"Now that you've made up your mind, I'm certainly going to think about the long term. ”

Chris smiled and said: "As for the acquisition, the information you have collected is already very comprehensive, although Nokia's recent 1011 mobile phone sales are good, but Nokia's own predicament has not been solved, coupled with our financial advantages, the acquisition of Nokia is not much of a problem, we have to discuss only which acquisition method to use, Eric, if it is wholly acquired, the premium will be very high, and your original plan to acquire the TV network will also be hindered." Now among the four major TV networks in North America, Fox TV Network is the fastest growing and will definitely not sell, and the other three TV networks, any of which has a market value of more than $10 billion, will even lose the absolute controlling stake in Firefly if you use a share swap merger. ”

Eric has actually been thinking about these issues, such as the Gulf War, there will certainly not be a second windfall, and it will take a few more years to make money when IT stocks explode, and the sooner the acquisition of TV networks, the better.

Eric vaguely remembers some data, in the original time and space, the order of the integration of the three major North American television networks and film companies is ABC, CBS and NBC, in 1996 Disney completed the acquisition of ABC is about 19 billion US dollars, but only three years later, in 1999 Viacom acquired CBS but spent 37 billion US dollars, the scale of the two TV networks is not too different, this situation is mainly because of the rapid economic growth in the United States in the nineties caused by the rise in stock prices.

"Chris, do you think it's feasible to take the current performance of Firefly and completely adopt the method of issuing corporate bonds to acquire TV networks?"

Chris thought for a moment. Eric didn't hide a lot of his plans. If it had gone exactly as Eric had communicated to him. During the negotiations to buy the network, Firefly could raise about $5 billion in cash, but to be on the safe side, it would have to be around $15 billion to annex any of the three major networks.

$15 billion minus $5 billion......

Thinking of this, Chris suddenly widened his eyes and looked at Eric with an incredulous expression: "Issue $10 billion in corporate bonds, Eric." You're such a madman. ”

Not to mention $10 billion in debt financing, as of 1993, even in the world, there were very few mergers and acquisitions involving more than $10 billion, let alone the issuance of $10 billion in corporate debt for the acquisition of a company, which can only be described as crazy.

Eric didn't care that Chris looked frightened, and said, "Chris, think about it from another angle, we all know MGM's current situation." MGM now has assets of around $1 billion to $1.5 billion, but the company has liabilities of $1.7 billion. The debt ratio is more than 100%, but if the acquisition of the TV network is completed, Firefly's assets will reach $30 billion, and then when the time comes, the existing debt will be less than 40%. ”

"However, Eric, billion-level liabilities and ten-billion-level liabilities are no longer simple numerical issues. ”

Of course, Eric knows this, and investors generally buy corporate bonds because the risk of bonds is relatively low, and they do not have to bear the risk of ups and downs in corporate performance like stocks. Therefore, the larger the amount involved, the more cautious the investor will be, and the more likely it will be to find tens of billions of dollars in corporate debt at one time, even a giant like General Motors has not been there so far.

However, Eric is full of confidence, in his memory, in the process of Disney's acquisition of ABC TV in the original time and space, he successfully completed tens of billions of dollars in debt financing, not to mention, Firefly Pictures' current business situation is much stronger than Disney in parallel time and space: "Chris, perhaps for other companies, the one-time issuance of tens of billions of dollars of corporate bonds, this kind of capital is indeed large enough to discourage Wall Street investors, but Firefly is different, Firefly Pictures' net profit last year was close to one billion dollars." And this year, just the summer file "Jurassic Park", "Bug Crisis" and "Heaven and Earth Collision" will have a net profit of $500 million at the box office, which is only part of the film's omni-channel operation. Such profitability is enough to dispel the concerns of most investors. ”

Chris was about to speak when the car suddenly stopped, and Eric looked out the window to realize that the car had been parked in the hotel's underground parking lot.

Chris put all the information back in his suitcase and said, "Eric, I'll pay attention to this matter, I'll take the time to do a feasibility assessment when I get back to New York, Yoma Ollilah may be back to Finland in the afternoon, so we only have one lunch with him, so let's focus on Nokia first." ”

Eric nodded, got out of the car, and arranged for Chris and his party It was almost noon, and Eric and Chris hosted a banquet for Yoma Ollilah at a nearby restaurant on behalf of Firefly.

According to Eric and Chris's discussion, Firefly Investment will issue a takeover offer to Nokia within three days, and before the completion of the acquisition, their positions and Yoma Ollilah's positions will be temporarily opposed, so the conversation between the two sides at this luncheon did not involve too many substantive issues, Eric just talked to Yoma Ollilah about why he was interested in Nokia, and Yoma Ollila talked about the prospects of digital mobile phones and global mobile communication networks (GSM), and finally the guests and hosts were happy.

Yoma Ollilah returned to Finland in the afternoon to have preliminary communication with the current shareholders of the Nokia Group's major banks.

Eric and Chris rented a conference room at the hotel to discuss the acquisition.

Although Nokia Group has divested or sold loss-making paper, rubber and television businesses in recent years, as a once-diversified Finnish giant company, in addition to the mobile communication equipment division, Nokia Group now has other businesses such as energy, pharmaceuticals and cables, and this part of the assets has not been divested and sold because it has remained profitable. And it accounts for about one-third of the group's total assets.

Although some mobile companies in some European countries have started operating GSM networks. As a result, sales of Nokia's first GSM phone, the 1011, have been boosted. But after all, the GSM network has not been fully popularized, coupled with the huge R&D investment in the early stage, although the GSM mobile phone has broad prospects, but Nokia's mobile phone department is still in a state of loss, and the funds have been fed back by other profitable departments, except for Eric, no one can predict the explosive growth potential of the prophet GSM mobile phone in the next few years, without seeing the actual profits. Nokia shareholders will not tolerate this situation indefinitely, which is why Joma Ollila is in desperate need of external investment.

Anyone knows that energy and pharmaceuticals are lucrative industries, but Eric is not interested at all, after all, Nokia's businesses are not even small shrimp in front of the giants in terms of size.

After a detailed discussion, Eric finally decided that the top priority was to acquire Nokia's mobile communications division, which included not only the mobile phone business, but also the communication equipment business. It mainly produces base station equipment for GSM networks, and is the first country to use GSM networks. Nokia's technology in this area is much ahead of other communication equipment manufacturers.

In the afternoon of the next day, Eric and Chris walked out of the conference room together, Chris was still holding a stack of documents in his hand, and said: "In order to develop GSM mobile phones, Nokia Group has been losing money for the first two years, that is to say, Nokia has invested all the profits generated by those profitable departments into the research and development of GSM mobile phones, and now the results have been released, I think Nokia shareholders will not sell the mobile communication division to us as long as they have a little foresight." ”

"Who knows, maybe Nokia's shareholders will be in a hurry to cash out," Eric said, "but in any case, we will at least have an absolute controlling stake in Nokia." ”

This is the bottom line of the acquisition discussed by the team in the past two days, and Chris also nodded in agreement, and said: "Then, I will issue a formal acquisition offer to Nokia tomorrow morning, and you can come up with a name for the offshore investment fund that has just been discussed." ”

Because of the different tax rates of various countries, in the process of cross-border acquisitions, the circulation of large sums of money will always involve tax issues, and the usual solution is to inject funds into an offshore company, and then invest through the offshore company, and at the same time, this offshore investment can also play a role in hiding assets. Although it is only 1993, because of the convenience of offshore investment, the capital scale of various offshore capital centers around the world has exceeded 1 trillion US dollars.

Eric remembered the babbling voices of the two little ones on the phone in New York yesterday, and quickly said, "Let's call it the Hawaii Fund." ”

Chris nodded and smiled, "Do you like your daughter more?"

"Yes, haven't you heard of that saying, the son is the enemy of the father's previous life, and the daughter is the lover of the father's previous life. ”

"It seems to be that way, and I think it's quite scientific, for a long time, I didn't have a good relationship with my father, but Emily and her father have always been very harmonious, maybe you don't know, I had a few arguments with Emily's father, and almost every time she was on her father's side. Chris said with a smile on his lips, and said, "Then I'll let people register this name." ”

Eric snorted, the conference room was on the bottom floor of the hotel, the two came to the end of the corridor, the rest of the team went directly to the restaurant for dinner, Eric had to go upstairs to change clothes, Chris also had some things to go to the room, and when waiting for the elevator, Chris asked curiously, "Which company's date is tonight?"

In addition to Nokia, in order to cooperate with the GATT negotiations, Eric also had to take into account the negotiation of cooperation with European film forces.

"The people on the side of the largest shareholder of MGM, Crédit Lyonnais, the two films released by MGM in the summer have fallen into huge losses, Crédit Lyonnais auctioned MGM once last year, and now they want to get rid of MGM, a hot item, but before they get out, they hope that MGM's performance will recover so that it will be easier to find the next home. ”

The elevator door opened, and Chris and Eric turned sideways together to let the guests in the elevator leave, and then walked in, Chris pressed the button, and then asked, "Haven't you thought about buying MGM?"

"Of course I want to, I'm very coveted by MGM's huge film library, if I can win MGM's film library, not only can I give full play to the advantages of Firefly's current omni-channel operation resources, but also have great benefits for the development of TV networks in the future, after all, TV networks still need a lot of high-quality content. But apart from the film library, there is nothing about MGM that appeals to me. ”

In 1986, Ted Turner left only MGM's pre-1948 film library, which is why Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting Company has begun to broadcast MGM's old films in recent years, but MGM still owns the rights to more than 4,000 films and a larger number of TV episodes, second only to Time Warner in terms of film library. However, because MGM has been losing money for many years, this once glorious film giant cannot give full play to the advantages of the scale of its huge film library, and can only continue to struggle in a vicious circle of continued borrowing and continuous losses.

Chris said: "Isn't there still 007 copyright?"

"With MGM's current debt scale, at an annual interest rate of 5%, the annual debt interest to be paid is as high as 80 million. MGM launched a 007 in an average of two years, and the profits generated were not enough to pay the interest on corporate bonds, so MGM has been losing money all these years, and the debt is increasing. Eric casually talked about MGM, and suddenly had an idea, and couldn't help but kick the elevator wall with his toes, and said with some excitement: "I suddenly thought of a good idea." ”

Chris looked at him suspiciously, "Huh?"

"Compared with the giant of Crédit Lyonnais, these film companies in Europe are all small fish and shrimp, if Crédit Lyonnais matches it and then uses the 'shell' of MGM as a carrier to operate, the fireflies can get out of this matter and no longer have to interrupt the established operation trajectory. ”

Chris for Fireflies in order to cooperate with the GATT The things to be done in the negotiations have also been understood, and after listening to Eric's words, I immediately understood what he meant, originally many of Firefly's production plans for next year or even the year after have been determined, in order to cooperate with the GATT negotiations, Firefly needs to take out some resources to share with European film forces, so Firefly's established development plan must be adjusted accordingly, but if Firefly indirectly cooperates with European film companies through MGM, the headquarters does not have to make too many adjustments.

However, Chris is not too optimistic about Eric's idea: "You just said that MGM's current annual profit may not even be enough to pay interest on corporate bonds, I don't think those European film companies will be unaware of this, do you think they will agree?"

"Then invite all parties to sit down and negotiate, MGM is in this situation, I think as long as we can lead this company out of the predicament, those creditors will also agree to give up some interests for the time being, otherwise once this company goes bankrupt, MGM's assets will not even be enough to repay its current debts, and MGM's biggest problem now is that there is not enough money to start more film projects. Creditors have demand, European film companies have funds, and Firefly can provide high-quality film projects, and these conditions can almost revive this lifeless film company, do you think they will be tempted?"

Chris nodded, but said, "Didn't you just say that you were very interested in MGM's film library? If MGM really comes back to life as you said, you will want to buy this film company in the future, and the cost will be even greater." (To be continued......)