Eric simply ignored Gwyneth Paltrow's question, looked down at the papers in his hand, and asked, "Didn't you say you had an audition today last night?"

Gwyneth Paltrow was not embarrassed at all, leaned on the table and propped up her chin to look at Eric, and said: "I suddenly feel that the script is really terrible, don't go, Eric, I heard that your "Matrix" has begun preparations, I have read that novel many times, do you think there is a suitable role for me?"

This woman really feels good about herself.

Eric smiled and said, "How's the heroine?"

Gwyneth Paltrow's eyes lit up instantly, "Really?"

Eric shook his head without hesitation: "Fake." ”

Gwyneth Paltrow didn't seem to be angry at all, and raised her hand to gently pat Eric on the shoulder, "Eric, you're so bad. ”

There was still a lot of work to be done, and Eric didn't have much time to coax a woman, let alone a woman who had no feelings of her own, and was about to lose patience to drive her away, when Xiao Nizi's voice came from behind her: "Kate, I didn't expect you to get up earlier than me." ”

"Hi Drew, good morning," said Gwyneth Paltrow to Little Nizi.

Eric felt the girl pounce on his back, turned his head and kissed the girl's outstretched face, and winked without a trace.

The girl grinned, let go of Eric, and reached out to pull Gwyneth Paltrow, who was leaning beside Eric, "Kate, let's go, let's have breakfast." Natasha is ready. ”

Gwyneth Paltrow didn't want to leave, though. But he didn't dare to refuse Drew's invitation. I could only reluctantly get up and walk away.

There was silence beside him, and Eric's attention turned to the paper in his hand again.

It's a targeted bond financing contract, and it's the result of a recent lobbying effort by Chris and Owen Jacob.

Under the terms of the contract, Firefly Investments will provide Verizon Telecom with a $300 million directional bond financing to purchase CDMA base station equipment and mobile communications network solutions from Qualcomm exclusively with a five-year maturity of 3% per annum.

After paying a huge licensing fee for the mobile spectrum license, except for AT-T, which is not bad for money, other telecom operators are in the process of upgrading their communication networks to digitalization. Without exception, they are faced with a shortage of funds. Firefly already owns 40% of Qualcomm's shares, and as the largest shareholder that far exceeds the shares held by other shareholders, it almost already has absolute control over Qualcomm.

The financing contract in hand is actually equivalent to the price offered by Verizon to Firefly for the switch to the CDMA technology camp.

Verizon, which has been saddled with a huge debt of nearly $9 billion, did not hesitate to reject Firefly's stake plan, which is not difficult to understand, for a company with a very promising future, the cost of equity financing is much higher than bond financing, just like Firefly Group, although it is also heavily indebted. If the Firefly Group is short of money, Eric will still choose to issue bonds. Rather than bringing in other shareholders to share the future dividends of Firefly. As long as Verizon survives these tough years, when the mobile network is built, the operating situation will soon improve, and the huge debt will be slowly absorbed.

However, this contract also carries some hints of robbery, because it has a huge amount of debt, Verizon has raised funds publicly, and the annual interest rate must be at least 6% to ensure the success of the financing, but the annual interest rate of this directional bond financing is only 3%, if you agree to this contract, just the interest, Firefly will lose $10 million a year, not to mention the principal of $300 million, if it is invested elsewhere, it is not impossible to multiply it several times after five years.

Eric didn't know how the CDMA technology in the original plane had managed to break out of the encirclement, but at this time, he couldn't refuse the contract. Chris just communicated with him on the phone that as long as he signed this contract and pulled Verizon, the second-largest telecom operator in North America, into the CDMA camp, it would be equivalent to bringing Qualcomm back to life. As long as the news is announced, Qualcomm's stock price will be able to rise by at least 100%. Eric doesn't care too much about the skyrocketing price of Qualcomm's stock price, because Firefly will never sell his Qualcomm stock easily, and what he values most is the rapid promotion of CDMA.

Thinking about this, Eric remembered another thing that Chris said on the phone, although the stake plan was rejected by Verizon, Sprint's attitude was not so resolute.

Although Sprint achieved a huge profit last year, its overly aggressive layout in the mobile communications business has caused widespread concern among investors, and most industry analysts believe that if Sprint builds a nationwide mobile communication network on a large scale according to the established plan, the huge upfront investment will make it impossible for the company to generate any profitability in the next three to five years, and even, if the bet fails, the mobile communications industry does not reach the expected industrial scale, and Sprint is likely to fall into bankruptcy because of the aggressive expansion strategy at this time。 As a result of these factors, Sprint's success rate in debt financing has been significantly reduced, and no investors are willing to buy corporate bonds that may go bankrupt in the next few years, and Sprint has no choice but to raise funds by issuing shares.

At a cocktail party in New York, Chris approached one of Sprint's directors, who revealed to him that Sprint could issue 10 percent of its total share capital to Firefly, but the offer price was $1.6 billion, 60 percent higher than Sprint's current share price. Of course, this price cannot be the final transaction price, but if Firefly wants to close this deal, it will definitely not be able to escape by paying a certain percentage of the premium. Eric is even more willing to absorb Sprint's shares from the open market, but compared to Qualcomm's total share capital of 30 million shares even after the issuance, Sprint's total share capital has reached a staggering 3.6 billion shares, which is 120 times that of Qualcomm, and most of the stock holders are funds that will not easily sell their shares for investment purposes, and want to become major shareholders through the absorption of the circulation market. The difficulty can be imagined.

I thought to myself. Eric scribbled down a series of numbers in a notebook beside him. A $300 million debt financing for Verizon to acquire Sprint stock should require at least a 30% premium, $1.3 billion. Cisco's plan to increase its holdings, which has been brewing during this time, requires an even larger $2 billion in funding, which alone adds up to $3.6 billion.

In addition, Yahoo CEO Ian Gurnier recently discussed with Eric some of Yahoo's management's views on the company's future growth plans by phone and email. If they follow their ideas, Yahoo will also become a big money burner in the next few years.

Even if Firefly maintains an annual profit of $2 billion in the next few years, with Eric's 73.7% stake in the company, he will only receive $1.5 billion in dividends a year. While there are a few other extras, they are not enough to support these plans.

After thinking about it for a while, Eric could only make up his mind to take one step at a time, and if it really didn't work, he would reduce the scale of some plans.

"Eric, what are you thinking?" Reappears next to Eric, still followed by Gwyneth Paltrow.

"Nothing. Some messy things," Eric replied vaguely, with outsiders present, he wouldn't be as casual as he usually got along, and if something was revealed, it would probably cause unnecessary trouble.

Xiao Nizi didn't mind, took the freshly brewed coffee from Natasha's hand and poured it for Eric, and said, "Eric, I'm going to the company, will you leave today?"

Eric shook his head and said, "No, I'll wait for you to come back." ”

"Then I'll leave a Natasha for you, and let her do something. ”

Eric laughed, "I still don't want it, you can take it all away, it always feels a little strange to take them both apart." ”

"Okay, there's the maid's phone under the coffee table in the living room, they live in the nearby Coldwater Canyon, you can call them if you have something," Xiao Nizi said again, turned to leave, and saw Gwyneth Paltrow, who didn't mean to move, and said, "Kate, come with me, take you to my company." ”

Realizing that there was a chance to be alone with Eric, Gwyneth Paltrow could not leave so easily, and said, "Drew, you go first, I'll just wait for myself to leave, I'm going to go to Burbank, we don't go the same way." ”

"Oh, well," said Niko, nodding, and winking amusefully at Eric in front of Gwyneth Paltrow, and walked towards the car that the twins had driven out of the gate.

After a burst of engine noises, only Eric and Gwyneth Paltrow were soon left in the mansion.

"Eric, can I sit here?"

Gwyneth Paltrow said, and without waiting for him to reply, she sat down next to her.

Eric had a headache, and Xiao Nizi was naughty again, knowing that she didn't like this woman, but she still kept her.

"Eric, the twins are called Natasha, that's interesting," Gwyneth Paltrow said quickly.

Eric replied casually: "My sister's name is Natasha, and my sister's name is too long, and it's still Russian, so everyone can't remember it, so it's used to being called Natasha." ”

"Oh," said Gwyneth Paltrow, "and how can you tell who they're calling when they're together?"

"Both are the same, why should they be different? When we are together, we call Natasha, and my sister will agree. ”

"It's funny, if only I could have such a pair of minions," Gwyneth Paltrow did not hide the envy in her tone.

Eric smiled and turned his head to look at Gwyneth Paltrow, but an inexplicable thought flashed through his mind, and he couldn't help but look up again before he caught the thought just now.

"The Seven Deadly Sins".

Although he has been combing through the movies in his memory recently, Eric still finds that he has forgotten this classic movie. Moreover, according to the information in memory, "The Seven Deadly Sins" was released in 1995, and at least filming should have begun at this time.

However, the heroine is here, the male protagonist is still in the TV circle, and Eric has never heard the information of "The Seven Deadly Sins", if it weren't for the heroine who didn't have a strong presence in the movie in front of him, Eric didn't know when he would be able to remember it again.

With its dark and desperate plot, "The Seven Deadly Sins" in the original time and space caused a sensation as soon as it was released, and it got a box office of $300 million at a cost of $30 million worldwide, and it is a landmark work of New Line Pictures among the first-tier film companies.

Gwyneth Paltrow saw Eric look at him a few more times inexplicably, his expression moved slightly, and his tone became reserved, "Eric, what are you looking at?"

"Nothing," Eric said, picking up his phone next to him, "Sorry, Gwynnie, I'm going to make a few calls." ”

Gwyneth Paltrow's expression was a little resentful: "Yes...... Do you want me to recuse yourself?"

Eric nodded, but remembering that she had just helped him think of a movie that had slipped through the net, Eric was embarrassed to be so harsh and said, "You can go to the living room and watch TV for a while." ”

Gwyneth Paltrow felt Eric's tone soften, but she wisely stopped dwelling and got up and walked towards the villa.

Eric took his phone and thought about it for a while, then dialed the head of New Line Pictures and asked if there was any information about a screenwriter named Andrew Kevin Walker.

The big boss called in person, and of course the person in charge of New Line Pictures didn't dare to get to the bottom of it, but dutifully followed Eric's instructions to inquire about the relevant information.

Eric soon got the information of Andrew Kevin Walker, the screenwriter already had a work under his name called "Six Degrees of Trembling", and in addition to this, Eric also successfully saw the name of "The Seven Deadly Sins".

The script of "Seven Deadly Sins" did not deviate from the original track, and still fell into the hands of the new line, but the person in charge of the new line has been a little hesitant about this project, because the script is too dark and can't even find much selling point, plus it has not been able to find a suitable director, so it has been shelved. Moreover, the original budget of the new line for this script was only 8 million US dollars, and it wanted to make a low-budget cult film, so such an inconspicuous small project did not appear in Eric's eyes at all.

Eric also knew that as his status increased, he would definitely not see a lot of things that he could have encountered, and this was something that could not be changed, after all, he only had so much energy that it was impossible to do everything.

After instructing the person in charge of the new line to fax the script and asking the other party to contact David Fincher directly to meet him, Eric hung up the phone.

Gwyneth Paltrowa had no intention of watching TV, and had been peeking around the villa, and when he saw Eric hanging up, he couldn't wait to walk out.

When he came to Eric's side, he saw that the fax machine on the long table was clicking softly.

(To be continued.) )