I’m in Hollywood

Eric didn't expect Firefly's management to do things so neatly. He just proposed it at the morning meeting and shot to Jive Records in the afternoon. `But he is not too surprised, jive records are brilliant around 2ooo, teen-pop has not yet risen, and the market value of jive is only less than 10 million US dollars, which is not worth mentioning compared to the entire firefly group.

Hearing that Howard Stringer used jive records as a bargaining chip, Eric just smiled and said, Howard, Katzenberg is indeed planning to acquire some record companies with good potential recently to expand the strength of Firefly Records. , since you say that, it must be true. However, unless Firefly is planning to buy the entire Sony Records, or these little things, I will not interfere, if you have any doubts, you can call Katzenberg them.

Of course, it was impossible for Howard Stringer to know that this matter was ordered by Eric himself, and he was a little shaken when he heard him say so.

After receiving the news from jive, Howard Stringer hurriedly asked people to find the information of this inconspicuous subsidiary. Now jive records have been focusing on black hip-hop music, except for the opportunity to sign Going to Will Smith, but sorry to miss this industry gossip, jive records have never cultivated any heavyweight black singers in these years, maybe it is because of long-term inaction in hip-hop, the management of jive records recently trying to transform.

After researching the company several times, Howard Stringer didn't find the place to attract fireflies. Although the key was not found for a while, Howard Stringer did not think that things would be as simple as Eric said. Looking at Eric sitting indifferently opposite, Howard Stringer finally decided to showdown , said: Eric, do you think this is okay? The contract between Huahua Film and Columbia remains unchanged. In return, I can make the decision. Sell jive records to Firefly.

Compared with a sub-record company with a mediocre performance, if it loses Night at the Museum and Forrest Gump, it is impossible for Columbia to find two more films that can fill the summer slot. Colombia's lining is already rotten, which is shocking, if even the superficial performance can't be maintained. Sony will undoubtedly be under more pressure from investors in the film business.

However, Eric still shook his head lightly, and said: Howard, I said, the acquisition of the jive record you mentioned is such a small matter. I don't care at all, and you don't have to think about it. Let’s talk about bargaining chips, I’m still saying what I just said, this matter was provoked by Colombia first, and since you are unwilling to cooperate well, then everyone will go their own way.”

The appearance of Eric's lack of oil and salt made Howard Stringer feel a little angry, and said: Eric, Columbia's contract with Huahua Pictures has not been terminated, if Huahua Pictures wants to forcibly cancel the contract. In the case of the contract, Colombia does not rule out the opportunity to use litigation to safeguard its own interests.”

Eric's body suddenly leaned forward.

With a dangerous aura in his eyes, he said, Howard, listen to me, don't do this, or you will find out that Columbia will face much more trouble than Flower Pictures.

Howard Stringer said tit-for-tat: Eric, Columbia has enough troubles. If there is no choice, we don't mind more troubles.

Then what? Eric followed Howard Stringer's words without waiting for the other party to speak. He continued: Then, you will realize that the business in Colombia will be even worse. You are from the media, and Nobuyuki Idei hired you. I want you to revive Sony's entertainment industry in the United States. If you can't do that, You also don't have much value to Sony. When the business in Colombia gets worse, Sony will of course have to find another scapegoat. This person can only be you. And now. You have another choice, To endure this, Colombia will only lose one summer slot, but the situation will not continue to deteriorate, and the responsibility for losing the summer slot will ultimately only be attributed to the Sony executives at the level of Nobuyuki Idei. So, Howard, what are you going to do?

Howard Stringer leaned back in his chair, his eyes flickering continuously, and he didn't say anything for a while.

Eric ignored the other party and felt the setting sun falling on his body. He reached out and beckoned the waiter not far away to come for the menu. After discussing with Elizabeth in a low voice, he ordered dinner before handing over the menu. The waiter said to Howard Stringer: So, Howard, are you going to stay for dinner together?

Howard Stringer seemed to be awakened suddenly, shook his head slightly, said nothing, got up and left.

Eric just nodded and didn't mean to get up and say goodbye. Instead, Elizabeth looked at the figure of Howard Stringer and said, Eric, aren't you afraid to make him anxious?

Since he can climb to the position of ceo of Sony America, it is unlikely that he will do anything hot. It's just that he will definitely find out that the position of ceo of Sony America is not as good as he imagined. Feeling down for a while is for sure.”

Although Peter Cooper was kicked out of Colombia, because of projects such as Men in Black, Colombia must continue to survive in the shadow of fireflies for a few years. Unless Howard Stringer breaks his wrist from now on, abandons his reliance on Fireflies and starts his own film business. But the reality is, judging from the memory of Howard Stringer's performance at Columbia Pictures after he took over the US branch of Sony, he obviously does not have this talent, and there is not even a good manager in Columbia now.

In the following days, Columbia finally accepted the reality of the cancellation of the contract with Flower Pictures. Between insisting on fighting for Sony's interests and protecting his job, Howard Stringer clearly chose the latter.

However, Firefly also encountered trouble in the process of acquiring Jive Records, and Sony Records simply rejected Firefly's acquisition offer.

However, Eric is not looking at a signed singer under Jive Records or the music copyright he owns, but the jive management team who built the peak era of teen-pop in his previous life.

The acquisition of Jive Records failed, Firefly waved a 'hoe' to the entire jive management team, and promised Jive's CEO Barry Weiss to be the president of Firefly Records, although Sony Records realized this and increased its interest in Jive Records. The level of importance, but between the president of Firefly Records and a subsidiary of the Sony Records subsidiary. 'Barry Weiss had no hesitation at all, and quickly led the entire jive management team out of Sony Records to join Firefly.

Los Angeles International Airport.

The turbulence of the plane landing woke Owen Jacob from his dream, and after more than twenty hours of flying, he was already exhausted.

After more than three years of operation. It even sold a large part of its technical rights, and Qualcomm won the support of the Korean government on cdma. However, due to the strong rise of g and its widespread popularity in Asia, the Korean side has also begun to waver. Owen Jacob Bu had to travel to South Korea to deal with the crisis in person.

Think of the current situation of Qualcomm in North America. Owen Jacob is also a little confused. At-t, the largest telecommunications operator in the United States, has determined the g standard as a mobile communication standard, which directly causes a group of smaller telecommunications operators to follow in the footsteps of at-t. At present, Qualcomm almost It has reached the brink of life and death. If it cannot win over cdma supporters in the United States as soon as possible, even if Qualcomm has more advanced technology, it will inevitably go bankrupt.

And now, the meeting with the young man has become a crucial opportunity for Qualcomm.

He walked out of the airport with his assistant and stood in the bright eyes of Los Angeles. Owen Jacob's mood relaxed a little, and after looking around in the crowd, he soon saw Alan Salmasy, one of Qualcomm's partners, greet him.

The two embraced, Aaron Salmasy took Owen Jacob and the two got into a black car, and told Owen Jacob's assistant to drive, Aaron Salmasi took Owen Jacob. Jacob sat in the back row.

Just sitting in the car, Owen Jacob couldn't wait to ask: Alan, have you contacted Eric Williams?

Of course, Aaron Salmasy nodded and said, Tomorrow at noon. At Malibu Point Manor, Eric Williams invited us to have lunch together.

Owen Jacob was a little anxious: Tomorrow noon, it's only ten o'clock in the morning, why don't you make an appointment today?

Aaron Salmasy patted the old man on the shoulder: Hey. Owen, relax, you've been on a plane for over twenty hours, always take a break, you don't want to be in this state. See you. Eric Williams, and. We always have to discuss that plan again, and this is probably our last chance, and if we miss it, our ten years of hard work may be in vain.

Hearing what his friend said, Owen Jacob also calmed down and nodded.

Driving all the way to a hotel in Santa Monica, Aaron Salmaci had already arranged the hotel room with Owen Jacob and his assistant, and after a brief shower, Owen Jacob came to the hotel. Len Salmaci's room.

Aaron Salmasi made Owen Jacob sit down on the sand and turned to make coffee.

As soon as Irving Jacob sat down, he was caught by a Fortune magazine on the coffee table, because the cover of the magazine was a snapshot of Eric on the movie set. Picking up the magazine, Owen Jacob now had a bookmark in the magazine and opened the page curiously, but it was an article introducing the Firefly Group.

Owen Jacob took a casual glance and was quickly attracted by the content.

Alan Salmaci came over, noticed Owen Jacob's focused look, carefully placed the filled coffee beside him, and sat down quietly on the sand on the other side.

As the new year begins, countless media are looking back at the past and looking forward to the future.

For financial media, whenever a new year comes, it is an intensive moment for them to rank various economic data of the previous year. The Firefly Group, which frequently staged various big moves last year, is undoubtedly the focus of attention of the American financial media. Although Firefly has not yet announced its fourth quarter financial report and full-year financial report last year, with the data disclosed in the first three quarters, Fortune magazine estimates that the annual revenue of Firefly Group in 1994 is likely to reach 1.8 billion US dollars, and the annual operating net profit will also be At around $1.5 billion, Firefly also had two significant non-operating incomes last year, a $1.5 billion divestiture of paper assets and a $2.5 billion auction of Disney's animation division. With this strong profitability, Firefly has left Hollywood's second-ranked Time Warner Group as a veritable media giant.

Waiting patiently for Owen Jacobs to read the article, Alan Salmasi said, Are you surprised?

Owen Jacob nodded. Dao: With over $100 million in cash reserves and $2.5 billion in free cash flow, it's hard to imagine that Hollywood can produce such a profitable business. Eric Williams is only 25 years old, right?

Yeah, but this young man simply appeared in this world to create miracles. Just like the Victoria's Secret annual show that was hyped by the media at the end of last year, Eric Williams was in order to run the Victoria's Secret. The brand spent 2000,000 US dollars in the luxury Neiyixiu in half a year. Originally, many people thought that the 2000,000 US dollars could only be earned back from the value-added of the Victoria's Secret brand and the profit of product sales, but Victoria's Secret After the show, the sales of the videotape suddenly exploded. Each box of $299 videotape is expected to sell 2000,000 boxes. This alone will bring Eric Williams $300 million in revenue. Subsequently, Eric Williams Williams returned the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show to ltd, and got more than 200 million worth of equity, Aaron Salmasy said with some emotion, he obviously did a lot of preparations, understand Lots of information about Eric.

Owen Jacobs was also a little embarrassed. However, he is already sixty-two years old this year, and he has experienced world events. Although he feels shocked, his mood will not be too agitated.

After drinking a cup of coffee, the two chatted about business.

Aaron Salmasy handed the prepared materials to Owen Jacob, and said, This is a detailed plan, you should take a look first.

Owen Jacob flipped through the information in his hand, and not long ago held an auction of spectrum licenses for established telecommunications companies. For these established telecommunications companies that have obtained licenses in segment a and b. Qualcomm's influence is very weak, and it is impossible to control which mobile communication technology these old telecom companies use. Therefore, Qualcomm has focused its attention on bsp from the beginning; compared with the a and b segment licenses, it is simply a limited supply. several companies. The competition for the C-segment licenses with numerous bidders will undoubtedly be fierce. In the future, those small and medium-sized telecommunications companies that have paid a high price to win spectrum licenses will definitely pursue more economical mobile communication technologies in the actual exhibition. Compared with g technology, cdma has great advantages in network construction cost and spectrum utilization efficiency.

Qualcomm's worst plan at the beginning was that once the cdma technology was abandoned by all the old telecom operators. Qualcomm is working hard to obtain commercial opportunities from the licensee of the C segment.

However, after Eric expressed interest in Qualcomm, one of Qualcomm's partners, Aaron Salmasy, soon had a very bold idea. They plan to get enough financial support from Eric, and then eat all the C-segment licenses in one go, and then 'grant' these spectrum licenses to small and medium-sized telecom operators at a relatively low price by bundling cdma technology. In this way, even if cdma technology fails miserably in mainstream telecom operators, by virtue of its promotion within the scope of C-segment licenses, cdma technology can still occupy one-third of the mobile communication market.

Aaron Salmasy said: I have registered a company called nextave. As long as I can get funds from Eric Williams, I will let go of Qualcomm's affairs and concentrate on running nextave. Get ready to grab all the C-segment licenses.

Owen Jacob put down the plan in his hand. Although Alan Salmaci's tone was full of expectations, he knew very well that this old man, like himself, had no confidence in this matter.

Because of the private tacit understanding, the competition for the A and B licenses is not fierce, but the auction price is still a total of 37.5 billion US dollars. If you want to eat all the spectrum licenses in the C-segment license auction process with a large number of competitors, you need to prepare at least twice the premium compared to the a and b-segment licenses. This figure is conservatively estimated to cost 400 million US dollars.

After hesitating for a moment, Owen Jacob asked: Allen, how likely do you think Eric Williams will provide us with 400 million US dollars of support? Don't forget, now the entire Qualcomm, even 400 million US dollars. Dollars aren't worth it.

Backing a company with a market cap of less than $400 million to execute a massive $400 million plan is, in most people's eyes, something only a lunatic would do.

Although a set of words that have been discussed repeatedly, in fact, neither Owen Jacob nor Alan Salmasi have any confidence in their hearts, and it is a bit unreasonable to force such a copy. The actual plan is also entirely because Qualcomm has nowhere to go now.

Since Eric Williams took the initiative to contact us, we will definitely be able to get some support from him this time. Perhaps, Eric Williams can help us lobby a mainstream telecom operator to accept cdma technology, he said. Not sure. As for this plan, Aaron Salmasy comforted Owen Jacob, and at the same time comforted himself, and then he looked at the drafted plan with a hint of bitterness on his face. Smile: As for this, if you try it, maybe you have a 1% chance of success, but if you don't try it, there is nothing. (To be continued.)

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