Although Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and Tom Murphy's Metropolitan Media Company do not have absolute control over the abc television network, the two companies' close to 40% of the shares mean that after Buffett privately negotiated with Firefly Once done, it will be a breeze to lobby the board to agree to the deal.
However, the abc TV network is definitely not monolithic. Although Buffett has a tough attitude, it does not mean that the other major shareholders of abc 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. Even at the end of last year, during Buffett’s separate contact with Firefly, some shareholders publicly expressed dissatisfaction with Buffett’s concealment of negotiation information.
After Firefly Pictures released its 1993 financial report, many investment institutions holding shares in ABC TV Network became more eager to facilitate this transaction. After all, some benefits are very easy to calculate. With the profitability of Firefly Pictures, the merger between the two parties Afterwards, even if the original shareholders of ABC TV Network only hold 30% of the interests in the integrated company, as long as the profits of Firefly do not change too much, the shareholders' annual profit dividends are almost the same as they were in the period of ABC, but they can A lot of money was taken out of this cash-and-equity deal for other investments.
After the negotiations between Firefly Pictures and Buffett failed and publicly announced the acquisition invitation, the board of directors of ABC Television Network quickly passed a resolution agreeing to start negotiations with Firefly Pictures.
On February 10th, after receiving an official reply from ABC TV Network, Katzenberg and Firefly Films' chief lawyer Edward Lewis led the acquisition team to New York to start formal acquisition negotiations with ABC.
Because the equity and debt status of abc TV network is not as simple and clear as that of Firefly Films, Firefly also invited the Morgan Stanley team as a consultant under the lead of Chris.
During the initial acquisition of Disney, the two parties had a very pleasant cooperation. Although the Firefly Pictures at this time is no longer what it used to be, the rich administrative resources it possesses make Firefly no longer rely solely on Morgan Stanley 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 after the negotiation, Firefly will definitely start a large-scale debt financing plan in order to complete the acquisition, and the agency issuance of stocks and bonds is the main business of the investment bank, and the profits obtained from this are much richer than the occasional corporate mergers and acquisitions. .
Eric did not rush to New York with Katzenberg. Instead, communicate with Katzenberg on the progress of the negotiation by phone every day.
Of course, before Katzenberg left New York, the top executives of Firefly had discussed in detail the bottom line of the acquisition of Firefly Pictures. After many discussions, Eric authorized Katzenberg to sell up to 25% of the shares of Firefly. . As for cash, it is relaxed within 10 billion US dollars.
Of course, this data is not determined arbitrarily. Both Firefly Pictures and ABC TV are in a period of very good performance. Therefore, there is no doubt that after the merger of the two parties, the effect of one plus one will be greater than two. Under the best performance expectations, Once the two parties merge, the profit of Firefly in the next few years under the strong alliance is likely to reach 2 billion U.S. dollars. In this case, the proportion of shareholders who own 25% of the equity will be equivalent to the annual income of holding abc TV network at this time, so this data It is relatively easy to be accepted by abc.
certainly. What will happen in the future, except for Eric who can see the future, no one can predict it. Perhaps after the merger, the revenue and profits of Firefly will explode again, or it may be under the heavy debt burden of tens of billions of dollars after the acquisition. , the fireflies will walk towards the meeting.
Eric has always been very optimistic about this deal personally. Although Disney's performance in the original time and space fell into a downturn for many years after the acquisition of ABC, it was more due to Michael Eisner's personal reasons. Michael Eisner After stepping down, the Disney Group quickly revived. Whether it is in terms of scale or profitability, it will be far behind the giants such as Time Warner and News Corporation, 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 period of the fastest 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 trouble for a while, Eric can easily raise enough funds from other channels to resolve Firefly's crisis. Crisis, not to mention, the possibility of such a thing happening is not high.
from last year. Eric has repeatedly asked for the expansion of 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 the world. As a last resort, Eric can only adopt the internal training mechanism. While expanding the scale of Pixar, Disney's hand-drawn animation department also stopped recruiting and training hand-drawn animators, and gradually tried to transform towards computer animation.
While maintaining close ties with Katzenberg in New York, Eric has recently been focusing on his animation department. To this end, he personally took the lead in organizing the exchange meeting between Pixar and Disney Animation.
The "Lion King" produced by Disney's animation department has been fully completed, and the preliminary promotion has begun. In addition to "The Lion King", Disney Animation also has several animation sequel projects including "Aladdin's Magic Lamp 2". Because the production cycle of retracted animation is longer than that of 3D animation, these projects have been finalized before Firefly Pictures acquired Disney, but apart from these, Eric has no longer approved new hand-drawn animation film projects, and he said without hesitation He said that if Disney's existing hand-drawn animators are unwilling to receive training in computer animation production, after all hand-drawn animation film projects in hand are completed, these people will only be able to produce low-cost animation projects for Disney Children's Channel in the future.
Most of Disney's hand-drawn animators are not too old, 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 rebound of hundreds of hand-drawn animators, Eric also promised to give these people sufficient time to learn and adapt, and fully bear the expenses required during the training period.
The Pixar staff who participated in the exchange meeting came out of the Disney Animation Studios headquarters in Burbank one after another, and John Lasseter, who walked side by side with Eric at the front, said: "Eric, although no one has made it public just now. Rebuttal, but I feel like a lot of people in the studio are still very resistant to this transition. Maybe you're going to have a little trouble."
Of course, Eric is also very aware of this point. Disney Animation Studio has more than 700 hand-drawn animators. Although more than 70% of them are in their 30s, some of them are even old people in 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 stand still. The reason why Eric did not come out to refute when he spoke just now. The main reason is that the various advantages shown by Pixar 3D animation are almost overwhelming, and Eric's decision is also a bit sudden, many people have not been able to react, and no one will do it unprepared. This 'early bird'.
"They all understand the advantages of 3D animation over hand-drawn animation, whether it is "Toy Story" or "A Bug's Life" has proved these, so this transformation is inevitable." Eric and John Lasseter While walking, he said: "If this transformation cannot be completed, Firefly can only cut them off, and I have already done what I can. The existing hand-drawn animation projects in their hands can last at least two years. The time is right. It is very loose for them. If it is really abolished. I think they will definitely not be desperate, and major TV stations need a lot of hand-drawn animators to make children's cartoons."
John Lasseter, who had 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 either. It is not easy to achieve this level. If it is another company, if they are not optimistic about the prospects of hand-painted animation, they may directly announce layoffs, and they will never give employees such a relaxed time to adapt.
It's still early. Because of their busy schedules, John Lasseter and others did not intend to spend the night in Los Angeles. Eric also specially arranged for a commercial plane owned by Firefly Films to send the group back to San Francisco.
Eric originally planned to personally send John Lasseter and others to Santa Monica Airport, but he just arrived at the parking lot. Eric saw Elizabeth, wearing a toad mirror, get off a red BMW sedan, waved at 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 hesitated to speak, Eric had no choice but to give up the idea of sending John Lasseter and others. Fortunately, John Lasseter and others They didn't pay too much attention to these details, and after saying goodbye to Eric, they all got into the car and left.
After everyone left, Eric and Elizabeth walked up to the red BMW, smiled, reached out and knocked on the hood, and asked, "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 like you who never cares about others, it's not wrong to call it a new car."
Seeing no one around, Eric pinched Elizabeth's chin with his hand and said with a smile, "Don't you think you should put 'little paws' away if you ask me for something?"
Elizabeth snapped Eric's hand open, and said confidently, "We have completed the acquisition of Miramax."
It's time to get off work soon. Eric didn't want to be surrounded by people. He opened the door and sat in the red BMW. Smelling the faint feminine fragrance in the car, he asked Elizabeth who followed: "Oh, how much did it cost?"
Elizabeth started the car, slowly drove out of the parking lot, and said: "100 million dollars to buy 90% of Miramax's shares, and the Weinstein Brothers will 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 they leave, Miramax will not 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 backer, the profit-seeking brothers will not leave so easily."
Eric said: "The Weinstein brothers have suffered enough from the lack of funds and lack of channels in the past few years. Of course, they will be very happy to cooperate with 20th Century Fox in the first few years, but people are ambitious. Wait until you can't tolerate this. After the ambition for brothers, everyone will fall apart."
Elizabeth personally participated in the negotiations for the acquisition of Miramax, and of course she knew exactly what kind of people the brothers were: "If that's the case, just leave if you want, and Fox can't let them turn their backs on customers."
Eric watched Elizabeth turn the steering wheel onto the highway, and then remembered to ask, "Where are you taking me?"
Elizabeth said in a reassuring tone: "The company's senior management has decided to let the Weinstein brothers be the producers of "Braveheart" in person. This project is the first one you have set your sights on, so let's have dinner once and chat. .”
Eric was 'shocked' by Elizabeth's tone of course, and asked weakly: "Well, Firefly and Fox are competitors after all... Do I count it as an enemy?"
"Forget it!" Elizabeth nodded vigorously: "If you don't want to, that woman named Sophie Marceau can just go back and forth."
"Okay, count yourself as ruthless."
"snort… "
The meeting place was chosen at an exquisite French restaurant in Beverly Hills. Seeing Eric coming, the Weinstein brothers seemed very enthusiastic, while Mel Gibson seemed much colder. Eric could also feel that this guy was not If success loses its nature, it means that the emotional intelligence is too low. On the contrary, 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 the only manager of Mel Gibson since the early 1980s. He was Mel Gibson's agent until his death, and served as Mel Gibson's agent for more than 20 years. Ed Limato was 20 years older than Mel Gibson, and their relationship was like father and son. It’s just that I don’t have the exact date of Ed Limato’s death in my memory. If Ed Limato’s death coincides with Mel Gibson’s career downturn, what happened to Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise? It's just too much like it. At the same time, it proves once again how important a good broker is. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile phone users, please go to m. to read.) (To be continued.)