America's Road to Fame

Chapter 239 Record Industry

After finishing the conversation and walking out of the building, Boss Ma sighed and said to William Chen, "William, you are really a surprise."

Chen Weilian knew that he was talking about the sudden proposal to acquire the main building of China World Trade Center Phase III today, and he said with a smile: "Old Ma, you also know that we are all newcomers when doing business here in Yanjing, so It is very important to gain a reputation, and it is actually considered low-key compared to being in Shanghai."

Well, you may have misunderstood the low-key, Boss Ma shook his head, anyway, he is already used to the financial power shown by William Chen.

In the evening, William Chen received a call from Bramo Norwood, CEO of Meta Entertainment Media Company. He told William Chen that he had negotiated with Riot Games to acquire the company at a valuation of US$1.75 million. 22% of the shares, the other party insisted on retaining 10% of the shares, and the agent rights of "League of Legends" in the Huaguo mainland area have also been signed to them.

So William Chen will eventually acquire 1.575% of Riot Games for $90 million.As for the 10% in Penguin's hands, William Chen understands that it will be recovered sooner or later, but at that time, he will have to pay a part of the funds, and with Penguin's behavior, it is estimated that if "League of Legends" is still the same as it was in the previous life in China Then they will imitate their own MOBA games.

What William Chen can do now is that it is fine for Penguin to hold shares in Riot—anyway, when they launch their imitated MOBA game, the relationship between the two parties will definitely break down, and the other party must sell their shares, but beware of Penguin The company, Riot's next research and development needs to be kept secret from them.

Moreover, the mobile game version of "League of Legends" cannot be launched late like in the previous life, it must be launched in advance.As for some people saying why not just do "King of Pesticides"?In fact, this is not the key point. For this type of mobile game, it still depends on who launches it first and occupies the market, so that players can form a habit.

Even if you snatch Penguin's "King of Pesticides", they can still make "King of Pesticides", anyway, it's not enough, just change the shell.As long as it can occupy the market first, there will be no difference between "League of Legends" or "King of Pesticides".

"Boss, I can understand your layout of the entertainment industry, including movies, games and sports, but I don't understand why there is one area that has not been involved?"

"What field?"

"Music! Although the music market is very sluggish now, and the profits of those music companies releasing records are getting lower and lower, I think the music market will always pick up, and now is a more appropriate opportunity to deploy."

Hearing what Bramo Norwood said, William Chen suddenly realized that he had really overlooked this point. Music is indeed a part of the entertainment industry that cannot be ignored, and he also knows that with the advent of the mobile Internet era, users have already I am more and more used to listening to music on my mobile phone.With the iteration of mobile phone chips, the sound quality has not lost to MP3, so the recovery of the music industry in the mobile Internet era is also natural.

Therefore, William Chen asked Bramo Norwood to focus on the current situation of the global recording industry.

Currently the world's four major record companies are Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music and EMI.

According to Bramo Norwood, if you want to acquire, the difficulty of the above four companies is from high to low. The parent company of Universal Music is the world's top media group Vivendi, er, Blizzard and Sierra It is the game company under this group; and Sony Music obviously belongs to the Sony Group.

It is not easy to acquire these two top two record companies, just like Universal Music, once a company offered 60 billion US dollars to acquire, but Vivendi rejected it without hesitation, because Universal Music and Blizzard, It is the core asset of Vivendi at present. They will not sell it easily. If they want to impress them, they need a high price.

As for Warner Music and EMI, it is relatively easy to acquire them. They do not have a strong parent company behind them, and the record industry has declined visibly in the past few years. Coupled with the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis, if you want to acquire them, It's not difficult, it's nothing more than a suitable price.

Time Warner Group, the parent company of Warner Records, has had a hard time recently, and they don't pay much attention to Warner Music. It has been reported that they intend to sell the record company.

EMI is an independent company, but it has been deeply in debt. At present, EMI's total debt is about 15 billion US dollars, so if it is acquired, the possibility is relatively high.

Therefore, after thinking about it, William Chen asked Bramo Norwood about the feasibility of merging the two record companies after acquiring them.

"If they can be acquired and merged, it will be a better choice for the two companies, so that they can integrate their various businesses and save the company's operating costs. And if the two companies merge, they will surpass Universal Music. And Sony Music, became the world's largest record company."

"Since this is the case, let's do it, send me the current detailed information of these two companies, and then contact them and propose an acquisition."

Chen Weilian thought for a while and said: "In addition, the traditional form of physical record sales is about to be eliminated, and the distribution channel of music will be shifted to online in the future, so you can check the most popular music platforms by the way. You also need to master your own online sales channels.”

William Chen doesn’t know much about foreign music platforms. As for music platforms in Huaguo, William Chen knows that Kugou, QQ Music and Wangyiyun are more famous music platforms. It seems that Kugou was acquired by Penguin later. Obviously, QQ Music belongs to Penguin, and Wangyiyun belongs to Wangyi, so his choice is naturally Kugou.

I searched online and found that Kugou Music was launched before 2005, and it is developing well. Therefore, William Chen directly called Li Ying and asked her to contact Kugou Music and buy them.

"Honey, are you still busy? It's getting late."

The door of the study was opened, and Ivanta walked to William Chen and said.

As she got closer, William Chen smelled a scent, which should be the scent of shower gel. Sure enough, looking at Ivanta, she looked like she had just taken a shower.

William Chen hugged Ivanta and let her sit on his lap. Ivanta rested her head on William Chen's shoulder and said softly:
"What's going on with the Manchester United acquisition? Are you going to London to deal with it soon?"

"I'm going to go back to the United States first, and continue to put pressure on the Glazer family. If it's just pressure from public opinion, they may be able to persist in the face of an additional two to three billion dollars in income. Only when their business is affected can they be made to surrender as soon as possible."

William Chen kissed Ivanta on the face, rubbed her hair, and said.

"I'll finish handling the matter here as soon as possible, and hand it over to the people below, so I can spend more time with you." Ivanta looked at William Chen's handsome face with beautiful eyes: "By the way, if Yanjing There is no way to acquire China World Trade Center Phase III, so are we going to build our own building?"

"If it really doesn't work, then build two buildings by yourself. If you can buy it, then build one by yourself. Although self-built buildings can be financed by loans, the demand for funds is smaller, but it takes too long. The best thing is Acquisitions and self-builds are going on at the same time.”

After spending another two days with Ivanta in Yanjing, William Chen completed the investment in Enlight Media by the way.

After the listing of Huayi Company, Guangguang Media has been seeking to go public. In an interview last year, Wang Changtian, the boss of Guangguang Media, claimed that he was ready and had a plan to go public in the first half of this year.

But then came the subprime mortgage crisis, global stock markets performed poorly, and there were twists and turns in approvals. So far, Enlight Media has not encountered a suitable opportunity, and there is a high probability that it will have to wait until next year for an IPO.

But Guangguang Media hopes to go public. Apart from gaining the popularity of the first TV series, they still want to raise funds. On the one hand, the current economic situation is not good, and their financial pressure is also great. On the other hand, they want to enter the ranks of movies, so naturally they need funds. Assure.

So at this time, Li Ying's Huaxia Future Capital approached Guangguang Media and realized that William Chen was behind the other party. Guangguang Media readily agreed.

(End of this chapter)