I’m in Hollywood - Chapter 1202

[Chapter 1167 Cancellation of dividends]

Genius 3 seconds to remember the website website [Pen Mi Ge] ♂!

Eric just stopped at Ventura Airport and completed the handover with Steve Ballmer, and the Boeing 747 took off again for Australia.

During the 16-hour trip from the east coast of the United States to Australia, Eric spent most of his time reading the img materials that Cindy gave him last night.

With the deepening of understanding, Eric became more and more interested in this comprehensive agency company.

It can be said that the entire img group is a perfect agency brokerage industry chain from the training of the lowest-level talents to the distribution of the final products.

The img group first made its fortune as a sports star agency.

In the 1960s, the founder of img, Mark McCormack, who was a lawyer at the time, got acquainted with some well-known golfers in the industry because he liked golf.

By chance, the idea of setting up a professional brokerage company to help these golfers do business, img was created.

Over the next 30 years, img has grown step by step.

Although it is unable to get involved in the star agency of mainstream sports such as rugby, basketball and football, img manages a group of the most successful sports stars in the world in the relatively niche golf, tennis and other aspects.

Even if he is not interested in golf, tennis and other sports, Eric can recognize Tiger Woods, Andre Agassi, Anna Kornikova and other sports stars from img’s roster.

In addition, img has also established a comprehensive sports academy with an area of more than 500 acres in Florida. While recruiting students to the society with img’s own brand to achieve profitability, the company also taps potential talents through the global sports scouting network and trains them in person. .

Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova is the most typical example of img’s operation.

The Russian girl, born in 1981, was discovered at the age of ten by img’s sports scouts and then trained at the Nick Politani Tennis School, which is part of the img Sports Academy.

Under the careful packaging of the img group, Anna Kournikova, who just turned 18 this year, is not the most powerful tennis player, but with her beautiful appearance and the operation of img, she has become the tennis player with the highest commercial value. One of the stars, earning more than $10 million a year.

Although it started late, in terms of fashion agency, the performance of img models is still strong.

Take the supermodel income list that Forbes has launched in recent years. Although the members of the Victoria’s Secret Army have completely occupied the top ten positions in the list, in terms of behind-the-scenes brokerage companies, compared with elites, which are numerous and powerful, The img model company, which has only about 300 agents, has the same number of people who are squeezed into the annual income list of supermodels as elite.

Moreover, unlike the statutory 10% commission of Hollywood brokerage companies, the commission ratio of stars and models can reach up to 30%, which undoubtedly greatly increases the income level of img.

The reason why img’s talent agency business is so strong is mainly because img University (img-college) owns the right to host sports events and fashion events.

Unlike img Sports Academy, img University has nothing to do with education, but a subsidiary that represents hundreds of sports and fashion events around the world.

In addition to countless university league championships, world-renowned fashion sports events such as Wimbledon Tennis Championships, World Golf Championships, Miss Universe and Miss America, all have the close participation of img group.

Through these hundreds of events of various types all over the world every year, img Group can not only directly obtain substantial income from hosting, but also rely on these platforms to easily promote its sports fashion and even music stars, and rely on its own brand advantages from Sponsors of major events strive for more endorsement contracts for their stars.

In addition, img media company also produces a large number of documentaries of sports and fashion events,

Further tap the commercial potential of related events and fully maximize the interests of the img group.

Whether it is for Hollywood or the Internet, Eric pursues a concept of the whole industry chain layout, which can be said to be his personal investment philosophy formed over the years.

img group is exactly in line with Eric’s pursuit of the ultimate model of a company.

Therefore, while still on the plane, Eric contacted Cindy in New York again to discuss whether he could buy the entire img group in addition to the McCormack family’s shareholding.

There is a 14-hour time difference between the east coast of Australia and the east coast of the United States. Eric took off from Long Island Airport on the morning of August 7. Sixteen hours later, the private plane landed at Canberra International Airport. The local time was already August 8. No. four o’clock in the afternoon.

The woman and the children have been living in Kenzester, north of Heaney, for more than two months. However, on the plane, Eric learned that everyone had rushed to the Perisher Ski Resort in southern Canberra ahead of schedule. It temporarily changed the itinerary and chose to land in Canberra.

August is the best season for skiing in Australia. The executive meeting of the Firefly System was held at a private resort near Perisher this time. Unlike the previous few times, this time, the senior management of each company brought their families along with them. Come here, it’s a vacation at the same time as the party.

Perisher Ski Resort is only more than 100 kilometers away from Canberra. However, due to the winding mountain roads everywhere, it was already dark when Eric and his party arrived at their destination.

The official activities of the party will start tomorrow, and most of the people have already arrived early.

The private resort separated by a hill from the Perisher Ski Resort is also covered by the firefly system.

When Eric and his party arrived, they had already prepared a barbecue party in the resort in advance.

After being forcibly kissed and kissed by the first girl who ran over to meet him, Eric picked up his timid son and greeted everyone.

Firefly Group, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, Qualcomm and all the core executives of the Firefly system, including their families, have come here this time.

It took more than ten minutes just to chat.

After simply settling in, everyone gathered in the open space in the center of the resort for a barbecue.

Although it was winter, the resort was surrounded by hills on three sides, and more than 100 people crowded around several bonfires, so it didn’t feel too cold.

“Follow the cable car to the north and go to the ski resort on the other side of the mountain. Everyone has already gone to play. Eric, guess who among us is the best skier?”

Eric, Katzenberg, Ian Grenier and others were sitting around a campfire, still holding Kevin on his lap, and holding a tray with barbecued meat in the other hand to look after the little boy. The guy was eating. Hearing Katzenberg say this, he said without thinking, “It must be Frank, right?”

Although he is over sixty years old, Frank Wells is a person who likes adventure sports very much. If it wasn’t for the appearance of Eric’s ‘butterfly’, Frank Wells should have been skiing a few years ago. Died in a helicopter crash.

“Yes, I suddenly found out that we young people are not as good as an old man. Everyone has been frustrated these two days,” Katzenberg said with a smile, looking at the little guy in Eric’s arms, and smiled again. : “Kevin, you’re a little man now, it’s not good to always rely on Dad’s side.”

When he just came over, Eric noticed that Virginia took the initiative to push Kevin to his side, and understood the woman’s mind, so he has been holding his son in person until now.

Between Kevin and Hawaii, because of Joanna, many high-level Jewish people in Hollywood have always shown a certain sense of identification with Hawaii. This habit of actively holding together among Western groups is very common, and the Jews are the most obvious. Eric couldn’t change anything.

Moreover, due to its superior IQ, Hawaii has unknowingly won the favor of Jeff Bezos, Steve Mitnick and even the Chriss and other firefly investors.

It is conceivable that, following this line of thinking, as the heir to the Williams family, Kevin will hardly have any competitiveness in front of Hawaii in the future except for a little gender advantage, but Westerners just don’t pay so much attention to the gender of the heir. .

Now, Cindy is about to bring another little guy to the Williams family, and Virginia’s insecurities can be imagined.

Looking not far away, Hawaii, who was discussing something with Jeff Bezos solemnly, and Emma, who was playing with a few girls of the same age, Eric smiled, and put his lap along with Cassenberg. With an uneasy expression, Ge looked at his son and put it down, touched the little guy’s head and said, “Go to my mother. In a few days, my father will go skiing with you when he is done.”

Looking at the little figure who politely took the initiative to say goodbye to everyone without Eric’s reminder, and then walked away obediently, Ian Grenier said with a smile: “A very sensible child, just too shy.”

Eric picked up a bunch of barbecued meat in the tray and said, “It would be nice to grow up a little bit, I was like this when I was a kid.”

Everyone chatted for a while, Eric finished the barbecue on the plate, got up and walked to the barbecue, Katzenberg also took the opportunity to follow, and said: “Eric, I see you asked Caroline to plan The profit distribution plan is over. I think we can completely cancel the dividend, and this money can just support the next expansion plan of the group.”

The Caroline Katzenberg speaks of is Firefly’s chief financial officer, Caroline Elliott.

Eric took some food and put it on the barbecue, played with it himself, and said, “Actually, I am a little hesitant now, and everyone just discussed it in the past few days.”

According to the established plan, the main expansion target of the Firefly system in the next step is the operator system, mainly including telecom operators and cable TV operators, respectively, in order to make up for the platform shortcomings of the Firefly system in the Internet, mobile communication and cable TV.

However, the Firefly system has developed to the present, and it is impossible to pick up leaks with a small amount of knowledge.

No matter which one of the two planned operator systems requires a real investment of tens of billions of dollars.

Adding the two together, if the equity acquisition is not considered, the scale of capital that the Firefly System needs to use will reach hundreds of billions of dollars.

In this regard, the tens of billions of dollars in capital that Clover has just cashed out from the new tech market is simply not enough.

After all, in the next few years, in order to continue to consolidate its foundation in the Internet industry, the Firefly system also needs to continue to inject large sums of money into various new technology companies.

Moreover, Eric also began to have another concern.

The scale of the firefly system is already very large, and the layout of the firefly system in the Internet industry has not been completely stabilized. At this time, it continues to expand without restrictions. Once the enterprises that have eaten cannot be digested smoothly, the entire firefly system may be Get implicated, even into chaos.

Therefore, recently, Eric has been thinking about which move the Firefly system should make next to be more secure.

Katzenberg also picked a few skewers to put on the grill, saying: “I’ve heard some news recently that at-t has plans to split up the telecom, and Comcast just happened to show it again. Intent to scale itself up. At-t will probably sell telecommunications to Comcast if we don’t.”

Comcast and Telecom can be said to be the two largest cable television operators in North America at present. Eric only has some impressions about Comcast in his memory, and he basically knows nothing about telecom.

Listening to Katzenberg’s words, it is generally understood that in the past, long-distance communication was probably annexed by Comcast.

The roasting action paused for a moment, and Eric asked, “Has at-t made an offer?”

“The official offer is not yet available,” Katzenberg shook his head and said, “However, the industry estimates that it will be between $40 billion and $50 billion. If we participate in the bidding, the price is likely to exceed $50 billion. ”

Eric remembers that Comcast’s market value was only about $30 billion a year ago, and it was only more than $60 billion at its peak between the previous paragraphs.

Telematics, which is smaller than Comcast, is now valued at more than $40 billion, apparently under the influence of a new tech bubble that hasn’t yet fully dissipated.

If you can wait another one to two years, the Nasdaq index has fallen to the bottom, and Comcast and telecommunications may have a combined market value of only $60 billion.

However, once the two companies merge, if Firefly Group wants to initiate an acquisition, it will definitely increase the difficulty significantly, both at the capital level and at the anti-monopoly level.

After thinking for a moment, Eric said, “Let’s follow up secretly, and don’t make any moves for the time being.”

Katzenberg nodded and said again: “Do you still want to continue to implement dividends?”

If Comcast really wants to initiate the acquisition of telecommunications, the Firefly Group can only enter the game in advance.

After all, the entire Firefly system, ae TV network, ffm TV station, espn TV station, TV station, braov TV station, e! Entertainment TV station and even several cable TV stations on Fox Group, such a huge cable TV industry layout, if there is no operator platform Relying on, future development will definitely be more and more constrained.

In comparison, the layout of the Firefly system for telecom operators is not so urgent.

Of course, this is only relative.

Eric’s target is the sprint group, which is also the easiest target for the Firefly system to acquire.

In the next few years, it happens to be a critical period for the transformation of 2g communication network to 3g network.

If you can’t take sprint in your hands and fully invest in the layout of the 3g network, sprint is likely to be thrown off by the more powerful at-t and verizon operators.

Once sprinted by other competitors in this crucial communication network upgrade process, sprint will fall into an endless loop of falling behind, making it even harder to catch up with competitors.

In the final analysis, Eric wants to expand the firefly system for the camp step by step, but in this era of technological explosion, he does not have so much time.

“Cancel the dividend plan,” Eric made another decision without much hesitation, and then said to Katzenberg with a smile: “However, the job of informing shareholders of this decision is left to you.”

Although the detailed financial information has not been released, the news that the Clover Fund has successfully cashed out a large sum of money has already been rumored.

Among the small shareholders of Firefly Group, whether it is Berkshire Hathaway, which is accustomed to taking dividends from its shareholding companies and investing on its own, or State Street Global Fund, which has suffered heavy losses in this stock market crash and urgently needs to replenish funds, they all look forward to Firefly Group’s success. Execute dividends.

Now, with the sudden cancellation of the dividend plan, these shareholders are bound to get into trouble.

For the matter of rejecting others, Katzenberg, who has a tough personality, is obviously the most suitable.

“No problem,” Katzenberg nodded with a grinning grin, then quickly put away his expression and said seriously: “Eric, there is another thing, my bonus this year is also All remain in the Clover Fund, and in the next acquisition process, I hope to be able to replace it with the company’s stock.”

Katzenberg’s salary contract is a fixed annual salary of $750,000 plus Firefly Group’s 2% annual net profit dividend.

According to this contract, he will be able to get a huge dividend of 800 million US dollars from the total profit scale of Firefly Group of 40 billion US dollars this year, which is enough to create a salary peak for professional managers again.

Now, Katzenberg voluntarily gave up this salary and chose to replace it with Firefly Group shares in the future, which is equivalent to tying his own interests with Firefly Group completely.

After all, Firefly Group is not a listed company. Once Katzenberg chooses to buy a share, it will be very difficult for Katzenberg to cash out. If the company’s performance declines, the share will depreciate significantly.

Moreover, Katzenberg’s own shareholding ratio is unlikely to affect Eric’s absolute control over the entire Firefly Group.

It can be said that this already has the meaning of a vote.

Taking a deep look at Katzenberg, Eric said, “So, have you really decided?”

“Of course,” Katzenberg smiled and nodded, “unless you have any problems here.”

“I am very happy.”

Eric said, raising his left hand to the side with a fist, UU reading www.

sonicmtl.com Katzenberg clenched his fist tacitly and touched Eric lightly.

Putting the charred meat skewers in front of him on the plate, Eric said: “Actually, I have another very important thing to discuss with you this time. I plan to set up the Williams Trust Fund soon. Although I won’t inject too much assets into the foundation for the time being, I still need to determine the board members of the foundation in advance, Jeffrey, I hope you can join in.”

Katzenberg was a little surprised, and even lowered his voice: “Eric, is this necessary, you are not yet thirty years old?”

Although there are many types of living trusts in the West, Katzenberg understands that the trust fund that Eric is about to set up must be an estate trust.

That is to say, once something happens to Eric, his personal assets will be transferred directly to this trust fund.

When it comes to the inheritance of huge wealth, many rich people often make wills, and there will still be unexpected situations such as children competing for property and even wealth being divided up by outsiders.

The living trust model can avoid the possibility of changes in the assets inheritance of the settlor to the greatest extent.

However, under normal circumstances, only the rich and old, such as Redstone and Murdoch, who are over sixty years old, will start to set up family trusts.

Feeling Katzenberg’s concerned tone, Eric was very calm and said, “Jeffrey, you should understand that the wealth I have now is completely an anomaly in this world. If no one has this Coveting is completely impossible. So I hope that even if something unexpected happens, the whole Firefly system will not collapse. So, Jeffrey, would you like to join the council?”

Katzenberg completely forgot about the charred skewers that had been grilled in front of him, nodded solemnly, and said, “Eric, I promise you.”

[End of this Chapter]