Eric and Chris spent a few hours agreeing on a detailed plan for absorbing Disney stocks from the secondary market. Chris put away the handwritten memo. Seeing that Eric was about to leave, he suddenly remembered another matter. Something, stopped him: "Eric, there is one more thing I almost forgot to say."
After Eric sat down again, Chris said: "In August, Cisco's board of directors passed a resolution to dismiss all the positions of the founders Gray and his wife in Cisco. The two have now left the company."
As Chris said, he got up and found a folder from the filing cabinet and handed it to Eric. Eric opened it and looked at it. It was a decision document of Cisco’s board of directors in mid-August. After reading it, Eric Rick raised his head and asked, "What's going on?"
"The Grays feel that the current management of Cisco is too profit-seeking and not in line with their original intention of creating Cisco. They have had several fights over this, and I happened to encounter it once when I went to Cisco's mid-year meeting in June. The couple pointed to the nose of the company CEO Morgan Rich and cursed, and the meeting was postponed for three hours. In August, the unbearable company management threatened the board of directors with collective resignation, and finally passed the proposal to dismiss all positions of the Grays in Cisco. "
After briefly telling the whole thing, Chris~ said with a touch of contempt on his face: "Actually, the reason why they are like this has nothing to do with the company's business strategy. It’s just been on my mind.”
"I know about it, unless it threatens our interests, otherwise. We try not to interfere with Cisco's management."
Chris nodded and said: "I understand. But what I want to talk about is the next thing. After the Grays left Cisco, they revealed the news that they were going to sell their stocks. I thought you might be interested. We also have enough funds now. .”
Eric recalled Cisco's equity division, showing excitement. After Cisco went public, the founders, Mr. and Mrs. Gray, held 27.6% of Cisco's shares and were still the largest shareholder of Cisco. Sequoia Capital, which initially invested in Cisco, owns 23.5% of the shares, ranking second, and the third is Firefly Investment Company, which holds 23% of the shares, and the remaining nearly 30% of the shares are scattered in the hands of institutional investors and company management. .
Although it is a listed company, because the market was not optimistic about Cisco's development prospects when it was listed, most of the shares sold by Cisco were only subscribed by investment institutions, and the shares that flowed into the secondary market were very rare. They wanted to increase their holdings by absorbing in the circulation market The plan will not work at all, and the investors who have already acquired the shares are motivated by Cisco's good performance after the listing. I also refuse to let go easily, so. The Gray couple's sale of their shares is definitely the only opportunity to increase their holdings of Cisco shares on a large scale.
If you can take all the shares in the hands of the Grays, Firefly Investment is almost equal to an absolute control of Cisco, which is Eric's dream.
"How much are they asking?" Eric asked the most critical question directly, with a tone of determination.
Chris can also understand what Eric is thinking. As the manager of Firefly Investment, he knows Cisco's situation better than Eric, shook his head and smiled: "Eric, maybe you are going to be disappointed, the Grays are not They don't want to sell all the shares in their hands. They are only willing to sell two-thirds of the shares, which is about 18%. The asking price is 250 million US dollars, which is 30% higher than the market price. Gray and his wife are negotiating, and I estimate that the final transaction price will not exceed 200 million."
"Get in touch with the Gray couple as soon as possible, and we must take this share. Anyway, we have enough funds now, and it doesn't matter if it's expensive." Eric thought for a while, and then said: "Well, you can tell the Gray couple, if they are willing If we sell all the shares in our hands, we will buy them at a premium of 30%.”
"I will pass it on, but it's unlikely. If the couple didn't need funds to start a business again, it is estimated that the 18% of the shares would not be sold."
"Try it and there will be no loss," Eric nodded.
In the past few days when Eric came to New York again, the international crude oil price reached an unprecedented high of 41 US dollars per barrel. Almost in the same few days, Western countries and several major oil exporting countries in the Middle East began to introduce various effective methods to stabilize crude oil prices. First, Saudi Arabia announced that it will increase its domestic crude oil production capacity to 100% to supply market demand. North American and European countries have also begun to use their own crude oil reserves to stabilize the market. In addition, the deployment of the United Nations forces led by the US military in the Persian Gulf has been completed. The total military strength exceeded 600,000, and it formed a comprehensive suppression of Iraq in terms of weapons and equipment. Under the influence of various bad news, the price of crude oil began to fall slowly.
Even Eric himself didn't think that the timing of his trip to New York was so coincidental, just in time for the peak of crude oil prices to fall. Therefore, after returning to Los Angeles again, all kinds of temptations swarmed in again, without exception, all of which were prying his profits from the oil crisis.
In the process of Eric's operation of crude oil futures this time, the principal of up to 500 million US dollars was temporarily borrowed from the seven major film companies, and the seven majors received nothing except loans and a dispensable interest in the end. Therefore, some people have a very strong desire to know how much 'their' funds have earned. It seems that as long as they know the result, these people's frustration will be appeased.
Of course, it is impossible for Eric to disclose specific information to stimulate those people. He can't do such an inhumane thing. When encountering such a temptation, Eric will often avoid the topic in a few words. So some people had to turn their attention to the movements of Eric's companies, hoping to get some information from them.
But time passed day by day. Except for the plan about the Playa Vista filming base revealed by some employees of Firefly, only Firefly Investment announced the acquisition of 18% of the shares held by the founders of Cisco, Mr. and Mrs. Gray, for US$210 million. Besides, Eric doesn't seem to be doing much. Although Eric claimed to invest $1 billion when negotiating with Playa Vista community officials, anyone with a discerning eye could see that it was impossible for Playa Vista’s filming base to spend that much money, let alone The cycle of this project is as long as several years, and the initial investment is up to 100 million.
This kind of peaceful fight made many people feel a little more at ease, guessing that Eric probably didn't make too much money in a self-comforting way.
As October slowly passes, Hollywood is about to usher in the new year's file at the end of the year again. The big film companies have already started the hot promotion of the main films at the end of the year. It was discovered that Eric did not have any films directed by him in this New Year's file, except for "Point of Horror", which he produced as a producer.
At the end of the year, Firefly had only two films released. Apart from "Point of Horror", there was another movie "Ghostbusters" produced by Robert Shea. Comedy style, it is a movie that Eric has never heard of. It is estimated that the butterfly effect brought about the difference. The investment of the movie has reached 40 million. According to the previous agreement between Robert Shea and Eric, Firefly accounted for a quarter of the investment.
Firefly's "Home Alone" series, which has been the mainstay for two consecutive years, did not produce a sequel this year.
The main reason is that Stewart's CAA brokerage company proposed a sky-high salary of 15 million US dollars, which is almost double that of last year, and the Runkels seem to have 'knowledge' this time, and they did not interfere wantonly, leaving the salary negotiation to the Got caa.
If the remuneration proposed by CAA is accepted, plus the price increase of other leading actors in the film, the cost of forcing the production of the sequel alone will reach 25 million, and the total cost of the sequel will exceed 50 million. It takes 140 million box office to recover the cost. According to the downward trend of the box office of the first two films, the possibility of making a loss for this sequel is very high. Eric did not think too much, so he temporarily cut off the production plan of the sequel.
On the day when the news that Firefly would suspend the "Home Alone" series was announced, Stewart's agent immediately called to make a concession, but Eric, who was busy with futures trading at the time, had no intention of arguing with CAA again, and directly refused other side. Firefly is not as heavily dependent on a certain film series as some film companies are, so there is no need to be too accommodating to the main creator of the film. Since some people open their mouths ignorantly, they must have broken teeth and swallow it by themselves. consciousness.
"Point of Horror" closed in mid-October, and it is estimated that it will take a month to complete post-production, but these days, Eric did not go to Catherine Bigelow's side, because the relationship between Cameron and Linda Hamilton The extramarital affair was caught by the paparazzi, and the photo was published in the newspaper.
Catherine rushed to the filming site of "Terminator 2" in New Mexico on the day the news was disclosed. After Cameron personally admitted to cheating, the woman divorced Cameron without delay. But Cameron is not one of those unmarried directors after all. As a married man, he had an extramarital affair with the heroine, which is likely to affect the box office of "Terminator 2". Therefore, the two agreed to wait for "Terminator 2" to be released. Announcement of divorce.
Although this matter has been hidden from the media for the time being, there are quite a few insiders. As an investor in the two films, it is impossible for Eric not to know. As a very independent woman, Catherine Bigelow did not marry Cameron until she was 35 years old because she admired Cameron's talent. Unexpectedly, this marriage lasted less than three years, and her husband cheated on her. It's hard to accept it.
Although Catherine was still calm, competent and meticulous in her work during this period, and she didn't seem to be affected by the breakdown of her marriage, when Eric appeared, the woman's eyes would occasionally become gloomy. Looking at him with explosive eyes, this feeling sent chills down Eric's spine. He didn't want to take the blame for Cameron's troubles, so he simply let go of "Scare Point" for the time being. (To be continued..)