I’m in Hollywood Chapter 583: You come and go
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Chapter 583
Before Christmas, exactly two weeks before the North America statutory holiday of December 20, Eric only left Eath Hampton once, mainly to participate in the premiere of Quentin Tarantino "Pulp Fiction" at New York.
As Quentin's work that established his status as Hollywood ghost talent Director, "Pulp Fiction" has already attracted one-sided praise in the North America film critics' screening stage. After the release, it caused a strong response among fans.
Although Firefly Pictures Because considering " Pulp Fiction "Subject matter limitation, only gave the film 1300 premiere screens, but" Pulp Fiction 》 First week Box Office Close to 17 million USD To single hall Box Office More than 13000 USD 'S score easily exceeded 10,000 in a single library USD 'S big-selling movie standard, even more than other Christmas stalls Film Studio The main comedy movie. And on December 23 United States Film and Television Golden Globe Award After the nomination was announced, six items were obtained Golden Globe Award Nominated " Pulp Fiction "the second week Box Office Not falling but rising, reached 21 million USD . And
Because Hollywood superstar, such as Bruce Willis and John Travolta, a series of stars in "Pulp Fiction" starred for the reputation created by Quentin "Reservoir Dogs", the cost of "Pulp Fiction" is less than 10 million USD, although Firefly is to make "Pulp Fiction" become The popular movie in the award season has invested more than 10 million USD in announcement, but the two-week Box Office score of "Pulp Fiction" has allowed Firefly to recover all costs while achieving partial profit.
"Interview with the Vampire", which was released a week after "Pulp Fiction", also achieved brilliant Box Office results. The Box Office results of 4more than 7 million USD in the first week once again proved that Tom Cruise ’s Box Office appeal is still good.
It ’s just that after the release of "Interview with the Vampire", Amy Pascal, who had been negotiating with Cruise on the actor of "Mission: Impossible", unfortunately called Eath Hampton, saying that Tom Cruise finally refused to cooperate with Flower Films, and was recently received by Paramount Pictures CEOSherry Lansing personally solicited and took Cruise/Wagner Productions once again to the old club Paramount.
Because of the Hollywood tough guy movie trend led by Stallone and Schwarzenegger in the 1980s, Hollywood may lack other types of stars in the 1990s, but there is no shortage of action stars. Eric can randomly think of a series of cafes that are comparable to Cruise and are very suitable for the candidates of "Mission: Impossible" actor, Kevin Costner, Liam Neeson, Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, etc. So for the rejection of Cruise. Eric didn't have much emotion, but just ordered Amy Pascal to contact other stars at will. The only curious thing about Eric is the strength of Redstone's violent old man. This time, the two sides can cooperate for several years. Moreover, without "Mission: Impossible", the ace series that made Paramount want to stop, once Cruise and Paramount were frozen again, Eric was also very curious about whether Cruise could make a comeback.
Of course, this curiosity was soon lost by Eric. While enjoying the lively and warm Christmas with women and children, various news came from Los Angeles without interruption.
Warren Buffett stayed in Los Angeles until December 27th, during which it held many negotiations with Katzenberg, and the two parties still did not reach any agreement. Although Buffett made some concessions, the conditions for the offer were still difficult to accept. On the day of December 27, Eric also deliberately talked with Los Angeles's Buffett over the phone for two hours at Eath Hampton. At this time, Buffett still insisted on replacing 70% of ABC's equity with Firefly Pictures, but Firefly needed The proportion of equity paid was reduced to 40%. According to the market value of ABCTV Network at this time, it is equivalent to exchange 7billion USD for 40% of the shares of Firefly Pictures. Eric is of course impossible to accept, and the two parties have no intention of further discussion. Buffett returned to Omaha on the same day, and Firefly Pictures began to officially prepare for public acquisitions. .
The New Year ’s holiday has just passed, and Chris, which has been preparing for several months, officially entered the LTDBoard of Directors with the shares of LTD in its hands, and publicly initiated the acquisition of LTD with Brighton Fashion Company as the main body.
Although the CEOLeslie Wexner of LTD has realized the abnormality of LTD's stock price a few years ago, Chris has been very careful in the whole process. It wasn't until the news became public that Leslie Wexner realized the seriousness of the matter. At this time, Chris already owned 12% of the LTD company's shares, and unconsciously has become the second largest shareholder outside Leslie Wexner. Although it is still far away from the 35% shareholding of Leslie Wexner, Leslie Wexner is very clear that once Chris successfully enters LTDBoard of Directors and attracts other shareholders to join his camp, then Leslie Wexner is likely to lose control of LTD.
Therefore, Leslie Wexner immediately launched the poison pill program. It is publicly claimed that if the shareholding of Chris exceeds 15%, LTD will issue more shares to major shareholders at a price much lower than the public share price to dilute the shares in Chris.
The prepared Chris counterattacked immediately. Brighton Fashion Company ’s lawyer representatives said at the press conference that Leslie Wexner ’s actions undermined the majority of shareholders ’freedom to say whether to sell the company ’s shares. The "barbaric plunder" of other LTD shareholders, therefore, requires federal regulators to stop the behavior of LTD management.
Leslie Wexner, while berating the Brighton Fashion Company and Firefly investments for malicious acquisitions, decided to hold an extraordinary shareholders meeting on LTDHeadquarters on January 20 to allow shareholders ’representatives to freely vote on whether to start the poison pill program.
But then, Brighton Fashion Company and Firefly invested in the well-known Finance and Economics magazine "Business Weekly" published the company's detailed development plan after the completion of the acquisition of LTD, saying that its own acquisitions are normal commercial mergers and acquisitions, rather than malicious acquisitions.
After Chris submitted a series of materials prepared in advance to the SEC, the SEC announced that the LTD ’s "Poison Pill Plan" would be invalidated even if the LTD ’s "Poison Pill Plan" was passed before the LTD ’s extraordinary general meeting.
Subsequently, Chris, as a joint representative of Brighton Fashion Company and Firefly investment, first proposed the purchase price of 19USD per share to LTD, and colleagues who published Brighton Fashion Company ’s annual financial report last year announced a series of acquisitions Financing plan.
And Leslie Wexner simply quoted a high price of 35USD per share. More than twice the stock price of LTD. This quote was released, and Leslie Wexner was immediately evaluated by a commercial magazine as ‘lost of reason’.
For a time, the two sides of the acquisition and the acquired are coming and going. There are so many dramas.
Although this business has not been too big in the past two years of mergers and acquisitions, but since the king of junk bonds Michael Milken was imprisoned, and the corporate sniper Ron Perelman put his minions down, this is the first time in Wall Street. A large-scale leveraged buyout case, because it is not clear how many chips Firefly investment and Brighton Fashion Company have in private, some people even compare it to another Revlon acquisition. Years ago. Ron Perelman annexed Revlon with a market value of 1billion USD with 150 million funds.
In order to cooperate with the Firefly Pictures plan, Eric chose to attend the Golden Globe Award awards ceremony this year, so he returned to Los Angeles in mid-January, but Eric is like many people, always paying attention to the series of Chris and Leslie Wexner Although the trick is layman, Eric is also clearly aware that Leslie Wexner has fallen.
It is just that Firefly Pictures is also making intensive preparations for the public acquisition of ABC. Eric doesn't have much thought to think about these things.
After the end of the New Year ’s holiday, Firefly Pictures released the company ’s 1994 film list for the first time. In addition to the main movies such as “Saving Private Ryan”, “The Lion King”, and “True Lies”, it also included some classic horror films under the brand of New Line. Restart. At the same time, the TV series department of Firefly Pictures officially announced that after the fifth season of 《Friends》, Firefly Pictures will cancel the contract with Fox TV Network. While continuing to produce 《Friends》 colleagues, Firefly TV series department will develop several other TV series and Reality Show to 'expand its own TV Network business '.
Although the window paper was not pierced openly. But at this time, the entire North America people who are slightly concerned about the news know that it is only a matter of time before Firefly Pictures launches a public acquisition of ABCTV Network.
After Firefly Pictures released the 1994 film list, the latest issue of 《Variety》 magazine was just published in early February. Immediately announced out of stock, magazine had to urgently print 100,000 copies magazine for emergency.
And the reason why this movie, magazine, which is only of interest to Hollywood professionals, is suddenly out of stock is because Firefly Pictures has publicly released its Firefly Pictures1993 annual financial report on 《Variety》 magazine.
Over the course of 1993, Firefly Pictures released a total of 28 films, with an average of more than two films per month. And Firefly Pictures because of this year's "Jurassic Park" in North America finally got the amazing Box Office of 4.4 700 million USD, as well as "Deep Impact", "A Bug's Life" and "Ace Ventura 2", "Pulp Fiction", "Interview with the Vampire" and other films that are still being released at the end of the year on Box Office. Was a great success. Once again won 29% of the Box Office share, the annual North America Box Office is expected to reach 17. 400 million USD, and the entire North America 1993 due to the "Jurassic Park" this heavy ‘event movie’ stimulation, Box Office broke through 6 billion USD for the first time.
Due to the strong locomotive effect caused by the success of "Jurassic Park" and other movies, Firefly Pictures reached a new high in net profit in 1993, reaching 1.19 billion USD, a full increase of 200 million USD from last year, and compared with last year ’s Firefly net profit was only more than Time Warner Out of the weak advantage of 30 million USD, last year because of the tremendous impact of the Steve Ross death of the ruling Warner for decades, the Time Warner group's net profit did not rise but fell, only 8.700 million USD, Firefly Pictures fully exceeded Time Warner 320 million USD in terms of profit.
The total profit of the five companies Universal, Paramount, Fox, Columbia and Metro Goldwyn Mayer after ranking Time Warner is less than 2 billion USD, because under the toss of Peter Guber, although the "Broken Arrow" Box Office with Firefly at the end of the year is good, but other movies of Columbia However, it is rarely profitable. Sony Columbia is still losing money. Although Metro Goldwyn Mayer Film Industry has recovered some vitality under the leadership of John Calley and others, it is still not as good as some prosperous second and third line Film Studio. The sum of the films produced and released in Metro Goldwyn Mayer1993 is less than the fraction of Firefly Pictures.
When the entire capital market was studying Firefly Pictures's 1993 annual financial report, Firefly Pictures also officially submitted an acquisition application to ABCTV Network Board of Directors in early February. Compared with the violent confrontation caused by Chris's acquisition of LTD, ABC's response It will be much gentler.
It seems that in response to Firefly Pictures's disclosure of the 1993 financial report, ABCTV Network also disclosed the profit of TV Network1993 in advance.
Although it is not comparable to the huge profits of Firefly Pictures ’s total 1.19 billion USD, ABCTV Network also achieved a net profit of 520 million USD in 1993, ranking first among North America four Major TV Networks and occupying 23% of the market. You should know that although North America has only four national public TV Networks, since the emergence of premium cable TV in the 1980s, a large number of premium cable TV programs have joined the prime-time viewing competition, and the market share of several Major TV Networks has continued to decline. ABCTV Network can Achieving 23% market share has surpassed NBC, CBS and Fox TV Network a lot.
After the Firefly Pictures publicly announced the acquisition offer, ABCTV Network also responded quickly. Board of Directors Bamboo Chair and CEO Tom Murphy of ABCTV Network personally called Eric, stating that if Eric intends to purchase ABCTV Network by cash plus stock, then, Firefly Pictures On the basis of ABCTV Network's stock price at this time, it is first necessary to bear 35% of the capital gains tax arising from cash transactions. That is to say, the cash purchase of Firefly Pictures must not be less than 1.35 times of ABCTV Network's stock price at this time.
After this time, the stock price has continued to rise, and the stock price of ABCTV Network has reached a new high, with a market value of 11.2 billion USD, which is nearly 2 billion USD higher than in the middle of last year. However, Eric can also know that this is an inevitable thing, so he agreed on the spot. Right now, the most important thing is, of course, the acquisition of ABC as soon as possible. If this acquisition becomes a long-term saw, then Eric would rather give up ABC transfer target. (To be continued.)