As Comcast's stock price skyrocketed, Firefly Group decisively stopped buying operations, and finally took a 7.1% stake in the company.

Since Comcast is already a mass-owned company, the shareholding structure is very fragmented, and no shareholder even holds more than 10% of the shares. Therefore, with 7.1% of the shares, Firefly Group still became the largest shareholder of Comcast.

The whole process seems easy, but in fact, for the 7.1% stake, Firefly Group has invested more than $2.5 billion in more than a month.

Against the backdrop of the current cooling of the North American economy with the collapse of the Nasdaq stock market, many corporate giants are shrinking their businesses to save money, and there are absolutely few companies that can easily spend billions of dollars in cash on acquisitions like Firefly.

Now that the prelude to the merger has begun, the Firefly Group no longer hides its intentions.

Although he no longer bought shares, Katzenberg quickly asked Comcast to join the other board.

The Roberts family also realized that if Katzenberg's request was granted, not only the company's operations would be secrets to the Firefly Group. And, with the strong influence of the Firefly system, Comcast shareholders are likely to gradually drift to the other side as Firefly executives join the board.

As a result, Comcast Chairman Ralph Roberts immediately rejected Katzenberg's request on the grounds that the board members were not within the deadline.

Normally, a listed company will discuss the change of board of directors for the new year at the annual general meeting of shareholders every year.

Although Firefly Group does not hold enough shares to hold an extraordinary general meeting, Comcast holds its annual general meeting in January. Unless Ralph Roberts dares to cancel the AGM against the wishes of all Comcast shareholders, the other party will have to delay it for three months at most, and the Firefly Group has not been too eager.

At the same time, in the process of the game between the two sides, Firefly Group also began to contact AT-T, making a gesture of hoping to acquire AT-T's remote communications, giving the outside world a false impression that if the acquisition of Comcast does not succeed in turning to remote communications.

AT-T naturally hopes that its assets can be sold at a good price, and it has also given a very positive response.

In this way, you come and go, and before you know it, the time has entered November at the end of the year.

Although there are frequent moves on the surface, in reality, Eric has given up on the expectation of taking over Comcast or Telecommunications in the short term.

Comcast's oppressive gestures, as well as its engagement with AT-T, were only intended to delay negotiations between the two companies.

The capital winter in the new technology field has just begun, and the recession of the Internet industry will also affect the basic operator field. If time drags on, it will only be more and more beneficial to the Firefly Group.

Influenced by Eric's thinking, the senior management of Firefly Group also focused more on the acquisition negotiations with Hasbro, and successfully reached a definitive acquisition agreement with Hasbro in early November.

After negotiations, Firefly Group finally bought Hasbro Toys for $2.86 billion. Hasbro's founding heir, Alan Hassenfield, will continue to serve as Hasbro's CEO, and the Firefly Group will integrate it with the company's merchandising toys division in the coming months.

On Nov. 1, Eric flew to Providen, the capital of Rhode Island, on the East Coast, along with Katzenberg and several other executives.

Rhode Island is a very small coastal state located between Massachusetts and Connecticut, with an area of just over 3,000 square kilometers, separated from Long Island by only a bay of twenty or thirty kilometers.

After attending the signing ceremony at Hasbro's corporate headquarters and visiting Hasbro's toy design department and a toy factory on the outskirts of Providence, Katzenberg stayed on to discuss the next integration with Hasbro executives, and Eric flew directly to Martha's Vineyard in a helicopter from Long Island Airport.

At the same time, New Line Pictures' "Death is Coming 3" and Universal Pictures' "Human Bone Puzzle" have been released one after another with the arrival of Halloween, announcing the arrival of the year-end schedule.

With less than three weeks to go before the release of "Gravity", the promotion of this super-blockbuster, which represents the firefly system's ambition to open a new era of film screening, has also become more and more violent. TV trailers, cinema posters, and online marketing are all rolled out on a large scale with a high-intensity communication frequency like visual bombardment.

The film's world premiere is set for November 12 and will take place at the IMAX theater in Santa Monica, Los Angeles.

Through several internal test screenings, the Firefly Group has absolute confidence in the quality of the film "Gravity". Therefore, the distribution department has decided to hold small-scale screenings in North America on the weekends of November 6 and 7 and November 13 and 14 respectively to accumulate word-of-mouth for the film's release in advance.

While everything is in full swing, the promotion for Gravity is focused on the two protagonists, Jodie Foster and George Clooney, with a strong focus on 3D and IMAX new screening modes. Aside from the world premiere on November 12, Eric has no other media campaign scheduled for himself.

After a few days on Massa Vineyard and East Hampton, Eric arrived in Manhattan.

The two major agency companies IMG and Elite that Eric bought in his private name have completed the initial adjustments, but there are some things that still require him to personally communicate with the heads of the two companies.

IMG is not a big problem, this company has formed a very well-established business operation system.

While Mark McCormack has stepped down as chairman with the closing of the deal, CEO Penn Fosterman is a man of great ability to take IMG Group to the next level.

In addition, Cindy and Linda invested $300 million together to own 20% of the IMG Group, and both joined the IMG board at this time. Although the two women were very careful not to interfere with IMG's management after being instructed by Eric, it was unlikely that IMG's management would be able to do anything even if they wanted to.

The bigger problem is Elite.

Prior to the acquisition, Eric proposed that Elite founder and president John Casablanca retain a stake in the company, but during the deal, John Casablanca chose to cash out less than 5% of the company's shares. As a result, Eric was 100% owned by the company at this time, and John Casablanca was simply in charge of the company as a professional manager.

From the BBC documentary incident, it is not difficult to see the serious problems in the world's largest modeling agency.

After taking over Elite, Eric immediately dissolved the company's original board of directors, which is equivalent to completely tearing off the supervision of John Casablanca, except for Eric, the boss, John Casablanca is almost not responsible to anyone.

Of course, Eric would not make such an obvious mistake in the company's operation.

Due to a series of changes, the positions of president of Elite Europe, which were vacated by the BBC documentary incident, have not yet had time to be filled.

Although after the completion of the acquisition, John Casablanca provided Eric with a list of candidates as soon as possible. However, Eric did not adopt it, and instead selected a number of other fashion industry executives to fill these positions on the recommendation of Cindy and Linda. The two women have been in the circle for so many years, and they are no less familiar with the industry than John Casablanca, and the managers they recommend must be much more reliable than John Casablanca.

In addition, Eric also transferred personnel from the Firefly Group to take over the finance department of Elite, and began to sort out Elite's previous financial situation in a comprehensive manner.

It can be said that in the past month, through a series of personnel adjustments, Eric has largely grasped the control of Elite.

Naturally, these moves that stripped John Casablanca of power inevitably left the industry titan inevitably resentful.

During this time, Eric has received more than one phone call from John Casablanca, complaining that the finance department's audit of Elite's accounts and other behaviors have affected the company's operations, and also faintly hinted that Eric has not kept his original promise and completely handed over Elite to him to take care of.

Manhattan, Lessington Avenue Arsenal.

John Casablanca, led by Eric's bodyguards, enters the Arsenal Hall, where rehearsals for the new Victoria's Secret show are underway.

The hall was lit only by the lights near the catwalk, and it was a little dim, and Eric sat in a corner, cross-legged and leisurely watching the rehearsals on stage, occasionally chatting with Edward Lazek beside him.

This year is the sixth session of the Victoria's Secret show, and it will be the new millennium soon, and this year's Victoria's Secret show is quite meaningful, and LTD will also officially launch the first sky-high dream BRA at this show.

When Eric was still on Long Island, Emily called and asked him to come and see for himself how the show was preparing and give some advice.

Over the past few years, the Victoria's Secret show has formed a very complete hosting process, and Eric actually doesn't feel that he has anything to interfere with. Therefore, he just came and sat quietly for a while today. At this time, in the arsenal, except for the director of this big show and the vice president of LTD Group, Edward Lazek, who accompanied him, no one else knew about his arrival.

Due to the lack of Eric's influence, it is naturally impossible for the Victoria's Secret production team to gather all the supermodels every time, but to rehearse them in different themes.

The theme of today's rehearsal is Dream Wings, which is mainly inspired by butterflies and other lepidopteran insects, so it can also be said to be a theme with more wings.

The theme opens with Qusi Gauff, and the girl is one of the five new spokespersons of Victoria's Secret.

Because of her childish baby-faced image, Qusi Gauff also serves as the spokesperson for Victoria's Secret girl brand PINK. The other four spokespersons are veteran Tyra Banks and Diane Kruger, as well as newcomers Gisele Bundchen and Carmen Keys. Alexander had just turned eighteen this year, and Eric was in no hurry to push the girl into this position.

John Casablanca came to Eric's side and greeted Eric and Edward Lazek before taking a seat on the other side of Eric.

The girls on the runway were rehearsing to the music, Eric didn't speak, and John Casablanca waited quietly. Although he had complained to the young man next to him on the phone before, John Casablanca immediately felt a natural sense of oppression when he actually sat next to Eric.

John Casablanca, who also invested in technology stocks in the first half of the year, was lucky enough to sell most of his shares before the stock market crashed. After the collapse of the Nasdaq, although the technology stocks in his hands were basically trapped, John Casablanca did not lose as much as many people, but made a surplus.

With a focus on the NASDAQ stock market, John Casablanca can easily feel the powerful influence of the Firefly system on the new technology and media sectors. As the head of the economic empire of the Firefly System, although Eric is more than twenty years younger than himself, the huge power and wealth that this young man has is absolutely beyond his reach.

When the girls had finished walking the steps and the music was falling, Eric said to Edward Lazek, "The sixth girl to appear, the one with transparent wings, let her come later." I'll talk to John for a while. ”

Edward Lazek listened to Eric's command slightly sideways, respectfully agreed, nodded to John Casablanca, and got up to leave.

John Casablanca subconsciously recalls the girl Eric had spoken of.

He couldn't remember the order in which the girls appeared, but Eric mentioned the transparent wings, and John Casablanca roughly remembered a flawless and beautiful face, a slightly cold temperament, and a natural charming look, who could be selected as a Victoria's Secret angel, and his figure was naturally impeccable.

John Casablanca knows everything about every supermodel under Elite, but he doesn't have any information about this girl, who obviously belongs to another modeling agency.

Although his performance on the runway just now was obviously a little restrained, John Casablanca, with his vicious eyes in the circle for many years, still recognized the girl's potential at a glance, which is obviously a good seedling of a supermodel. Maybe the other party has already made a name for himself in the circle, but he doesn't know it.

Thinking like this, John Casablanca couldn't help but feel a little envious. It is estimated that only Eric Williams can casually say something like 'I want her' to these beautiful stunners.

Although he is at the helm of Elite, John Casablanca can really touch very few supermodels, and sometimes, he even has to serve these beautiful stunners like his aunt and grandmother.

Eric waited for Edward Lazek to walk away, and he didn't explain the meaning of what he just said, he just suddenly became interested, wanting to build the former 'Invincible Twist Hand' in advance.

Glancing at John Casablanca, who had a changing expression beside him, Eric spoke first, "So, John, how are you doing?" ”

John Casablanca involuntarily turned slightly to Eric like Edward Lazek and said, "It's not bad, it's just a lot busier all of a sudden." ”

During this time, although Eric did not personally intervene in the management of Elite, several high-level executives who were successively installed by Eric into Elite were not polite at all, and showed obvious aggressiveness as soon as he took office, in order to avoid being deprived of his power more, John Casablanca, who had begun to slack off over the years, had to regain his spirits.

"If you feel that you can't do it, I can find someone to help you again," Eric said with a smile on his face, "In this way, Elite will re-set the CEO, you will be the CEO, and I will give you a president, how about it?" ”

John Casablanca's heart suddenly felt a little bitter, and he had just complained in disguise when Eric unceremoniously tried to weaken his power again.

Shaking his head quickly, John Casablanca said, "Still don't need to, Eric, I think I can still do it." ”

"Actually, I understand what you've said on the phone during this time," Eric also put away the smile on his face and said with a serious expression, "However, you should also understand, John, I'm the boss of Elite now." I respect what you've done in the modeling agency, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be laissez-faire with Elite. ”