I’m in Hollywood - Chapter 431
[Chapter 428 Golden Umbrella]
Time came to five o’clock in the afternoon without knowing it. Outside the glass curtain wall of the city of freedom, the setting sun dyed the horizon where the sky and the sea meet a magnificent orange red. Eric and Chris were still in their original seats. It doesn’t seem to have moved all day.
It has been half a year since Eric made up his mind to buy Disney. In the past six months, in addition to secretly absorbing Disney stocks, Chris has also done a lot of detailed investigations on the entire Disney group, including Disney’s shareholders, Disney The creditors and the attitude of these people to Disney management, as well as the detailed information on the various assets of the Disney Group, these data investigations alone cost millions of dollars, and it can even be said that no one knows better than Chris these days. disney.
Throughout the day, Eric remained an audience member most of the time, asking his own questions from time to time.
Chris is always patient to answer Eric.
But when the sunset completely sank into the horizon, things were almost discussed, and Chris finally said: “”Cutthroat Island” has just been painted, because of the huge losses, now is the time when Disney shareholders and creditors are the most dissatisfied with the management. The best time for us to launch an acquisition, so we try to launch an acquisition offer after a week, we need a week to consolidate the Disney stock in our hands, and set up the acquisition team, by the way, I just forgot to mention this… Eric was holding a list
of
Disney’s upcoming movies in the second half of the year, raised his head and asked, “What?”
“I don’t have enough manpower to form a professional acquisition team, so I want to work with Morgan Stanley .”
You know. I still have some contacts at Morgan Stanley. And they have a ready-made M&A team. They can handle all acquisitions such as asset evaluation, legal affairs, price negotiation, etc.”
Eric said: “This No problem.”
Chris added: “Actually, I mean, you should have heard of it, Michael Ovitz led the caa team to help Panasonic acquire Universal, and finally got a commission of 70 million US dollars, Morgan Stanley’s The price will not be cheap.”
Eric said with a smile: “Everyone knows that the Japanese are fat sheep who came together to be slaughtered by themselves, but we are not. How much does it cost to hire a Morgan Stanley team?
” I estimate it to be $50 million. Once a hostile takeover is initiated, it will take at least half a year to complete the acquisition, and it is not impossible to delay it for a year or two,” Chris said, looking at Eric, waiting for his decision.
Although Disney’s current market value is only more than three billion US dollars, the amount involved in the final acquisition will not be less than five billion US dollars. Morgan Stanley is equivalent to taking a 1% commission from it. This ratio is very reasonable, because Eric I vaguely remember that these big investment banks assist shareholders of listed companies to sell stocks, but they charge a commission of more than 10%.
Thinking of this, Eric quickly made a decision.
Dao: “Then hire Morgan Stanley’s team. In addition. Tell the person in charge of Morgan Stanley that if they can complete the acquisition in half a year, I can increase the commission by 30% on the basis of the original commission. Rewards.”
For corporate mergers and acquisitions, the longer the delay, the greater the variables, and the higher the price. Many hostile takeover cases are finally resolved after a long delay, so Chris not only did not dissuade Ai Rick’s suggestion, on the contrary, showed admiration for Eric’s decisiveness: “I will pass this condition on to Morgan Stanley.”
In the next week, while Chris was secretly making the final deployment, Eric didn’t stay out of it either.
With the box office of “Toy Story” successfully breaking 100 million on the first release day in the third week, and the box office of “Terminator 2” rising steadily, professional box office statistics agencies have made two estimates for the total North American box office of the two films. With a valuation of US$100 million, there are two movies with a box office of more than 200 million in one summer file, which is enough to make all Hollywood film companies jealous.
Therefore, Firefly Films held a grand celebration party at Eric’s Sharp Manor. This was the third time that the Sharp Manor held a large-scale party, and it was uncharacteristically low-key. Eric not only invited a large number of Hollywood Celebrities and film company executives also allowed reporters from dozens of media to enter the party scene.
All this is done, no surprise, to create momentum for the next acquisition. The greater the influence of Firefly, the more favorable it will be for the next acquisition.
In just one week, not only the box office results of “Terminator 2” and “Toy Story” were hyped, but “Cutthroat Island” and Fox’s “Condor 2” were also shot again. Eric started Just like Sony and Panasonic, they intend to make a wholly-owned acquisition, and they are not prepared to replace the shares held by Disney shareholders with Firefly shares.
So this series of hype is not intended to make Disney investors have confidence in Firefly and sell their stocks. In many newspaper articles, Eric has been expressing a point of view, either explicitly or implicitly, if you do not sell , Disney will continue to have bad films such as “Cutthroat Island” or “Condor 2”, and will also be sniped by firefly blockbusters.
Of course, although many people were keenly aware of the smell of gunpowder, it was not until Firefly submitted a takeover offer to Disney that no one realized the meaning of Eric’s previous remarks.
On July 22, 1991, on Monday and the weekend, Michael Eisner did not take the slightest rest. Because of the box office fiasco of Cutthroat Island, he had been working hard to appease Disney’s shareholders and creditors for more than half a month.
Eric’s remarks on the so-called “Cut Throat Island” trilogy even made Michael Eisner itch with hatred. His short sentence made his situation worse, and a large number of shareholders accused Michael Eisner of giving up. Michael Eisner can’t say for the good cooperation relationship with Eric. Of course he wants to cooperate with Eric, but after the turmoil last year, it has been difficult for the two sides to cooperate again.
After having breakfast at the villa in Malibu, Michael Eisner did not intend to go to the Disney headquarters for office.
He has already bought a ticket and is going to visit Disney’s largest shareholder today.
Bass family in Texas.
Disney has grown to the present.
The Disney family that created the Disney brand has long ceased to be a major shareholder in Disney.
At present, the Disney Family Foundation only owns about 3% of Disney’s stock, while the Bass family, who made their fortune through oil, successively acquired 16% of Disney’s equity in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming Disney’s largest shareholder.
In 1984, it was with the support of the Bass family and the head of the Disney family, Roy Disney, that he was able to sit at Disney.
The driver drove Michael Eisner to Los Angeles airport, where a small private jet was ready to stop, which was one of the perks of Michael Eisner’s role as Disney chairman.
After the plane took off, Michael Eisner explained a few words to the assistant.
He just planned to go to the lounge to rest for a while. These days, he was exhausted physically and mentally to cope with the box office fiasco of “Cutthroat Island”.
Not long after falling asleep, there was a knock on the door of the cabin lounge, and the assistant’s voice was a little hurried: “Mr. Eisner, Mr. Eisner, Mr. Wells is in a hurry.
” Eisner frowned and got up and walked out of the lounge. The assistant looked at Michael Eisner’s gloomy expression, handed over the receiver of the cordless phone, and explained softly, “I said you were resting. But Mr. Wells said I’m in a hurry.”
Michael Eisner nodded expressionlessly and took the phone.
He closed the lounge door, turned around and walked to the sofa to pour red wine for himself, and asked, “Frank, what’s the matter?”
“…”
Frank Wells, the Disney president on the other end of the phone, said in a hurried tone. It took more than a minute for Michael Eisner to realize that the red wine in the goblet had already overflowed, but Michael Eisner had no time to care about it anymore, and put the empty red wine bottle away. On the table, he hung up the phone and walked out of the lounge. He shouted to the assistant, “Nick, notify the captain, and return to Los Angeles as soon as the plane lands.”
Near noon, Michael Eisner finally returned to Disney headquarters and received a notification. The Disney board members were already waiting in the conference room ahead of time.
Sitting at the head of the conference table, Michael Eisner read the acquisition proposal submitted by Firefly in detail without a word, scolded lowly, and then asked Frank Wells, “Frank, are you sure this is not the case? Is it a joke, where did Firefly get the funds to buy Disney, how can they have so much money?”
Looking at Michael Eisner, who was excited and might jump up at any time, Frank Wells explained patiently: “I have personally Call Eric Williams to confirm it.”
“I was asking where did they get the money?” Michael Eisner’s voice had turned into a growl.
Frank Wells shook his head. Michael Eisner was about to continue his attack when a director sitting at the bottom suddenly asked tentatively, “Could it be the previous oil crisis?”
Michael Eisner was stunned, Lenovo said By the various actions of Eric in July and August last year, he quickly confirmed this. It
has been almost a year since
Eric raised a full $700 million in funds .
Everyone thought that Eric didn’t make much money that time, but seeing the acquisition offer in front of him, Michael Eisner realized that everyone had been deceived by Eric.
With an embarrassed clenched fist, Michael Eisner raised his head and said, “Now, let’s talk about what to do, if the acquisition of Eric Williams is successful, then all of us here may be We have to pack up and get out. So, we must not let him succeed.” The
conference room soon erupted into discussions, and the 16 directors of Disney were either friends with Michael Eisner or Disney’s former director. Employees, because of Michael Eisner’s monopoly, the power of these people has been greatly weakened, but these directors don’t care about this. Anyway, if Disney makes a major decision-making mistake, it must be Michael Eisner himself. Take the blame, like Cutthroat Island.
Therefore, no one will be dissatisfied with this kind of non-responsible, high-paying work, so they do not want to lose their jobs because of the acquisition.
“The most important thing now is to stabilize shareholders. As long as they stand with us, it is unlikely that Firefly wants to buy Disney.
” Very good.”
“Don’t forget that there are also creditors. We just discussed the plan to postpone the payment of the principal and interest of the due creditor’s rights last week. Now this plan must not be taken out again, otherwise the creditors will definitely put pressure on us. After all, The performance of Firefly is very good.”
“Firefly has already held 11% of the shares, which is a big trouble.”
“…”
“…” The
meeting room was buzzing for five minutes. Michael Eisner did not hear any useful advice from these people, which made him very angry, even ignoring that this situation was originally caused by him. In order to consolidate his own rights, Disney’s board of directors is of course mediocre. The more the better.
Ignoring the nonsense of these people, Michael Eisner said to the assistant: “Call all management to a meeting, and let the legal department send a letter to Firefly, we refuse the acquisition.”
“Mr. Eisner, according to the process, we should Disclose this matter to shareholders,” the assistant reminded softly.
Michael Eisner glared at the assistant dissatisfied: “You just need to do what you need to do.” The
assistant answered with a guilty conscience and left silently.
Michael Eisner patted the table, and UU Reading www.sonicmtl.com asked everyone to stop the discussion before saying, “Okay, stop arguing, wait for the management to come and discuss.” A
group of directors fell silent. down.
On the day Firefly submitted the takeover offer to the Disney board, the Disney board made a decision to reject the takeover and selectively disclosed some of Firefly’s takeover plans to shareholders, accompanied by Michael Eisner’s remarks Sincerely handwritten letter.
While disclosing the takeover offer to shareholders, Disney’s board of directors, in just three days, passed its first countermeasure, a golden parachute, to protect the interests of all Disney executives.
While disclosing the takeover offer to shareholders, Disney’s board of directors, in just three days, passed its first countermeasure, a golden parachute, to protect the interests of all Disney executives.
While disclosing the takeover offer to shareholders, Disney’s board of directors, in just three days, passed its first countermeasure, a golden parachute, to protect the interests of all Disney executives.
(To be continued..)
…
[End of this Chapter]
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