In the face of the high box office of "The Matrix 2" in the first week, the media cynicism only brought a wave of schadenfreude to the fireflies, but did not have any substantial negative impact on the fireflies, and even the media discussion also promoted the sales of the fireflies' upcoming corporate bonds next month from some strange angles. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The company's management has always been under Eric's control, and nothing will go wrong. Eric hoped that the minority shareholders of the group would have some opinions, and it was better to sell their shares in a rage, but unfortunately this did not happen.

As a result, Eric doesn't really care at all about the media's perception of The Matrix 2's box office and the consequent downplay of the Firefly syndicate.

However, when he arrived in Queenstown, New Zealand, and had just settled in, Eric received a message that made him angry.

Steve Keys completely ignored the tacit understanding formed by all parties and took the dispute between management and Firefly Investment, the largest shareholder, into the media.

It happened on Tuesday morning on the East Coast of North America, Steve Keys gave an exclusive interview to CNN, Eric arrived in Queenstown, and New Zealand local time was Wednesday morning, however, the time zone on the East Coast of North America was 16 hours behind New Zealand, and when Eric received the news, it was still Tuesday afternoon, and the New York Stock Exchange had just finished trading for the day.

At a private resort outside Queenstown, Eric hung up Chris's personal call and said to Tim Saunders, Firefly's New Zealand-based producer for The Lord of the Rings, "Tim, you go back to work as usual, I may not be able to go to the set today, I'll call Peter myself later." ”

New Zealand is in the coldest month of the year, but it didn't affect the filming of "The Lord of the Rings" crew at all.

The basic expenses of the entire crew of hundreds of thousands of dollars per day reached hundreds of thousands of dollars, so before Eric came, he specifically told Peter Jackson that he did not need to change the shooting schedule for his arrival. At this time, Peter Jackson was leading the crew to shoot exterior locations near Lake Wanaka, more than 40 kilometers north of Queenstown.

Tim Saunders was next to Eric just now, and he also heard something roughly, and nodded: "Then I'll leave first, Eric, if there is anything, you can call me at any time." ”

Seeing off Tim Saunders, Eric returned to the living room of the vacation house behind him, Caroline was standing by the fax machine in the corner of the living room and was making a phone call, and Mayer walked over with a notebook and showed it to Eric.

A video of CNN's interview with Steve Keys is playing on a laptop screen.

"I'm grateful to Firefly for its unwavering support of AOL over the years, but that doesn't stop us from sticking to our corporate philosophy. An enterprise should have its own culture and soul, and if it does not have these, it is destined to be just a puppet of capital, and all facts prove that such an enterprise is destined to fail to develop and grow. Over the years, it is precisely because we have a clear plan for this company that AOL has been able to grow from a small company with less than 100,000 users to an Internet giant with nearly 15 million users in the United States now," Steve Keys said with a serious expression in the picture: "So, if the shareholders insist that we abandon our business philosophy, then there is no need for us to continue to stick to this company." ”

In the studio, the presenter with black-rimmed glasses nodded in agreement, and said, "So, Steve, who do you mean by 'we'?"

"Myself, President Robert Pittman, and 12 heads of operations, marketing, finance, and other departments of the company. If we are unable to reach an agreement with our shareholders in the future, we will choose to resign en masse. ”

With a surprised expression on his face, the host leaned forward slightly and asked, "Steve, as far as I know, you are also a shareholder of AOL. I think you must know that if the company's management resigns en masse, it will definitely have an immeasurable impact on the company's stock price, which will also damage your personal interests, have you considered this outcome?"

"Yes," says Steve Case, "but I'd rather stick to my ideals than to wealth." ”

On the screen, the host smiled appreciatively, nodded, and said: "So, next, let's learn about AOL's legendary rise over the years through a video." ”

Eric stood in place, frowning slightly at the laptop screen that Mayer was silently holding in his hand, and the phone he had just put in his trench coat pocket rang again.

Motioning for Mayer to take the laptop away, Eric answered the phone, but it was a call from Morgan Stanley President John Mark.

Morgan Stanley also owns a large equity investment division, and they are also one of the major shareholders of AOL, holding about 2% of AOL's shares.

Some time ago, under Chris's lobbying, Morgan Stanley has agreed to stand on the side of Firefly Investment in the voting process at the shareholders' meeting. However, in the face of Steve Case's sudden attack that almost tore his face, Morgan Stanley's side obviously could not maintain a calm posture.

Eric chatted with John Mark as Caroline handed over a document that had just been put together, which was AOL's stock price chart for Tuesday in the United States.

As the founder of AOL and the key figure who single-handedly made AOL into today's market capitalization of more than $40 billion, Steve Keys has a very strong influence on AOL, and this influence has also shrouded a large number of AOL shareholders, not to mention, the entire AOL management who has declared that they want to advance and retreat with Steve Case.

As a result, after CNN aired an interview with Steve Case, the Nasdaq market reacted violently directly to the risk that Steve Case, as well as AOL management, could resign en masse.

Over the course of the session, AOL's stock price fell sharply by 6.5%, with its market value slipping from $41.5 billion at the opening to $38.9 billion, and $2.7 billion in six hours of trading was wiped out.

Even, the Nasdaq index, which was expected to break through 2,000 points this week, was also affected, and the entire market fell from 1,973 to 1,935 points throughout the day.

Eric listened to John Mark's tentative words in the slightly anxious tone on the other side, and said, "John, Morgan Stanley may have lost more than 50 million dollars, but according to the shareholding ratio, Firefly is equivalent to a billion dollars today, do you think I will be indifferent?"

The total share of AOL shares held by Firefly Systems is 35.7%, which means that Steve Case's actions directly brought Firefly a book loss of nearly $1 billion.

Even though many people know that AOL's actual value is not worth so much at all, the loss of hundreds of millions of paper wealth in one day is still a bit painful. Those Wall Street funds whose main business is stock investment have faced millions of losses in a short period of time, and their reaction is much more fierce than investors like Eric, who are more focused on long-term development.

Patiently chatted with John Mark for a while, just hung up the other party's phone, the mobile phone rang again almost without a break, this time the caller came from a bigger person, John Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Fund on Wall Street with assets of more than $200 billion, although the other party was tactful, but it was very clear that he hoped that Eric could change his original mind and settle the matter as soon as possible, and finally John Bogle also expressed some concern that the Nasdaq index might collapse because of this.

Naturally, Eric had this concern, so his sense of Steve Case's actions was even worse.

It's not because of today's $1 billion stock book loss, but because the other party completely disregards the overall situation in order to maintain its own power. At the beginning, the two sides had reached a tacit agreement to limit the matter to AOL.

Next Monday, June 29, the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders, no matter who wins, the other party must voluntarily withdraw in order to maintain the development of AOL.

However, Firefly Investment itself holds a 35.7% stake in AOL, which is already a firm control of a company for many other companies, just like the Murdoch family and the Lei Shidong family behind News Corp and Viacom, whose shareholding ratio in the two media groups is about 30%.

As a result, Firefly Investments actually has a very high win rate in terms of shareholder voting, and if it weren't for Steve Case's status as the founder of AOL and his outstanding achievements in his position over the years, Firefly would not even need to hold any shareholder meeting to oust Steve Case.

But even so, Firefly only needs to enlist the other 15% or so shareholders to side with it to easily seize control of AOL.

During this time, due to his close relationship with Wall Street, Chris managed to get a promise from a large part of the fund managers who held AOL shares to side with Fireflies. Perhaps it was because he felt that his disadvantages were becoming more and more obvious, and Steve Keys made today's move.

It's really a wreck.

Because in this way, in the face of the pressure of AOL's stock price collapse, most shareholders may have to temporarily compromise with AOL's management, but Steve Case's reckless behavior to damage everyone's interests is also destined to be severely remembered by Wall Street investors, and it will be even more difficult for him to gain Wall Street's favor in the future.

Of course, if AOL can continue to be strong, Steve Keys can put on the image of a tough corporate manager, and completely ignore the face of Wall Street, after all, Wall Street will always look at people who can bring them practical benefits.

But what others don't know, Eric knows how tragic AOL's collapse in the next few years will be if it continues to develop according to Steve Case's thinking.

Eric's first day in New Zealand was basically spent on the phone.

In order to prevent AOL's stock price from falling sharply the next day, the board of directors urgently applied to the SEC for a temporary suspension of trading, and promised the media and investors that a press conference would be held before next Monday to announce the final outcome of the incident.

Flying back to New York from New Zealand, although the journey is slightly closer than the UK to New Zealand, it also takes 20 hours, which is basically a whole day, so Eric did not rush back, but kept in close contact with Chris and others in New York by phone while checking the progress of all aspects of the production of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

It wasn't until Saturday morning in New Zealand, and Friday afternoon on the East Coast of the United States, that AOL's major shareholders, board members, and management sat together in the company's large conference room at its headquarters in New York, and Eric participated in the meeting via video call.

Frightened by AOL's management's propaganda that the stock price would plummet due to the collective resignation, in just three days, many shareholders who were originally inclined to the Firefly investment side changed their positions.

If it's just Steve Case's departure, AOL won't be affected too much, as long as it's arranged properly. However, if all the main management leaves the company, then for a long time, AOL will fall into a state of chaos without a leader, and even if the airborne managers are excellent, it will be impossible for AOL to return to its previous state in a short time.

In the case that several major traditional telecom operators in North America and the operating system giant Microsoft have laid out ISP business, if AOL has a turbulent time of a year and a half, it is likely that these competitors who are very strong in themselves will close the gap, and AOL's advantages accumulated in the ISP field for many years may also be wiped out, or even collapsed from now on.

Firefly Investment's technology company, Eric did not attach much importance to AOL from the beginning, what he cared about was just at the moment when the technology stock bubble was at its most inflated, using AOL's stock price far exceeding the actual value as 'currency', merging and appointing an old telecom operator, completely consolidating the foundation of AOL, and providing the most stable underlying service support for the information industry alliance plan determined at the beginning.

However, with the current situation, it is impossible to talk about the original plan, and Eric has decisively made the choice that is most beneficial to him.

In the study room of the holiday villa, the monitor on the desk is turned on, and the large conference room opposite AOL's New York headquarters is opposite, and more than a dozen representatives from various fields are sitting on both sides of the oval desk.

Taking the folder that had been prepared long ago from Caroline's hand, Eric flipped through the folder, glanced at the screen, and said lightly: "I'm a little tired these days, and I still have a lot of things to do today, so let's make a long story short." Oh, I said, listen. ”

In the conference room in New York, a large-screen projector was used, and Chris, who happened to be sitting next to the screen, shook his head and smiled lightly when he heard Eric's words.

Other business elites from all walks of life looked at the somewhat condescending young man on the projector screen, although they were a little dissatisfied, but more worried. This meeting is about the future of AOL, and whether their stocks can continue to increase in value. Even though a lot of things have been agreed on in advance, when it comes to the end, many people are still worried that Eric will suddenly change his mind, and the other party has the capital to do so, even Steve Case, who is forced to be calm, has a much faster heartbeat than usual.