I’m in Hollywood

Eric only stayed in Los Angeles for one night and rushed back to New York the next day.

Although they fought hard to win the debt underwriting business of Firefly, after reaching the cooperation intention, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank still professionally reviewed Firefly's business and financial information, and made investment decisions. After several discussions, the two parties finally reached an agreement on the detailed cooperation terms and bond prices after half a month, and then Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank submitted to the securities regulatory authorities of the United States and Germany respectively. Registration Instructions.

The securities market in the West is very perfect, and most of the time, the official securities department only plays a regulatory role. They often only guarantee the accuracy of the information disclosed by the bond issuing company, and do not make any assessment of the investment prospects of the bond, even if the risk is very high or even. Bonds with no investment value at all can easily pass the audit as long as they submit detailed and accurate reporting documents.

Therefore, it is usually the bond underwriter who plays a leading role in the bond issuance process.

The annual interest rate of the bonds finally established by Firefly and the two lead underwriters is 5.5%. Compared with Firefly’s asset credit rating, this annual interest rate is very high. If it weren’t for the high scale of bond financing, the risk would have increased to a certain extent. Firefly's long-term bond rate only needs to be around 4%. During the pre-market testing process of Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, investment funds from various states in the United States and European investors have cumulatively proposed to buy firefly bonds. The intentional capital has reached 3 billion US dollars. When the registration documents were sent to the United States and After the review by the German securities trading department, the success of Firefly's securities offering was basically confirmed.

After subsequent review by the securities department. Firefly just needs to cooperate with Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank for bond sales. And the funds can be paid to the original shareholders.

Eric handed the follow-up of the securities offering to Firefly's chief financial officer, Caroline Elliott. Then began to participate in the specific merger process of Firefly and.

The two companies have determined the specific merger plan in detail in the preliminary negotiations. What Firefly needs to do is to conduct a detailed review of the balance sheet and property list again.

Firefly's $15 billion acquisition easily surpassed Viacom's acquisition of Paramount last year, making it the largest acquisition in the North American media industry.

With such a huge amount of capital, the result of the acquisition is of course a very large portfolio of assets.

In addition to the most valuable public television network covering the United States and more than 200 affiliated sub-television stations, assets include ten owned and operated television stations and twenty-one radio stations in major U.S. cities, television production in Los Angeles The division, 80%-owned ESPN Sports Channels, and the A\u0026E network jointly owned by the Hearst Group. At the same time, there are also a number of newspaper and magazine assets under the former Metropolitan Media.

Moreover, these assets contain a large number of properties such as real estate and automobiles.

In addition, there are many other scattered assets, and Eric even found a hand-drawn animation production company in France on the property list.

Firefly's acquisition team took nearly a month to completely sort out the information on these assets since the board of directors approved the acquisition.

In this way, it was not until the morning of April 10 that Eric and Tom Murphy signed the final transaction agreement. At this point, Firefly finally succeeded in acquiring the largest TV network in North America.

After signing the merger agreement, Firefly's total share capital has been expanded several times. Reached 135 million shares, of which the original shareholders excluded some of the tradable shareholders who were directly converted into cash or bonds. A total of 32.5 million shares of Firefly will be obtained. Jeffrey and Michael Lynn originally received 1.5 million and 500,000 shares from Eric respectively. Firefly has spent a total of 1 million shares in the equity incentive plan in recent years. The remaining shares are all held by Eric personally, reaching a total of 99.5 million shares, accounting for 73.7% of the total equity ratio.

After this merger, Firefly Pictures will also be called Firefly Group. The company has evolved from a film company to a comprehensive media group involving films, television, music, books, tourism and other fields.

With Firefly's greater information disclosure during the merger, Firefly's financial and shareholding information has once again become the focus of public attention.

At this time, the price-earnings ratio of most companies with good operating conditions in the North American stock market remains between 10 and 30. The company's price-earnings ratio represents a company's profit and investment risk information, and is a very important financial data for listed companies. The price-to-earnings ratio is usually calculated as the company's price per share divided by net earnings per share.

According to the 20 times price-earnings ratio of Time Warner at the same level as Firefly and the total profit of Firefly and the two companies in 1993, the stock price of Firefly's total 135 million shares will reach about 252 US dollars, which means that Firefly's The market value is expected to be around 34 billion US dollars. In this way, Firefly has steadily surpassed Time Warner to become the largest media group in North America.

Before the merger, although Firefly surpassed Time Warner in terms of profit, its status was still questioned by many people due to the uncertainty of film investment. leading position.

Therefore, this has become the focus of a lot of media attention. At the press conference after the signing of the final agreement, the first question from a reporter from the US Business Week asked: Mr. Williams, Firefly has now become the largest media group in North America and even the world, and you are so young. , I don't think you will stop moving forward, so what will Firefly do next?

Eric certainly has a further ambition in his heart, that is, to control the entire Hollywood through various direct or indirect means, but of course he will not say it so easily. and. Although the acquisition was successfully completed. But the scale is so massive. Firefly will definitely encounter various problems next, and the first thing Eric has to do is to solve a series of problems that may arise in the future.

After thinking for a while, Eric replied: My current plan is to run the brand new Firefly Group well. Apart from that, there are no other plans.

The reporter of Business Week continued to ask unwillingly: Firefly and both are already the top companies in the federation. Don't you have the ambition to continue to expand, Mr. Williams?

Eric realized that the reporter might have some different thoughts, but he still replied with a smile on the surface: I don't know if anyone else has found it. But when I researched a lot of information, I found that many times, Regardless of the size, a company that encounters a merger will encounter a series of problems in the early stages of changing owners. Even if the company is in very good condition before that, it is often difficult to avoid losses. Some companies that were in excellent operating conditions even It will be quiet because of mergers, but some will become more thriving, the process is very similar to a country's regime change, like a phoenix nirvana, either reborn from ashes. Or reduced to ashes. I personally hope that the firefly can take advantage of two or three It's good to spend this 'Nirvana' period smoothly.

Eric finished. There was a moment of whispering from the audience, and the reporter from Business Week immediately said after a brief thought: Mr. Williams, your point of view is very novel, I have never heard of it before. Can you give a few examples at will to prove it?

It's very simple, let's take an example. In 1985, before the acquisition by the Metropolitan Media Company, the annual profit was 130 million US dollars, but the second year after the merger, the Metropolis-Company fell into a loss of 70 million US dollars. Tom. .Mr. Murphy and Mr. Buffett are both very good business and investment talents, as evidenced by their excellent earnings in recent years. So these should not be their problems, but the reasons for the view I just said , of course, my personal knowledge is very limited, and I can't guarantee that this view is really a common phenomenon. So if there are professional economic experts who are interested, you can study it, Eric said, without Continuing to entangle the reporter of Business Week, he pointed to a reporter and said, Okay, the next one.

Mr Williams, according to recent media information, your personal assets are close to 20 billion US dollars, but we found that you have never carried out any charitable activities or established any charitable funds, don't you think this is A very socially unresponsible behavior?

Eric was stunned for a moment, but the question was even more acute. He had good eyesight, and seeing the words Christian Science Monitor written on the pass of the black female reporter offstage, he understood why the other party asked this question.

In addition to Eric, another Buffett who was obviously not very enthusiastic about charity was also sitting nearby. Eric did not know the details of the Buffett Foundation later, but he knew very well that the Buffett Foundation at this time was actually very Donate less money to do charitable activities, most of the time still follow Buffett's wishes to invest, and most of the funds of the Buffett Foundation come from Berkshire Hathaway's stock dividends, Buffett is a personal one. Not even a dime came out.

After the female reporter asked her question, she also glanced at Buffett nearby, and she clearly meant something. You must know that at this time, Eric and Buffett were ranked first and second on the Forbes North American Rich List, respectively. bit.

Facing such a sensitive issue, Eric had to think carefully for a while before saying: I personally believe that the real sense of responsibility is to create more jobs for the society with the wealth in hand, so that ordinary people can support themselves. Instead of just getting something for nothing. Firefly has always tried to do this, such as the Firefly Studios that Firefly has built in Los Angeles in recent years and the Digital Domain Studio invested in Florida, which has created tens of thousands of new Of course, general charity has also played a very positive role in this society. There are many people in need of help in difficult circumstances. In the past, because I was busy with my personal career, I neglected this aspect. Therefore, I will In the next few years, a corresponding charitable fund will be established to increase investment in charitable activities.

Eric's answer seemed a bit slick, and the black female reporter was obviously dissatisfied, but this time, the host realized her mistake just now, and quickly ordered another reporter, the next question was not too outrageous. , Most of the reporters asked about the next stage of Firefly, such as reorganization, layoffs or business adjustments.

After the press conference was over, the group quickly moved to the routine celebration reception.

With a glass of champagne in his hand, Eric was just about to talk to former CEO Robert Iger when Tom Murphy and Buffett walked side by side.

After the completion of the merger, the bamboo seat on the board of directors was revoked. According to the agreement, Tom Murphy will continue to serve until the end of 1995. Tom Murphy and Buffett originally thought that this was Eric's compromise to them, but from Eric Speaking at the press conference, the two old men realized that their self-feelings were too good, and this little guy was obviously trying to squeeze the last bit of value from these old men: Hey, Eric, I finally Understood, it turns out that what you insisted on letting me, an old man who will soon be seventy years old, continue to serve is to make it possible to survive this merger smoothly.

Eric looked at Tom Murphy, who was aggressive but still had a faint smile on his face, shrugged his shoulders slightly, and said with a smile: But, Tom, I never denied that I didn't plan this way. You are both now the same. The major shareholders of Firefly should not object to making it better, right?

When Tom Murphy heard Eric's words, he suddenly felt that he was really angry and a little inexplicable, but of course he wouldn't admit it, and said with a smile: No wonder Warren just said that you are too slick. .

Oh, I think it's a compliment to me, Eric told Buffett with a smile.

Buffett smiled and shook his head, and said, I really agree with your answer to the words of the black female reporter that creating more jobs for the society is the real charity, and the rest is just for those who want to get something for nothing. People really get something for nothing, and I have already encountered a lot of situations like squandering money from donors.” (To be continued.)(www.. )