At the press conference on the day of the announcement of the merger, Vivendi's CEO Jean-Marie Messier excitedly shouted, "This is the clarion call for France to officially enter Hollywood." ”

"Hmph, this horn is the rabbit's tail. Sid snorted as he looked at Jean-Marie Messier on the TV screen and couldn't help but sneer.

At this moment, there are not a few behind-the-scenes bosses like Sid who are "bold" to the French and look on coldly, at least, Lei Shidong, who finally bought CBS in a big way, has just become the second largest after AOL Time Warner.

But before this position was hot, it was snatched by the French, with his tough and angry character, how could it be so simple to let it go for a long time.

In fact, after taking stock of Canada's loser Edgar Bronfman Jr. last time, today I can talk about this Jean-Marie Messier from France.

Jean-Marie Messier - Although from the name, it is easy to misunderstand this as a woman, because of the middle name "Marie". But in reality, he is an unscrupulous French man, and he is still very ambitious.

It can be said that without him, there would be no Vivendi Group today, and even the name "Vivendi" was re-named after he entered the top level.

Messier, who created the world's second largest media group, is quite similar to Akio Morita (one of the founders of Sony) in his later years, because the core business of the original French Vivendi was to engage in tap water, and its earliest history can be traced back to the Napoleonic period in the mid-19th century.

But Messier's greedy and fashionable personality always made him feel that the water company would be looked down upon, and at the same time, he also believed early on that the film and television media would be very profitable, and he also hoped to realize his dream of a French counterattack on Hollywood.

But the end of Vivendi and Messier has actually been revealed - Messier's pursuit of fashion has led to Vivendi's greed.

Within a few years, Vivendi bought countless companies, no matter how big the other party was, as long as he took a fancy to it, and with a little negotiation, he could take it at a high price.

The most common method of mergers and acquisitions between modern Western media groups is equity swaps, such as the merger of AOL and Time Warner.

The second most common method is to use credit, or in other words, to borrow money to buy, to borrow money from banks, to borrow money from financial institutions. Vivendi's large-scale mergers and acquisitions are based on this method. The advantage of this method is that it is fast. But the downside is just as obvious: the debt burden is heavy.

The annual repayment of principal and interest alone is a considerable burden on the company. In the rapid expansion of the Vivendi empire, in order to quickly acquire these companies, Messier relied too much on financial leverage, which made Vivendi heavily indebted and directly led to the loss of its cash.

Because of this, Vivendi's stock fell sharply after it announced its acquisition of Seagram in the middle of the year.

This truth is not only understood by Sid, but also by many institutional investors.

With the beginning of the new century, Hollywood's group trend is becoming more and more obvious, with Fox and Paramount in the past, and Time Warner and Universal Group in the future, which also means that the opportunities and space for small and medium-sized enterprises have become smaller and smaller.

————————————————————

On December 12th, another major event that affected North America, and even the European and American worlds finally settled - after more than a month of repeated statistics and court trials, finally, the unelected Federal Supreme Court announced the verdict!

The final result of the 54th presidential election ended with George W. Bush's victory over Democratic candidate Al Gore. The final result of this election once again confirms the tradition of Florida's left-right elections.

During this period, the votes of the two presidential candidates repeatedly alternated the leads, and the people who watched the North American melon-eating people were shocked, and everyone said that their little hearts couldn't stand it. An American football fan also told reporters: "This is more exciting than watching the Super Cup." ”

Even during the period, CNN announced that George W. Bush had won, and Gore had already congratulated George W. Bush on the phone and admitted his defeat. World leaders sent congratulatory messages one after another, scrambling to make overtures to the new president.

But the Florida attorney general later said that because the difference between Gore and Bush was less than 0.5 percent, a recount would be required under Florida's election law.

Bush Jr., who originally thought that he had won, had no choice but to accept it in the end. And the leaders of various countries were also embarrassed and withdrew their congratulations one after another. The TV anchors from all walks of life kept their eyes red, and they had to take back what they had said, admitting that they had never encountered such difficult content.

In the end, although Gore had 50,000 more votes than George W. Bush, he narrowly won the Florida electoral vote by Bush with 271 votes.

Such a heart-wrenching election plot made the 2000 U.S. election the "most stale" election since 1879 without any suspense.

George W. Bush has also been officially identified as the new president to take office next year.

Although after that, some rumors about Bush Jr.'s vote fraud also circulated. But for the US imperialist people at this time, George W. Bush also seems to be a good candidate for president.

Because in the previous election, Al Gore of the Democratic Party repeatedly said that he would use force, economy and other tough means to make the United States "rise" again.

On the other hand, Bush Jr. has always been quite modest, not only saying that he should respect the international community, but also saying that the United States should let other countries decide their own internal affairs, instead of being dictated by the United States.

Does this sound familiar? Doesn't it look like a diplomatic statement on the other side of the ocean?

Hehe, so the image of George W. Bush at this time is still good.

If there's a shortcoming, or a point of attack, it's — "Good, it looks like we chose the guy with the lowest IQ ever." Old man Charles said angrily.

As we all know, a bunch of people in Hollywood have always been the Democratic Party's vote base, except, of course, Fox and Murdoch.

So, the election of a Republican president will of course make them unhappy.

"Well, I don't think Bush Jr. has the lowest IQ. Sid said with a meaningful smile, "At least I think Bush Jr. is stupid and cute, not like some guy with orange hair and shaped like a bird, that's really stupid." ”

"Sid, who are you talking about? Why don't I understand?" asked Old Man Charles, confused.

"No, it's nothing, I'm just whining. Sid smiled and shrugged.