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After returning from Universal with no success, Ron Perelman had another rejection at Warner, because Warner CEO Terry Semel was already in trouble and had no time to deal with Ron Perelman.
Relying on the successive box office explosions of many big-budget films, the total box office of the 14-week North American summer season in 1994 is expected to exceed the $2 billion mark for the first time. In addition to the extremely dazzling Firefly Pictures, Universal, Paramount, and even MGM, which has been silent for many years, have achieved a good "harvest" in this summer. Only a few years ago, it was still firmly in the first place in market share. Warner's performance can only be described as dismal.
On May 20th, the western film "Ma Huali", which opened the door for the summer vacation, has a good reputation, but because of the strong competition from blockbusters such as "The Mummy", "Saving Private Ryan" and "True Lies" in the later stage Under pressure, the original box office expectation of 100 million U.S. dollars ended up with less than 60 million U.S. dollars. Immediately afterwards, another western film "Law Enforcement", which cost a lot of money, ended dismal with a total box office of 25 million US dollars. Although the box office of "The Ultimate Witness" released at the end of July is expected to break through the 100 million US dollar mark, the entire summer file, Time Warner's cumulative box office is less than 200 million US dollars, and its market share will drop below 10% for the first time, and even its summer market share will drop below 20% for the first time in the past five years.
Faced with such a serious decline in performance, Terry Semel, who had just taken the throne of Time Warner CEO, faced joint criticism from shareholders and the board of directors in an instant. In this case, although Time Warner has enough strength to snatch Marvel from Firefly, Terry Semel, who has become very cautious in order to keep his position, dare not mix with Marvel, which requires hundreds of millions The mess that can only be settled with real money in dollars.
Subsequently, Ron Perelman's request to meet with Paramount CEO Shirley Lansing did not receive a response. Three days passed quickly, when Ron Perelman was anxiously considering whether to return to New York When the base camp was looking for support or to test whether the major film companies closely related to Firefly were interested in cooperating, a phone call came from Viacom Group CEO Summer Redstone himself, and again to Ron Perelman brings hope.
Paramount headquarters on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.
Ron Perelman met Summer Redstone and Paramount CEO Shirley Lansing at the same time in an office.
After exchanging pleasantries, he sat down on the sofa in the reception area. Before Ron Perelman had time to deliver his prepared speech. Summer Redstone said bluntly: "Ron, I have learned about recent events in detail. You hope to obtain the position of director of Firefly Group as a creditor, but you are in trouble because of Marvel's debt problems. Paramount It can help you solve this trouble. Everyone gets what they need, what do you think?"
Ron Perelman, who was still somewhat smug, suddenly had a bad feeling in his heart. After Firefly expressed his interest in Marvel, Ron Perelman had already changed his original plan and wanted to rely on Creditors and Marvel owners have two chips. At the same time, he obtained the dual status of director and shareholder of Firefly Group.
But right now, it seems that these powerful potential 'collaborators' are only willing to give him a choice.
Sure enough, without waiting for Ron Perelman to answer, Summer Redstone said again: "Paramount can buy Marvel and assume all of Marvel's debts, and then you can fight for it without any burden." What do you want, what do you think?"
After hitting the wall twice in a row, Ron Perelman gradually realized some facts.
Since he was able to build a net worth of one billion dollars from scratch on Wall Street, Ron Perelman certainly does not lack the decisive side of a successful person, so he quickly weighed it. Ron Perelman found that giving up the burden of Marvel made Firefly no longer have the bargaining chip to threaten him, and with the support of the Firefly creditor alliance and the Disney animation department in his hand, he still had a high chance of getting the position of Firefly's director.
Almost a fool can figure out how to choose between the board seat of the number one media group in North America and even the world and the major shareholder of a comic company that is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Ron Perelman quickly made a decision and said, "Mr. Redstone, I wonder how much Paramount intends to bid?"
Summer Thunderstone said: "One hundred million dollars. [ㄨ]"
Ron Perelman almost jumped up when he heard this offer.
$100 million. Are you kidding
When Ron Perelman bought Marvel six years ago, he spent 80 million. In the past few years, in order to give investors the illusion of Marvel’s rapid expansion in order to issue bonds, Marvel has successively acquired several companies. Animation companies and toy companies. These expenditures add up to well over $100 million.
Although Marvel is now facing the dilemma of continuous stock price decline and debt crisis, the actual net asset value is still more than 100 million US dollars.
The price Summer Redstone offered was almost like robbery.
Forcibly suppressing the urge to slam the door away, Ron Perelman said in a trembling tone: "Mr. Lei Shidong, don't you think this price seems a bit insincere?"
Redstone didn't seem to notice the change in Ron Perelman's expression, and said with a strong attitude: "This price is very reasonable, although Marvel's current face value is indeed higher than this. But Viacom bought After Marvel, once Marvel does not show its due value, Viacom will have to assume more than $500 million in additional debt, which is a very risky business."
Ron Perelman retorted: "Eric Williams has spent nearly $500 million in cash to get Marvel. Doesn't this explain the value of Marvel?"
Lei Shidong sneered: "I only know that once Firefly controls Marvel, you will have to spit out the debt financing you swallowed from Marvel, and you will also face investigations by the SEC (Federal Securities and Exchange Commission). Wei sold to Viacom, I can promise not to pursue this matter."
Ron Perelman fell silent. He was most worried about this matter. The SEC has the same "bad problem" as the IRS. Once it investigates a company's problems in a certain transaction, it will I will investigate all previous similar transactions of this company. Now that Andrews Holdings was able to use Marvel's means to skillfully extract hundreds of millions of dollars in funds, one can imagine the inside story of those previous transactions. After all, it would be impossible for Ron Perelman to obtain the current rich net worth without using these shady side effects.
A few minutes later, Ron Perelman said, "I need to think about it."
Redstone nodded. Dao: "Of course no problem, Viacom has enough patience, but your opponents are big companies such as Firefly Group, Berkshire Hathaway, and State Street Global Fund, and they will not give you too much time. "
Ron Perelman replied coldly: "I don't need Mr. Redstone to remind me of these."
Leaving Paramount's office building. Standing in the bright sunshine of Los Angeles in the morning of August, Ron Perelman felt a slight chill all over his body. He suddenly missed Wall Street in the 1980s. At that time, Drexel Securities was still in full swing, and malicious mergers and acquisitions were in full swing. He could obtain inexhaustible funds by issuing junk bonds to conquer cities. But all of this disappeared with a stock market crash in the late 1980s. Drexel Securities has collapsed, the junk bond market has shrunk, and his rapidly expanding business has come to an abrupt end. Back then, even the heads of super-big companies were afraid to hear his name, but now they have to be repeatedly criticized by these hateful Hollywood cowards ignore or mock.
Recalling the golden age of the past, Ron Perelman soon decided to return to New York and Wall Street. Perhaps Wall Street is more greedy than these Hollywood mobsters, but at least it is his territory. On his stage, he can also use the rules more skillfully.
In Paramount's office building, standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the office and watching Ron Perelman leave in a hurry, Shirley Lansing couldn't help asking Redstone next to him: "Do you think he will sell Marvel?" Give it to us?"
Looking at the luxury car downstairs, Lei Shidong said, "It's hard to say, but if it can be taken down, it will play a very important role in the next step of Viacom's development."
Shirley Lansing nodded slightly in agreement, and Viacom held a meeting specifically on Marvel.
The current structure of Marvel is like a miniature Disney. Although it is very small, the system includes various departments such as film, television, music, comics and toy peripherals that a comprehensive entertainment company needs. Of course, Viacom doesn't like Marvel Entertainment's film and television departments that are completely ineffective. What they need is still the superhero copyright in the hands of Marvel, but at the same time there is a toy company in the hands of Marvel. The hundreds of millions of dollars of stable profits brought by the Disney peripheral store in the hands of Firefly are almost the covetousness of any Hollywood film company. Several other major film companies have never stopped trying to enter this business, and Viacom is of course no exception, since it acquired the Blockbuster video chain store. Viacom executives came up with the idea of using Blockbuster's retail distribution system to develop Paramount Pictures' movie merchandise.
But when the hardware conditions were met, Viacom found that Paramount didn't have many high-quality movies that could be used to develop peripherals, such as "Jurassic Park" and "Jurassic Park" that made Firefly a lot of money in recent years "Toy Story" has not even a single film with rich peripherals that can be developed.
So when the recent firefly buzz brought Marvel Entertainment to Hollywood's radar, Viacom executives immediately saw Marvel's potential. Marvel's popular comic book characters and its toy company can provide rich content for Viacom's merchandising program. Moreover, if it can use Marvel's superheroes to develop several movie series comparable to Warner's "Batman", then Viacom can easily open up the entire industry chain from movies to toys.
Lei Shidong stood silently for a while, then asked suddenly: "Xue Li, have you seen clearly what that little guy is doing recently?"
Shirley Lansing shook her head: "If it were me, I would definitely try to stabilize Disney's animation department, and then deal with the pressure from creditors. Firefly just merged with ABC, and it can still maintain a net profit of 657 million US dollars in the first half of the year." Profit. Looking at the future, more than half of the summer, autumn TV series, and movie New Year’s files are concentrated in the second half of the year, and the popular summer movies will bring explosive revenue in the video tapes and peripheral markets at the end of the year. In the second half of the year, Firefly The profits of the group will be more substantial. With such confidence, as long as Firefly can stabilize the Disney animation department, it doesn't have to worry about the pressure from creditors at all, but Eric Williams didn't do that at all, giving people the feeling of... "
Redstone followed Shirley Lansing's words and said, "It's like he doesn't care about Disney's animation department at all, does he?"
Shirley Lansing nodded: "Although we all know that Firefly originally planned to switch Disney animation to 3D animation production, after "The Lion King", I believe anyone with a little sense will not continue to stick to the original strategy. "
Lei Shidong said: "If that little guy really doesn't care, we can snatch the Disney animation department over."
"I've had Peter try to do that, and I'm sure several others have tried poaching," Shirley Lansing replied. , obviously, the Disney platform is more suitable for them.”
"And now, that little guy suddenly pointed the finger at Marvel again," Lei Shidong narrowed his eyes, and a thought suddenly came to his mind: "Shirley, why don't we make the boldest hypothesis..."
Shirley Lansing looked suspiciously at the old man beside her.
Lei Shidong hesitated for a moment, then continued: "Assuming that little guy still doesn't care about the Disney animation department, what do you think he will do next?"
"This assumption is very unreasonable. No one in Hollywood would not care about an animation department that can produce a movie with a profit of 1 billion dollars." Shirley Lansing retorted subconsciously, but then said: "If this is the case, Firefly Next, it is very likely that we will abandon the transformation of the Disney animation department and directly lay off the entire department."
Lei Shidong's squinted eyes suddenly opened, and said: "Xue Li, contact the group finance immediately, I want to know how much cash flow Viacom has available now."
Shirley Lansing understood Redstone's intentions in an instant. If the very unreasonable assumption just now came true, no matter what reason Firefly abolished the Disney animation department, Viacom would have enough Reason is to win it over at all costs, and a full-fledged animation department will definitely do far more to Viacom's peripheral plans than a Marvel mess that hasn't shown any potential yet. (To be continued.)