In the evening, in the conference room of WM Company. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

WM executives and several contracted models discussed the schedule of Paris Fashion Week for an afternoon before announcing the dismissal of the meeting.

Today is March 1st.

Paris Fashion Week opened on March 5, and several pillars such as Kate Mouss, a subsidiary of WM Company, had rushed to Europe before the opening of London Fashion Week.

Everyone got up and left the conference room, and Carmen Cays was stopped by Paul Rowland again, and he personally told her a few words before letting her go.

Walking out of the conference room, Carmen Cays originally planned to go straight back to the apartment, but was stopped by a group of girls just now.

"Carmen, you're going to dinner, do you want to be together?"

The girl named Karolina Kokuva is from the Czech Republic, and she signed a contract with WM last year before her, and she is also a key training object of WM. It's just that this girl is only fifteen years old this year, and her career has just started and she has great potential. If it was before, the other party was far from being comparable to a twenty-one-year-old girl like her, who might never have a chance to come out again if she couldn't take a step.

In the past six months, WM has concentrated resources to make her another Gisele Bundchen-style supermodel, which has caused dissatisfaction among other models in the company, so her popularity in WM has not been very good.

It's just that people are always like this, when others are a little better than themselves, it is easy to become jealous. But if you are left behind, you often don't have the heart to compare, but want to be good friends with each other.

In recent days, after suddenly becoming the spokesperson of Victoria's Secret's brand, she has clearly felt this change within the company, and even Kate Moss, who is in Europe, has warmly called back to congratulate her, and the attitude of other models in the company who stayed in New York has changed her attitude to her is very obvious.

Feeling the expectant eyes of several girls, Carmen Kath hesitated slightly, then nodded, "Okay, then, I'll invite everyone." ”

Although she has her own pride and stubbornness in her bones, she has never been a withdrawn person, and in the years in Europe, she got along very well with the models of her agency.

The girls were naturally very happy, and when they heard that she was going to have a treat, they were not polite, and they all gathered around her, and walked out in their arms.

The group found a British restaurant nearby, the English restaurant, it sounds a little weird, is there anything to eat in the UK? But this is exactly the recommendation of one of the British girls in the several, and the reason is also very good, British food is notoriously unpalatable all over the world, and if you choose this restaurant, you will not be unable to control your appetite.

I'm about to fly to Paris, and no one dares to eat much at this time.

Ordered some simple food, and a group of beautiful girls who attracted the attention of the diners of the whole restaurant began to chat while eating. Everyone comes from all over the world, and there are actually very few common topics, and before you know it, you have to talk about Blair, the witch who has been very popular recently.

"Yesterday, New Line Pictures issued a statement, it turned out that this incident was just the promotion of a movie, and the movie seems to be set to be released on March 5, the same day as the opening of Paris Fashion Week. ”

"No wonder, my mom lived in Maryland when she was a kid, and I called her back and she said she hadn't heard of anything like Blair the witch. ”

"It's not like that at all, and I've heard that it's an attempt by the state government of Maryland to cover up the facts. The studios took the blame and promoted it as fiction so that Maryland wouldn't be held accountable for its mishandling of the matter. It is said that many people have died over the years, and if they continue to be investigated, many people will be held responsible. ”

"I also think so, New Line Pictures only arranged 200 screening halls for this film, obviously not wanting more people to see it. Think about it, if it is really a movie, according to the high level of attention of the film now, 2,000 screening halls can be arranged, to say the least. ”

"It will be released on March 5, but unfortunately we can't catch up. However, when you come back from Paris, you might want to check it out. ”

"Well, when the time comes, we will be together, but I don't know if the tickets are good or not, there are only 200 theaters in the entire United States, and there may not be a few theaters in Manhattan. ”

The girls chattered, but Carmen Kayce was a little silent, only occasionally echoing a few words.

A few days ago, she also paid attention to this matter.

It's just that I've been too busy in the last few days, so I don't have much of the heart to pay attention to this matter at all.

Isn't New Line Pictures a subsidiary of Firefly Group?

Suddenly, I thought of the man again.

I don't know what he's going to do now.

Have you ever thought of yourself?

This thought popped up in her heart, and she suddenly panicked. How could I have such a strange thought!

"It's definitely a lie. ”

There was no head and no brain, and this sentence blurted out of her mouth.

At the dinner table, hearing her words, the girls who were talking enthusiastically suddenly stopped, noticed her embarrassment, and thought that she might not like to talk about it, so they changed the subject with interest.

The discussion of Blair the witch in a British restaurant in Manhattan is just one of the most inconspicuous details in the current trend of society.

After more than a month of brewing, the rumors about the witch Blair have really turned into a viral storm of topics, and the influence is no longer even limited to the Internet, and many traditional media have participated.

Due to the 'poison' of too many conspiracy theories, coupled with the fact that the "Blair the Witch" team secretly continued to guide the discussion after the clarification released by New Line Pictures, most of the public did not believe that this incident was just a movie promotion.

So, in the days that followed, the whole federation became more enthusiastic about the matter.

While the general public was talking about Blair the witch, AOL and Time Warner finally officially announced the long-awaited merger plan.

March 3rd.

AOL and Time Warner executives held an official press conference at AOL's headquarters in Manhattan, announcing that AOL will acquire Time Warner Group through a share swap for $63 billion. After the merger, AOL will hold 55% of the new company, and the original shareholders of Time Warner Group will have a total stake of 45%.

At the same time, based on AOL's market capitalization of $77 billion, the total size of the merger will reach $140 billion. Although far below the $***** deal size in history, this is the first super merger in the history of corporate mergers and acquisitions with a total transaction size of more than $100 billion, and it is still a sensation around the world.

On the day of the press conference, stimulated by Steve Case's impassioned outlook speech, AOL and Time Warner's stock prices both soared, and by the end of the day, AOL's stock price rose by 17%, and Time Warner's stock price soared by 26%.

AOL and Time Warner's stock prices have risen sharply, and at the same time, they have also driven the entire Nasdaq market.

In the following two trading days, while AOL and Time Warner shares continued to rise, the Nasdaq index also set new highs again, breaking through the 2,900-point mark, just one step away from 3,000 points.

3,000 points happens to be the peak of the Nasdaq index predicted by most Wall Street investment institutions.

Therefore, when the Nasdaq broke above 2,900 points, the agitation of the entire technology stock market was more obvious.

According to the news that Chris got from Wall Street, many investment institutions have already liquidated all their technology stocks at this time. At the same time, a large amount of money poured into the stock index futures market and began to build up a large number of technology stock futures positions.

Despite maintaining a super-high growth rate, Yahoo Network, which has a price-to-earnings ratio of more than 600 times, has undoubtedly become the most popular short-selling target for a large number of hedge funds.

As of the close of trading on March 5, hedge funds had sold more than 76 million Yahoo stock futures, equivalent to 6.1% of Yahoo's total equity and involving $7.7 billion. Both the short ratio and the value amount far exceed other technology companies in the NASDAQ market.

However, stock index futures are a zero-sum game, and such a large number of short orders are thrown, which naturally means that long contracts of equal size will follow.

Thereupon.

AOL acquires Time Warner.

The Nasdaq is approaching 3,000 points.

Yahoo Network suffered massive shorting.

The potential impact of any one of these could be enough to turn the entire tech stock market upside down.

With three events happening at the same time, there is no doubt that this March of 1999 will be the most turbulent month in Nasdaq history.

The tech stock market was turbulent, but Eric returned to the West Coast again, first rushing to San Francisco for the annual conference of Firefly Electronics.

Firefly Investment has already made a large amount of cash by reducing its holdings in AOL stocks, and Yahoo Network has successfully completed its IPO operation, accumulating enough development funds to consume in the next three to five years.

Even if the Nasdaq does crash early, and the large number of technology stocks hoarded by the Clover Fund cannot be cashed out, the development of the entire Firefly system will not be affected in any way.

With the release of the annual financial reports of Firefly System companies, Eric's investment in new technology companies for so many years has finally received a more substantial profit return.

Among the companies, Nokia, which has a 51% stake in Firefly Systems, had a net profit of $1.96 billion in 1998. Cisco, which holds 26% of the shares, also had a net profit of $1.35 billion in 1998. Just the profit sharing provided by these two companies is enough to support Firefly System to continue to invest in other new technology companies that are still in the discovery stage, and there is no need to transfuse blood through Firefly Group as before.

However, what Eric did not expect was the annual financial data of Firefly Electronics.

Throughout 1998, Firefly Electronics worldwide, the final shipment of Fireflyer players reached 23.75 million units.

Among them, 4.05 million units of Fireflyer first-generation players were shipped, 8.3 million units of Fireflyer second-generation 1G capacity players were shipped, and 11.4 million units of Fireflyer second-generation 2G capacity players were shipped.

In the end, the electronics company, which has only one main focus on portable music player devices, reached $8.252 billion in sales for the year.

Moreover, although the company's pre-marketing investment is very huge, in addition to MP3 players, it also has to bear a huge amount of research and development funds for the operating system, processor chips, touch solutions and other aspects of the tablet computer, but in 1998, after setting aside taxes, Firefly Electronics still achieved a net profit of 811 million US dollars.

If the financial data is made public, it means that this electronic product company, which has only been established for about four years, has successfully squeezed into the ranks of the top 500 North American companies, and the ranking is quite high.

According to Forbes magazine's list rules, unlisted companies are not included in the Fortune 500 list unless they are voluntarily filed or have detailed publicly available financial data. In just a few years, an electronics company with a profit scale of nearly $1 billion has been formed, and if possible, Eric even hopes that not a single trace of Firefly Electronics' financial data will be leaked.

But this is clearly just delusional.

Although after operation, Forbes Group has agreed not to track the financial data of Firefly Electronics, nor will it add Firefly Electronics to the top 500 list. However, the sales data of the global portable player market is not something that the Firefly system can hide if it wants to.

According to the data given by a third-party statistical agency, in 1998, the total size of the global portable music player market reached 87 million units, an increase of 6% compared with 1997.

Just based on these data, it is not difficult for the industry to speculate on the scale of revenue and profit of Firefly Electronics, and even, considering that the tablet research and development plan is still in a state of secrecy, the outside world's estimate of the profitability of Firefly Electronics is definitely much higher than the actual situation.

In two years, the Fireflyer player has swept by storm, frantically encroaching on 26% of the global portable music market share, which has to be said to be a miraculous achievement.

But at the same time, it also means that Firefly Electronics, which enjoys huge profits almost alone, will also face competitive pressure from all sides in the future.

After all, even if a closed patent wall is poured around the portable digital music player in advance, there is no doubt that other electronics manufacturers will find ways to enter this market even in the face of huge profits.

With the gradual disclosure of the shipment data of the portable music player market in 1998, Sony, which had just completed the patent exchange with Firefly Electronics, could not wait to announce that it would release its first digital music player product in June this year.

Speaking of which, the technical difficulty of the digital music player is indeed very low, some electronic manufacturers with strong technical strength, perhaps only a few weeks, can understand the technical details of the Firefly electronic Fireflyer player, if it is not blocked by patent barriers, at this time, there will definitely be more manufacturers to release the plan of digital music player.

In the face of the expected fierce competition, even Firefly Electronics has multiple technological and industrial advantages, everyone has to cheer up and make more efforts to maintain the leading edge of Fireflyer players.