On the other side of the phone, Paul Rowland was talking something quickly, and Eric's brow gradually furrowed. Pen Fun Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

After Paul Rolland finished speaking, Eric turned around and asked Caroline, who was standing not far away, "Carly, Estonia seems to be next to Finland, right?"

"Well," Caroline nodded, "Helsinki is less than a hundred kilometers away from Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, across the sea. ”

"Help me answer Ollie Karassuou's call," Eric ordered, then turned his attention to his phone again, and said to Paul Loren: "It's definitely too late for you to fly to Europe now, I'll arrange for someone to come over there, and you can stay in New York and take care of the coordination." ”

At the end of last year, Yoma Oria officially left Nokia.

On the recommendation of Yoma Ollilah, Oli Karassuou, the former chief financial officer of Nokia, succeeded him as the new chairman and CEO of Nokia.

Caroline didn't understand why Eric had contacted Ollie Karassuou out of the blue, but she immediately picked up the cordless phone from the secretary's office and skillfully dialed a string of numbers. After a few moments, the phone was connected, and Caroline said a few words to the other side, and then walked over and handed the cordless phone to Eric.

Edgar Bronfman didn't expect it to take Eric half an hour to answer just a phone call, and as time passed, he even began to wonder if the other party was deliberately hanging himself.

Dissatisfaction builds up, and just as Edgar Bronfman hesitates to get up and leave, Eric finally pushes open the office door and walks in.

"I'm sorry, Ed," Eric said, still holding a mobile phone in his hand, walked over and sat down on the sofa, placing the phone on the coffee table in front of him, "I encountered a very troublesome thing at the moment, and I kept you waiting for a long time." ”

Edgar Bronfman smiled as gracefully as he could, and looked curious.

Eric didn't mean to explain to the other party, and said, "So, let's continue with the topic just now." Ed, frankly, it's definitely not a good idea for Seagram to want to take a stake in Firefly Electronics. You know, Firefly Electronics is not short of money, so for a long time in the future, this company will not only not go public, but also has no dividend plan. Moreover, the current valuation of Firefly Electronics in the industry is around $30 billion, and I don't think Seagram can accept a stake at this valuation. ”

"All right, Eric," Edgar Bronfman said, once again suppressing his displeasure, "Well, Firefly should always show some sincerity if he wants Universal Music to join the digital music store, but so far, I don't see any sincerity in you. ”

"Ed, you should understand that as long as Universal Music joins the Yahoo Music Store, whether it is Yahoo or Firefly Electronics, or even Firefly Group, it will try to tilt more resources to Universal Music's music content, and this kind of first-mover advantage is incomparable to other record companies. Of course, we also have our own record business, but as we all know, Firefly Records is small and doesn't make much of a difference to the big picture," Eric said, pausing before continuing, "But, of course, I'm definitely going to show my sincerity. The Yahoo Music Store's share of the record label is 37 cents, and that cannot be changed. However, as long as Universal Music agrees to cooperate, in the next few years, Firefly Electronics can return a certain percentage of sales revenue to Universal Music through marketing subsidies. ”

In fact, as long as Universal Music can agree to open content licensing, Eric is even willing to return all of its music sales to Universal Music in the next few years, even if it is a few more upside down.

Compared with the huge profits from hardware sales, the revenue sharing of digital music stores can be completely discarded for the Firefly system.

Of course, the Yahoo Music Store is a business owned by Yahoo Network, and since Yahoo has gone public, Eric can only subsidize record companies through Firefly Electronics for the sake of earnings and stock prices.

Edgar Bronfman was silent for a moment, and from Eric's tone, he could basically tell how much the other party's so-called subsidy could be.

It's just that, thinking about the analysis of Firefly Electronics' revenue data by various business media in the recent period, Edgar Bronfman is still a little unwilling.

Among the five major record companies, Universal is the largest, but its annual revenue is only about $5 billion, and the annual profit is about $500 million.

However, according to the general analysis of the media, Firefly Electronics, which has only released its products for two years, has an annual profit scale equivalent to twice that of Universal Records, which does not make the entire record industry feel jealous. Even, many people feel that the money made by Firefly Electronics is completely the profits lost by the overall decline of the record industry in the past two years.

Edgar Bronfman doesn't really want to work with Eric Williams at all, if possible.

However, the current situation of the Seagram Group is not good.

In recent years, as the Seagram Group has fully shifted to the media industry, making a number of acquisitions, including MCA, Polygram, cable TV and other businesses, the company's total debt has reached $12 billion. And, because Edgar Bronfman leaned most of his resources on the record business and wanted to build the world's largest record group, although his goal had been achieved, with the sudden decline of the record industry, the operation of the Seagram Group was also in trouble.

Last year, Michael Eisner's Universal Pictures Group made a good profit, but because of the failure of the record business, the Seagram Group still lost more than $1.3 billion in 1998.

Due to the poor integration between Polygram Records and Universal Records, if the overall situation of the record industry does not reverse in the next few years, Seagram Group may continue to lose money. The Bronfman family, which controls the Seagram Group, has even had the idea of selling the company while placing the blame on Edgar Bronfman.

Of course, Edgar Bronfman didn't want to do this, although he had a bit of rigidity in his personality, but he was definitely not unlearned.

After a detailed discussion with Universal Music CEO Doug Morrison, the two agreed that this partnership with Firefly was very necessary and could even be the key to turning the tide of the current situation in the Seagram Group.

"Eric, that's not enough," thought for a moment before Edgar Bronfman shook his head, "The Yahoo Music Store wants Universal Music's content, and Firefly has to pay more." ”

Eric's left hand subconsciously pressed on the bandage on his right arm, he had unconsciously gained this habit recently, but his expression was silent, and said, "So, what does Seagram want?"

"A zero-interest loan," gritted his teeth, Edgar Bronfman remembered the abundant cash reserves of the Firefly system revealed by the media, and temporarily changed the original number, and the lion opened his mouth: "$3 billion." ”

Due to unbridled expansion and huge losses, the current capital chain of the Seagram Group has reached a very dangerous level. Not to mention the rest, just the $12 billion in debt that needs to be paid $600 million a year in debt interest.

While the overall economic situation in North America is booming, it is difficult for the Seagram Group to obtain external financing.

"$3 billion, that's impossible," Eric said, holding the bandage under the fabric of his shirt, shook his head, "I'll give you a maximum of $500 million, and it must be repaid within three years." ”

I don't know if Edgar Bronfman heard the lightness in Eric's tone, but his attitude suddenly became resolute.

Naturally, Eric couldn't have let go so easily.

The Firefly system is indeed not short of money, but $3 billion is definitely a huge amount of money.

Since he is willing to give up all of his digital music sales in the short term, Eric naturally won't care too much about giving up the interest generated by the $3 billion. But with such a huge amount of money, he is more worried that once the Seagram Group is in trouble, the other party is likely to not be able to repay it.

To put it mildly, if the Seagram Group goes bankrupt, Eric will have no interest in its record business assets. As for Universal Pictures, $3 billion can't be eaten, and other creditors can't easily cede the best assets of Universal Pictures to Firefly.

The two sides argued over various details for more than an hour, and the meeting ultimately failed to reach any results.

However, although no agreement was reached on the loan, Edgar Bronfman agreed that Universal Music could begin initial contact talks with Yahoo and Firefly Electronics.

Seeing off Edgar Bronfman, it was close to noon, and seeing that there was no call from Europe, Eric was about to take the initiative to dial over, when the mobile phone rang again.

……

The nine-day Paris Fashion Week is coming to an end.

Due to the arrangement of a certain guy, Carmen Caess can be regarded as shining at this year's fashion week.

However, I don't know if it was in response to that happy and sad sentence, she was preparing for the last few catwalks in the next two days, when she suddenly received a call from her sister from her hometown.

The mother was kidnapped.

Hearing the news, Carmen Kayth was immediately blindsided.

Kidnap.

How can such a thing be connected to oneself?

Because of poverty, Eastern Europe is actually very chaotic, and she knows this.

In the past few years of turmoil, she has heard a lot of things, all kinds of kidnappings, extortion, and even assassinations, and the Estonian black gang went to Finland to grab land but was beaten back by the Russian black gang. It's just that she has always felt that ordinary people like herself are very far away in these things.

And then all of a sudden, it happened.

Then it felt like the sky was going to fall.

My mother divorced my father when she was very young, and she worked very hard to raise the three of her siblings. She still remembers when she was a child, her mother worked until late at night, full of exhaustion and secretly hugged herself, at that time her mother thought she was asleep, but she was actually awake, little child, little mind, didn't know what to say, so she continued to pretend to be asleep.

The extortion offered by the kidnappers is 10 million Estonian kroner, which is actually not much, about more than 600,000 US dollars. However, although she has signed a huge endorsement contract with Victoria's Secret, it is naturally impossible to pay this money immediately, she has just been cheated out of all her savings not long ago, and now she has no money at all.

For some reason, the first thought that came to mind was the man who had been bitten by himself.

Then he came to his senses and called Paul Rolland in a panic, and Paul Rolland quickly replied, asking her to provide the contact information of her brother and sister, and then asking her to be patient and not to do stupid things.

How could she wait, she just wanted to go back as soon as possible and rescue her mother, so she frantically borrowed money from familiar and unfamiliar people around her.

It's just that although many of WM's models earn well, it is impossible for everyone to have too much cash, and she didn't dare to explain why she wanted to borrow money, so she just temporarily scraped together more than 200,000 pounds and hurriedly boarded the plane to Tallinn.

In any case, we have to rush back as soon as possible.

It's just that when she left London, she was fine, and when she arrived at Tallinn Airport, she forgot to declare the cash she was carrying because of negligence, so she was detained again.

Although the European Union had been established at this time, Estonia had not yet joined, and entry and exit security was still very strict.

After this period of exposure, she is already a celebrity in Estonia at this time, or rather, the most famous person in this small country with a population of just over a million. Therefore, the customs staff did not embarrass her too much, but hoped that she could explain the ins and outs of the cash.

How dare she explain!

Although she has never encountered a kidnapping case, she also knows that this kind of thing must not be a big deal, otherwise......

When the customs officers saw that she looked unwilling, they naturally became a little more suspicious, so they didn't dare to let her go easily, so they could only report to the person in charge at the upper level and wait for the people above to come and deal with it.

As a result, she was trapped in the airport detention room like a stubborn and panicked little beast.

I look forward to it.

If this is the time, someone can come and help me.

That.

I'd rather let him bite back.

In the end, I only thought of that man.

She would never admit that she was a girl who was insecure in her bones, but at this moment, she realized that the man had unconsciously given her a great sense of security that she had never felt before.

After the person in charge of customs arrived, she still didn't dare to reveal anything, but just hoped to make a phone call.

With permission, the call was made to New York.

Paul Loren, who had not been able to reach her for several hours, heard that she was trapped at the airport in Tallinn, and even though he forcibly endured it, he couldn't help but count her down a few words, and then hung up the phone in a hurry, as if he thought it would be safer to let her stay in the airport detention cell.

It was only half an hour later that a group of people came to pick her up.

In addition to her brothers and sisters, she also saw her mother's figure, and her heart suddenly let go.

Then there was the group of strangers, one of whom took the initiative to introduce him, and it turned out to be a manager of the public relations department of the Nokia Group.

Nokia.

Of course she knew.

Not only because it's one of Finland's largest companies across the sea, but it's also his business.

Suddenly, I felt very bad in my heart.

It seems that I have a terrible thought in my heart.