. More than a week.
This week, with Firefly System’s announcement to stop cooperating with the Blockbuster chain store, Hollywood was extremely lively. The media in North America and even the world were paying close attention to the dispute between Firefly System and Viacom Group.
Lei Shidong was indeed worthy of his tough character, and there was no sign of softening for a whole week. After Monday's public criticism of the Firefly system, any public appearances were handed over to other Viacom executives.
However, Redstone has a tough attitude, but Viacom's stock price has not shown the same toughness as Redstone.
When Eric had dinner with Olivia at noon, he received information on the stock price of Viacom Group on the east coast as of the close of this week.
Although the decline in Viacom's stock price began to slow down in the next few working days after the sharp drop on Monday, the company's stock price fell by 23% in a week, and its market value evaporated by 16.8 billion US dollars.
At this time, Viacom's market value after today's close has plummeted to $56.3 billion, compared to a market value of $73.1 billion at the beginning of the week.
In just one week, the stock book loss reached 16.8 billion U.S. dollars. Even if Redstone himself could bear it, other shareholders of Viacom Group could not bear it.
Due to the dual shareholding structure, the Redstone family still owns 56% of Viacom's voting rights at this time. Typically, there is hardly anyone who can threaten the Redstone family's dominance of Viacom.
However, the dual shareholding structure is not a panacea. Once the major shareholder with absolute control cannot solve the problems faced by the company for a long time, which seriously damages the interests of most shareholders, external shareholders can still hold an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders and abolish the company by voting. Dual shareholding structure, reorganization of the company's board of directors and management.
According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Act, to abolish the dual-class structure requires the support of two-thirds of a company's shareholders.
After the merger of CBS Group, the Redstone family's shareholding in Viacom Group through National Entertainment Corporation is only 13.5%, and the remaining 86.5% of the stock is held by institutional and public shareholders. If Redstone insists on going his own way and completely loses the support of all external shareholders, it will definitely not be too difficult to win about 66.7% of the votes from the 86.5% of the shares.
Now, the company's market value has plummeted by US$16.8 billion in a week, which has obviously reached the limit of the tolerance of most of Viacom's external shareholders.
Leaving the airport lobby and getting into the car with Caroline who also came to see Olivia off, Eric told the driver to go to Firefly Studios. Although it was approaching the end of get off work time, I hadn't been to the company for more than a week, so I happened to drop by, so I decided to sit there for a while.
The car drove into Lincoln Avenue outside the airport, and Eric asked Caroline next to him: "So, is there anything else I need to know today?"
Although there is no work recently, the assistant office will send a memo listing the company affairs that Eric needs to know to his e-mail every day. This is also Eric's consistent style of managing the company. He will not easily intervene in the specific decision-making of each company in the Firefly system, giving the management full autonomy, but at the same time he knows the operating conditions of these companies well.
"The shell company controlled by Nokia negotiated an acquisition price of US$8 million with NTP, which holds the mobile mail patent, this morning, and the contract can be signed next week; "Bourne Shadow" has just completed its preliminary budget plan, and drafted The cost of production is 70 million US dollars; the work progress report of "Hutch Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" has been sent to London in the afternoon, and it will be sent to your e-mail by tomorrow morning; Ronald Hill has sent Adam Wembley, the founder of the 'Hollywood Gossip' website, filed a lawsuit. If he loses the lawsuit, Adam Wembley may face at least five years in prison. dollars in damages."
Eric leaned on the back of the chair with a casual expression, heard Caroline talk about the 'Hollywood gossip', and interrupted: "You don't need to worry about these things in the future, just let Mary take care of it."
Caroline pursed her lips and blinked her eyes, she seemed a little dissatisfied and said, "Eric, I'm not a child."
"I know."
"I'm not a china doll either."
"Of course," Eric smiled, reached out and pinched Caroline's cheek affectionately, and said, "You're a rag doll."
Caroline shrank her neck coquettishly, her face flushed slightly, and said, "Eric, you bullied me again."
"Well, sorry, right? I'm sorry, I shouldn't bully little Carly," Eric smiled insincerely, and said, "Hey, let's go on."
Caroline wanted to imitate Mayer and ignore Eric for a while, but she still couldn't hold back, and said: "As of today's close, the Nasdaq index has reached 3976 points, and it can break through next week 4,000 points. We got news that Tiger Fund has completely stopped short-selling and started buying technology stocks, but the capital size of this fund is now only 8 billion U.S. dollars.”
In the eavesdropping incident some time ago, Firefly caught Tiger Fund, one of the masterminds behind the scenes, so Eric's assistant office has been paying attention to the operation of this fund during this time.
Compared with the peak period two years ago, the capital scale of Tiger Fund has shrunk by more than half.
Hearing what Caroline said, Eric couldn't help shaking his head slightly.
If Julian Robertson stopped in time now, Tiger would be able to survive even with only $8 billion in capital left.
But the other party followed the trend and began to buy technology stocks at this time. It was obvious that Julian Robertson was already in trouble, like a gambler who lost a lot of money and completely lost his mind. Constantly betting chips in an attempt to turn the tables, the result will only be a crushing defeat.
Since mid-March, in more than two months, the Nasdaq index has risen from 3,000 points to its current high of close to 4,000 points. At this rate, in another two months, by the beginning of August at the latest, the Nasdaq index will reach the peak of 5,000 points in Eric's memory.
Moreover, to be very sensitive, July and August happened to be the time when listed companies successively announced their financial data for the second quarter of 1999. Although it is not an annual financial report, if a large number of new technology companies generally report huge losses in their quarterly financial reports, the Nasdaq Index, which has already peaked, has a high probability of ushering in a collapse.
Of course, Eric didn't dare to be 100% sure at this time.
Because, as the main technology stock companies in the Nasdaq stock market, the revenue data of several giants such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Yahoo are all very good.
Not to mention Microsoft, just in the first quarter, this new technology giant that has basically monopolized the desktop operating system achieved a net profit of 1.925 billion US dollars, and it is estimated that the annual net profit may reach 8 billion US dollars. , which has almost doubled compared to last year's $4.5 billion profit.
As the largest router equipment manufacturer in North America, Cisco can almost be said to be the basic equipment supplier of the entire Internet industry. Although the market value has been crazily catching up with Microsoft in recent months, the revenue performance is also impressive enough.
However, in terms of revenue growth rate, none of the other giants can compare with Yahoo.
In order to greatly increase their own traffic and attention in the short term, major new technology companies have been spending more money on advertising and marketing in recent months.
As the world's largest online advertising platform, Yahoo began to benefit from this last year, creating annual revenue data of 1.6 billion US dollars.
But this year, just in the first three months, countless Internet companies spent more than 700 million U.S. dollars on various advertising channels of the Yahoo Portal, which has a market share of more than 70%. In addition to other revenues such as interface licensing, Yahoo's first-quarter sales soared to $937 million.
Can be expected, just the first two quarters, Yahoo's revenue data will exceed last year.
Throughout 1999, if the development momentum of the first quarter can be followed, Yahoo's annual turnover is likely to reach 4 billion US dollars. With a huge revenue base of US$4 billion, as long as the management is willing, it is completely easy to make a net profit report of hundreds of millions of US dollars.
Of course, all this is just the most optimistic expectation.
Once the Nasdaq collapses, Yahoo's rapid momentum at this time is destined to come to an abrupt end.
However, in any case, as the purest Internet company in the new technology sector, Yahoo's revenue data in the first two quarters is so good, it will definitely further stimulate the Nasdaq index.
On the one hand, the rapid growth of new technology giants, and on the other hand, the massive losses of countless small and medium-sized Internet companies. It is hard to imagine what will happen when the Nasdaq index breaks through 5,000 points in July and August.
Therefore, Eric has now completely given up his forecast for the Nasdaq market. He just emptied the stocks in the hands of the Clover Fund step by step, and then planned to look on the sidelines.
He brought Caroline to Firefly Studios and worked in the office until after six o'clock. After get off work, he invited two female assistants to have dinner together before Eric returned to Sharp Point Manor.
As soon as the black luxury Mercedes-Benz drove into the gate of the manor in the night, Eric heard the news that the driver in the front row communicated with the bodyguard of the manor, and Elizabeth was already waiting in the villa.
Eric walked into the villa, and soon found a lazily looking girl leaning against the curtain wall and holding a magazine.
Leaning over and kissing Elizabeth's lips, Eric asked with concern, "Have you eaten yet?"
"No," Elizabeth sniffed habitually, her expression immediately resentful, and said, "If you don't come back tonight, I'm going to starve to death here, and I'll talk to you every night from now on."
Eric squeezed the girl's chin with a smile, and said, "It's too vicious, you didn't tell me you were coming, where is Julia?"
Elizabeth held Eric and squeezed the strange hand that was about to slide her chin down her neck, and said, "Isn't the filming of "Never Compromise" started? She lives with the group these days and lives in a small town near Nevada. superior."
"Oh, let's go, I'll take you out for dinner."
"If you don't want to go out, do it for me."
"Okay," Eric nodded, pulled the girl up again, and said, "There's food in the kitchen, if you're too hungry, just eat something."
Elizabeth didn't resist this time. She got up and went to the kitchen with Eric. They picked ingredients from the refrigerator together. After busying with Eric for a while, she suddenly said, "Dad told me to break up with you."
Eric cracked the eggs into the bowl, stirred them, and said, "No need to divide, you tell him that you and Julia are actually a couple."
"You want to see me beaten to death."
"Aren't your younger brothers all well, and besides, your old man can't beat you."
"You guy," Elizabeth raised her hand and slapped Eric on the shoulder, and said, "Dad arranged a girlfriend for Lachlan and let them get married at the end of the year."
"I'm quite familiar with several major modeling agencies. If it's not time to ask them to find a dozen male models to hold a bachelor party for Lachlan, I guarantee that they will all be the most beautiful."
"Then my dad is really going to be mad at you," Elizabeth finally couldn't help laughing, she hammered Eric again, and said in a blink of an eye: "Don't gloat, you can't talk about the future. You have to deal with this situation, a lot of children, and that Cindy Crawford is pregnant too, right?"
Eric automatically ignored Elizabeth's last question, and said: "I originally planned to raise a group of mischievous little bastards to turn the world upside down. It's just that Kevin, Xia Xia, and Emma are too old now. Let me down, I don't have the potential to be a villain at all," Eric said and turned to the girl next to him: "I will leave this difficult task to you."
Elizabeth's face was slightly red, and she didn't bother to hit Eric again, and said, "If that's the case, I'd rather strangle him to death in advance."
"It's cruel enough, it seems that this matter can only fall on you."
Elizabeth threw away the carrot in her hand, glared at Eric and said, "If you talk about it again, I will be full of you."
Eric stopped stirring the eggs, put down the bowl and chopsticks, turned around and hugged the girl in his arms, and said softly, "Okay, I apologize, I know it's unfair to you."
Elizabeth's chin rested on Eric's shoulder, enjoying the man's embrace, and her voice softened: "You are finally willing to say something serious."
"Seeing that you are quite hesitant, so liven up the atmosphere, are you feeling better now?"
"Um."
"That's good," Eric patted the girl on the back, and said, "However, this world is inherently unfair, so we still have to face the reality."
"Eric."
"Um?"
"Suddenly I want to bite someone too."
"Oh ah!!!"
…
Last night was squeezed out a lot, it happened to be Saturday again, the sky was already bright, Eric still didn't have the idea of getting up, but Elizabeth ran to prepare breakfast in good spirits early in the morning.
While in a daze, the bedroom door was suddenly pushed open, and Elizabeth rushed in. While patting on Eric, she picked up the remote control to turn on the wall-mounted TV in the bedroom, and said gloatingly, "Eric, look Viacom's press conference, your plans may be going nowhere."