For the acquisition of MGM, Huahua Pictures' initial offer was US$1.5 billion, but Credit Lyonnais hoped that its shares could be sold for US$1.8 billion. Crédit Lyonnais has already made up its mind to completely get rid of Hollywood. After the transaction is over, there will be no interest disputes with Hollywood. Therefore, the main point of negotiation between the two parties has always been the final transaction price.
The two sides started negotiating from the beginning of June until the end of July. The reason why they failed to reach an agreement was mainly because Lyon Credit Bank was waiting for the box office results of "Golden Eye 007". This film has Eric's participation. The box office of the film is still very much expected. However, although "007: GoldenEye" received unanimous praise after its release, the box office did not show a big trend, especially compared with "Night at the Museum", which made Lyon Crédit Bank less confident.
After the box office of "007: Golden Eye" was released in the first weekend, both parties took a step back and reached a final intention of 1.6 billion US dollars. Of course, after the transaction is completed, Huahua Pictures will assume the 1.7 billion US dollars of debt left by MGM, the entire transaction amount to $3.3 billion.
The day after the deal was finalized, an interesting cartoon appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.
A giant anthropomorphic firefly with a small flower on its head, like the Tyrannosaurus rex in "Jurassic Park 2", waded across the street with the 'd' sign, and the collapsed buildings on both sides of the street hung It bears the eye-catching trademarks of companies such as Warner Paramount Universal Columbia.
Underneath this cartoon, the Los Angeles Times gave the arrogant title "Firefly Invasion of Hollywood".
"Seven years ago, "Home Alone" turned out. With a super low cost of 1 million US dollars, it earned more than 500 million US dollars at the box office worldwide, and the whole Hollywood looked at it."
"But perhaps no one would have thought of it. Today, seven years later, the young man who created "Home Alone" back then established his own media empire at an astonishing speed. At the same time, the territory of this emerging empire is almost visible to the naked eye. Crazy expansion at a fast speed. After continuously annexing the new line of Disney ABC, this firefly, which seems to never be, has 'planted' a dazzling flower outside its own system."
"Before the acquisition of MGM, we can see that at the end of last year, Huahua Pictures launched the first film "Mission: Impossible" at a cost of 70 million U.S. dollars. It won nearly 500 million U.S. dollars worldwide. Outstanding results."
"This summer, the two films "Forrest Gump" and "Night at the Museum" produced by Flower Films have so far received US$190 million and US$130 million in North American box office respectively, although the box office of the two films The potential is far more than that, but from the opening of the summer season on May 26 to the present, the total box office of the North American summer season has passed 1.68 billion U.S. dollars in the past ten weeks, and Huahua Pictures, a newborn beast, has already been in the market without knowing it. Juezhong swallowed up 19% of the market share."
"If we look a little wider, we can find that the three films "Jurassic Park 2", "Independence Day" and "Toy Story 2" released by the Firefly Group have also accumulated a domestic box office of 690 million US dollars. The box office potential of the film has not been fully exploited either. However, the combined box office of the two companies has already accounted for 61% of the box office of the entire ten weeks of the summer, leaving only less than 40% of the market share for all other Hollywood counterparts. It is amazing. "
"It is not difficult to imagine that when Eric Williams personally cultivated this flower to complete the merger and integration of MGM DreamWorks, with the "Mission: Impossible" series, "007" series, and "Charlie's Angels" series A large number of lucrative film projects such as the "Night at the Museum" series and the "Resident Evil" series, at least, it will soon reach the level of the Firefly Group in the film business. We can almost see that in the next few years, other Hollywood Dismal situation for film companies."
Although the article in the "Los Angeles Times" was slightly exaggerated, it still attracted the attention of many people.
The seven major Hollywood film companies all have their own film production and distribution systems. and. Many resources are unique to these film companies, such as Paramount's theater resources. so. Firefly and Flower Pictures want to completely monopolize the entire Hollywood film market, unless they eat up all the seven major film companies. Otherwise, it is absolutely impossible to achieve such an astonishing market share every year. The reason why the two film companies won 60% of the market share this year, in the eyes of many people, can only be attributed to luck. The luck of Firefly and Flower Pictures is too good, while the luck of Warner and other companies is too bad. A box office hit emerges.
However, even so, the move of Huahua Pictures to acquire MGM has aroused the vigilance of several other major film companies. The high-level executives of Warner Universal, Paramount, and Columbia companies all understand that the best way to prevent the expansion of Huahua Pictures is to disrupt this transaction at all costs.
However, the wish is beautiful, but the reality is that none of the other major companies are willing to be this early bird.
After all, if you want to disrupt this transaction, you will not only need to pay a high price, but you will also completely offend Firefly to death. Although everyone knows that this is "sacrificing the present to invest in the future", Hollywood executives who have the courage to sacrifice the present , but none.
As for union, forget it. When several companies with different ideas agree on the terms of the union, perhaps Huahua Pictures has grown into a towering tree.
Although in private, some people use their resources to play some tricks, intending to make Huahua Pictures pay more even if they can't stop the acquisition, but these tricks are often easily resolved by the other party. After all, in this capitalist society, capital is the ultimate power, and Firefly is now undoubtedly the media group with the strongest capital in Hollywood.
Los Angeles.
In Drew's Beverly mansion, the girl stood by the hanger full of little dresses in the living room and changed her clothes, her little mouth kept chattering: "I really don't know what they think, they even asked people to check on me Ha, this method has long been outdated. My tax bill is even whiter than Natasha. How can I find any problems. Humph. If you let me know who did it behind it, I will definitely teach you a lesson. He has a meal."
It was already the end of July, and Huahua Films was in the previous two weeks. Acquisition agreements have been signed with Crédit Lyonnais and DreamWorks Productions. The MGM shares in the hands of Lyon Credit Bank are purchased in cash, and under the strong promotion of Eric. The acquisition of DreamWorks adopted the method of cash and stock, and the transaction price was one billion US dollars. Vivendi, which had previously participated in the acquisition of MGM, invested 300 million yuan and obtained 30% of the shares of DreamWorks in the hands of Firefly. Other European shareholders of DreamWorks The shares held were then converted into equity in the combined company.
After the integration is completed, in order to facilitate equity operations, the new company will still be dominated by MGM Group, Huahua Pictures and DreamWorks, as well as United Artists, which owns the copyright of 007, will be in the next few months. Gradually integrated into the production department of MGM, MGM's label will be mainly used for film distribution in the future.
The new MGM Group, Drew as the largest shareholder, personally holds 40% of the shares, Vivendi Group holds 20% of the shares, Ltd Group holds 10%, DreamWorks original European shareholders hold 18%, and the remaining 12% are outstanding shares.
Eric sat on the sofa in the living room, waiting for Drew to change, and then rushed to the first press conference of the new MGM together.
Eric listened to Drew's chatter with a smile on the corner of his mouth. Flipping through the balance sheet of the new company.
After the integration, in Eric's view, a brand new MGM. The most valuable thing is undoubtedly the copyrights of those blockbuster films, in addition to that, it is MGM's huge film library.
Although MGM lost its film copyrights before 1948 in the deal between Kerkorian and Ted Turner in the 1980s, the remaining film library after 1948 still has more than 4,000 film and television dramas. It is also one of the best in the entire Hollywood. In the original time and space, in order to win the MGM film library to promote its own high-definition Blu-ray format, Sony took advantage of it again in 2004. For this reason, 5 billion U.S. dollars was spent, which shows the gold content of MGM's film library.
only. Over the years, MGM has been struggling in a predicament, and does not have enough energy to realize these film library resources. It has to be said that it is a pity that it can only carry out extensive authorization to external video tape distributors and cable TV stations. Now that he has accepted this resource, Eric will certainly not let this situation continue.
Eric was thinking about how to manage MGM's huge film library resources, and he couldn't help but look up when he heard the girl say that his tax bill was even whiter than Natasha's. The twins were wearing simple black T-shirts She washed the jeans with water, and quietly helped Drew pick up the clothes, revealing her face and arms with the astonishing whiteness unique to Slavic beauties.
Noticing Eric's eyes, Drew grinned and said, "Eric, they are whiter when they don't wear clothes."
Following Drew's words, the twins blushed slightly on their cheeks, and glanced at Eric with some embarrassment.
Eric smiled, and turned his gaze to Drew's small body, which was only wearing underwear. Although it has passed her twentieth birthday, the girl's figure has hardly changed over the years because of quitting those bad habits at the beginning. A small man of 1.63 meters, with smooth white and tender skin, petite with sensuality, full of temptation.
Feeling Eric's eyes on her, the girl threw a small look at Eric, hinting: "Eric, there is still time now."
"Hurry up and change your clothes, don't dawdle any longer, we must arrive earlier."
"That's in the car."
"Don't make trouble."
"hehe… "
"Speaking of a serious matter," Eric said with a serious expression, "Although your financial situation is fine, your holdings in the new company are always too conspicuous. I plan to issue another 20% of the shares in MGM Well, it's about 70 million shares. With the current stock price, we can raise about 1 billion US dollars of funds. At that time, the combined holdings of you and ltd will still remain at about 40%. We will not lose our interest in the company. It can also allow the company to have more abundant funds for the development of the company in the next few years, what do you think?"
The girl finally chose a little pink dress, and after putting it on, she rushed over like a butterfly, rubbed against Eric, and said softly: "Eric, you don't have to ask me about these things at all, my Everything is yours, you decide."
"Oh, actually, I'm not very good at making decisions for others," Eric said, putting his arms around the girl's waist.
"But I'm not someone else, Eric. Without you, I might be dead by now."
Eric felt the small body attached to his body, and joked: "Um, this line is getting more and more like a soap opera, oops, neck, don't tighten it too much, I don't have your name in my will."
"Well, I'll die with you."
"Is this the second episode of the soap opera?"
"Wow, I'm serious."
"Okay, okay, time is up, let's go there quickly."
MGM's headquarters is located in Century City. Although the original studio was sold by Kerkorian in the 1980s, MGM's headquarters building is still preserved. As a veteran film company established for more than half a century, although it has been It began to decline, but the headquarters building is still much more magnificent than the office building of Flower Pictures in Venice Beach.
Flower Pictures and DreamWorks have not yet moved their offices here, but the press conference is still arranged in one of the most spacious conference halls in the MGM headquarters.
When Eric and Drew arrived at the MGM headquarters by car, the square outside the building was already crowded with reporters. They noticed their cars and flocked up. The company's security team also quickly cleared the way for the two.
"Mr. Williams, may Firefly acquire MGM in the future?"
"Eric, Drew, do you plan to get married?"
"Eric, why did you completely separate MGM from the Firefly system? Is it because of monopoly restrictions?"
"Will MGM expand like Firefly?"
"Eric, how are you going to settle MGM's debt?"
Amidst the dazzling flashing lights and frantic questions from reporters, Eric put his arms around the girl's waist, and under the protection of security guards, he struggled through the crowd and disappeared into the building.
Entering the building, Amy Pascal, Frank Macasso and other company executives, as well as some superstars who are about to participate in the press conference, greeted them one after another. Under Eric's order, the executives of Firefly Group did not Did not attend this conference.
After greeting everyone, everyone came to the conference site together. At this time, the staff is still doing some final equipment debugging. A small stage was installed in the conference hall of more than 200 square meters, and the background of the stage was the posters of the company's series of movies such as "007", "Charlie's Angels", and "Night at the Museum". (To be continued.)>