But as soon as the crown prince Edgar Bronfman Jr. took over, he immediately decided to become a media tycoon in Canada, nay, Hollywood! So he saw the opportunity of RB Panasonic's insolvency, and proposed to invest in the acquisition of its Universal Group, thus entering Hollywood. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

But in order to raise funds for the acquisition, Edgar Bronfman Jr. sold all of the family's last valuable asset, DuPont stock, in exchange for $9 billion in cash.

Then he used this huge amount of money to acquire Universal Group, Polygram Records and Deutsche Gramming, and merged the latter two into Universal Music, creating the world's largest record label at that time, in order to fulfill his dream of being a musician.

But！

Then came the era of the Internet, CD recorders, Mp3 players, and music piracy sites led by Napster.

Spending a huge amount of nearly $10 billion, but only creating the biggest burden in the history of a sunset industry, this "god" stupidity immediately made the Seagram Group lose money every year. Beginning in the '90s, Edgar Jr. had to use the profits from the family's traditional liquor and beverage business to fill the gap in the media and entertainment sector.

At the time, this became a joke in Hollywood executive circles.

And after barely maintaining it for a few years, even the family's traditional industry can no longer be brought away, and those Hollywood entertainment departments have not only achieved nothing in the past few years, but also lost money.

Finally this year, Canada's Seagram Group was forced to announce a public sale due to insolvency. France's Vivendi Group saw this opportunity to acquire the Seagram Group for $34 billion in one fell swoop, thus entering Hollywood. After all, the real value of the current Seagram Group is only the entertainment department in Hollywood.

The wine and beverage assets that Seagram Group originally dominated the industry, the more than 250 famous brands and spin-off brands, will be auctioned off separately in order to pay off the huge debts they owe. It is said that Coca-Cola and other beverage giants are ready to fight in order to compete for this batch of high-quality brand lines.

Although compared to the hundreds of billions of mergers between Time Warner and AOL that are currently underway, this change of ownership acquisition of Universal Group is nothing. But it still shows the world of difference between Hollywood's first-tier big film companies and second- and third-tier companies - if you don't have $5 billion, don't play this game!

Of course, this series of actions by Edgar Bronfman Jr. not only once again confirms the adage that "you can't be rich for three generations", because he is the third generation head of the Bronfman family.

Even his brother Diageo's chairman, Sam Bronfman, pointed out in the media that Edgar Jr.'s biggest problem was that he never thought of other possibilities before deciding on the big thing.

"In fact, at the end of the day, little Edgar is an impulsive personality who makes any big decisions without recognizing the nature of things or researching. Doing things with passion and impulse alone will not last long in the real world. The accumulation of three generations was lost by a loser in ten years. Sid shrugged and said lightly to Old Man Charles.

During a video call, they casually chatted about the big event that shook Hollywood.

"It's not the first time I've heard about this, but it's really creepy to hear Sid say that. Old man Charles touched the beard on his chin and said, "I think that's why New York magazine called him 'the stupidest person in the media.'" ”

"Not bad," Sid nodded.

In fact, sometimes, the media and investors are not as stupid as they think, although Edgar Jr. denied the fact that he let the family business disintegrate, but in the merger and acquisition transaction with Vivendi of France, the value of Bronfman's shares in the new Vivendi Group plummeted to $6.5 billion, and the book loss alone reached a staggering $3.5 billion!

Oh yes. By the way, the shares of DuPont, which was sold by Edgar Bronfman Jr. to raise funds, were worth $35 billion more than a decade later in 2014.

Edgar Bronfman Jr., the stupidest man in the media, deserves his name.

"What do you think of Sid's change of ownership this time?" asked Old Man Charles, who seemed to have a point.

Sid smiled faintly, "What do I think?"

He raised his eyebrows, "What can I think, the games played by the big guys, we little shrimps and small fish, we can only watch the excitement." You see, even Spielberg and Katzenberg are honestly watching from the sidelines. ”

Sid's hippie smiling attitude made Old Man Charles point at him angrily and funny: "You kid is really tight enough." ”

Sid shrugged easily, but did not answer, and Old Man Charles did not ask, but said, "You just need to know the situation yourself." ”

"Well, don't worry, everything is within my chess game. Sid said with a smile.

Then Sid, who hung up the phone, narrowed his eyes slightly and pondered - of course he understood what Old Man Charles meant.

DreamWorks, which was previously the leader of small and medium-sized independent studios, wants to develop into a comprehensive media group, bringing together big directors like Spielberg, elite managers like Katzenberg, and gold medal music producers like David Geffen. However, with the exception of the bank's film and animation divisions, the record division was unsuccessful, and the games division was hastily sold.

The dream of the triumvirate in the past was only a bubble after all.

Although the Fire Lion Group is now all-round, three-dimensional, and hurricane-like rise, both in terms of speed and power, it has surpassed the accumulation of DreamWorks in the past 10 years.

But even if it surpasses DreamWorks in strength and growth, it doesn't mean that Fire Lion can sit back and relax. From the very beginning, the Fire Lion has adopted a very different operating model and strategic approach from DreamWorks. Not only are the top and bottom staff more united, but of course, everyone's expectations are also higher.

And as long as the Fire Lion does not grow into a flagship group that can truly be compared to the seven major Hollywood groups, then it will not be able to get rid of the threat and possibility of being jointly attacked by these large groups and large enterprises.

And the easiest way to grow to that point is to make acquisitions -- just as Viacom Heesa wants to buy Paramount Pictures for $10 billion, and Sony wants to buy Columbia Pictures at a sky-high price.

The benefits of acquiring an existing Big Seven are not only reflected in the resources and volume, but more importantly, industry organizations such as the MPAA American Film Association, whose members are only the hegemons of the Big Seven Films. And only when you reach this level can you participate in the formulation of the rules of the game in Hollywood, and no longer just dance according to the rules of the game specified by others.