Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and Tom Murphy's Metropolitan Media do not have an absolute stake in ABC Network, but the close to 40% stake in both companies means that it will be easy to lobby the board of directors to agree to the deal after Buffett has privately negotiated with Firefly.

It's just that ABC TV is definitely not monolithic inside, although Buffett has a tough attitude, it does not mean that the other major shareholders of ABC TV network do not want to reach this deal with Firefly, especially in the case that Firefly Pictures has achieved huge profits for many years since its establishment, and even at the end of last year, Buffett contacted Firefly alone in the process of shareholders publicly expressing dissatisfaction with Buffett's concealment of negotiation information.

After Firefly Pictures released its 1993 annual financial report, many investment institutions that held shares in ABC Television Network wanted to facilitate the transaction, after all, some interests are very easy to calculate, with the profitability of Firefly Pictures, after the merger, even if the original shareholders of ABC Television Network only accounted for 30% of the integrated company As long as Firefly's profitability doesn't change much, shareholders will receive almost the same annual profit dividends as they did during the ABC period, while they will be able to extract a lot of money from this cash-and-equity deal for other investments.

After negotiations between Firefly Pictures and Warren Buffett failed, the board of directors of ABC Television Network quickly passed a resolution promising to start negotiations with Firefly Pictures.

On Feb. 10, after receiving an official response from ABC Network, Katzenberg and Firefly Pictures' lead attorney, Edward Lewis, led the acquisition team to New York. Commenced formal acquisition negotiations with ABC.

Because ABC's equity and debt profile is not as straightforward as Firefly Pictures. Firefly also brought in Morgan Stanley's team as an advisor under Chris's lead.

In the course of the original acquisition of Disney. The two sides had a very pleasant cooperation, although Firefly Pictures at this time is no longer what it used to be, and its rich administrative resources make Firefly no longer have to rely on Morgan Stanley's team in this acquisition, but Morgan Stanley is still very enthusiastic, and the entire Wall Street can see that Morgan Stanley is deliberately courting Firefly Pictures.

Because Firefly will definitely launch a large-scale debt financing plan in order to complete the acquisition after the negotiation is over, and the issuance of stocks and bonds is the main business of investment banks. The profits from this are also much more lucrative than the occasional mergers and acquisitions.

Eric did not rush to New York with Katzenberg, but communicated with Katzenberg on the phone every day about the progress of the negotiations.

Of course, before Katzenberg left New York, Firefly's top management had already talked in detail about Firefly Pictures' acquisition bottom line, and after many discussions, Eric's authority to give Katzenberg was to sell up to 25% of Firefly's shares, and as for cash, it was relaxed to less than $10 billion.

Of course, this data is not arbitrary, Firefly Pictures and ABC TV are both in a very good period, so there is no doubt that the merger of the two parties will have the effect of one plus one is greater than the sum of its parts. Under the best performance expectations, once the two parties merge. Under the strong combination, Firefly's profit in the next few years is likely to reach $2 billion, so the proportion of shareholders' income with 25% of the equity will be comparable to the annual income of the ABC TV network at this time, so this data is still relatively easy to accept by ABC.

Of course, what will happen in the future, except for Eric, who can see the future, no one can predict that maybe the revenue and profits of Firefly after the merger will explode again, or maybe under the heavy debt burden of tens of billions of dollars after the acquisition, Firefly will be destroyed.

Eric has always been very optimistic about this deal, although Disney's performance after the acquisition of ABC in the original time and space fell into a slump for many years, but this is more of Michael Eisner's personal reasons, after Michael Eisner stepped down, the Disney Group quickly rejuvenated, both in terms of scale and profitability will be ranked next to Time Warner, News Corp and other giants far behind, all of which is enough to prove the correctness of this acquisition.

As for the huge debt burden after the merger and acquisition, Eric did not take it to heart, the late nineties will be the most rapid period of economic development in the United States, including the entertainment industry, all economic sectors have grown significantly, coupled with Eric's layout in the high-tech industry, even if the fireflies are really in a temporary embarrassment, Eric can easily raise enough funds from other channels to resolve the firefly crisis, not to mention, the possibility of this kind of thing happening is not high.

Since last year, Eric has repeatedly asked for the expansion of the 3D animation production department of Firefly Pictures, but in this era, 3D animation technology has just emerged, except for Pixar, there is no large-scale 3D animation company in North America or even the world, and Eric has no choice but to adopt an internal training mechanism. While expanding the scale of Pixar, Disney's hand-drawn animation department also stopped recruiting and training hand-drawn animators, and gradually tried to transform into computer animation.

While maintaining close contact with Katzenberg in New York, Eric has been focusing on his animation division in recent times. To this end, he also personally led the organization of an exchange meeting between Pixar and Disney Animation.

The "Lion King" produced by the Disney Animation Department has been fully completed, and the preliminary promotion has begun, in addition to "The Lion King", Disney Animation also has several animated sequel projects including "Aladdin's Magic Lamp 2". Because the production cycle of reclaimed animation is longer than that of 3D animation, these projects were already finalized before Firefly Pictures acquired Disney, but in addition to these, Eric has stopped approving new hand-drawn animated film projects, and has made no secret of the fact that if Disney's existing hand-drawn animators are not willing to be trained in computer animation production, after all the hand-drawn animated film projects in their hands are completed, these people will only be able to produce low-cost animated film projects for Disney Kids Channel in the future.

Most of Disney's hand-drawn animators are not too old, plus they are very skilled in drawing. Completing training in computer animation production software is not too difficult. To avoid causing a backlash from hundreds of hand-drawn animators. Eric also promised to give them sufficient time to learn and adapt, and to fully cover the cost of the training.

The Pixar staff who participated in the exchange meeting came out of the Disney Animation Studio headquarters in Burbank one after another, and John Lasseter, who was walking side by side with Eric, said: "Eric, although no one has publicly refuted it for the time being, I feel that many people in the studio are still very resistant to this change, and you may have a little trouble." ”

Eric is certainly well aware of this, as Disney Animation Studios has more than 700 hand-drawn animators, although more than seventy percent are in their 30s. But there are also some people who are even old people from the Walt Disney era, these people are certainly not able to adapt to the new way of animation, so it is almost inevitable that they will be eliminated in the future, in this case, no one will be tied back, the reason why Eric did not come out to refute when he spoke just now, mainly because the various advantages shown by Pixar's 3D animation are almost overwhelming, and Eric's decision is also a little sudden, many people have not been able to react, and there is no one who will do this unprepared'Rising birds'.

"They all understand the advantages of 3D animation over hand-drawn animation. Both Toy Story and Bug Crisis have proven this, so this shift is inevitable. Eric and John Lasseter walked and said, "If you can't make this transition." Fireflies had to lay them off, and I've done what I could, and their existing hand-drawn animation projects would last at least two years, which was a very lenient time for them. If they are really cut, I don't think they will be cornered, and all major TV stations need a lot of hand-drawn animators to make children's cartoons. ”

John Lasseter, who had worked at Disney Animation for a long time, sighed slightly when he heard Eric's words. But he knows very well that capital is ruthless, and although Eric is not a demanding boss, he is not a philanthropist, and it is not easy to do it to this extent. If it were other companies, they might just announce layoffs if they weren't optimistic about the prospects of hand-drawn animation, and definitely wouldn't give employees such a relaxed time to adapt.

It was still early, because of the busy work, John Lasseter and others did not plan to spend the night in Los Angeles, and Eric also arranged a business plane owned by Firefly Pictures to send the group back to San Francisco.

Eric was going to take John Lasseter and the others to Santa Monica Airport in person, but as soon as he arrived at the parking lot, Eric saw Elizabeth with a toad mirror get out of a red BMW sedan, wave to Eric, and walk over.

"Eric, I think we're going to have to go to Santa Monica ourselves," John Lasseter said to Eric with a smile when he saw Elizabeth's slim figure, and the others chuckled as well.

Eric waited for Elizabeth to come over, took the initiative to introduce the two parties, and looked at the girl's appearance of wanting to speak and stopping, Eric had to dispel the idea of sending John Lasseter and others, but fortunately, John Lasseter and others did not care too much about these details, and after saying goodbye to Eric, they got in the car and left.

After everyone left, Eric walked up to the red BMW with Elizabeth, smiled and tapped on the hood, and asked, "New car?"

Elizabeth put the toad mirror back on, raised her chin and teased: "I bought it half a year ago, in the eyes of you, a guy who never cares about others, it's not wrong to say that it's a new car." ”

Eric looked around at no one, reached out and pinched Elizabeth's chin, and smiled, "Don't you think that if you have something to ask me, you should put away the 'little paws'?"

Elizabeth snapped Eric's hand open, looked confident, and said, "We've completed the acquisition of Miramax." ”

It was almost time to get off work, and Eric didn't want to be watched, so he opened the car door and sat in the red BMW, smelling the faint fragrance of women in the car, and asked Elizabeth, who came in, "Oh, how much did it cost?"

Elizabeth started the car, slowly drove out of the parking lot, and said, "$100 million to buy 90% of Miramax's shares, and the Weinstein brothers will retain 10% of the shares and continue to be in charge of Miramax's business." ”

"It's a bit expensive, but it's a good idea to let the Weinstein brothers keep some of their shares, otherwise Miramax won't have much value if they leave. ”

Elizabeth said: "If the two of them leave Miramax, won't it be worthless, and with the entire News Corp as a backer, the mercenary brothers will not leave so easily." ”

Eric said: "The Weinstein brothers have had enough of the lack of funds in the past few years, and of course the first few years will be very happy to work with Twentieth Century Fox, but people are ambitious, and when you can't tolerate the ambitions of the brothers, everyone will fall apart." ”

Elizabeth was personally involved in the negotiations to buy Miramax, and of course she knew exactly what kind of brothers were: "If that's the case, it's better to leave if you want, and Fox can't let them turn against them." ”

Eric watched Elizabeth turn onto the highway with the steering wheel on the wheel, and then remembered and asked, "Where are you taking me?"

Elizabeth said in a fearless tone: "The company's top management has decided to let the Weinstein brothers be the producers of Braveheart, and this project is the first thing you fancied, so let's have dinner and talk about it." ”

Eric was 'shocked' by Elizabeth's natural tone, and asked weakly, "Well, Firefly and Fox are competitors after all...... Am I doing this as an enemy?"

"Count!" Elizabeth nodded vigorously, "If you don't want to, the woman named Sophie Marceau will go back and forth." ”

"Well, count yourself ruthless. ”

"Humph......"

The meeting place was chosen to be a fine French restaurant in Beverly Hills, and seeing Eric's arrival, the Weinstein brothers seemed very enthusiastic, while Mel Gibson was much colder, and Eric could also feel that this guy was either lost in nature by success or had too low emotional intelligence. However, Mel Gibson's agent named Ed Limatto was very earnest, and Eric just had this person in his memory, as if Ed Limatto had been Mel Gibson's agent since the early 80s, until his death, he served as Mel Gibson's agent for more than 20 years, Ed Limato was 20 years older than Mel Gibson, and the relationship between the two was like father and son. It's just that there is no exact date of Ed Limatto's death in memory, and if Ed Limato's death coincides with the date of Mel Gibson's career decline, then what happened to Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise is too similar. At the same time, it proves once again how important a good broker is. (To be continued.) )