At the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, Ronan met with five distinguished guests from Cape Town, South Africa, in a reception room, and introduced them one by one Scott Swift, who had accompanied them from South Africa to the mountain.

"This is Mr. Sigurdson, President of Millard International Holdings, and this is Miss Charlotte, Senior Assistant to Mr. Sigurdson......"

Ronan, as the landlord, shook hands with these guests one by one and exchanged a few words.

Yesterday, Scott Swift took them on a tour of the Pacific Investment Foundation and Shahai Entertainment, which have upgraded their businesses, and focused on introducing them to the film projects invested by the Taiping Investment Foundation.

Before Ronan came to meet them, he also had a detailed understanding that Millard International Holding Group is a subsidiary of the South African newspaper industry, mainly engaged in investment, media and Internet technology support and other businesses, of which investment is the core business of Millard International Holding Group, and they have heavyweight investments in Africa, North America and Southeast Asia.

As an investment conglomerate engaged in the media business, they are also interested in Hollywood-related investments.

Scott Swift has negotiated with them no less than ten times, most of which have actually been negotiated, and Sigurdson, as the president of Millard International Holdings, personally came to Los Angeles to meet with Ronan as the boss, and on the other hand, to get better terms for Ronan in return.

Therefore, after a brief greeting between the two sides, they quickly got to the point.

Like most of South Africa's elite, Sigurdson is a standard white man who speaks English very fluently: "Mr. Anderson, the Millard Group currently has a lot of money in its hands, and has been selecting suitable investment channels, and we have seen the cooperation of your foundation with Germany, island countries, India and South Korea, and you are indeed a very powerful and reputable investment institution. ”

That's why he chose the Pacific Investment Foundation, where credibility is very important.

Ronan smiled and said, "It's an honor for me and the Foundation. ”

The other party said politely, and he also gave a polite response.

After the nice words, it's time to really talk, Sigurdson said with a smile: "Your ROI is a bit low. ”

Ronan said: "If you look at all formal foundations in the United States, a fixed return on investment of four percent per year is already the highest grade. ”

"That's not right. Sigurdson didn't seem to know anything: "Many investment institutions on Wall Street can achieve an annual fixed investment return of 78 percent, and one fund company has an annual fixed investment return of as high as 10 percent!"

Ronan laughed, and instead of explaining the difference, he said: "Millard International Holding Group is a long-established investment company that has invested internationally for many years, and must know a lot about the investment industry. Mr. Sigurdson, do you think it's normal to have a fixed annual return on investment of 7 or 8 or even 10 percent?"

Sigurdson glanced at Ronan's young face and began to put away the contempt in his heart.

Ronan said: "In those years, you dared to take a huge risk of investment in an investment institution with such a high fixed rate of return?"

Sigurdson smiled, "Mr. Anderson said he was joking. He digressed the subject: "I read your investment case yesterday, and it is indeed very successful. ”

Ronan also stopped talking about what he had just done: "We will be responsible for every dollar invested by our customers. ”

Based on investments from Germany, island nations, India and South Korea, the negotiations between the Pacific Investment Fund and Millard International Holdings went very smoothly, and after a face-to-face meeting between Ronan and Sigurdson, the two sides quickly entered the actual negotiation stage.

The Pacific Investment Fund's financing to Millard International Group is a fixed annual return of four percent on a calendar year basis, and Millard International Group will provide no less than $200 million in investment to the Pacific Film Foundation each year for the next five years.

Another point is that this part of the funds can be used to invest in any legal industry, and it is not a special film fund investment.

Relativity Entertainment also has external financial support when it is in urgent need of funds in other aspects.

Millard International Group has established a first phase of investment of $200 million, which is a lot of money, but it will not solve the problems of Universal Pictures that Ronan has in mind.

Pulling investment is never simple, and tens of billions of dollars of money are really difficult to solve.

Of course, as long as there is the slightest possibility, Ronan will also fight for it, so he took the time to go to the Los Angeles branch of Bank of America and meet Judith, an old acquaintance.

The former business manager is already the head of all Los Angeles credit operations.

Judith and Ronan are also old acquaintances, and asked with a smile, "Need financial support?"

Relativity Entertainment and Ronan personally repay their loans in a timely manner, never default, and have always been quality customers of Bank of America.

Ronan smiled and said, "yes, I may need a large loan. ”

"A lot of money?" Judith didn't pay much attention to it, and according to the actual situation of Relativity Entertainment, asked, "It won't take a few hundred million dollars, right?"

Ronan put away his smile and said seriously: "It may cost billions of dollars." ”

Judith was startled, looked at Ronan, and asked, "You're not kidding, are you?" She looked at Ronan for a while, confirmed that Ronan wasn't joking, and asked slowly, "What are you going to do here?"

Ronan said: "Trade secrets. ”

Judith adjusted her mood and tone, and said, "I can't help you, I don't have permission." To be exact, no bank can lend you that much money, and if you were to lend $100 million, you wouldn't even need collateral with your good creditworthiness, but ......"

She smiled bitterly and said, "Ronan, we are old friends, and I won't say unnecessary things to you." Even if you use Relativity Entertainment as collateral, you can't borrow billions of dollars, and no bank will lend to you, which involves capital raising and risk control......"

Needless to say, Ronan can also understand that after all, it is impossible for Relativity Entertainment to lend more than the value of the outside world.

Ronan simply asked, "Judith, if I need money within this year, how much can you lend for Relativity Entertainment?"

Judith thought seriously for a while and said: "About 500 million US dollars, I can apply to the above, but for such a large amount of loans, the approval process takes time, and it must be secured by the corresponding assets or shares of the company." ”

Ronan nodded, "I see." ”

After leaving Bank of America, Ronan went to other banks to try it out, and the answer he got was not as good as Judith's.

Subsequently, he specifically contacted Wall Street, for this kind of acquisition similar to the white wolf with empty gloves, Wall Street's large investment institutions are not very interested, and several interested small companies are too weak.

The next day, Robert Lee came to Ronan's office again.

"Universal Pictures is very tight, and I haven't heard any specific news. Robert Lee sat on the chair opposite Ronan's desk and said directly: "I specially asked people to go to the headquarters of the Vivendi Group in France to collect information, and after many tosses, it can finally be confirmed that the Vivendi Group does want to sell Universal Pictures Group to cash out in order to pay off several imminent debts, and they have already made initial contact with a company in the United States, and I believe it will not take too long to make it public." ”

Ronan nodded and asked, "Which company?"

Robert Lee replied, "NBC." ”

"NBC?" Ronan was really not surprised at all: "They are interested in Universal Pictures for a long time." ”

According to relevant information collected by Connie, when Panasonic Group sold Universal Pictures to Seagram Group, NBC participated in the acquisition, but it was out because the bid was too low.

Later, the Seagram Group encountered a crisis, NBC TV proposed to buy Universal Pictures, but the $6 billion bid was directly rejected by Seagram, and then Vivendi directly bought all the businesses of the Seagram Group for $34 billion.

NBC's two successive acquisitions of Universal Pictures have been frustrated, and for no other reason, the bid was too low.

It's clear that NBC has always wanted to take down Universal Pictures at the lowest possible price.

What I didn't expect was that Universal Pictures went around and around and was connected to NBC again.

"We don't know where the two sides have been contacted, but Vivendi doesn't seem to be happy with NBC's bid, and it's said that by the end of August at the latest, they'll be publicly touting the Universal Pictures entertainment group in order to sell it for a higher price," Lee added. ”

Ronan thought for a moment and asked, "What do you think Vivendi's psychological base price is?"

"It's hard to guess. Robert Lee pondered for a moment and said, "There is a situation that can be used as a reference, and Vivendi urgently needs to process more than $11 billion in loans. ”

Ronan nodded slightly, "I see." ”

If this is the psychological floor price of the Vivendi Group, it is $1 billion less than Robert Iger projected.

But is Relativity Entertainment a company that lacks that $1 billion?

So, more billion less billion more relativistic entertainment doesn't make any sense.

Thinking of this, Ronan is a little depressed, an opportunity is in front of him, even if he goes bankrupt, or even goes all out to go into debt, he can say that he can't do anything.

It's a very bad feeling.

Ronan quickly got rid of this emotion, thought of the possible opportunity in it, and said: "Robert, when Vivendi makes the news public, you can contact them for me to express a kind of relativistic entertainment want to finance and participate in the acquisition." ”

Robert Lee asked, "Are we really going to be involved in the acquisition?"

"On the one hand, it's about practicing and gaining experience. Ronan tries not to let his frustration affect him: "On the other hand, let's see if we can take advantage of this period that will inevitably cause turmoil in Universal Pictures and reap some benefits from it, such as the rights to the Hulk's film and television adaptation." ”

Robert Lee said, "I see. ”

Later, Ronan called Robert Iger again, and the three of them discussed for a long time.

Unexpectedly, just five days later, Vivendi Group announced through a number of media at the same time that it intends to transfer its Universal Entertainment Group.

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