Eric stayed in Los Angeles for only one night and hurried back to New York the next day.

Although the debt underwriting business of Firefly was fought for blood, after reaching a cooperation intention, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank still conducted a strict review of Firefly's business and financial information very professionally, and conducted research on investors' investment intentions, and the two sides finally reached an agreement on the detailed cooperation terms and bond prices after half a month after many discussions, and then Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank submitted registration prospectuses to the securities regulatory authorities in the United States and Germany respectively。

The securities market in the West is very perfect, and the securities department of the government plays only one regulatory role more often, and they often only guarantee the accuracy of the information publicly disclosed by the bond issuing company, and do not make any assessment of the investment prospects of the bond.

As a result, it is usually the bond underwriters who play a leading role in the bond issuance process.

Firefly and the two lead underwriters finally established the bond interest rate of 5.5% per annum, which is very high compared to Firefly's asset credit rating, and if it were not for the high scale of bond financing to increase the risk to a certain extent, Firefly's long-term bond interest rate is only about 4%. In the process of Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank's preliminary market testing, investment funds from various states in the United States and European investors have accumulated $3 billion in funds of intention to buy Firefly bonds, and when the registration documents were sent to the securities exchange departments in the United States and Germany for review, the success of Firefly's securities issuance was basically confirmed.

After the subsequent review by the securities department. Fireflies only need to cooperate with Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank for bond sales. and pay the funds to the original ABC shareholders.

Eric handed over the follow-up of the securities offering to Carolyn Elliot, Firefly's chief financial officer. Later, he began to participate in the specific merger process of Firefly and ABC.

The two companies have detailed the specific merger plan in the early negotiations, and what Firefly has to do is to conduct a detailed review of ABC's balance sheet and property list again.

Firefly's $15 billion acquisition of ABC easily surpassed Viacom's acquisition of Paramount last year, making it the largest acquisition in the North American media industry.

With such a huge amount of money, the result of the acquisition is, of course, a very large portfolio of assets.

In addition to ABC's most valuable public television network with nationwide coverage and more than 200 affiliated sub-stations, ABC's assets include ten self-operated television stations and twenty-one radio stations in major U.S. cities, ABC Television Production in Los Angeles, ESPN Sports, which owns 80 percent of the company, and A&E Television Network, which is jointly owned by Hearst Group. At the same time, there are also a number of newspaper and magazine assets under the former Metropolitan Media. Moreover, these assets include a large number of properties such as real estate and cars.

In addition to this, there are many other more scattered assets, and Eric even found a hand-drawn animation production company based in France on ABC's property listing.

It took nearly a month for Firefly's acquisition team to completely sort out the information about these assets from the time the ABC board of directors approved the acquisition.

It wasn't until the morning of April 10 that Eric signed the definitive trade agreement with ABC's Tom Murphy, and the Fireflies finally managed to take over the No. 1 North American television network.

After the signing of the merger agreement, Firefly's total share capital has been expanded several times. It reached 135 million shares, of which the original shareholders of ABC are excluding some outstanding shareholders who directly exchange cash or bonds. A total of 32.5 million Firefly shares will be acquired, with Jeffrey and Michael Lynn receiving 1.5 million shares and 500,000 shares respectively from Eric, and Firefly has spent a total of 1 million shares in equity incentive plans in recent years. The remaining shares are all held by Eric personally, totaling 99.5 million shares, accounting for 73.7% of the total share capital.

After this merger, Firefly Pictures will also name the Firefly Group, and the company has evolved from a film company to a comprehensive media group involved in various fields such as film, television, music, books, and tourism.

With Firefly's larger information disclosure during the merger and acquisition of ABC, Firefly's financial, shareholding and other information has once again become the focus of public attention.

At this time, the P/E ratio of most companies in the North American stock market with good operating conditions remains between 10 and 30, and the P/E ratio of a company represents a company's earnings and investment risk information, which is a very important financial data for listed companies. The price-to-earnings ratio is usually the price of a company's stock per share divided by its net earnings per share.

Based on the 20 times price-to-earnings ratio of Time Warner, which is the same level as Firefly, and the combined earnings of Firefly and ABC in 1993, the stock price of Firefly's total 135 million shares will reach about $252, which means that Firefly's market value is expected to be around $34 billion, so Firefly has steadily surpassed Time Warner to become the largest media group in North America.

Before the acquisition of ABC, although Firefly surpassed Time Warner in terms of profits, its status was still questioned by many people because of the uncertainty of film investment, but at this time, no one doubted Firefly's leading position in the United States and even the world's media groups.

Therefore, it has become the focus of a lot of media attention. At the press conference after the signing of the final agreement, the first question asked by a reporter from Business Week was: "Mr. Williams, Firefly has now become the largest media group in North America and even the world, and you are so young, I think you will definitely not stop moving forward, so what will Firefly do next?"

Eric certainly has a further ambition in mind, which is to control the whole of Hollywood through various direct or indirect means, but of course, he will not say it so easily. And. Although the acquisition of ABC was successfully completed. But the scale has reached such a huge scale. Fireflies will definitely encounter various problems in the future, and the first thing Eric needs to do is to solve a series of problems that may arise in the future.

After thinking for a moment, Eric replied, "My current plan is to run the new Firefly Group well, and there are no other plans for anything else. ”

The reporter of "Business Week" continued to ask unwillingly: "Firefly and ABC are already the top companies in the Federation, don't you have the ambition to continue to expand, Mr. Williams?"

Eric realized that the reporter might have something else in mind, but replied with a smile on his face, "I don't know if anyone else has found out." But when I researched a lot of information, I found that many times, regardless of the size, the company that encountered the merger encountered a series of problems in the early stage of the change of owner, and even if the company was in very good condition before that, it was often difficult to avoid losses. Some companies that are doing very well will even be silenced by mergers, while others will become more prosperous, a process very similar to a change of power in a country, like a phoenix nirvana, or reborn from the ashes. Or turn to ashes. Personally, I hope that the fireflies will be able to use two to three years to get through this 'Nirvana' period smoothly. ”

Eric finished. There was a whisper in the audience, and the reporter of "Business Week" immediately said, "Mr. Williams, your point of view is very novel, I have never heard of it, can you give a few examples to prove it?"

"It's very simple, let's take ABC as an example, before ABC was acquired by Metropolitan Media in 1985, it had an annual profit of $130 million, but the year after the merger, Met-ABC fell into a loss of $70 million. Tom Murphy and Warren Buffett are both excellent business and investment talents, as evidenced by ABC's outstanding profitability in recent years. So none of this should be their problem, but the reason for the kind of view that I just said, and of course, my personal knowledge is very limited, and there is no guarantee that this view is really a universal phenomenon. So if there are professional economists who are interested, you can study it," Eric said, and instead of continuing to entangle the reporter from "Business Week", he personally pointed to a reporter and said, "Okay, next one." ”

"Mr. Williams, according to recent media information, your personal assets have been close to $20 billion, but we have found that you have never carried out any charitable activities and have not established any charitable funds, don't you think this is a very socially irresponsible behavior?"

Eric was stunned, but the question was even more acute. His eyesight was good, and when he saw the words "Christian Science Monitor" written on the pass of the black female reporter in the audience, he understood why the other party asked that.

In addition to Eric, another Buffett who is obviously not very enthusiastic about charity is also sitting nearby, Eric does not know the details of the Buffett Foundation later, but he knows very well that the Buffett Foundation at this time actually rarely takes out money to do charity activities, most of the time it is still following Buffett's wishes to invest, and most of the funds of the Buffett Foundation come from Berkshire Hathaway's stock dividends, and Buffett has never paid a dime.

After the female reporter asked a question, she also glanced at Buffett nearby meaningfully, obviously meaningful, you know, at this time, Eric and Buffett ranked first and second respectively on the Forbes list of the richest people in North America.

Faced with such a sensitive issue, Eric had to think carefully for a while before saying: "I personally believe that the real sense of responsibility is to use the wealth in hand to create more jobs for the society, so that ordinary people can support themselves, rather than blindly getting something for nothing." Firefly has been doing just that, with projects such as Firefly Studios, which Firefly has built in Los Angeles in recent years, and digital field studios that have invested in Florida, creating tens of thousands of new federal jobs. Of course, general charity has also played a great positive role in this society, there are many people in this society who are in difficult situations and need help, in the past, I was busy with my personal career, and I neglected this aspect, so I will set up a corresponding charitable fund in the next few years to increase investment in charitable activities. ”

Eric's answer was a bit tactful, and the black female reporter was obviously a little dissatisfied, but this time, the host realized his mistake just now, and quickly clicked on another reporter, and the next questions were not too out of line, most of the reporters asked about the next stage of Firefly's business issues such as reorganization, layoffs, or business adjustments.

After the press conference, the group quickly moved to the regular celebration reception.

Eric was just about to chat with Robert Iger, the former president of ABC, with a glass of champagne in his hand, when Tom Murphy and Warren Buffett walked side by side, and the two old men looked like they were looking guilty.

After the completion of the merger, ABC withdrew its board seats, and Tom Murphy continued to serve as CEO of ABC according to the agreement until the end of 1995. Hey, Eric, I finally understand that you insisted that I, who will soon be 70 years old, continue to be the CEO of ABC so that ABC can survive this merger smoothly. ”

Eric looked at Tom Murphy, who was aggressive but still had a faint smile on his face, shrugged his shoulders slightly, and said with a smile: "But, Tom, I have never denied that I didn't plan to do so." You're both big shareholders of Firefly now, so you shouldn't be opposed to making ABC better, okay?"

When Tom Murphy heard Eric's words, he suddenly felt that he seemed to be really angry and a little inexplicable, but of course he wouldn't admit it, and scolded with a smile: "No wonder Warren just said that you little guy is too tactful." ”

"Oh, I think that's a compliment to me," Eric said to Buffett with a smile.

Buffett shook his head with a smile and said: "I really agree with your response to the black female reporter's words, creating more jobs for the society is the real charity, and the rest is just to let those who want to get something for nothing really get it for nothing, I have encountered many situations like squandering with donors' money before." (To be continued.) )