hunt hollywood

Although there is no shortage of media speculation during this period of time that the tens of billions of dollars in debt of the Westeros system may drag down Westeros' personal net worth.However, the fact is that the Gulf War broke out for a month, and because of the victories of the multinational forces, as the leader of this war, the US stock market quickly got rid of the haze of the war and began to rebound.

In just one month, the Dow Jones index rose by 23% compared with the pre-war period, and the final rebound rate of the S&P 500 index also reached 25%.

Look back at this time.

Simon Westrowka decisively and quickly completed the acquisition of Bell Atlantic and MCA before the outbreak of the war, which can be called a stroke of magic.

If the two acquisitions were delayed until after the outbreak of the war, and only increased according to the standard of the market, it would be impossible for Westeros to acquire these two companies at the original price.

After all, the premium that Westeros offered to Bell Atlantic was only about 30% of the previous share price.Although the premium for the acquisition of MCA is higher, this is also because MCA has been seriously dragged down by the continued downturn in the US economic situation for more than a year.

You know, two years ago, C President Michael Ovitz made a test to MCA instead of Sony, and Lou Wassalman's offer was as high as 80 billion US dollars.

As for Bell Atlantic, Daenerys Entertainment took a big advantage.Simon may have to pay an additional $20 billion for Bell Atlantic if it drags on after the war.

Now, it is just the natural rebound of the value of these two companies along with the overall economic situation in the United States, which has brought huge potential benefits to Simon.

If necessary, Simon can easily relieve the debt pressure faced by the Westeros system by selling some of the stocks of these two companies.

What's more, Simon doesn't actually need to do this.

After more than a month of financial review, Daenerys Entertainment's 1990 financial report was finally released.

Throughout 1990, Daenerys Entertainment's net profit for the whole year of last year finally reached 11.2 billion U.S. dollars, which was higher than the original expectation of about 10 billion U.S. dollars through the huge profits from movies, TV, games, consumer goods, and original soundtracks. About $1 million higher.

Although Daenerys Entertainment's income last year was basically quickly withdrawn and used for other investments in the Westeros system, but in the future, relying on the follow-up channels of a series of blockbuster films in the previous few years, only calculations related to Before the merger of MCA, Daenerys Entertainment, the company's revenue in 1991 was still able to reach the level of 1990.

Therefore, just the income contributed by Daenerys Entertainment is enough to pay off the due debts of the entire Westeros system.

With the continuous rebound of the U.S. stock market and the expiration of the original three-year promise of not reducing holdings of technology stocks, Westeros can also cash out huge amounts of money from the technology stock market at any time if necessary.

What's more, the two corporate giants Bell Atlantic and MCA acquired this time can also continue to generate huge cash flow and profit.

Since the tens of billions of dollars in debt will not pose a threat to the Westeros system, it is not difficult to imagine that Simon Westeros' personal net worth will not only not shrink with the recovery of the overall economic situation in the United States, but will be more likely to continue. Increase.

Chapter 401 Card Machine (Repair)

The WMA headquarters in Beverly Hills.

Courteney Cox and Jonathan Friedman finished talking about a script they had just received recently, and were about to leave. Thinking of reading the progress of the investigation of the attack a few years ago in the newspaper yesterday, Courteney I couldn't help but sat down again, and said to Jonathan, "Joe, do you know about Christie Swanson?"

Jonathan Friedman paused and nodded: "I know."

The Santa Monica Police Department's investigation into the attack four summers ago is still ongoing.

Yesterday, the media suddenly exposed further information about the case, and Hollywood actress Kristy Swanson was involved.It is said that before Matthew Broderick rushed to intercept Simon Westeros that night, it was Kristy Swanson who revealed to them where Westeros worked.

This evidence made the situation further biased towards Simon.

In fact, no one believes what Matthew Broderick said when he took the lead in holding a press conference so far, and the matter has become very clear.It's just that the Santa Monica Police Department must give the media and the public an unquestionable case investigation result before continuing to dig out everything related to the original attack.

Although the public tends to sympathize with the weak, it is not at all incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. Once they find themselves deceived and fooled, their anger will only become more violent.

The six people who held the press conference in an attempt to 'preemptively strike' were already considered street rats.Even, most of them want to take the initiative to reconcile and get rid of this incident, but Simon has no intention of letting go.

Courteney Cox pondered her words for a while, then suddenly changed the topic again, and said, "Joe, Simon's birthday party, did our company get the invitation this time?"

Simon personally and the parties organized by Daenerys Entertainment in the past will send a batch of invitations to WMA for them to distribute by themselves.

When Courteney asked this, her purpose couldn't be more obvious.

Jonathan shook his head and said, "Curt, Simon doesn't plan to hold a large-scale birthday party this time. He will probably only invite some senior executives of the company and relatives and friends."

After saying this, both of them were suddenly silent.

Today is February 2th, only 19 days away from Simon's birthday.Theoretically, for Simon's birthday party, a party that many people attach great importance to, the invitation letter will be sent out a week in advance.

Jonathan naturally got his own invitation letter.

However, Courteney, who Simon had met since he arrived in Los Angeles, was excluded from the ranks of "friends and relatives" he just mentioned.

The ups and downs of life are really unpredictable at times.

Jonathan also thought of Sandra Bullock, who was also a client under his own name. As Simon's closest friend of the opposite sex, he even almost developed into a lover at the beginning. Sandra's career development in recent years can be described as smooth sailing.

In comparison, as the heroine of the "Scream" series, although Courteney is also a first-line actress, after this year's "Scream 3" ends, she may face an uncertain future .

The transformation of a horror movie star is very difficult.

After all, there are not many opportunities for actresses in Hollywood, but the competition is very fierce.

In the current Hollywood, the veteran Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Cher, etc., the Mesozoic Melanie Griffith, Michelle Pfeiffer, etc., the new generation Sander La Block, Julia Roberts, etc., these actresses are very strong, and major studios are more inclined to hand over high-quality projects to these people in the selection of suitable roles.

Jonathan could roughly understand Courteney's thoughts at this time.

The actress who had the best chance to rise together with Simon has now been excluded from Simon's social circle.The two things that were mentioned suddenly just now are probably because Courteney wants to use the next opportunity of Simon's birthday party to personally explain to him the original attack, and at the same time draw in the relationship between the two parties.

However, Jonathan knew that Simon didn't really care about the attack that year at all, but Janet was holding on to it.

So women are the most vengeful.

As for the Christie Swanson who 'guided' Matthew Broderick and others to attack Simon, he is still a client of WMA.

It's just that, in recent years, this young actor who can only play supporting roles in some youth horror films, Simon didn't even mention it after the news was exposed. Although WMA will not block the other party too deliberately, so as not to cause any trouble Public opinion is troublesome, but it is impossible to obtain any resources in the future.

After a while, Courteney finally mustered up her courage and said, "Joe, can you help me get an invitation letter?"

Jonathan could only shake his head.

As far as he knows, the size of this birthday party will be controlled within 100 people, [-] party places, for other social gatherings in Hollywood, such a birthday party is not small, but for Simon Westeros' birthday For parties, each invitation needs to be carefully selected.

Speaking of which, in recent days, not only Courteney, many stars under the WMA, or countless people in Hollywood are trying their best to get an invitation letter for Simon Westeros' birthday party.

Simon actually doesn't care about things like the birthday party list, Janet is in charge of it.

Jonathan did rely on his relationship with Simon to get a few invitations from Janet for his contacts, but the party list has basically been finalized, and Courteney is not yet at the level where he can consume his favor.

Sending Courteney Cox away, Jonathan sighed again in his heart, and quickly turned his energy to other things.

The last time I spoke to Simon, he was planning to train several 30-year-old male stars who are suitable for action movies.

There are not no action stars in Hollywood at this stage, such as Dolph Lundgren, Steven Seagal, etc., but they are not too first-line. Under the name of WMA, Keanu Reeves and other new generations are still a little immature for the time being.As for the hottest Mel Gibson right now, he is a bit older.

In fact, Jonathan also thought of Tom Cruise. If there is an actor in his 30s who is suitable for action movies, there is no one in Hollywood who is more suitable than him.

However, Simon is not at all interested in this male star who is in the front line and also has a good box office appeal.

Being disliked by a Hollywood bigwig of such a level, with the deepening cooperation between Daenerys Entertainment and Paramount, the resources that Tom Cruise can obtain in Hollywood will only be further compressed.It is likely that within a few years, it will gradually decline.

Daenerys Studios.

While Jonathan was thinking about the action actor, Simon was also discussing the next cooperation with Paramount executives.

Simon is a person who attaches great importance to promises. In order to let Paramount give up obstructing Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of MCA, he did not intend to violate whether it was a paper contract or an oral agreement.

The next major cooperation between the two parties will be three films on the one hand, and USA Television, which the two companies each hold 50% of the shares on the other.

Among the three films, the key project that has been finalized is "Mission: Impossible", which can be made into a long-term series.However, since the original version of Tom Cruise is not planned, Simon is not in a hurry to develop this project for the time being, because there is no suitable actor candidate in the short term.

Moreover, although three movies have been agreed, the cooperation time is very loose, and neither party will be too anxious.

What everyone is discussing at this time is the issue of the development of the USA.

As a basic cable station, USA was established in 1977 and was originally a joint venture between MCA, Paramount and Warner.Later, due to some reasons, Warner withdrew from its own shares and became MCA and Paramount each holding 50% of the shares.

Established more than ten years ago, USA can be regarded as a very old basic cable station. However, compared with the more prosperous basic cable stations such as ESPN, CNN, and MTV, USA has never found its own position. It's been a mixed bag, experimenting with sports styles, doing kids shows, airing original series, making TV movies, and in recent years, with the rise of reality TV, some low-budget variety game shows .

In Simon’s memory, later ESPN, CNN, and MTV were already the overlords in their respective fields. Although USA has always existed, it has always been tepid. In the end, the style tends to be closer to several major public television networks, relying only on some crime police. Original gatherings such as bandits support the ratings, but because of the structure of basic cable stations, these dramas are destined to be unable to compare with public TV networks in terms of their own quality and ratings.

The only thing that satisfies Simon in the current USA is the number of access users as many as 2100 million.

Based on an average of 3 people per user, USA already has more than 6000 million basic viewers, which is close to one-third of the total population of the United States.

Of course, because the four major public television networks are still monopolized for the time being, ESPN, MTV, CNN and even HBO, the basic cable stations with distinctive styles, have separated most of the cable TV users. Although they have a very considerable access user base, USA However, the status of the program has been very bleak.

Because there is no TV program that can be called the pillar, it is difficult to catch the audience's attention. USA belongs to the kind of existence that is basically difficult to remember the TV station number on the remote control.

The main source of income for basic cable stations is the share of operators and their own advertisements.

According to the viewing status and number of users of the cable station, the operator pays a certain amount of share for the basic cable station on a monthly basis. For a basic cable station with a high degree of attention, such as CNN, each user can contribute up to 70 cents per month for the TV station. , advertising revenue is equally lucrative.

The average operator share in the USA is only 15 cents, which is less than a quarter of that of CNN, and the number of users is also less than half of that of CNN.

Therefore, although there are 2100 million access users, the monthly revenue shared by operators is only a little over 300 million US dollars, and the annual revenue is only more than 6000 million US dollars including the advertising revenue that is roughly equivalent to the operator's share.

Simon understands that the main reason for this situation is that the positioning of the USA TV network is not clear enough, and they always want to be bigger and more comprehensive, but the result is like a bear breaking a stick, and nothing is done well. ESPN, MTV, and CNN, the basic cable networks focused on a single category of sports, music, and news, have all been successful.

Before the acquisition of MCA, Simon had already begun to consider the next development of USA.

The fields that cable TV stations can focus on, music, sports, news and even movies, have all been taken advantage of.Then, USA can only start from the segmentation of the audience.

Because of the IP of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills", Simon finally decided to make USA a female TV station and target a very large number of housewives in the United States.

You must know that although the United States is the most developed country in the world, it has experienced many feminist movements to liberate women in recent decades. However, in the early 90s, the proportion of American women who chose to give up their jobs after marriage and become full-time housewives still exceeded 40%. %, TV is undoubtedly the biggest pastime for these women when they are not doing housework.

USA, which just so happens to be another 24-hour basic cable station that's great for the housewives crowd.

After so many years of continuous operation, it has been tepid. After Simon proposed to keep the shareholding structure unchanged but required absolute control of USA, Paramount chairman Martin Davis did not insist too much.

The two sides discussed for an afternoon, and basically finalized the budget plan and program plan of USA for the next year.

In the next year, Daenerys Entertainment and Paramount Communications will jointly inject $[-] million into USA for episode development, copyright purchase and advertising.

On the TV show side, the reboot of "The Housewives of Beverly Hills" will usually kick off another "The Real Housewives of New York" series.Daenerys Entertainment will continue to develop and purchase a number of TV programs aimed at female groups while focusing on the reality show series The Beautiful Wife.

At five o'clock, the meeting ended on time.

Others left one after another, but Martin Davis, the chairman of Paramount, did not leave in a hurry. He proposed to walk around the Daenerys Studios Park with Simon, and Simon did not refuse.

"Actually, Simon, about "Mission Impossible", can't you really let Tom try it? I think he is still very suitable."

The two were walking on the asphalt corridor in the park. When Simon heard Martin Davis mentioning this matter, he just shook his head and said, "Martin, this is a matter of principle."

When necessary, Simon will make some compromises, such as the cooperation with Paramount, and the lifting of the ban on Meg Ryan. These are all to avoid twists and turns in the MCA acquisition case, and Simon will not lose big because of small things.However, Tom Cruise has no leverage to make him compromise, and Simon also needs to insist on expressing an attitude, an attitude that the studio is the controller of Hollywood.

Moreover, the current Daenerys Entertainment, because it has too many high-quality IP reserves, does not mind too much the failure of one or two projects, even the previous "Mission: Impossible" series.

Sensing Simon's insistence, Martin Davis didn't force himself too much, and tactfully turned the topic elsewhere.

After all, Martin Davis is not a latecomer like Simon, and it is impossible to know the connection between Tom Cruise and the "Mission: Impossible" series. I just mentioned it because of the relationship between Tom Cruise and Paramount over the years The cooperation is quite pleasant, and there are some personal friendships in it.

Moreover, as Paramount's performance in the past two years has begun to turn into a downturn, Martin Davis's control over the company is also rapidly weakening. He has a premonition that Paramount is likely to encounter the same situation as MCA in the next few years. fate.Once this is the case, this company has nothing to do with him, and naturally he will not be too fussy at this time.

In the afternoon meeting, the reason why USA's control was easily given up was actually the main reason.

Chapter 402 Card Machine (2) (Repair)

Simon sent Martin Davis away, and had dinner with Robert Iger, who had come to the west coast to attend the afternoon meeting, and gave a face-to-face opportunity.

After the merger of MCA, Robert Iger's position remains the same, and he is still the president of Daenerys Entertainment Group, but the authority in his hands has increased significantly.

In the next few years, while maintaining Daenerys Entertainment's advantages in the field of TV program production, Robert Iger's work focus will shift to the cable TV business, and the USA TV Network will be the top priority.

Although this MCA finally fell into the hands of Daenerys Entertainment, the seven major Hollywood studios in the past, Columbia and MGM have all been bought by overseas investors, and now there are Canada’s Seagram Group, Overseas giants such as France's Vivendi Group are eyeing other Hollywood studios.

Therefore, both the U.S. government and the media are aware of a problem. In order to prevent more Hollywood studios from being acquired by overseas capital, it is the general trend to loosen the prohibition on mergers between local American TV networks and studios.

Simon remembers the time limit for the lifting of this legal restriction, which was probably around 1994.

Immediately afterwards, Disney acquired ABC, and later, CBS and NBC also changed hands and merged with Hollywood studio giants.The FOX TV network under News Corporation also completely got rid of many legal constraints after that, and gradually developed to a scale that stands shoulder to shoulder with the traditional three major TV networks.

Speaking of which, if Simon mobilizes the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and his own powerful contacts to lobby now, it is not impossible to lift the ban one or two years in advance.

Doing that, though, doesn't fit with Simon's plans for the pace of Daenerys' entertainment.

Daenerys Entertainment's next step is definitely to merge a national TV network and completely complete its horizontal layout in the media and entertainment field. However, this matter needs to be digested and integrated after MCA and Daenerys Entertainment completes the IPO. Down.

In the next step of M&A expansion, Simon still prefers cash acquisitions. In fact, in many corporate mergers and acquisitions, most of the acquired parties also expect to be able to cash out directly.However, when the debt burden is already heavy enough, Daenerys Entertainment is not suitable for adding too large a debt at one time, and can only adopt the acquisition method of cash and equity.

Even, if the market value of Daenerys Entertainment is considerable enough by then, it would be very cost-effective to use equity mergers and acquisitions entirely.

As for the equity to be sold out, the stock repurchase will be carried out after the company has enough funds.

After dinner, it was past eight o'clock in the evening when Simon returned to Cape Dumei Manor.

Today is Tuesday, and Janet has flown to the east coast to be busy with Cersei Capital in recent days.

The overall situation of the Gulf War has been decided, and it has basically begun to wrap up. Cersei Fund Management, a subsidiary of Cersei Capital, has also begun to wrap up its fund hedging operations around this war.

Now that we have decided to give up many opportunities such as the subsequent pound crisis, this operation can be said to be the last big market for the Cersei Fund management team to operate without any ties.