Chapter 546 It's so Crazy

"Since you have made up your mind, of course I have to think long-term."

Chris smiled and said: "As for the acquisition, the information you have collected is very comprehensive. Although Nokia's recent 1011 mobile phone has sold well, the predicament of Nokia itself has not been solved. The capital advantage, the acquisition of Nokia is not a big problem, we are only discussing which acquisition method to use, Eric, if the acquisition is wholly owned, the premium will be very high, and your original plan to acquire the TV network will be hindered by this. .Now among the four major TV networks in North America, the Fox TV network has developed the fastest and will definitely not sell it, while the market value of any of the other three major TV networks exceeds 10 billion US dollars. If you adopt a stock exchange merger, you will even lose money. The absolute control of Firefly."

In fact, Eric has been thinking about these issues all the time, and things like the Gulf War will definitely not happen a second time. The TV network thing is the sooner the better.

Eric vaguely remembers some data. In the original time and space, the order of integration of the three major North American TV networks and film companies is, cbs and film companies. In 1996, Disney completed the merger and acquisition of about 19 billion US dollars, but only three years later, in 1999 Viacom's acquisition of cbs cost $37 billion. The scale of the two TV networks is not too different. This situation is mainly due to the rise in stock prices caused by the rapid economic growth of the United States in the 1990s.

"Chris, do you think that with Firefly's current performance, it is feasible to acquire the TV network entirely by issuing corporate bonds?"

Chris thought for a moment. Eric did not hide many of his plans. If he followed the plan that Eric communicated with him, Firefly could raise about $5 billion during the negotiation process of acquiring the TV network. Cash, but if you want to swallow any of the three major TV networks, the size of the capital is about $15 billion to be safe.

$15 billion minus $5 billion…

thought here. Chris suddenly widened his eyes and looked at Eric with an incredible expression: "Issue $10 billion in corporate bonds, Eric, you are a lunatic."

Not to mention $10 billion in debt financing. As of 1993, even in the world, few companies have invested more than 10 billion US dollars in corporate mergers and acquisitions, not to mention the issuance of 10 billion US dollars of corporate debt in order to acquire a company. It can only be described as crazy.

Eric didn't care that Chris looked frightened and said: "Chris, think about it from another angle, we all know the current situation of MGM, MGM's current assets are between 1 billion and 1.5 billion US dollars. However, the company's debt is as high as 1.7 billion US dollars, and the debt ratio exceeds 100%. However, if the TV network acquisition is completed, there is absolutely no problem with Firefly's assets reaching 30 billion US dollars, then add the existing debt.

And only less than 40%. "

"However, Eric, billion-level debt and tens of billion-level debt are no longer a simple number issue."

Eric certainly knows this. Investors generally buy corporate bonds because the risks of bonds are relatively low, and they do not have to bear the risks brought about by the ups and downs of corporate performance like stocks. Therefore, the larger the amount involved, the more cautious the investor will be, and a one-time discovery of tens of billions of dollars in corporate debt, which even a giant like General Motors has never seen so far.

However, Eric was full of confidence. In my memory, the original time and space Disney successfully completed the debt financing of tens of billions of dollars in the process of acquiring TV stations, not to mention. Firefly Pictures is now operating much better than Disney in parallel time and space: "Chris, perhaps for other companies, the one-time issuance of tens of billions of dollars in corporate bonds is indeed large enough for Wall Street investors to invest. It's prohibitive, but Firefly is different. Last year, Firefly's net profit was close to one billion US dollars. This year, it is only the three summer movies of "Jurassic Park", "A Bug's Life" and "Clash Between Heaven and Earth". The net profit of the box office share will reach 500 million US dollars, which is only part of the film's omni-channel operation. Such profitability is enough to dispel the concerns of most investors. "

Chris was about to speak when the car suddenly stopped, and Eric looked out the window, only to find that the car had been parked in the hotel's underground parking lot.

Chris put all the information back in the suitcase and said, "Eric, I will pay attention to this matter. When I return to New York, I will take the time to do a feasibility assessment. Jorma Ollila may be returning to Finland in the afternoon. , so we only have one lunch exchange time with him, so let's focus on Nokia first."

Eric nodded, got out of the car, and arranged for Chris and his group. It was almost noon. Eric and Chris, on behalf of Firefly, hosted a dinner for Jorma Ollila,

According to the negotiation between Eric and Chris, Firefly Investment will issue an offer to Nokia within three days. Before the acquisition is completed, their positions with Jorma Ollila will be temporarily opposed, so the two sides will be at the luncheon. The conversation did not involve too many substantive issues. Eric just talked nonsense to Joma Ollila why he was interested in Nokia, and Joma Ollila talked a lot about it. The prospect of digital mobile phones and global mobile communication network (g**), and finally the guests and hosts were happy.

Jorma Ollila returned to Finland in the afternoon to conduct preliminary communication with the current shareholders of several major banks of Nokia Group.

Eric and Chris rented the hotel's conference room and began to discuss specific acquisition plans.

Although the Nokia Group has successively divested or sold its loss-making paper, rubber and TV businesses in recent years, as a once diversified Finnish giant, in addition to the mobile communication equipment sector, the Nokia Group currently also owns energy, pharmaceuticals and cables. As for other businesses, this part of the assets has not been divested and sold because it has remained profitable, and it accounts for about one-third of the group's total assets.

Although mobile communication companies in some European countries have begun to operate g** networks, which has increased the sales of Nokia's first g** mobile phone 1011, the g** network has not yet been fully popularized, plus the huge amount of research and development in the early stage. Investment, although g** mobile phone has broad prospects, but Nokia's mobile phone department is still in a state of loss, and the funds have been fed back by other profitable departments. Except for Eric, a traveler, no one can predict the explosive growth potential of g** mobile phones in the next few years. Without seeing actual profits, the shareholders of Nokia Group will not tolerate this situation continuing. That's why Joma Ollila desperately needs outside investment.

Everyone knows that energy and pharma are lucrative industries, but Eric wasn't interested, after all, in terms of scale. These businesses of Nokia are not even small shrimps in front of those giants.

After detailed discussions, Eric finally decided to acquire Nokia's mobile communications department as the top priority. This department includes not only the mobile phone business, but also the communications equipment business. It mainly produces base station equipment for the g** network, as the earliest use * Network countries, Nokia's technology in this area is much ahead of other communication equipment manufacturers.

The next afternoon, Eric and Chris walked out of the conference room together. Chris still held a stack of documents in his hand and said, "In order to develop g** mobile phones. The Nokia Group has been losing money for the past two years, which means that Nokia will All the profits generated by those profitable divisions have been invested in the research and development of g** mobile phones, and now that the results have been released, I don’t think Nokia shareholders would sell the mobile communication division to us as long as they had a little foresight.”

"Who knows, maybe Nokia's shareholders will be eager to cash out," Eric said. "But in any case, we must at least get an absolute controlling stake in Nokia."

This is the bottom line of the acquisition discussed by the team in the past two days. Chris also nodded in agreement and said, "Then. I will make a formal acquisition offer to Nokia tomorrow morning. Also, about the name of the offshore investment fund just discussed, you Come up with a name."

Because tax rates vary from country to country. In the process of cross-border acquisitions, the circulation of large sums of money will always involve tax issues. The usual solution is to inject funds into an offshore company, and then invest and operate through the offshore company. At the same time, this offshore investment can also function as a hidden asset. Although it's only 1993 now. However, because of the convenience of offshore investment, the capital scale of various offshore capital centers around the world has exceeded one trillion US dollars.

Eric remembered the voices of the two little guys when he called New York yesterday, and quickly said, "Let's call the Hawaii Fund."

Chris nodded and smiled: "Do you prefer your daughter?"

"Yeah, haven't you heard the saying that the son is the enemy of the father's previous life, and the daughter is the lover of the father's previous life."

"There seems to be such a saying, and I think it's quite scientific. For a long time, my relationship with my father was not very good, but Emily and her father have always been very harmonious. Maybe you don't know, I There have been several disputes with Emily's father, and almost every time she is on her father's side." Chris said with a smile on the corner of his mouth, and added: "Then I will let someone register the name."

Eric sighed, the conference room was at the bottom of the hotel, the two came to the end of the corridor, and the rest of the team went directly to the restaurant for dinner, but Eric had to go upstairs to change clothes, and Chris also had something to do. While waiting for the elevator, Chris asked curiously, "Which company's date is tonight?"

In addition to Nokia, in order to cooperate with the negotiation of the "GATT", Eric has to take into account the negotiation and cooperation with European film forces.

"The people from Credit Lyon Bank, MGM's largest shareholder, suffered huge losses for the two movies released by MGM during the summer. Credit Lyon passed the auction of MGM last year, and now they want to sell MGM. It's a hot deal, but before they sell it, they want MGM to recover so it's easier to find a home."

The elevator door opened, Chris and Eric turned sideways together, let the guests in the elevator leave, and then walked in, Chris pressed the button, and then asked the topic just now: "Have you ever thought about buying MGM ?"

"Of course I do. I'm very jealous of MGM's huge film library. If I can win MGM's film library, it will not only give full play to Firefly's current omni-channel operating resource advantages, but also help TV networks in the future. There are also great benefits to the development of the TV network, after all, the TV network still needs a lot of high-quality content. But other than the film library, there is nothing that impresses me at MGM.”

In the 1986 change of hands, Ted Turner only left MGM's film library before 1948, which is also the reason why Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting Company began to broadcast MGM's old movies in recent years. , but MGM still owns the rights to more than 4,000 movies and a larger number of TV series rights, the size of the film library is second only to that of Time Warner. However, because of MGM's continuous losses for many years, the once brilliant movie giant could not take advantage of its huge film library size, and could only continue to struggle in the vicious circle of continuous borrowing and continuous losses.

Chris said: "Isn't there still a 007 copyright?"

"With MGM's current debt scale, at an annual interest rate of 5%, the annual debt interest to be paid is as high as 80 million. MGM launches a 007 every two years on average, and the profit generated is not enough to pay the interest on corporate bonds. , so MGM has been losing money all these years, and the debt is getting more and more." Eric casually talked about MGM, suddenly had an idea, and couldn't help kicking the elevator wall with his toes. Some excitedly said: "I suddenly thought of a good idea."

Chris looked over suspiciously: "Huh?"

"Compared to the giant of the Lyon Credit Bank, these film companies in Europe are all small fish and shrimps. If the Lyon Credit Bank is matched by it, and then operates with the 'shell' of MGM as a carrier, Firefly will be able to Get out of this thing and stop interrupting the established operational trajectory.”

Chris also understands what Firefly is going to do in order to cooperate with the GATT negotiations. After listening to Eric's words, he immediately understands what he means. Many of Firefly's production plans for next year and even the year after have already been made. It is determined that in order to cooperate with the GATT negotiation, Firefly needs to share some resources with European film forces, so Firefly’s established development plan must be adjusted accordingly, but if Firefly indirectly communicates with European films through MGM With the cooperation of the company, the headquarters does not have to make too many adjustments.

However, Chris is not too optimistic about Eric's idea: "You just said that MGM's current annual profit may not even be enough for the interest of corporate bonds, I don't think those European film companies will not be aware of this. , do you think they will agree?"

"Then invite all parties to sit down and negotiate. In the current situation of MGM, I think as long as it can lead the company out of the predicament, those creditors will also agree to temporarily give up some interests, otherwise once the company goes bankrupt, MGM will Its assets are not enough to repay its current liabilities, and MGM's biggest problem now is that it does not have enough funds to start more film projects. Creditors have needs, European film companies have funds, and Firefly can provide high-quality film projects. Combined, these conditions can almost revitalize this dead film company, do you think they will be moved?"

Chris nodded, but said: "Didn't you just say that you are very interested in MGM's film library? If MGM really comes back to life as you said, you want to acquire this film company in the future, and the price it will cost. It's even bigger." (To be continued.)

reading net