In the original time and space, Victoria's Secret once occupied more than 40% of the market share in the domestic market in the United States, with an annual net profit of $1 billion, which is simply a miracle for a traditional rigid demand industry with low market access thresholds.

Emily was not instantly moved by Eric's pie, and simply calculated in her heart, and said: "According to what you said, if you want to make a splash, this annual show is estimated to cost about 15 million to 20 million US dollars, which is enough money for the company to advertise on TV for a year, I have just stabilized the company, and if such a risky publicity plan is suddenly launched, it will definitely cause strong opposition from other shareholders and management." ”

Eric thought for a moment and said, "Otherwise, LTD will transfer the rights to Victoria's Secret Annual Show to Firefly, and the production costs will all be borne by me, you just need to help from the side." If the annual show doesn't have the effect I'm talking about, the fireflies will bear all the losses. If it succeeds, LTD will need to pay Firefly royalties if it wants to continue producing the show. ”

In my memory, "Victoria's Secret Annual Show" has an annual rating of about 10 million people, although it can only be done once a year, but the advertising fees earned by this show on ABC in the future, the subsequent cable TV broadcast rights income, and the distribution of video tapes are enough for Firefly to recoup all the costs. If you win the copyright now, once the show is successful, then LTD will definitely not give up this annual show that plays a huge role in promoting Victoria's Secret. The annual royalties paid will allow Fireflies to make a lot of money.

Emily quickly figured out the key. "That is." If the show is successful, if LTD wants to continue to produce the annual show every year in the future, it will need to spend money to get the consent of Firefly?"

"Of course," Eric nodded, looking at Emily's slightly frowning appearance, and said with a smile: "Risk and opportunity always coexist, if LTD is not willing to take risks, then Fireflies can't spend a lot of money." But you can rest assured, fireflies and LTD are the difference between left and right hands for me, and I'm sure I'm not going to open my mouth. ”

Emily hesitated, but still didn't agree immediately, and said, "I'll hold a high-level meeting tomorrow to discuss it and give you news." ”

"No problem, I'll be in New York lately, and you can reach me at any time. ”

Emily was about to turn to leave, when she suddenly stopped and asked, "If we choose to fund the production ourselves, what is the specific cooperation plan on your side?"

"It can work in the same way that TV and movie work together," Eric said. LTD acted as the investor and producer, and Firefly acted as the distributor for the TV channel and the video channel. The parties agree on an appropriate profit sharing ratio. ”

……

The lively birthday party lasted until 10 o'clock in the evening, and the guests began to leave one after another because many people still had to work tomorrow.

Eric personally arranged for Virginia's brother's family to be in another manor in East Hampton, and when they returned to the manor near the sea, all the guests had left, and only a few servants were cleaning up the mess outside the villa.

Pushing the door into the hall of the villa, Eric saw two identical tall figures also shuttling back and forth to put away the dishes into the kitchen, Virginia sat on the sofa and was still excitedly talking to little Kevin, who was finally willing to open the golden mouth, and only understood between mother and son, Joanna sat quietly next to Virginia with a book in her hand, and Eva on the single sofa was changing the TV channel with the remote control.

After greeting the two women, Eric glanced at the busy figures of the twins and asked, "What about Drew and Xiaxia?"

Joanna looked up and said, "In Xia Xia's bedroom, Drew said that he would personally coax Xia Xia to sleep." ”

"You're quite reassuring about Drew," Eric smiled and sat down next to Joanna, resting his chin on her shoulder, sniffing the woman's faint body fragrance, and glancing at the Russian version of the book: "What kind of book are you reading, and you can still speak Russian?"

"Anna Karenina," Joanna leaned affectionately on Eric, "When I was in school, there was a compulsory Russian language class, and it wasn't very difficult to learn, but it was going to be gradual. ”

Eric snorted, but remembered that when Joanna was in school, Poland was still in the Soviet camp, and it was not surprising that he was asked to learn Russian, and he remembered that when he was in elementary school in his previous life, the chubby Chinese teacher also knew Russian, and it was said that he learned it when he was friendly with the Soviet Union. However, relatively speaking, the Polish language belongs to the same Slavic language family, and Joanna must have been much easier to learn Russian than the Oriental.

Eric sent Eva and the twins to rest, and talked to the two women affectionately for a while, it was already eleven o'clock, and he was about to go to rest, only to find that he had not seen Xiao Nizi's figure: "You guys go upstairs first, I'll take a look, don't fall asleep in Xia Xia's room." ”

Both baby rooms were on the first floor, and Eric walked into his daughter's room, only to see Drew leaning crookedly on a Hawaiian cot with a book in his hand, and stopped immediately when he saw Eric appear.

Eric didn't notice Drew's momentary strangeness for a while, and when he saw that his daughter seemed to be awake, he walked to the side of the small bed and squatted down about to coax a few words, only to find that Hawaii looked like a pitiful little man with tears in his eyes, and when he saw his father's figure appear, he immediately screamed and stretched out his hand to Eric.

Eric hurriedly picked up his daughter, glared at Xiao Nizi, who had already begun to stick out her tongue, remembered what had just happened, reached out and took out the book that Drew seemed to be hiding behind him inadvertently, and looked at it, it was Stephen King's thriller novel "Carrie the Witch".

Curious and amused, he tossed the book aside, and Eric reached out and grabbed the girl's little ear.

"Ahh ”

Eric added a little strength to his hand and said with a smile: "I'm almost scared to cry by you, and I still don't understand." Did your mother read "Carrie the Witch" to you when you were a child?"

"Somewhere will someone read to me. I was only six months old when I was taken out by her to shoot commercials and make money. No one gave me a birthday, no one read me a fairy tale before going to bed, and there was no comfortable single room, woo, I was a child who no one loved and no childhood, woo, I was so pitiful......"

Although he knew that this girl was nine percent pretended, Eric still let go of his hand with some pity. Looking at the girl who instantly stopped her fake crying and wrapped around her like a koala, Eric patted her back helplessly: "Don't read horror novels to Xia Xia in the future, it will scare her." ”

"Uh-huh, uh-huh......"

Virginia put her son to sleep, heard the movement here, came over, leaned against the door and looked at Drew rubbing on Eric, and asked a little funny, "What are you doing?"

Little Nizi doesn't have any shy attributes in the face of outsiders, and she still relies on Eric, who can only hand Hawaii to Virginia and smile: "You coax the little one." I'm here to coax it. ”

"Huh," Virginia smiled as she took Hawaii. There was no scary-sounding sound in his ears, and it was late at night, and Hawaii leaned against Virginia and quickly narrowed his eyes.

Eric stretched out his free hands and patted the little girl on his body: "Okay, let me go, it's time to go to sleep." ”

"You can carry me to the bedroom. ”

Eric hugged the girl's small body and turned it upside down, and said with a smile: "You seem to be a lot heavier, I can't hold it." ”

"No, I'm less than 100 pounds now, I don't believe you touch it. ”

Virginia carefully put Hawaii on the crib, checked the baby monitor, and then smiled and said to the two who were tired of being together: "Xia Xia is asleep, don't make trouble here." ”

Eric had no choice but to pick up the girl and walk out with a burst of triumphant laughter.

……

Emily angrily called Eric the next afternoon, first counting the 'short-sighted' idiots on the LTD board, and then saying that LTD finally chose the second option given by Eric, selling the rights to Victoria's Secret annual show to Firefly. Eric later heard from Chris that Emily had a big argument with the LTD board of directors over this. LTD was basically snatched by Chris from Leslie Wexnay and other shareholders through a hostile takeover, although Leslie Wexney has left, but many of the shareholders and management who were originally inclined to Leslie Wexney are still in the company at this time, these people are the backbone of LTD's management, and it is impossible for Emily to kick out all of these people under the premise of ensuring that it can not cause turmoil.

However, Eric believes that after the Victoria's Secret annual show is released, with the improvement of the brand value of Victoria's Secret, Emily's position will be completely consolidated, and they will be able to completely control the company.

Now that LTD had made its choice, the negotiations didn't take too long, and three days later, Eric had a few hours in his busy schedule and signed a cooperation agreement, and Eric then handed over a plan to the team of LTD and Firefly to start the preliminary preparations.

……

In late April, after signing the merger agreement, the two parties finally completed the merger process such as the share swap, and held the first shareholders' meeting of the new Firefly Group on April 26.

Although Eric still holds more than 70% of the shares and has an absolute controlling stake in Firefly, even after the merger and integration, Firefly still has dozens of large and small shareholders, and the establishment of a board of directors is inevitable.

Eric had planned to form a five-member board of directors, but Buffett, Tom Murphy, and the original ABC shareholders insisted on at least three board seats, and Eric had no choice but to expand the board to the size of 11 people typical of large North American companies.

Among them, the original ABC shareholders include Warren Buffett of Berkshire, Tom Murphy, the current CEO of ABC, and David West, president of State Street Globals, who supported the merger and acquisition of the two parties.

Although it was unanimously recommended that Eric hire several sole directors so that Firefly's decision-making judgment could be judged from the perspective of a bystander, and at the same time provide some contacts and information resources for Firefly, federal law does not require non-public companies to hire sole directors, and Eric did not want Firefly's internal operations to be exposed to irrelevant people, so he rejected this suggestion.

After the establishment of the board of directors, the next step was the reshuffling of management and the streamlining and consolidation of departments.

Michael Lynn's contract is about to expire, and the Firefly only needs to pay a nominal compensation, so Michael Lynn can cede the position of CEO of the group to Katzenberg in advance, and only have a directorship. But the summer file is coming, Katzenberg has been focusing on the acquisition of ABC, the main distribution work of the summer Firefly film is all in charge of Michael Lynn and Jeffrey, the next few months in the ABC department to streamline and adjust the need, Katzenberg can not turn his energy back to the film business, in order to ensure that the summer film distribution is foolproof, Michael Lynn's contract not only can not be terminated early, but needs to be extended to September, fortunately, the two sides have reached a tacit understanding, these things do not need any trouble, just a simple contract is determined.

On ABC's side, Tom Murphy and 69 years old, after the completion of this merger, Tom Murphy could retire and enjoy his old age, but in order to avoid the turmoil of ABC's merger in the 80s, Tom Murphy will continue to be the CEO of ABC TV network until the end of next year, fortunately, Eric does not need to have an in-depth understanding of ABC to find the right person for ABC's next CEO. Robert Egger, after all, Robert Egger's personal abilities have been proven in his previous life, Eric personally talked to Robert Iger several times, and obtained the approval of Tom Murphy and others, and this matter was confirmed within ABC.

In addition, Jeffrey, who celebrated his sixtieth birthday last year, also plans to retire from the position of president of the company, the old man feels the difficult experience of making movies with his wife, and plans to leave his job, while running the small farm in Maryland, he will use his annual equity dividends in Firefly Pictures to set up a film fund to fund some young directors to complete their film dreams, although Eric thinks that Jeffrey will probably waste a lot of money by doing this, but Jeffrey has obviously looked down on money, Chris also expressed his support for his father's behavior, and Eric didn't say anything more。

The final confirmed adjustment result is that when Tom Murphy and Michael Lynn retire one after another, Katzenberg will serve as the CEO of the Firefly Group, responsible for the overall operation and development of the group, Robert Iger will serve as the president of the Firefly Group and CEO of the ABC Television Network, responsible for the affairs of the ABC Television Network, and Frank Wells will serve as the President of the Firefly Group and the CEO of Disney, responsible for the affairs of the subsidiary Disney.

Although Eric is the chairman of the board of directors, his main focus is still on the production of Firefly's films, and unless Katzenberg and others make decisions that are completely contrary to the development trend of the film industry in the next decade or so, Eric does not intend to interfere in the day-to-day operations of the company. (To be continued.) )