The cash shortfall of about $1.1 billion is not a problem for Firefly, which has abundant cash flow, and if Firefly Group makes a move, all the problems will be solved.

However, Eric did not plan to let Firefly participate in this merger from the beginning, not to mention, Eric had long planned to invest all the spare funds of the Firefly Group in high-tech companies such as Yahoo, and if he was distracted in this matter, the progress of other aspects would definitely be hindered.

After thinking about it for a moment, Eric took out his phone and dialed Emily Brighton.

LTD Group has performed very well in the past two years, and has a retail network that can bring in a lot of cash such as the Victoria's Secret chain, and the cash flow is also very abundant, and Eric also saw in LTD's financial documents some time ago that Emily intends to pay off a long-term debt of the group in advance. In this case, it is also a good idea to let LTD participate in this merger, although Eric is the majority shareholder of LTD, but this stake is held by Firefly Investment, at least, in terms of equity, MGM and Firefly Group will not have any relationship in the future.

After the phone was connected, Eric said hello and asked bluntly, "Emily, are you interested in investing in Hollywood?"

Amy Pascal sat quietly on the couch and listened to Eric and Emily discuss on the phone for more than ten minutes, and by the time Eric hung up, she had roughly known the outcome.

"$600 million," Eric said to Amy, "LTD can probably come up with $600 million, and now there is about $500 million left shortfall." ”

"If 'Night at the Museum' is good enough at the box office, with the rights to a few films in the hands of Flower Pictures, we will have enough leverage to finance the rest of the money through debt financing," Amy said, "but this cycle will take at least three months, and Crédit Lyon will have no initiative in the transaction price." They will certainly not back down on the deadlines for the payment of the acquisition price. ”

Eric thought for a moment and said, "If Prestige is willing, let them get involved." Forget about Corkrian, pulling this kind of person in will only add to the wrong. ”

As he spoke, Drew came down from the stairs with the twins, each of whom was pulling a suitcase.

I hugged Amy. Drew huddled affectionately around Eric, grabbed his arm, and asked, "Where did you talk about?"

Eric put his arm hard, clamped the girl's restless little paws, and said with a smile: "Regarding the financing, I plan to involve LTD and Prestige, what do you think?"

"Well, you decide," Drew nodded. There was no intention of questioning Eric's decision.

Amy said, "Eric, I don't think Prestige will be satisfied with the remaining $500 million. ”

"There's only so much, and if they don't want to, we reach out to Wall Street investment firms, and I think the likelihood of them refusing is very low, and whether it's Vivendee or Corkrian, they all know to force us to take MGM. When the time comes, Flower Pictures and DreamWorks will withdraw, and they will only end up in a mess. So, collaboration is the only way to join this merger," Eric said, thought for a moment, and added: "After buying MGM, it will definitely be necessary to integrate DreamWorks." If they are really not satisfied, when the time comes, 30% of the shares of DreamWorks owned by Fireflies can also be transferred to them. ”

Amy nodded, but Drew asked, "Eric, that's the case." Isn't our control over the company getting weaker?"

Flower Pictures and DreamWorks are worth about $1 billion with several major copyrights in their hands, and MGM's stock price has been depressed due to high debt, and most of the time it is on the verge of bankruptcy. 75% of Crédit Lyonnais' shares are about $1.5 billion at this time, and MGM has 25% of the outstanding shares, with a total market value of $2 billion.

Eric didn't know exactly what MGM's total share capital was. But simply looking at the market capitalization of several companies, a total of $4 billion can be counted as 40 shares, and Flower Pictures is completely in the hands of Drew, counting as 10 shares, and in this acquisition, Flower Pictures invested $400 million, LTD invested $600 million, and was able to buy another 10 shares. Then, after the completion of the merger in the future, Eric will still occupy 50% of the shares of the new company, which is enough to firmly control the new company.

Analyzing the data with Drew and Amy, Eric said: "Although there may be a large shareholder like Vivendi, the equity of the new company will still be very dispersed in the future, and it will be difficult for other small shareholders to influence the company's operation, and the shares we hold in our hands can form absolute control." Even, after the completion of the merger, the company can issue about 10% more shares to raise working capital, which will not affect the control. ”

……

These days, Bill Gates has a sense of miscalculation very often in his mind, and this feeling is getting stronger and stronger.

It all started with the contract signed with Yahoo last year.

Although Microsoft was offered a contract to acquire a 30% stake in Yahoo in 1999, as the beta version of Windows 95 became more and more popular, coupled with the cold sales of new products from its main competitor Apple, Bill Gates gradually realized that Windows 95 was likely to dominate the operating system.

A year ago, a year ago.

If a year ago I had been more cautious and more confident about the market prospects of Windows 95, perhaps this would not have happened today.

As the release date of Windows 95 approaches, Microsoft's stock price has continued to soar in the recent period, and its total market capitalization has more than doubled compared to last year to more than $40 billion. Bill Gates is not so confident that Microsoft will not be able to buy a 30% stake in Yahoo in 1999, he just feels that this contract puts an invisible shackle on Microsoft's development strategy for the next four years, making people feel that they are not up or down.

After all, there are still four years to go.

There are already signs of frenzy in the Internet industry, and in this case, it is impossible for Microsoft to maintain its dominant position in the operating system industry and do nothing.

But what can they do?

Originally, Bill Gates was very interested in browser software. But last year's contract made Yahoo Browser the default browser on the Windows operating platform, and the contract also restricted Microsoft from launching a separate browser software for the next few years, which made Microsoft lose a very large initiative in this important Internet interface.

Of course, Bill Gates thought about tearing up the contract, and he even had Microsoft's legal department do a risk assessment.

If the contract is forcibly torn up, Microsoft only needs to bear about $300 million in liquidated damages. This is completely within Microsoft's affordability, and it would be a big deal to get tangled up with Yahoo in court for a few more years.

It's just that from last year to now, although a year is not a long time, it is enough for Yahoo to further consolidate its technical barriers and patent barriers in various network products, including browser software.

In the case of browsers, if the contract had not been signed a year ago, Microsoft would have entered the market to develop its own browser. Then, with its own strong advantages in the operating system, it can also use the bundling strategy to forcibly squeeze the market share of Yahoo Browser and promote the Internet technology standards that belong to Microsoft.

But now, Microsoft isn't just missing out on a year, it's not just that Yahoo has maintained its absolute advantage in browser technology compared to a year ago. Moreover, Yahoo has launched Internet technology standards such as IES web scripting language, GIF image format and even MP3 audio format. are heavily reliant on the decoding of Yahoo's software kernel, and more than 90 percent of websites on the Internet have begun to use these technical standards introduced by Yahoo.

In this case, without Yahoo's patent authorization, it is impossible for browsers developed by other software vendors to parse most of the mainstream web pages on the Internet. Perhaps to prevent accusations of monopoly, Yahoo has maintained a very open license for these technologies. Microsoft now has some of the browser software patents in its hands.

However, it is conceivable that once Microsoft tears up the contract, the patent license that has been obtained will definitely be invalidated, and Yahoo will never make any more licenses to Microsoft.

With more than 90 percent of Internet companies and even users accustomed to the technical standards introduced by Yahoo, Microsoft even dominates the operating system market. It is absolutely impossible to impose another standard in the face of global condemnation.

Sitting in the front row of the hall, Bill Gates listened to Yahoo's chief operating officer Jeff Locke explain how to use Yahoo's online payment tool, and his mood became complicated again.

This is the student auditorium that Yahoo has temporarily leased from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to hold a Yahoo Web product launch on July 10 at 6:10 p.m.

In the past fifteen minutes, Yahoo CEO Ian Gnier made a brief review of Yahoo's development in the past few years, and once again recommended several popular Internet products in Yahoo's hands, covering Yahoo Browser, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Instant Messaging, Yahoo Portal and other major sectors, which are popular Internet applications with more than 10 million users, and Bill Gates also realized that behind these products, it means a huge number of technology patent clusters.

In North America, where intellectual property protection is extremely strict, these patents are definitely not what you want to use, they cannot be authorized, and even with a giant like Microsoft, it is impossible to use them rashly. Of course, Microsoft can afford the huge fines for abusing patents, but Microsoft cannot afford to break the business rules, after all, Microsoft also has a large number of patents in the operating system, and if competitors follow Microsoft's example to break the rules, Microsoft will not want to survive.

And now, the Yahoo online payment tool that Jeff Locke is introducing on the stage has shocked Bill Gates.

Although he doesn't know much about the financial industry, he also realizes that such a payment platform, in fact, is no different from a bank, the financial regulatory system in the United States is relatively open, as long as Yahoo is willing, it is not too difficult to get a banking license.

An online bank that has a complete monopoly on the virtual world can imagine how terrifying its development potential will be.

Thinking of this, Bill Gates leaned forward slightly, and couldn't help but look at Eric, who was a few seats away.

Eric was whispering something to Cisco CEO John Chambers sitting next to him, noticing Bill Gates' gaze and nodding slightly at him.

Bill Gates also nodded in greeting, and caught a glimpse of the camera not far away, and hurriedly sat upright, with a professional smile on the corner of his mouth.

What made Bill Gates feel the big deal again at this press conference was the use of televised broadcasts.

Out of an abundance of caution, the event was not televised, but was delayed for three hours, and was scheduled to be broadcast on ABC at 9 o'clock after the recording was completed, but even that would mean that tens of millions of viewers would see the event, which would undoubtedly be another intuitive and powerful advertising effect for Yahoo.

The release date of Windows 95 has been set on August 24, and Microsoft's publicity department has already made a plan to conduct a live satellite broadcast of the press conference, and by then, hundreds of thousands of people will watch the Windows 95 press conference through satellite signals.

But at this time, compared with Yahoo's actions, Bill Gates suddenly felt that Microsoft's press conference was a little stingy, and made up his mind to talk to Eric later, hoping to broadcast the Windows 95 press conference on the ABC TV network. Of course, Microsoft can afford the related expenses. However, without the direct support of strong senior management, it is not easy for Microsoft to get broadcast opportunities on the three major TV networks.

On the stage, after Jeff Locke introduced Yahoopay, he simply paused for a while amid the applause of thousands of guests in the audience, picked up the mineral water on the podium and took a sip, leaving everyone with a break to digest the information they had just obtained.

After a few moments, Jeff Locke picked up the remote again, pressed the button lightly, and a new image appeared on the big screen behind him, along with two eye-catching words: Yahoo-Blog.

"OK, below, what I want to solemnly recommend to you is another new Internet product of Yahoo, Yahoo's personal homepage. ”

With a faint smile on his face, Jeff Rock gestured to the big screen behind him and continued: "The Internet, for most people, is still a very new world. We've been able to access a wealth of information on the Yahoo portal, communicate with friends thousands of miles away through Yahoo email and YCR, and discuss current hot topics in the Yahoo forum. So, further, many people may have the idea that there is a web tool that allows us to present ourselves to everyone, and today, your dream is about to come true. (To be continued.) )