Chapter 1008 Return
Compared with other previous itineraries with various jobs, the planned New Zealand itinerary was the easiest.
Eric has full confidence in Peter Jackson and does not intend to interfere in the filming of the "Lord of the Rings" series.
This time, I came here purely to experience the filming process of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy for myself, and at the same time to relax. Once back in Los Angeles, with Gravity kicking off and Iron Man post-production, it's going to be a busy few months.
It's just that the AOL incident completely destroyed Eric's expectations for the trip to New Zealand.
Arriving in Queenstown on Wednesday, New Zealand time, until the dust settled on Saturday morning, Eric only stayed for a weekend before heading back to Los Angeles ahead of schedule.
Meanwhile, over in New York, after AOL held a press conference on Saturday morning local time, announcing that the company would continue to adhere to its original development strategy and the news that the three Chris Hansen had resigned from the board of directors of AOL, a media Time was in an uproar.
The New York Times directly used the headline "The Great Destruction of the Firefly System" to describe the event.
However, there are also a lot of media predictions that Firefly's investment will let go of AOL's control. For AOL, it will be a huge crisis.
After all, many people can see that the complete letting go of Firefly Investments likely means that it will gradually sell off its stocks.
As the largest shareholder with a shareholding ratio of more than 30%, once Firefly Investment sells its stocks aggressively, the impact on AOL's stock price is almost devastating.
On the other hand, as long as there is a little bit of rationality, no one will believe that the two sides will continue to maintain the previous close cooperation posture as stated in the press conference. Without the support of the media resources of the Firefly system, AOL will directly face the dilemma of content shortage in the process of developing its Internet media business.
However, although the two sides could not reach an agreement on the development concept of AOL, Eric did not deny that Steve Case was a very capable professional manager.
Faced with the public relations situation that AOL encountered after the press conference, Steve Case decisively took a series of corresponding remedial measures.
The next day, that is, Sunday, after urgent consultations, Steve Case once again held an urgent press conference, announcing that in order to express confidence in the company's development prospects, AOL's management would hold the company's shares by mortgage itself and other means. , to raise $1 billion to acquire AOL shares.
When a company's management buys or sells stocks, it is undoubtedly the best indicator of their attitude towards the company's development prospects. Steve Case's move directly reassured many hesitant investors.
At the same time, Richard Parsons, an executive of Time Warner Group, also appeared at the press conference, and jointly issued a statement with Steve Case that Time Warner and AOL will reach a strategic partnership in media content. .
It stands to reason that Richard Parsons is the CEO of Warner Bros. Films, a subsidiary of Time Warner. AOL needs more content support from the news media to develop its portal business. Richard Parsons' appearance at the press conference seemed out of place.
But in fact, the media and investors with a little more keen sense of smell are very aware that Richard Parsons is a senior executive of Time Warner's major shareholder Gerald Levin. Richard Parsons came forward, basically representing the attitude of Gerald Levin.
Gerald Levine was the head and major shareholder of Time Media Corporation before Time Warner Group was established, which owns a large number of print media such as the famous "Time" magazine.
Even though Time Warner has been established for many years, Gerald Levin still maintains a strong influence on the newspapers and magazines once owned by Time Media. This content is exactly what the AOL business portal and other Internet media businesses urgently need. of.
What's more, Time Warner also owns the largest cable news network cnn in North America and even the world.
Even if there is a competition for control of the company with Ted Turner behind CNN, there is not much obstacle for Gerald Levin to match the company's beneficial media cooperation. As long as it can reach a cooperation with Time Warner, even if it is completely deadlocked with the Firefly system, AOL's portal will be able to obtain sufficient media resources from Time Warner.
Moreover, Richard Parsons' attendance at AOL's press conference once again reminded Wall Street and major media of rumors that the two giants may merge.
The marriage of the old comprehensive media group and the emerging Internet media giants seems to many people to be a powerful combination of one plus one greater than two.
The capital market is far more blind than many ordinary people imagine.
Stimulated by a series of targeted positive news, when AOL shares reopened on Monday, in just two hours, the stock price returned to the price before Steve Case's interview with CNN last week.
By the end of the day, AOL's single-stock share price had reached $262.39, a surge of 11.2% compared to the $235.76 at the opening, and AOL's market value had thus reached $43.294 billion.
Driven by AOL's stock price, the Nasdaq index finally broke through the 2,000-point mark on Monday, and the market situation was red.
Faced with this situation, the most entangled is undoubtedly AOL's major shareholders other than Firefly Investments.
Firefly Investment’s reduction of AOL’s shares is irreversible. To prevent AOL’s stock price from plummeting or even crashing, other shareholders must take over the shares sold by Firefly Investments.
In a video conference last week, Eric directly offered $4 billion for the 10% stake to be reduced, and did not agree to any discount. However, the market value of AOL before applying for an emergency suspension was only US$38.9 billion. Naturally, major shareholders did not agree to buy 16.5 million shares of Firefly Investments at a price of US$4 billion.
But just on the day trading resumed, AOL's market cap surpassed $43 billion.
According to Eric's intention at the time, if you want to continue this transaction now, the price will be calculated at US$4.3 billion, and an additional US$300 million will be paid in just three days. Anyone will feel extremely distressed.
Eric was already on the plane flying back to Los Angeles at the time, and the representatives of the major shareholders had to test Chris. Eric was very firm on this matter and did not give Chris any autonomy. Temptation, of course, yielded no results.
And so on until the next day.
According to the usual market rules, after the retaliatory rebound of AOL's stock price yesterday, most people thought that the stock price would fall back today, but the fact made many shareholders happy and mixed with incomparable entanglement.
Not only did AOL’s share price show no signs of falling the next day, but it rose again by 3.1%, with a market value of $44.636 billion, hitting the $45 billion mark.
Even the surreptitious selling of millions of shares by some minority shareholders who predicted that AOL's stock price may have peaked did nothing to stop the strong upward trend.
In addition to Firefly Investment and management holdings, other shareholders of AOL are basically major investment banks and retirement insurance funds in various states in the United States. Even if these institutions do not buy stocks for long-term holdings, they are more profitable than those for short-term arbitrage. Hedge funds have held much longer, and they are also the capital of the US stock market.
Due to the nature of capital, especially the retirement insurance funds of various states, the investment principle is based on prudence. Now that the bubble component of the Nasdaq stock market is becoming more and more obvious, the brokers of these investment institutions have naturally considered taking advantage of the high stock price of AOL to cash out.
However, in the face of Firefly Investments, which are determined to reduce their holdings on a large scale, these investment institutions have to endure this mentality temporarily.
Everyone knows that cashing out together will only result in everyone getting nothing. If AOL's stock price collapses and Firefly's investment loses billions of dollars, it won't have a serious impact on the company, which already holds more than $200 billion in assets. But for major investment institutions, even if the stocks in their hands are only worth hundreds of millions of dollars, many people will lose their jobs.
In the current situation, only by first investing in the 10% of the stocks in Firefly, they will have half a year to gradually sell the stocks in their hands.
Of course, there is also a premise that the relevant managers can endure the temptation of AOL's stock price rising all the time. After all, most people wait until the stock market crashes in the expectation of 'maybe it can rise a little more'. It was only when I woke up that I felt regretful.
So when Eric's private jet landed at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday afternoon, John Mark, the president of Morgan Stanley, who was elected as the shareholder representative, also arrived in Los Angeles at the same time.
Although after more than ten hours of flight, Eric did not feel any fatigue from long-distance travel due to the luxurious and comfortable private plane. He slept for a few hours on the plane and arrived in sunny Los Angeles. The depressed mood of the day has dissipated a lot.
He gave the two female assistants and a group of bodyguards a vacation that accompanied him around the earth, and sent them to leave. Eric took the car back to the Jiaojiao Manor, and when he was still on the road, he received a call from John Mark. , the other party was already waiting for him outside the gate of Jiaojiao Manor.
Although I didn't want to deal with these people at this time, others blocked the door, and Eric and I didn't want to avoid it.
Getting off the car at the gate of Jiaojiao Manor, Eric greeted him and shook hands with John Mark, and the two walked into the manor.
Walking side by side with Eric on the neat passage leading to Shell Villa, John Mark looked at the carefully constructed green lawns around, and complimented: "Compared with a few years ago, this place is more beautiful."
Eric rarely entertains guests at Sharphorn Manor. However, during the sale of Disney's hand-drawn animation department and the acquisition of Marvel a few years ago, Eric held a meeting for major investment banks and fund managers at Sharphorn Manor. A business party, when John Mark was also present.
"John, you can also buy a manor in Los Angeles. It's good to come here for vacation occasionally. The environment in Los Angeles is still very relaxing."
John Mark shook his head with a wry smile: "Perhaps, I won't be able to have this kind of time until I retire."
The two chatted, and the twins at the villa came over together, walked closer and called the master together, and followed Eric.
John Mark has been in a high position for a long time, and there is no shortage of women around him, but in the face of twins who are identical in body and appearance, he can't help but take a few more glances, and he is somewhat envious of Eric's beauty.
Eric also didn't mean to introduce the twins to John Mark, just asked: "Where's Drew?"
Natasha said: "The boss is in the company and will come after get off work."
Eric nodded and said, "Wait a minute to help me and Mr. Mark make a pot of coffee. My luggage is in the back car, as well as everyone's gifts. Carly has already sorted them out. You two have them too, look for yourself. Just the name."
After the order, Eric and John Mark went to the reception area beside the glass curtain wall of the villa and sat down together, chatted for a while, waited for the twins to bring the coffee, poured it for them and left, Eric took the coffee Cup, leaned back on the sofa relaxedly, and asked, "So, John, what are you doing here this time?"
John Mark smiled bitterly and said, "Eric, what you actually understand in your heart is the matter of AOL stocks."
"Actually, I just got off the plane," Eric shrugged and asked, "What's the closing stock price today?"
"$270.52," John Mark said. "It's up about 3 percent from yesterday."
Taking a sip of coffee carefully, Eric said, "It seems that it's time for a stock split. I think it's more appropriate to split 10 directly. There is still a lot of room for AOL's stock price to rise."
John Mark said, "If that's the case, Eric, why do you insist that you have to sell it?"
"Everyone..." Eric paused, not knowing how to translate "Dao is different and not conspiracy", so he had to say: "If the direction is not right, the current brilliance is only temporary after all."
"Eric, none of us know what the future will be like, how can you be sure that AOL isn't looking its way?"
Eric turned his head and glanced at the open blue sea outside the curtain wall, and seemed a little absent-minded: "Yeah, so, we can only stick to a direction that we think is right, I have my insistence, Steve has Steve's. Persistence, you have your perseverance. Everyone insists on different things. Reluctantly getting together can only drag each other down, so it is better to separate."
Feeling that Eric wanted to divert the topic, John Mark had to take the initiative to mention the purpose of the trip: "Eric, according to the price you offered last week, how about a 10% discount, we can finish it within a week. Transaction, cash payment."
Eric smiled and said, "John, have you noticed the recent fluctuations in the Russian ruble?"
John Mark was stunned for a moment, wondering why Eric suddenly raised this question, and shook his head: "Eric, I'm not in charge of foreign exchange business, is there any problem with the ruble?"