America's Road to Fame

Chapter 247 EMI Music Entertainment Company
Under the misjudgment, both the negotiations with Time Warner and Terra Firma Capital suddenly sped up.

Both parties have abandoned many unrealistic ideas. After all, selling at a cheaper price is at least a stop loss under the current situation.Once the seller is really lost, then if you want to find such a high-priced cash acquisition object, it will all depend on luck, and you have to be lucky enough to win the big prize.

Therefore, under this kind of game, one is in the United States and the other is in the United Kingdom. The isolation of status has resulted in a result:
Both parties signed the final agreement on the same day!
In the end, William Chen bought Warner Records and EMI Records for US$30 billion and US$25 billion respectively.

After these two news came out, not only the world was shocked, but even the former bosses of these two companies were stunned. It turns out that you didn’t choose one to buy, did you want them all?
After the acquisition of EMI Records and Warner Records, William Chen listened to the opinions of Bramo Norwood, CEO of Meta Entertainment Media, and began to promote the merger of the two record companies to optimize resources.

Warner's name must not be used anymore, because it originated from Time Warner Group, so the new record company will still be named EMI, and become EMI Music Entertainment, referred to as EMI.

In this way, the original four major record companies became three, and the rankings became EMI, Universal Music and Sony Music.After the merger, EMI Music became the top of the new three record companies in terms of market share.

And through the headhunting company, Chen William also found the head of the new EMI Music. Lucian Grange, the former vice president in charge of Universal Music's overseas affairs, agreed to Chen William's invitation and will be the CEO of EMI Music. companies entering the digital age.

Before Lucien Grange took office, William Chen and Bramo Norwood, CEO of Meta Entertainment Media, had a conversation with him. In this conversation, William Chen said that EMI Music in the future will embrace the digital age and capture The opportunity for the development of the mobile Internet is to promote music online.

In the future, EMI Music will gradually stop releasing physical records to save costs. All music will be released in the form of electronic albums, and copyright sales will be carried out through the Internet. This will be the future trend of the music market.

For this reason, William Chen has already made plans before, acquiring Kugou Music in China, and Spotify overseas. Originally, the original four major record companies all held shares in Spotify. After Records and EMI, the new EMI has a 10% stake in Spotify.

And William Chen increased his stake in the company to 1% through the Meta Group at a price of US$75 million, completely controlling the music platform.

Lucian Grange's first task as CEO of EMI Music was to carry out the merger of the two record companies and integrate all businesses together.The new EMI Music Company will continue the headquarters of Warner Music, located in Los Angeles, which is also convenient for the management of Meta Entertainment Media.

In this way, Meta Media Company has become a cross-industry comprehensive entertainment group, which is mainly divided into four major businesses: film and television, music, games, and sports. On the one hand, Ubisoft and Riot Games; on the sports side, Manchester United.

Each of these subsidiaries is in the forefront of the industry, so the Meta Entertainment Media Company combined by these companies has become a top media group.

It's just that William Chen has merged these companies together like building blocks at present, and in the future, the business needs to be sorted out slowly. This is the purpose of William Chen's hiring of executives from these companies.

During this period of time in London, Chen William lived at No. 4 Cowley Street. It can be seen that the housekeeper, Ivan, has already started to redecorate the original living rooms under his instruction.

According to Ivan, the current renovation will last for about a month, and it will be completed after that. After all, there is no need to and cannot change the structure of the house, only the interior soft decoration will be re-decorated.

These did not affect William Chen's rest. The decoration workers in Europe and the United States are not as dedicated as Huaguo, and they will rush to work. The working time is 8 hours a day, and they leave when the time comes. They are very conscious.

Moreover, these living rooms are located on the first and second floors, and William Chen's bedroom is on the third floor. He often goes out to meet various people during the day, including people from EMI and some British officials. When he comes back at night, It was quiet.

When William Chen returned to Manchester after finishing his work in London, he got the results of IMG's investigation.

Mainly two aspects:

The first is Manchester United's commercial development, which is still at a very low stage and cannot be compared with American sports leagues at all.

It can be seen from a few examples, one is that the current business district around Old Trafford is rented out and handed over to other businesses to operate, and Manchester United, a world-renowned club, has not yet The online sales channels for peripheral products, their official website is also very simple, it is completely a patchwork of similar templates from many European clubs, and many functions are missing.

In addition, the player's portrait rights are not used, just like Real Madrid, why is it so commercially successful?Because they are a superstar strategy, every superstar can get a lot of income in terms of portrait rights. In addition to the most basic advertisements, industries such as film and television, games, and animation can all earn portrait rights.

Before Manchester United had the most potential in this regard, Ronaldo was handsome, skilled and well-known, but when he was at Manchester United, he did not develop much of him.For this kind of thing now, Chen William still has a lot of resources. He has a film and television company and a game company. If he wants to develop these players' income, he will find a few decent images and invite him to participate in the movie premiere a few times. Li, or having some gossip with actresses, it is easy to gain popularity, so this is also a direction that needs to be developed in the future.

In short, according to the business development model of the American Sports League, Manchester United still has a lot to explore. By then, the club's profit can at least double.

On the other hand, it is the way of commercial development.Chen William initially hoped to hire business development talents with high salaries to help Manchester United increase profitability, but at present, it seems that from the club's perspective, it is inappropriate to do so.

Because if it is only to increase the remuneration for business talents, then this kind of talents can be really attractive with an annual salary of more than [-] million.But the salaries of these people have increased, so as the CEO and others at the top of the club, should they be higher?

But that's unrealistic, just like Manchester United's current CEO David Gill, his ability is more in terms of competition. To be honest, the current annual salary of 70 million pounds is not high, but it is not high among European clubs. It's not too low, after all, his ability is limited.

But can you change a CEO at will?You must know that in addition to the CEO of Manchester United, David Gill has another identity, that is, a member of the board of directors of the FA and a member of the board of the European Club Association. One of the Big Three.

These identities of him are very important to Manchester United, so he must not be replaced casually.

And there is a tradition in European football clubs, that is, many players or staff who have played for the club for many years, even the workers who sweep the lawn of the club, as long as he is willing to stay, the club will always support them, otherwise they will be easily criticized. You are impersonal.

Yes, it’s no problem to support these people with low salaries. After all, they have also contributed a lot to the club, and these don’t cost much.But what if some business development people are paid well?Breaking the salary system, will others get a raise?This is also a problem.

Therefore, the change for Manchester United is not as simple as it was taken for granted at first.

However, it is not impossible. The suggestion given by IMG is that the club is only responsible for the sports aspect, and injects all commercial development rights into a new company. For example, it can be called Manchester United Brand Management Company, as a subsidiary of Manchester United Club. Responsible directly to William Chen.

In this case, the Manchester United club does not need to consider commercial matters, and only focuses on economic aspects, including CEO David Gill and head coach Ferguson, who are only responsible for sports and maintain a good team's performance.

The Manchester United brand management company is responsible for some things about the club's brand operation and commercial development, so it is easy to separate these two aspects. The company doesn't even need to be in Manchester, leaving only a part of the staff to manage the old Trafford stadium after the renovation. In the business district, the headquarters can be set up in London, which is more conducive to the company's business development, and there is geographical isolation. The high salary of the company's business talents will not affect the club's original salary system.

(End of this chapter)