Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Early the next morning, Ronald's personal accountant, Lawrence Wang, brought two young men, a man and a woman, to his home on Staten Island.

"Hello, Director Ronald." Two managers from PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the eight largest accounting firms in the world, made a special trip to visit Ronald, preparing to take over the business from Ronald. Daydream's audit practice.

From now on, Lawrence Wang will be mainly responsible for his own private business.

A dark-haired male manager named Ed Bastian is a true New Yorker. Another person with black hair and yellow skin is Ms. Zhang, who came to study from China. After graduation, she stayed in New York to work in the Puhua office because of her diligence and intelligence.

Ronald looked at their business cards and felt strange. Ed Bastian was not yet thirty and was not a partner. And Ms. Zhang has only graduated from college a few years ago. Isn’t her business big enough to attract the attention of accounting firms?

Seeing the look in Ronald's hand, Lawrence explained to him.

Of course, PricewaterhouseCoopers has been involved in the Hollywood business for a long time. PricewaterhouseCoopers is entrusted to count the Oscar votes every year. They don't know that a blockbuster movie will bring huge box office revenue.

The fundamental reason why a young man who was not yet a partner was asked to serve Ronald was that his expertise was in digging for loopholes in statements. Hollywood's distribution business has always been the hardest hit area for financial fraud, and the candidate Lawrence recommended has exactly this strength.

Ed Bastian is very familiar with this kind of distrust in the face of customers. He gave a brief introduction to his work experience. He has a lot of business in the entertainment industry, and some are responsible for overseas accounting audits for multinational companies. .

From his introduction, Ronald felt that this person had high professionalism and clear thinking. Except that he was not a partner, serving his own daydream was actually overkill.

"Ed is the best audit talent in our New York office. For any multinational company, as long as the overseas accounts are handled by our team, Ed can always find the problems where others can't." Ms. Zhang's English is very good. Well, I also feel sorry for my boss.

"Zhang is my best partner. He handles the analysis of original accounts and we always go on business trips together." Ed Bastian also introduced the strengths of his partner, Ms. Zhang.

When Miss Zhang heard the praise for herself, she didn't speak out as righteously as before. Instead, she showed the Chinese tradition of self-effacement and just smiled shyly.

"If you still have doubts, I can find recommenders, and you can talk to them on the phone..." Ed Bastian's personality is enthusiastic and outgoing, which is exactly the opposite of Miss Zhang.

"No, no... I'm very satisfied with our team." Ronald woke up from his reverie. The way two professional elites, a man and a woman, worked together in the workplace just now made Ronald seem to vaguely see something. picture.

Ronald was just a little surprised. He heard about Ed's long list of clients. Many of them were developed by himself. According to the rules that partners need to bring in new clients, he should have been qualified long ago.

"You guys should familiarize yourself with the business. We'll set off soon. Today happens to be the second settlement day for the movie's soundtrack." Ronald took several documents from Lawrence's hand and pushed them towards them.

Ed Bastian was also a little surprised by the speed of Ronald's decision. He took the file and flipped through it.

"Is there something wrong here? Is this sales number wrong? According to this number, the record sales of your movie will exceed the record sales of the most popular MJ." Ed Bastian raised his eyebrows, the artist Sometimes I am not very sensitive to numbers. In these documents, even the sales volume are wrong.

"That's probably true." Miss Zhang secretly pulled Ed Bastian's sleeve, "Dirty Dancing is very popular among the female colleagues in our office now, and everyone is learning to dance. The dance training class is full. Most of them are there to learn the kind of dance in Dirty Dancing.”

"It's my fault, women's spending power cannot be underestimated these days." Ed Bastian readily admitted that he didn't understand the record market.

"We'll go to the RCA Record Company's office, and you can continue to familiarize yourself with the material in the car." Ronald stood up and took the two accountants who had just been approved, got into the luxury car, and drove to RCA's New York office.

Jimmy Lehner, the producer of "Dirty Dancing" records, was waiting for them in his office. Bob Buziak, the vice president of the RCA division, and the head of finance, came to the door to greet Ronald, the god of wealth. The film's soundtrack created RCA's most successful album sales in three years.

"Bob, it turns out that the R of RKO is RCA." Ronald and Vice President Buziak were in the largest conference room, chatting while looking at the history of RCA on the wall.

Ed Bastian and Miss Zhang got the sales report of "Dirty Dancing" and studied it nervously.

"Indeed, at that time, our RCA found the father of JFK, Joseph Kennedy Sr., and with his help acquired the Keith (K)-Oppenheimer (O) production company and changed its name to RKO...

However, although RKO was one of the five major studios at the time, it encountered serious financial difficulties during the stock market crash of the 1930s. RCA withdrew its capital at the time, and aircraft tycoon Howard Hughes acquired RKO, retaining the RKO name.

It was not until 1950 that film production ceased due to the impact of television. "

Ronald listened with interest. When the elder Kennedy formed a consortium, he specialized in acquiring medium-sized studios and theater chains, and then sold them to large companies. His Irish background played a key role.

Hughes was a playboy who dated many popular Hollywood female stars. His unique personality and eccentric behavior in his later years, as well as the controversy over his inheritance, were once widely circulated in Hollywood and even made into a movie.

"Here, here, and here..." Ed Bastian drew three places with a pencil, and then pointed them to Lawrence, Ronald's personal accountant.

"Have you finished reading there?" Ronald noticed Ed, the newly hired accountant, and seemed to show a proud smile. In fact, it is difficult to find problems without slowly reviewing these account books. This time, it is more about letting Puhua's accountants familiarize themselves with the business.

"Please explain here, the income and sales expenses recorded at Bertelsmann Records in Europe. There are also figures at Sony, the distributor in Japan..."

Ed Bastian pointed to the three circled places at RCA's financial director, "Bertelsmann is a private company, but it is easy for us to obtain financial statements from Sony, a listed company."

"I think this may be a misunderstanding." The financial person in charge was sweating a little.

"Multinational business is always confusing. If you need help, I have many friends in Japan and Europe. You can ask them to help clarify." Ronald looked at RCA Vice President Bob Buziak with a smile. .

"As you said, the merger of cross-border businesses is always full of pitfalls, Frank." Bob Buziak winked at the financial director and asked him to handle the matter. How to make the report, it took the accountant half an hour to find the flaw.

"We went on to say that I am very interested in the old history of Hollywood in the golden age. Why was Howard Hughes not affected by the economic crisis of the Great Depression and still had the money to acquire RKO?"

"That's about his amazing spirit of adventure and his accurate grasp of the audience's taste. In 1930, he raised a huge sum of US$2.8 million to film the aerial combat film 'Hell's Angels', which achieved record box office results. .

This movie made him famous, and later it was very convenient for him to obtain financing and build the aircraft that the army hoped for. Then came World War II, and his aircraft company made a lot of money..."

After a long time, new documents were sent in. This time the smile on Ed Bastian's face became much more normal, and he nodded to Ronald.

"Thank you, thank you RCA for your distribution work, now we can talk about the release of the new record."

Ronald looked at the numbers on the bottom line and was very satisfied. offered to discuss a second "Dirty Dancing" record.

There are less than 20 interludes in the movie "Dirty Dancing", and 12 of them were selected for the popular album. But the surprise of winning the first place in sales gave RCA the idea of ​​​​merging the remaining songs with some mambo music from the 1950s into a "more Dirty Dancing" record, which will be released next year.

Because the copyright to the original soundtrack of the episode was still in the hands of Ronald's Daydream Company, they didn't dare to make too big a move in terms of record sales. Who knew the accountant Ronald hired could be so sharp.

"Cheers!" Several people toasted with beer.

In a Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown next to Wall Street, Ronald invited two accountants to dinner. The dim sum cart was pushed back and forth. Ed Bastian seemed to be very familiar with this kind of Cantonese dim sum. He skillfully took two boxes in front of him and ate them with chopsticks.

"You are indeed the most professional candidates. It seems that Lawrence has found some of the best accountants." Ronald sighed repeatedly. Ed Bastian and Miss Zhang are really very discerning. In a short time, they Being able to grasp the key points, he immediately deceived the RCA people and obediently came up with more accurate figures.

In less than an hour, the two of them helped Ronald find at least two to three million dollars in hidden profits.

"They will also play a lot of tricks, but these are inevitable in cross-border business. We will continue to pay attention to this business, as long as you pay our consulting fee." Miss Zhang also picked up a steamed dumpling and ate it stand up.

"No problem. This is the most valuable consulting fee I have spent this year." Ronald was very happy. PricewaterhouseCoopers' accountants were really good.

"This is our work order, please sign it." Ed Bastian took out a work schedule from his briefcase, filled in the numbers, and asked Ronald to confirm.

This kind of consulting work not only requires a large sum of money to be paid to Puhua, but also hourly wages for two talents.

Ronald looked at it and signed it readily. However, he was a little surprised by the hourly wages above. Both of their quotes were very cheap, which was obviously inconsistent with their abilities.

"If you don't mind, can I ask why?" Ronald asked the question again. It was obvious that Ed Bastian was qualified for the title of partner long ago.

"Isn't this because he is so awesome?" Miss Zhang felt relaxed at the place of Ronald, the director of Dirty Dancing. She also knew that after winning this big business, her boss Ed was one step closer to his partner. Said everything.

It turns out that Ed Bastian is a very talented child, the eldest of nine children in his family. Although his father is a dentist and his income is not bad, he also chose an ordinary university to graduate early and work as soon as possible.

Just two years after joining the New York office of PricewaterhouseCoopers, he discovered the falsely reported income of the famous advertising company JWT in an inconspicuous corner of the report during the annual audit. He insisted on professional ethics and exposed the scandal, and the final figure was found to be as much as $50 million.

Not only did the SEC launch an investigation into JWT (because many of JWT’s clients are listed companies), but many senior executives in PwC’s New York office were forced to retire in disgrace.

Although his level is very high, no one in the company is willing to cooperate with him because of such a thorn in his side. After all, in accounting and auditing, no one can say whether this kind of thing will happen to them.

In this way, a talented financial person can only earn the hourly salary of a senior manager.

"If you need my support when you are promoted to partner, just ask." Ronald has decided to entrust all the company's financial affairs to him.

He and Lawrence went to the bank to cash the check, and Ronald stayed in Manhattan this time.

"Hahahaha, you can really make a lot of money in this business."

Alone on the large bed in an expensive hotel penthouse suite, Ronald began to tumble.

Just one soundtrack album allowed him to get back all the $10 million he invested in "Dirty Dancing" and doubled it. It also included the money Ed had found for him.

Daydream Pictures instantly became an extremely well-funded production company. Now, the two movies that Ronald had promised in advance, "Hairspray" and "Ecstasy", can also be shot.

Thinking about the soundtrack albums and sequels that are making huge profits every day, as well as the share of the movie box office, and future video revenue, Ronald has already thought that by the end of next year, he might be able to rely on this "hot body" Dance" has greatly increased wealth.

Maybe, I can become a billionaire?

"Oh, it's so much money, but it doesn't cost much to make two small productions. What should I do?" Ronald began to think about happy troubles.

"By the way, let's go back and forth from where we came from." Ronald thought of his wealth. Most of it was brought to him by the stocks of several companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's. Now he would buy the stocks back and then grow them. , make movies again, make money again...

"There are endless shortages of descendants!"

Just do it, Ronald immediately picked up the phone to call Lawrence, and then he pressed the phone again.

Forget it, you are lucky if you invest in Coke and McDonald's. I don’t really understand it, and if it’s not realistic to grow several times, I’d better ask Bannon tomorrow to see if he has any suitable investments. With so much money, as long as I am more prudent, I am afraid I will never be poor again in this life.

The next day, Bannon came to the Ronald Hotel early. The two of them talked privately about World Media Distribution Group in the living room.

"So, 90% of the $25 billion market is caused by source errors?" Bannon suddenly realized after listening to Ronald's explanation of the arrangement of the so-called film screening team.

To say that this move is really for the welfare of the general public, it is actually much more solid than the Suwei Alliance, which claims to be for all mankind.

It just hurt profits a little too much, and the two people sighed.

"Korkorian's purpose may be to raise funds through the bond market, and he wants to use the news that you are the person in charge to become a huge benefit in the capital market. You have offended him now."

"Hmph... I haven't settled the accounts with him yet. He actually used the preaching method of those evangelical pastors to trick me into not contacting the relevant people of the other two shareholders. I almost fell for it."

"Hey," Bannon smiled. This kind of "talent" can actually be encountered on Wall Street.

"His financing plan will be reduced a lot now. I heard that his MGM studio is suffering huge losses. If he cannot raise 300-500 million yuan this time, he will probably go out of business again. ”

"Hey, the most glorious studio in the past." Ronald also sighed a little. This company, which was once the undisputed king of Hollywood, was taken over by Kerkorian and had its name painted on the top of the casino. Now the young People may know MGM more as a casino than a great movie company.

"By the way, what kind of stocks would you like to buy recently? Or make some safe investments? How do you guys on Wall Street generally deal with this kind of demand?"

"Usually it will be handled by private banks, which can provide you with a variety of investment options with high returns. But I suggest you wait for a while. The atmosphere on Wall Street is not normal right now."

"What do you think is wrong? Is there something wrong?" This was the second time Ronald heard Bannon say that Wall Street was abnormal.

"I don't know, it's just a feeling, an intuition." Bannon touched his long hair and felt a very uncomfortable feeling.

“This year’s stock market is so good. The price-to-earnings ratios of many companies have risen to 40-60. All the early profits have been exhausted, and now it seems inappropriate.

And... and I heard that there were some strange positions that were heavily bearish on the Dow Jones and the Nikkei, and something wasn't right. "

"What do you mean? The stock market will fall?"

"I just collected some comments from investors. Take a look." Bannon took out several copies of "The Wall Street Journal" and "Investor's Daily" from his briefcase, which were marked with 3M transparent tape.

"The Dow Jones is overvalued, haha, maybe a little, but I think the Nikkei index is also seriously overvalued."

"Who is this person?" Ronald found the answer of a man named George Solo in an interview, which was marked by Bannon.

"He is a Jewish philosopher, a disciple of Karl Popper, who wrote a best-selling book called "The Alchemy of Finance" and recently established the Tiger Fund, which specializes in hedging."

"Oh, what he meant is that the Japanese stock market is more dangerous than ours, and they will collapse first?"

"Almost. Many people speculate that his Tiger Fund bought a lot of short orders in the Nikkei and long orders in the Dow Jones."

Ronald continued to flip through it, and another paragraph marked in red, which was longer than Solo's interview, attracted his attention.

"I think there is almost no fear on Wall Street. On the contrary, it is euphoria - why not? What could be more exciting than participating in a bull market?

In this bull market, the returns of business operators are beautifully decoupled from the slow performance of the business itself. Unfortunately, however, stocks cannot exceed the performance of the business indefinitely.

Perhaps, our stock market has risen too high and too fast."

"Who is this?" Ronald looked at the person being interviewed, his name is Warren Buffet.

"He is an eccentric investor, a countryman from Omaha. His listed company neither pays dividends nor splits stocks, and now it is 3,000 US dollars per share. I think he has hit the psychological feelings of many people in the market. It has risen too fast."

"3,000 US dollars? Then wouldn't his stock be the best in America?" Ronald was shocked. For other stocks, more than 100 yuan per share is considered a high price.

"Haha, how can you calculate it like that? If I split his stock into 100 shares, and each share is 30 dollars, isn't it still the same stock?"

"Oh, right..." Ronald calculated and thought that he had made a fool of himself again. He had to ask Donna what was going on with this stock. It seemed that her boss was also investing in stocks. Maybe it would be a good idea to buy some of his funds.

It's better to buy less. Ronald remembered Bannon's worries again.

What should he do with so much money?

"By the way, buy a house! It's time to buy a better house for myself."

"Hey, Rick (Niceta)? I want to buy a house in Los Angeles. Can you help me find one? Yes, not too luxurious, and not too close to those noisy parties. I want a quieter one."

"In that case, you won't spend much money. One or two million dollars will be enough. You can also consider hiring a designer to rebuild the house. I'll find a few candidates and wait for you to come back to choose."

Ronald shouted that it was cheap. It seemed that he could also get one in New York.

"Hey, Lawrence, I want to buy a house. Can you help me look for a penthouse near Central Park? Yes, no rent control, I will live there myself."

"Then you may need to undergo a qualification review by the homeowners' committee, but your identity should not be a problem, it just takes some time. If you are in a hurry, there are many real estate developers in New York now, all of which are building new houses. Of course, old houses are better, and I will keep an eye out for you."

"It's not expensive, right?" Ronald asked about the price, thinking that he had bought two houses, but he hadn't spent a quarter of it? It seems that he is not really suitable for spending money, so why not get a mansion and get it done in one go?

Thinking about the mansion, Ronald suddenly remembered the old house on Staten Island, his hometown, where Coppola used to shoot "The Godfather".

"Hello, aunt? Do you have a familiar real estate agent? Yes, on Staten Island, I want to buy a house. Yes, I must have a house on Staten Island in the future."

It feels good to buy things. Ronald lay down happily. The key is not the thing, but the feeling of being able to afford it without thinking too much. It's great.

"Ring, ring, ring..." The phone rang.

"Ronald, this is George. Your agent called me. My mother Barbara has put me in charge of the New York State primary campaign, and you have to help me. I plan to shoot a short campaign ad for my father, and I can release it when he announces his candidacy."

"No problem, I have everything ready, just waiting for you to come."