The acquisition of MGM is definitely not just a decision made by tapping the brain.

In fact, Zhou Fangyuan really needs such a film production company, not to mention that as one of the eight majors, MGM's production department is one of the best in Hollywood.

There is no doubt that MGM in history, in Hollywood, definitely occupies a very high position.

Despite its downturns, MGM was back in the late '70s, and production was just one of the company's broad reaches. In the 80s, MGM invested in the purchase of Luen Mei Company and changed its name to MGM-Luen Mei Entertainment Company. In the 90s, many competitors such as Pixar and DreamWorks seized the opportunity of new special effects technology and animation technology, which seemed old-school and static compared to MGM, and lacked blockbusters in the 21st century.

On February 11, 2005, a consortium led by Sony established MGM Holdings. On April 8, 2005, MGM Holdings acquired MGM Pictures through a leveraged buyout valued at $4.8 billion. From the inception of the company until its bankruptcy, its shareholding composition was 29% owned by Providence Equity Partnerships, 21% by Texas Pacific Capital Fund, 20% by Sonomics, and 20% by Comcast; DLJ Commodity Bank Partnership holds 7% of the shares, while Sifang Group holds 3% of the shares.

But MGM, which changed owners, did not turn the situation around. In 2010, two years after the financial crisis, MGM began consulting with more than 100 creditors and would apply for Chapter 11 protection under the country's bankruptcy law to carry out bankruptcy reorganization to get rid of the debt pressure of four billion dollars. If the creditor agrees to file for bankruptcy protection, he or she will receive 95% of the equity interest in the new company as compensation. During the bankruptcy reorganization, the company will maintain normal operations.

On the 3rd, MGM declared bankruptcy trusteeship on the same day due to its inability to repay its huge debts and launch a new game.

With high levels of debt, a lack of blockbuster movies, and declining sales of DVDs, MGM is struggling financially. In early 2010, MGM publicly sought a buyer, but no one was interested. According to the reorganization plan, Telescope Entertainment, another private Hollywood studio, will merge its two subsidiaries with MGM to form a new MGM film company. Telescope Entertainment will hold the remaining 5% of the shares of the new company after the reorganization, but will acquire the management rights of the new company.

In 2012, under the leadership of Barber of Telescope Entertainment, the company invested in the "Hobbit" trilogy and "007: Skyfall", and on the basis of the global income of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" of 101.7 billion US dollars, "The Hobbit: The Battle of Smaug" once again received 925 million US dollars at the global box office, plus the 007 series of films "007: Skyfall" box office as high as 11· The $0.8 billion success has enabled investors MGM to emerge from its debt crisis, and MGM has now revived its television and film businesses, with new films released in 2014 including Robocop, Hercules, Dragon Tiger Boys 2 and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

And let's not talk about the future, let's just say that in the past, MGM has actually been living a good life.

If nothing else, let's just say that its diversified development direction is similar to Disney.

In 1969, Nevada investor Kirk Corey acquired MGM Safe. But Cork Kirklian seemed more interested in MGM-owned estate, and he even closed MGM's distribution division in 1973 and handed over the distribution to Luen America. In 1979, Cork Corian announced that MGM had become a hotel company.

All MGM hotels, including MGM MACAU and MGM Grand Las Vegas, are MGM International casino hotels, and its founder, Kirk Kercoryan, was a former owner of MGM.

MGM Hotel Group is the largest hotel group in Las Vegas, it was formerly known as MGM Golden Palace Group, and was renamed MGM Group after the acquisition of Mandalay Resort Group, Dream Resort Group. Its hotels include Rock in the Sword Hotel, Treasure Island Hotel, Mandalay Bay Hotel, Bellagio Hotel, MGM Grand Hotel and New York Hotel.

MGM is the largest hotel in Las Vegas by room, costing nearly $200 million for a show in the hotel alone. The lion is the symbol of the hotel, and it is said that when the hotel was first built, the lion's mouth was wide open to show its majesty, but business was not good. It was suggested that the lion's mouth must be wide open to give people a bad feeling, and they avoided it, so the owner of the hotel changed the lion's mouth to a slight opening, and the money rolled in. In order to highlight the theme of lions, a lion garden has been built in a special corner of the hotel lobby, and lion trainers can play with lions for tourists to enjoy. The Rainforest Restaurant is also a major feature of the hotel, although the taste is not very good, but the cost is not low, and the flow of people is constant, mainly to experience the unique environment here. In order to compete for a place in the hotel-lined casino, each store must do everything in its power to create its own unique skills, and only surprise can win.

It's a pity that today's MGM Hotel Group and MGM Pictures themselves have little to do with each other, at most they are cross-shareholdings, but only a small, small, insignificant part.

In addition, MGM also has other business projects, such as Modern Times Movies, Royal International Cinemas, Comcast TV, etc., and even MGM coffee shops, which can be regarded as peripheral members of MGM's empire. But now it doesn't make much sense to say this, MGM's former younger brothers have now all turned into behemoths, and when they turn their heads to look at MGM himself, they are already terminally ill and have almost become a piece of meat on the table, and they are still very fat.

It's no wonder that Sony is tempted.

If you want to say that MGM is having a hard time now, it seems that it is worthless, but if you really want to talk about it, if you don't go far, let's talk about other Hollywood companies. Do Warner Bros., Paramount, and other companies want to buy MGM? Of course they do, do you need to say? But they didn't want to bring MGM back to life after the acquisition, but to shut down MGM Pictures! In their view, MGM was hopeless, and there was no need to continue to operate.

It would be nice to shut down all the departments, fire all the employees, sell all the heavy assets, and leave only a huge film library, and for other film companies, MGM is only valuable to the film library and the set, and everything else is worthless.

But Sony is different, Sony acquired MGM in order to obtain a huge library of films, to promote Sony's Blu-ray discs!

This is not a trivial matter in the film industry, but it is related to the macro strategy of Sony Group!

The same is true of Comcast.

They acquired MGM, not for the sake of MGM, a crippled film company, but to promote VOD through MGM's film library, thereby driving Comcast's telecommunications operations. This bizarre "goal" is completely different from the concept of Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, and General Electric. But it doesn't matter, as long as you have money, no one cares what will happen to MGM if it is sold.

MGM's original sale price is $4.8 billion, of which $3 billion is the purchase price, and the remaining $1.8 billion is MGM's debt, and the price of nearly $5 billion also makes Cork satisfied, with this money, he can play his hotel business more confidently and boldly.

However, in this deal, Sony actually spent only $300 million to get control of MGM.

Sony invested $300 million, or 20 percent, Comcast invested $300 million, or 20 percent, Providence Equity Partnerships, invested more than $400 million, or 29 percent, Texas Pacific Capital Fund invested more than $300 million, or 21 percent, Commodity Bank Partners, invested $100 million, or 7 percent, and Quad Group invested $45 million, or 3 percent.

The remainder was borrowed by Sony and other groups from more than 20 banks on Wall Street against the assets of MGM in the future.

In this way, Sony was able to get control of MGM at the lowest cost, and successfully obtained the memory of MGM films, which exceeded 7,600 films!

That's more than 7,600 films! What kind of concept is that? You know, the total stock of Hollywood movies is about 16,000. There are hundreds of thousands of movies in the entire United States, but most of them are not Hollywood movies, such as B-grade films, adult films, imported films, TV movies, etc., which have very low investment.

Sony made a profit from this acquisition, and they controlled nearly 50% of Hollywood's film sources, providing the most favorable guarantee for the development of Blu-ray discs

Comcast TV also made money, and they cooperated with Sony to get a huge source of films, and provided help for telecom operations through the Internet on-demand business

Cork Corkerian also made a profit, he sold MGM for a good price, made a fortune, and continued to play his hotel business!

However, MGM is a miserable company. Including the $1.8 billion originally responsible for the leveraged buyout and the $1.5 billion in leveraged buyout liabilities, the total debt has reached $3.3 billion. With MGM's ability to operate, how many years can it survive with such a large debt pressure, and can it pay interest?

In fact, MGM did not last long, and in 2009, MGM could no longer support it and officially declared bankruptcy. Sony's $300 million was lost, but Sony Pictures released two 007 movies and had already made the money back, not to mention the Blu-ray disc, which was completely defeated. Comcast's $300 million was also lost, but it was also made up for by video-on-demand and telecom operations industries. The worst thing is Wall Street, their investments, loans, all gone!

This kind of leveraged buyout in the form of a holding company is easy to deceive people, and by the way, it also makes a mess of Hollywood's investment environment.

Since then, Wall Street's money has shrunk rapidly, and Hollywood has seen a lot of Middle Eastern and Asian investors.

Of course, this situation is generally beneficial for people like Zhou Fangyuan, but then again, isn't the benefit of acquiring MGM even greater? If he can get more benefits, why should he give up his roots? As for Sony's attitude...... This is not within the scope of Zhou Fangyuan's consideration, Yuanfang Technology currently has a cooperative relationship with Sony, but it is only the most ordinary cooperative relationship, he can turn his head and cooperate with Carl Zeiss, or he can cooperate with other companies, it does not mean that it has to be Sony.

In addition to the mobile phone camera business, in other aspects, there is really no deep relationship between Yuanfang Group and Sony, and at this time, such a behemoth as MGM is in front of you, what good friends and good partners are, stand aside, in front of interests, what you get is the most important thing. And it is impossible for Zhou Fangyuan to cooperate with Sony in this matter, because Zhou Fangyuan's goal is to get MGM completely, MGM's studio, and the production department are his goals, unlike Sony's idea of making a fortune and leaving, he really wants to develop MGM well.

After all, MGM has a deep heritage, and MGM is good at blockbuster shooting, and there has been no improvement in recent years, so it can only be said that the company's development route is problematic, and the internal system is too rigid. If Zhou Fangyuan becomes MGM, he will inevitably bring fresh blood to MGM, and MGM can also join in so many excellent movies in the future, I dare not say that the leakage between my fingers is enough for MGM to eat, it is too arrogant to say this, but in fact, if Zhou Fangyuan is really willing, it is not difficult to support a MGM. What MGM has happens to be what Disney is scarce, the two sides are combined, and then there are Marvel's superheroes and Blizzard's game characters, so the composition of the Doji, Zhou Fangyuan doesn't know how far he can go, but it can be expected that this will be a very powerful combination.

So, MGM, one of the four corners of the combination, how could Zhou Fangyuan give it to others?

It's just that now there's another problem, and that's MGM's seller, Kirk Kercorian.

This person is said to have talked to Sony before, but Zhou Fangyuan suddenly jumped out and squeezed Sony away at once, in fact, for Kirk, it doesn't matter who MGM sells to, his purpose is just to make money. This man is also a talented man, and it is said that he dropped out of school when he was in the eighth grade and became a trained pilot during World War II. After the war, he flew the idle planes of the United States Air Force across the Atlantic. He later founded Tran International Airlines, an aircraft leasing company, which he sold in 1966 for $104 million. He then moved to Hollywood, where he acquired and sold MGM Pictures three times during the year.

In 2000, he acquired Steve Wayne's Meloz Hotel for $6.4 billion. Four years later, he acquired the Mandalay Bay Hotel for $7.9 billion.

The casino tycoon put all his chips on the $8.5 billion "gambling paradise" er. As the most expensive privately funded project in the country's history, ER owns three hotels and a casino, the largest in Las Vegas.

MGM is in the hands of such a person, and it is a hell of a thing to be able to develop, but now it makes no sense to say this, since Zhou Fangyuan wants to buy MGM, it is natural to meet with the original owner, and they meet at a farm in the suburbs of Kirk to discuss MGM's acquisition in person.

The coolest new life

The coolest new life

"Bookmark for easy reading"