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15 January 1984. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

"Back to the Future", which was released for 33 days, was painted under the Hong Kong River and grossed 36 million Hong Kong dollars.

"Merry Christmas", which was drawn a week before "Back to the Future", won HK$25.7 million at the box office.

"The Owl and Dumbo", which was painted eleven days before "Back to the Future", won 23 million Hong Kong dollars at the box office.

Actually,

The box office of "The Owl and Dumbo" has a chance to surpass that of "Merry Christmas".

But just when the box office of "The Owl and Dumbo" was about to catch up with the box office of "Merry Christmas", Golden Harvest Cinemas was about to release "Hindsight" starring Zheng Zeshi, so "The Owl and Dumbo" could only continue to be released in twelve theaters of the Shaw Brothers Cinema Line.

Therefore, the box office of "The Owl and Dumbo" is more than three million Hong Kong dollars lower than that of "Merry Christmas".

This incident stimulated Pan Disheng a lot, coupled with Xu Cun and Yang Ziqiong getting closer and closer, and Cen Jianxun has been lobbying on the sidelines, so that Pan Disheng's determination to acquire Shaw Brothers Cinemas to form Debao Cinemas is getting bigger and bigger.

But—

After Shum Jianxun contacted Fang Yihua, who represented Shao Yifu, twice, Pan Disheng realized that his thoughts were a little taken for granted.

The results of the negotiations between China and Britain are becoming more and more obvious -- most people of insight can see that Britain and Britain will most likely not be able to win this negotiation. In other words, sooner or later, Xiangjiang will be taken back by Zhongg.

Now, Shaw Brothers' Hong Kong box office market has been snatched up by other film companies, and there is still some money to be made in the Nanyang and Taiwan markets.

However, Shao Yifu, who had already clearly seen the general trend, was ready to establish good relations with the mainland ahead of schedule -- for this reason, Shao Yifu was even ready to agree to join the Hong Kong industrial and commercial circles delegation to Beijing led by the Xinhua News Agency.

Shao Yifu's move is bound to offend the Taiwan side, so it is only a matter of time before the Shaw Brothers loses the Taiwan Film Market, and the Nanyang market alone cannot support the Shaw Brothers.

Therefore, the shutdown of Shaw Brothers is already the general trend.

It is precisely because of this that Shao Yifu sincerely wants to sell the Shaw Brothers Cinema Line - after all, in the absence of a good movie, the cost of maintaining a cinema chain is not a small number.

One really wants to buy, the other really wants to sell, and it is said that this deal should be easy to achieve.

But that's not the case!

The price offered by Shaw Yifu to Pan Dee was HK$340 million -- of which HK$200 million was offered for the four leading cinemas of Shaw Brothers alone. Six of the remaining eight cinemas are owned by the Shaw Brothers Cinema Line, with an offer price of HK$120 million. The other two cinemas are leased by Shaw Brothers Cinemas, with a five-year lease term and a price of 20 million Hong Kong dollars.

Is Shao Yifu's price black?

Of course, no matter how good the four leading cinemas of the Shaw Brothers are, they cannot be better than the Taiping Cinema, and Xu Cun only spent 35 million Hong Kong dollars to buy the Taiping Cinema, and the opening price is still high, so it is impossible for the four leading cinemas of the Shaw Brothers to be worth 50 million Hong Kong dollars each. The six cinemas owned by Shaw Brothers are all medium-sized cinemas with 400 to 800 seats, and although the locations are not bad, they are not worth 20 million Hong Kong dollars each. The two theaters rented by Shaw Brothers only gave the real owners of these two theaters a rent of 1.3 million Hong Kong dollars per person, that is to say, it took five years to give a total of 13 million Hong Kong dollars to the real owners of these two theaters, and Shao Yifu and Pan Disheng asked for 20 million Hong Kong dollars and earned 7 million Hong Kong dollars.

Didn't Shao Yifu set his mind on Shaw Brothers Cinemas, why did he offer such a high price?

Actually,

Shao Yifu offered this price for three reasons:

First, since substantial progress has been made in the negotiations between China and the UK (a consensus has been reached on one country, two systems, China and the UK are now engaged in the seventh round of negotiations, and the main topics are the arrangements after 1997 and the relevant issues of the transition period. So Heung Kong Real Estate has a trend of recovery. In other words, the current housing prices are much higher than when Xu Cun bought the Taiping Theater. Moreover, no owner is willing to sell his property at this stage unless he is forced to do so.

Second, in terms of cinemas alone, each theater in the Shaw Brothers Cinema Line is not worth the price quoted by Shaw Yifu, but the account cannot be calculated in this way - although it can be used to build 12 cinemas of the scale of Shaw Brothers Cinemas with only 100 million Hong Kong dollars at most, it is very difficult to get the good location occupied by Shaw Brothers Cinemas, especially the four leading cinemas of Shaw Brothers. Moreover, the twelve theaters of the Shaw Brothers, especially the four leading theaters that have existed for the longest time, have accumulated the reputation of the Shaw Brothers for decades, and many fans have the habit of going there to watch movies, which is far from being comparable to the newly opened theaters. There is also a very important point, Shaw Brothers Cinemas sells theaters not theaters, but there is a big difference between the two!

Third, the four leading theaters of the Shaw Brothers Cinema Line were built by Shao Yifu brick by brick, so deep down in Shao Yifu's heart, he actually didn't want to sell the Shaw Brothers theaters, especially the four leading theaters of the Shaw Brothers - if it weren't for a fire in TVB that caused Shao Yifu to suffer heavy losses, Shao Yifu took over the shares in the hands of several shareholders who lost confidence in TVB, plus most of Shao Yifu's money was trapped in real estate projects and couldn't get out, Shao Yifu must have only rented and not sold Shaw Brothers Cinemas.

The price of HK$340 million is far beyond Pan Disheng's expectations - although Pan Disheng told Shum Kin-hoon that he is willing to spend 100 million or 200 million Hong Kong dollars to build the Debao Cinema Line, the upper limit of Pan Disheng's mind is 100 million Hong Kong dollars. You know, Pan Disheng's current net worth is only 600 or 700 million Hong Kong dollars, and a large part of this is real estate such as stocks, real estate and brand franchises, how could he spend 200 million or 300 million Hong Kong dollars to buy Shaw Brothers Cinemas?

Since you can't buy it, then rent it - Pan Disheng doesn't have such a strong possessiveness as Xu Cun, so after listening to Shao Yifu's offer, Pan Disheng asked Cen Jianxun to talk to Fang Yihua about the price of renting a Shaw Brothers Cinema Line.

But—

The rent given by Shao Yifu was also unbearable for Pan Disheng - Shao Yifu offered a rent of 80 million Hong Kong dollars for five years for the four leading theaters of Shaw Brothers, and 60 million Hong Kong dollars for the other eight theaters for five years, and had to pay it for five years. In other words, if Pan Disheng wants to rent the entire Shaw Brothers cinema line, he has to come up with 140 million Hong Kong dollars at one time.

To rent a Shaw Brothers Cinema, you have to come up with 140 million Hong Kong dollars, and Pan Disheng is of course unwilling!

At the same time, Xu Cun, who was preparing to expand the cinema chain, also set his sights on the Shaw Brothers cinema line, especially the four leading theaters of the Shaw Brothers, and sent Xian Feiran to contact Fang Yihua.

With Xu Cun participating in the competition, Shao Yifu's price was even more dead - Xian Feiran and Cen Jianxun talked to Fang Yihua a few times, but the price of Shaw Brothers Cinemas did not drop at all!

Xu Cun is rich, but he doesn't want to be wronged.

Therefore, the acquisition of Shaw Brothers Cinemas by DreamWorks and Debao has been deadlocked.

……

(To be continued.) )