Chapter 381 October
Eric and Chris spent a few hours negotiating a detailed plan for absorbing Disney stocks from the secondary market. Chris put away the handwritten memo. Seeing that Eric was about to leave, he suddenly remembered another item. I stopped him: "Eric, I almost forgot to say something else."
When Eric sat down again, Chris said: "In August, Cisco's board of directors passed a resolution to dismiss the founders Gray and his wife from all positions at Cisco. The two have now left the company."
Chris said, got up and found a folder from the filing cabinet and handed it to Eric. Eric opened it and looked at it. It was a resolution document of the Cisco board of directors in mid-August. Rick raised his head and asked, "What's going on?"
"The Grays feel that the current Cisco management is too self-interested, which is not in line with their original intention of creating Cisco. This has happened several times. I happened to encounter it once when I went to Cisco's mid-year meeting in June. The meeting was postponed for three hours after the couple pointed at Morgan Ridge’s nose and scolded the company. In August, unbearable company management threatened the board with collective resignation, and finally passed the proposal to fire the Grays from all positions at Cisco.”
Briefly recounting the whole thing, Chris said with a touch of contempt on his face: "Actually, the reason why they are like this has nothing to do with the company's business strategy. The couple is just worried about losing control of Cisco. It's just in pregnancy."
"I know about this. Unless it threatens our interests, we will try our best not to interfere in Cisco's management."
Chris nodded and said: "I understand. But what I want to say is the next thing. After the Grays left Cisco, they revealed the news that they would sell the stock in their hands. I think you may be interested. We just have enough funds now. ."
Eric recalled Cisco's equity division. Showing excitement, after Cisco went public, the founders, the Grays, held 27.6% of Cisco's shares and remained the largest shareholder of Cisco, while Sequoia Capital, which initially invested in Cisco, held 23.5% of the shares, ranking second. . The third place is Firefly Investment Company, holding 23% of the shares, and the remaining nearly 30% of the shares are scattered among institutional investors and company management.
Although it is a listed company, because the market was not optimistic about Cisco's development prospects when it went public, most of the shares that Cisco issued were only subscribed by investment institutions. The shares flowing into the secondary market are very rare, and the plan to absorb and increase holdings in the circulation market is simply not feasible, and investors who have already obtained shares are unwilling to let go of Cisco's good performance after the listing. Therefore, The Grays' sale of their stake must be the only opportunity to increase Cisco's stock on a large scale.
If you can take all the shares in the hands of the Grays, Firefly Investment is almost equal to absolute control of Cisco. This is Eric's dream.
"How much are they asking for?" Eric directly asked this most crucial question,
There is a will to win in his tone.
Chris can also understand what Eric is thinking, as the manager of Firefly Investments. He knew Cisco's situation better than Eric, shook his head and smiled: "Eric, maybe you are going to be disappointed, the Grays are not going to sell all the shares in their hands, they are only willing to sell two-thirds of the shares, About 18%. The asking price is 250 million US dollars, which is 30% higher than the market price. So now most of the interested investors are negotiating with the Grays, and I estimate the final transaction price will not exceed 200 million.”
"Contact with the Grays as soon as possible. Be sure to take this share, anyway, we have enough funds now, it doesn't matter if it is expensive," Eric thought for a while, and then said: "In this way, you will tell the Grays if they want to. If we sell our entire stake, we'll buy it at a 30% premium from them."
"I'll pass it on, but it's unlikely. If it wasn't for the couple's need for funds to start a business again, it is estimated that the 18% stake would not be sold."
"Try and see, there's nothing to lose," Eric nodded.
#
In the past few days that Eric came to New York again, the international crude oil price reached an unprecedented high of 41 US dollars per barrel. It was almost the same few days that Western countries, together with several major oil exporting countries in the Middle East, began to issue various effective measures to stabilize crude oil prices. First, Saudi Arabia announced that it would increase its domestic crude oil production capacity to 100% to supply market demand. North American and European countries also began to use their own crude oil reserves to stabilize the market. In addition, the United States led by the U.S. military has been fully deployed in the Persian Gulf. The total number of troops exceeded 600,000. In terms of weapons and equipment, it has formed a comprehensive suppression of Iraq. Under the influence of various bad news, the price of crude oil began to fall slowly.
Even Eric himself did not expect that his next trip to New York would be so coincidental, just in time for the decline in crude oil prices after reaching their peak. So, back in Los Angeles again, all kinds of temptations flooded in again, without exception, to spy on his gains from the oil crisis.
In the process of Eric's operation of crude oil futures, the principal of up to 500 million US dollars was temporarily borrowed from the seven major film companies, and the seven major film companies finally got nothing except the loan and a dispensable interest. Therefore, some people have a very strong desire to know how much money they've earned from their "own" funds. It seems that as long as they know the result, these people's loss will be comforted.
Of course, Eric can't reveal specific information to stimulate those people. He can't do such an inhuman thing. When confronted with this kind of temptation, Eric often avoids the topic in a few words. So some people had to turn their attention to the trends of Eric's companies, hoping to get some information from them.
But as time passed, apart from the plans revealed by some Firefly employees about the Playa Vista shooting base, only Firefly Investment announced the acquisition of 18% of the shares of Cisco founder Gray and his wife for $210 million. Besides, Eric didn't seem to move much. Although Eric claimed that he would invest $1 billion when negotiating with officials of the Playa Vista community, anyone with a discerning eye could see that the shooting base in Playa Vista could not have spent that much money, let alone The cycle of this project is several years, and the initial investment is up to 100 million yuan.
This kind of calm petty trouble has made many people feel a little more reassured, and they consoled themselves to guess that Eric probably didn't make much money.
With the slow passing of October, Hollywood is about to usher in the new year at the end of the year again. The big film companies have already started the hot promotion of the main films at the end of the year. The executives of the seven major film companies are a little surprised It was found that in this new year, Eric did not have any films directed by himself, except for a supervised "Shocking Point".
At the end of the year, Firefly had only two films released. In addition to "Frightening Point", there is another film "Ghost Detective" produced by Robert Shea. This work has a horror imitating "Ghostbusters". Comedy style, it is a movie that Eric has never heard of. It is estimated that it is an anomaly brought by the butterfly effect. The investment in the movie has also reached 40 million. According to Robert Shea's previous agreement with Eric, Firefly accounted for a quarter of the investment.
Firefly's "Home Alone" series, which has been featured for two consecutive years, has not produced a sequel this year.
Mainly because Stewart's caa brokerage company proposed a sky-high salary of $15 million, almost twice that of last year, and the Runkels seem to have 'enlightened' this time, and no longer interfered arbitrarily, and handed over the salary negotiation to full power. caa.
If you accept the remuneration proposed by caa, plus the price increase of other leading actors in the movie, the cost of forcibly producing only one remuneration for the sequel will reach 25 million, and the total cost of the sequel will exceed 50 million. In addition to the later marketing budget, the film needs It takes 140 million box office to recover the cost. According to the downward trend of the box office of the first two films, it is very likely that this sequel will make a loss. Eric temporarily cut off the production plan of the sequel without thinking too much.
On the day that Firefly would suspend the "Home Alone" series, Stewart's agent immediately called to make a concession, but Eric, who was busy in futures trading at the time, did not intend to argue with caa again, and refused directly. other side. Firefly doesn't rely heavily on a certain movie series like some movie companies, so there is no need to be too accommodating to the main creator of the movie. Since some people are ignorant of the lion's mouth, they have to swallow their broken teeth. consciousness.
"Shocking Point" was closed in mid-October, and it is expected to take a month to complete post-production, but these days, Eric did not join Katherine Bigelow because of the relationship between Cameron and Linda Hamilton. His extramarital affair was caught by the paparazzi, and the photo was published in the newspaper.
Catherine rushed to the filming site of "Terminator 2" in New Mexico on the day the news was disclosed. After Cameron himself admitted to the derailment, the woman simply divorced Cameron neatly, without any hesitation. But Cameron is not one of those unmarried directors after all. As a married man, he had an extramarital affair with the heroine. It is rumored that it may affect the box office of "Terminator 2". Therefore, the two agreed to wait for "Terminator 2" after the release. Announcing the divorce.
Although this matter was temporarily concealed from the media, there were a lot of people in the know. Eric, as an investor in the two films, certainly couldn’t have been unaware. As a very independent woman, Catherine Bigelow didn't marry Cameron until she was 35 years old because she admired Cameron's talent. Unexpectedly, the marriage lasted less than three years, and her husband cheated on any woman. It's hard to accept.
Although Catherine was still calm, capable and meticulous when she was working during this period, and did not seem to have been affected by the breakdown of her marriage, when Eric appeared, women's eyes would occasionally become faint, with a kind of obsessive-minded man who should be oiled. Looking at him with frenzied eyes, this feeling made Eric's back go cold. He didn't want to take the blame for the bad things that Cameron made, so he just let go of "Scare Point" temporarily. (To be continued)