Chapter 601 How Can There Be so Many

After the introduction, in addition to relatives and friends, the invited guests also included some familiar neighbors of the women during their stay on Long Island.

The little guys' birthday party was scheduled to start at five o'clock in the afternoon. Instead of inviting a special party company, it took the form of a buffet. After a brief chat, Joanna took the women to prepare dinner.

As one of the most well-known wealthy areas in New York, East Hampton and Southampton have gathered a large number of rich people, politicians and celebrities from all walks of life. Although there are also middle-class residents, they can buy the same amount near the manor that Eric fancy. Those with large-scale real estate will not be ordinary people. When the women leave, Eric and a group of big men exchange business cards with each other. Seeing titles such as the president of a certain company or a director of a certain foundation on the business card, it is not surprising. Surprised.

After all, many people only met for the first time. After simply congratulating Eric on completing the acquisition, everyone did not take the initiative to bring it up again. Instead, they shifted the topic to the topic of economic justice that Westerners are more interested in. Make fun of the president, bash a tax policy, or talk about the outlook for an industry.

In fact, most of the time, the so-called network is formed like this. Everyone drinks and chats together, and they get to know each other well. In the future, they can come up with a contact method to find each other. This is a kind of resource. Although everyone here is older than himself, with his experience as a human being in two lifetimes, Eric can handle this group of people with ease, and he can often take the initiative to take the initiative in some topics. Gradually, the people present They also ignored the fact that Eric was not yet twenty-five years old at this time.

As everyone's attention turned towards Eric, he focused. The topic also unknowingly shifted to the movie.

I heard the senior manager from Merrill Lynch named Pierre Clark in the introduction was worried about the increasing scale of film investment in recent years. Eric said: "From "Gone with the Wind" in the golden age of Hollywood to "Ben-Hur" and "Cleopatra" that appeared one after another in the 1950s and 1960s. In the early 1980s, "Heaven's Gate", Hollywood has never cut off its opposition to The production of so-called 'blockbuster' films, including big-budget films such as "Cleopatra" and "Heaven's Gate", which have put film companies in trouble, if before the 1990s, film companies were more and more inclined to The production of blockbuster films is indeed a cause for concern, but the entertainment industry is very different today than it was even a decade ago, and globalization will become an inevitable trend. The higher it is, this means that if the film company wants to continue to maintain its dominant position in this change, it must produce films with relatively low geographical and cultural restrictions, and cg special effects films and large-scale action films are among the most popular. The type of guarantee, I am sure, blockbuster films with a total production and distribution cost of about 100 million US dollars in the next ten years will become the mainstream of several major Hollywood film companies, while the vast overseas market and more and more derivatives. Interest channels can also ensure that these films are sufficiently profitable.”

When everyone was thinking, another short and thin middle-aged man asked again: "Eric, why not comedy and horror movies, these movies also don't have too many cultural restrictions.

I've watched Home Alone, Pretty Woman, and Frightening Island, which you made, and they're all excellent quality. Moreover, the cost is low, and the return on investment ratio is more than ten times at every turn. "

Eric remembered that the middle-aged man was named Kenneth Norton. The business card read the president of an unknown company. He smiled and shook his head and said, "Mr. Norton, you only see the success of films like Home Alone. But what you don't see is that every year Hollywood has at least dozens or hundreds of comedy or horror films that are fortunate to be on theatrical channels and end up bleakly, and they can't even recover the cost, let alone sell them to the global market. The pound bomb movies are different. At least before the global market demand for this type of movies is saturated, these movies are still very popular with audiences overseas even if they fail at home. For example, because of the impact of "Jurassic Park", the North American box office of this film with a production cost of up to 70 million US dollars was only the same as the production cost, and MGM and Carlock fell into huge losses, but the subsequent overseas distribution process. The "Peak of the Ridge Bear" has achieved a box office of 170 million US dollars. Although the proportion of overseas accounts is very low, investors are still in a state of loss, but compared to those medium and low-cost films that cannot even get overseas distribution opportunities , "The Endless Ridge Bear Peak" is still very lucky."

Kenneth Norton couldn't help nodding his head, then looked at Eric with a smile, and seemed to say casually: "I can't believe that you have studied the film industry so thoroughly, Eric, if Firefly goes on sale in the future, I will Will definitely buy stocks without hesitation.”

"Then you're going to be disappointed, Mr. Norton," Eric shook his head with a smile at the corner of his mouth, and said, "Firefly doesn't have any plans to go public. Oh, I can't say that, I plan to spin off the digital effects company in the next two years. Going public separately, as well as special effects software company Firefly Software, these two companies are so expensive that I had to raise some working capital publicly.”

Except for Jeffrey and Chris, who already knew some things, and Michael Madsen, who was completely silent about these things, the expressions of the others changed obviously when they heard Eric say this.

Of course, they do not believe that Eric will choose to let the two companies go public for financing because the two companies are too expensive. The terrifying profitability of the Firefly system can definitely provide sufficient funds for these two companies. Although they don't know Eric's specific thoughts, they can all realize that once the two companies are listed, as part of the Firefly system, they will definitely be strongly sought after by the capital market.

Pierre Clark of Merrill Lynch completely let go of his restraint at this time, and couldn't help but tentatively ask: "Eric, do you have a specific timetable?"

"Not yet," Eric shook his head and said, "I haven't had the energy to do these things recently, but the latest launch of the listing plan won't be beyond the end of next year."

With the commercialization of Firefly Software, there are more and more large and small special effects companies in North America and around the world. Eric had to cash out the digital realm and Firefly software before the special effects company was completely downgraded from 'aristocratic' to 'civilian'. In accordance with the listing process of US companies and the restrictions on the lock-up period of major shareholders' equity. The listing operation will start next year. When the Internet bubble began to rise and the Nasdaq index broke out in 1997, Eric could just use the next few years to gradually cash out. The stakes in Digital Domain and Firefly Software were bought back.

Now, speaking out your plans in front of these people is a kind of warm-up in the early stage, although the number of people sitting is not large. But Eric believes that within a few days, the news will spread throughout Wall Street.

Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley belong to one of the famous investment banks on Wall Street. They also participated in the bidding of Firefly bond issuance last month. However, Morgan Stanley finally won the underwriting right by virtue of its good cooperative relationship with Firefly.

Pierre Clark realized that if he could get the company to get the right to issue shares in even one of the two companies, he could at least get a vice president position at Midland Securities, but he just wanted to continue. What, look at the people around you. I realized that this occasion was not suitable, but I thought that Eric would definitely continue to stay in New York for a while. So I decided that it is best to live in East Hampton with my family during this time, so that I can get in touch with Eric more, and maybe we can negotiate this matter in advance. After all, Morgan Stanley can provide the conditions. , Midland Securities can certainly get it.

Everyone chatted casually. Time passed by minute by minute, and another group of guests came one after another. As the party time approached, the aroma of barbecue gradually wafted in the manor, and some children brought by the guests ran around the manor. go.

The little figure took a bunch of grilled chicken wings from Elizabeth. Elizabeth crouched down and whispered a few words, and the little guy staggered towards Eric.

"Dad, Daddy..."

Emma's innocent and clear series of shouts made a group of big men stunned, and then looked at the little guy in unison. They all knew that Eric already had two children, but they didn't know what happened to this little girl. .

Before Eric could explain, Emma had already rushed to Eric's side, grabbed the armrest of the sofa and raised the chicken wing in the other hand towards Eric: "Dad, here's you, chicken wings."

Eric touched Emma's little head and said with a smile: "Emma is so good, but Dad can't eat now, you can eat it yourself."

"Emma, ​​you're not hungry, you eat," Emma tried to pass the chicken wings to Eric again. Eric looked at the little guy who didn't give up until he achieved his goal. Just about to take it, the little guy was a Unsteady, the string of greasy chicken wings fell directly on Eric's trousers.

"Yeah, it's gone," Emma didn't realize the consequences of Eric's trousers stained with oil. She crawled on the armrest of the sofa and tried to grab it.

Eric was worried that the chicken wings would slip onto the sofa and stain with a layer of oil, so he quickly picked up the chicken wings, got up and apologized to everyone, took the little guy's hand and got up and left.

Handing Emma to Joanna to take care of, Eric walked towards the villa, intending to change a pair of pants, Elizabeth saw Eric's movements and crept in.

Eric walked into the bedroom, found a new pair of trousers from the closet, turned to Elizabeth who was leaning against the door, and said, "You didn't come here to celebrate the little guy's birthday, did you?"

Elizabeth watched Eric take off his trousers, and in front of herself changing clothes, she said with a blushing face: "I happened to be in New York recently, and I came here. I didn't expect to meet Drew Nanzi, hum, I knew I wouldn't be here."

"Then don't talk to her," Eric said, holding back a smile.

Elizabeth has been educated as a lady from a private school since she was a child. She doesn't even know how to swear. When she quarreled with Drew, Eric felt like a rookie who had just walked out of the novice village. The supernatural costume of the goddess is choking, this is basically looking for abuse, the most important thing is that when you are abused and cry, you often have to vent your anger, which is too unreasonable.

Elizabeth felt the ridicule in Eric's tone, but just rolled his eyes at him.

Eric threw the changed bloated pants into the bathroom, then walked out and said, "Okay, let's talk about something, if I don't, I'll go out?"

"I wanted to ask you about this at the last Oscar," Elizabeth said slightly, but still said, "Didn't you say before that you don't know how to run paper media?"

"Oh, this matter," Eric suddenly understood and asked with a smile, "Your old man is interested in how many newspapers I have in my hand?"

Elizabeth shrugged and said, "Yeah, anyway, I just asked about it. If you don't want to take action, I'll treat it as if I didn't mention it."

Eric sat down on the chair next to the dressing table in the bedroom, pointed to the big bed next to him, and said, "Actually, at the reception after the press conference at noon, I asked Warren Buffett's Berkshire company if No interest in taking over those newspapers."

Elizabeth went to the bed and sat down and asked, "So, do you really want to sell those newspapers?"

"Generally speaking, I'm still a man of words," Eric said with a smile.

Elizabeth didn't think of the example of Eric going back on his word for a while, so she didn't subconsciously refute, and said, "Have you talked to Buffett yet?"

"No," Eric shook his head and said, "However, if you want to hear the truth, I don't recommend News Corp take over these newspapers."

"Why, is it your view that online media will replace traditional media?"

"Almost, maybe you don't know, the cumulative number of visitors to Yahoo's portal has reached 20 million, and the average number of visitors per day is now more than 5 million. After I'm done with this, I plan to increase my support for Yahoo again. The investment in the information sector." Eric said, jokingly: "How about you help me recommend a suitable editor-in-chief from News Corporation?"

Elizabeth was a little surprised by the data given by Eric. The combined users of all newspapers in Australia, the United Kingdom and North America are less than 5 million. If Yahoo's daily visitors are really as many as 5 million, it may really appear. The kind of situation Eric said, but she still felt a little unbelievable: "How can there be so many?" (To be continued.)

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