Chapter 949 The Heroine Candidate

Unlike other small shareholders who are dissatisfied with Eric's interception of Firefly Group's profits for stock investment, Buffett is most worried that Eric is doing this with a completely speculative mentality.

However, during the conversation with Eric, Buffett gradually understood that Eric has a clear idea and a clear purpose for the operation of the Clover Fund.

Although it is not clear where Eric's strong confidence in the profitability of this investment comes from, he is sure that since Eric is not blind to his senses, he will definitely choose to withdraw at the right time, rather than Like those stock speculators with a gambler's mentality, hold on until the last moment until the stock crashes and regret it.

Moreover, Eric's attitude towards this matter in his seemingly joking words is also very clear: if anyone is dissatisfied with the firefly group's business strategy, the firefly group can buy back the other party's stock at any time.

Even if the value of the shares held by all external shareholders of Firefly Group has reached more than 26 billion US dollars, Buffett has no doubt that Eric has the strength to obtain enough funds to repurchase the shares of Firefly Group.

According to Firefly Group's best 3A credit rating and the current ultra-low debt ratio of less than 10% of the company's market value, Firefly Group can issue up to 10 billion US dollars of corporate bonds for stock repurchase at any time. Banks are also very happy to provide huge loans to Firefly Group.

What's more, as long as Wall Street is a little shrewd investment manager, they will only want to acquire more shares of Firefly Group, and only a fool will make a move to sell.

In short, only those companies whose operations or finances are in very bad shape, large shareholders or management will compromise under pressure from small and medium shareholders to sell their shares. The Firefly Group does not have any weakness in this regard, and Eric has 100% control over the Firefly Group and can operate the company according to his own wishes.

Buffett is naturally very aware of this. After talking with Eric, he completely gave up the idea of ​​persuading Eric, and just transmitted some of his past experience to Eric like an elder.

After having dinner with Buffett, Eric went to the parking lot to send the old man away. Caroline, who had just returned to Los Angeles from her vacation, handed over a document and said, "Eric, this is the sales of Firefly Electronics last year. The data, and the launch plan of the second generation of fireflyer. They plan to cooperate with Nokia to release the fireflyer2 and the Nokia music phone m-100 together. The pricing of the fireflyer2 and m-100 has also been determined, and the launch date is set on April 6. The sale is officially on over Easter weekend. Also, Miss Foster will be here at two o'clock."

Eric took the folder from Caroline without opening it immediately, took her out of the parking lot, and asked with a smile, "How was Christmas?"

"Very good, my mother asked me to say hello to you when I came back," Caroline said with a small face, and quickened her pace to follow Eric. She could feel that Eric would deliberately slow down when he was by his side, but he usually walked very fast.

"Oh, say hello to your parents on my behalf next time you call," Eric said, deliberately putting away his expression, and said, "It's just that you forgot to bring me a New Year's gift?"

Caroline raised her mouth and retorted: "You didn't give me a New Year's gift, nor Christmas."

"You're in the UK, how can I give it to you," Eric said, reaching for his coat pocket and taking out a long box like a conjuration: "Hey,

I heard that alphabet necklaces are popular recently. I specially made them. The pendant is your name. It is set with broken diamonds. It is very expensive. "

Caroline took the gift from Eric. For some reason, her excited face suddenly turned rosy. After hesitating, she took out a small box from her pocket and handed it to Eric: "We are New Year's Eve. I went to Italy to play, and a watch I saw there was also very expensive."

Eric tucked the folder in his hand under his arm, and opened the box in his hand as he walked, which contained a silver Gucci watch. Taking off the Patek Philippe on his wrist, Eric put on the Gucci watch, shook it, nodded with satisfaction, and said to Caroline: "Yes, you have passed the test, and you still think about it when you know the festival. own boss."

When Caroline heard Eric's words, she wrinkled her nose to express her dissatisfaction, but her eyes were sparkling. However, noticing that Eric looked at the necklace box she was holding and turned her eyes away shyly, she did not dare to wear the necklace in such a public place.

Like a little girl, she put her hands on her back and hid the box behind her. Caroline continued to follow Eric and asked, "What about Eric, what about May's?"

Eric put on an air and pretended to be serious: "Miss Melanie Gleeson couldn't satisfy her boss because of her work, and even played a bad way to make fun of her boss, so she doesn't have a New Year's gift."

"Hehe, there must be something wrong, Mei works very hard," Caroline naturally felt that Eric was joking, and asked relentlessly.

Eric stretched out his hand and quickly pinched the girl's face. He quickened his pace and walked towards the studio area of ​​the studio.

Caroline yelped softly, her blushing blushing for a moment, she felt a few passers-by looking towards this side, and hurriedly chased after her: "Eric, you are so rude."

Eric looked at the petite girl who was attacking him in a lethal tone, and said with a bad smile: "Is it still not enough, I want to do it again."

Caroline dodged subconsciously and said, "I don't want it, you should apologize to me."

Eric nodded: "Okay, I apologize."

Caroline immediately forgave Eric, but she still didn't forget what happened just now: "What about May's New Year's gift?"

Eric really wanted to pinch this silly girl's face again, but he still explained seriously: "May is different from you. She lives in Los Angeles, and it was sent to her during the festival."

As a group of people who work directly for themselves, as a boss, Eric will definitely not forget these little details during the festival, and everyone in the entire assistant office has gifts. Of course, because of that special relationship, the girl next to her must have a special gift.

Caroline has been working in Eric's assistant's office for a few years, and naturally knows that the company will send them gifts during the holiday season. She didn't go back to the UK for Christmas a few years ago, and she received it too. After listening to Eric say this, Caroline realized that the gift Eric had specially prepared for her, she was happy and no longer bothered about the topic just now.

Seeing Caroline hanging her head and following him step by step, Eric suddenly felt a little selfish, but it was hard to convince himself to let the girl leave with confidence. Perhaps, everyone around Caroline will involuntarily have the idea to protect this girl like a princess in the castle. Melanie is like this, Rachel is like this, and Caroline's family must be like this. Ai Rick is hardly an exception.

A studio in the studio has been transformed into a dedicated studio for the "Gravity" project, and a team has been set up in the digital field to start making a rough space background that needs to be played in the prop light box. While participating in the filming of "Iron Man", Ke will continue to study the best shooting plan for "Gravity", and at the same time solve the technical problems of special effects required for filming.

However, while these things are going on, the heroine of "Gravity" still has to be determined in advance. The filming of the film is very difficult. Eric hopes that the heroine can prepare for several months in advance.

After careful consideration, the age of the heroine was determined to be between 35 and 40 years old, and the casting director also provided Eric with a long list of suitable candidates.

Holly Hunter, Jodie Foster, Michelle Pfeiffer, Geena Davis, Helen Hunter, Meg Ryan, Juliette Binoche, and more, these are recent Hollywood actresses who have high popularity in recent years and also meet the requirements.

Among the candidate actresses, Eric is most inclined to Jodie Foster, who has won the Oscar for best actress twice. As for the others, Eric will only play when Jodie Foster cannot participate. consider.

After the script was handed out, Eric also quickly got a response from Jodie Foster, so he agreed to meet and chat this afternoon.

There was still some time before two o'clock, Eric took Caroline into the "Gravity" studio, and sat at the workbench in the studio to read the Firefly electronic data that Caroline had just brought.

Since its official launch in April last year, in eight months, with the step-by-step increase in the production capacity of fireflyer players, the annual shipment of this mp3 player in 1997 finally reached 3.95 million units, with a preliminary estimated sales of 12 $60 million.

The market capacity of various portable players in North America is 30 million units. It took only one year for fireflyer to occupy 13% of the entire portable player market share. This has to be said to be a miracle. Besides cassette players, Major manufacturers have been promoting CD players, MD Walkman and other equipment, before 1997, the market share was only about 20%.

The detailed financial report of Firefly Electronics is still in the statistics. Eric has read the sales data briefing of the fireflyer player, and turned to the sales plan of the second generation of fireflyer.

After discussion, the final selling price of fireflyer2 was raised.

The price of the 1g capacity version is set at $329, which is actually the highest price set by Firefly Electronics to retailers in the face of tight market conditions in the early days of fireflyer's release.

Although in the last few months of last year, with the increase of production capacity, the sales price of fireflyer players has begun to fall back to the standard price of 299 US dollars, but at this time, it is confirmed that the price of the new second generation of fireflyer is 329 US dollars, and everyone also believes that This can easily be recognized by the market.

The price of the 2g version of the fireflyer2 has increased by $50 on the basis of the 1g version, and is determined to be $379.

In the face of the hot promotion of fireflyer players, Firefly Electronics has never stopped expanding its production capacity. It is expected that by April this year, the monthly production capacity of the second generation of fireflyer will increase to 2 million units. Therefore, fireflyer2 will also be released simultaneously in North America and Europe.

At the end of the document, Eric saw the information released at the same time as the Nokia music phone named nokia.m-100 and fireflyer2. Looking at the last two pages, Eric smiled helplessly, although With the popularity of fireflyer players, Nokia's management is still stubbornly not optimistic about the sales prospects of music phones.

The two phones with the same 1g capacity and 2g capacity, Nokia's final price was $659 and $759 respectively, which is still a bit high in Eric's opinion.

Eric also knew why Nokia would do this.

A brand-new electronic product definitely needs to develop a new production line and supply chain, and only when this product reaches a certain monthly sales volume can the production company achieve balance of payments. Nokia once gave a report that if this music phone is to be profitable, the monthly sales must be more than 100,000 units according to the basic price of $600.

Now, by raising the unit price, Nokia can also reach the break-even point as soon as possible. Phones over $600, whether in North America or Europe, are definitely high-end phones. Nokia's management also estimated that "people who are willing to pay $600 for a phone don't care about spending another $60" to make such a decision.

Because Eric didn't inform about any related work in the afternoon, the other crew members of "Gravity" didn't come. Footsteps suddenly sounded in the quiet studio, and Eric looked up and saw Caroline walking over with Jodie Foster and another middle-aged white man.

As soon as Jodie Foster stepped into this studio, she was already attracted by the huge light box and the two high-precision robots.

Eric stood up, noticed Jodie Foster's gaze, and explained: "If you take this job, at least three months, you may have to perform in this light box, and wear Heavy spacesuit. So, Judy, you need to think about it, it's exhausting."

Eric said, walked to the console and turned on the power of several instruments. For several months, he has been able to operate these instruments proficiently.

The light box quickly lit up, and the two robots also made a slight noise, which seemed to be automatically debugging.

Jodie Foster watched Eric pick up a remote control pda, skillfully manipulate a robotic arm to move a few times, and smiled, and said, "Eric, you are trying to scare me. run?"

"Oh, of course not," Eric shook his head, reacted, put down the pda with a smile, and stretched out his hand to Jodie Foster "from scratch": "Good afternoon, Miss Foster."

"Hello, Mr. Williams," the smile on Judy Foster's face grew stronger, she shook hands with Eric, and said, "You can call me Judy."

Eric smiled and nodded: "You can also call me Eric."

The middle-aged man standing next to Judy Foster held back a smile and reached out to Eric, "Hello, Mr. Williams, I'm Judy's agent, Joey Funicello."

Eric shook hands with the middle-aged man, motioned to Caroline beside him, and said, "This is my assistant, Caroline Wilson."

Caroline blinked, feeling that the situation just now was extremely strange, and she and Jodie Foster simply shook hands, and ran away under the pretext of making coffee for a few people.