Chapter 659： Suspend expansion

The news that the Disney Animation Department successfully auctioned for $2.5 billion in sky-high prices has once again caused media coverage.

After the successful signing of the two parties, Summer Reishi slammed the ironfield to announce the establishment of the Paramount animation, and appointed the director of "The Lion King" Roger Ellers as the eo of the Paramount animation department. At the same time, Viacom also announced that it will rely on the huge channels of the Baishida chain stores and Paramount animation, Paramount movies, MTV and other content departments to jointly enter the lucrative film and television industry.

On the second day of the acquisition of the Paramount Animation eo hire contract, Roger Ayers once again held a press conference to announce the sequel to "The Lion King" brought by Disney, "The Legend of the Wind" and "Mulan" The three 2d animation projects were launched at the same time, which is quite interesting for the old club Disney.

The continuous good news in a short period of time stimulated Viacom's share price directly by 7.6%. The high share price has changed the concept of Viacom shareholders who had been quite vocal about Lei Shidong's aggressive expansion strategy. They all praised the wise and decisiveness of Lei Shidong.

Some people are happy that some people are frustrated. The most unfortunate one is undoubtedly the time Warner eo Terry Semel who lost to Lei Shidong during the auction of Disney Animation.

Although companies such as Seagram and Twentieth Century Fox, which failed in the competition, have been more or less discussed by the media, the media’s commentary on Time Warner’s defeat in this competition is almost degenerate. After all, Time Warner's overall strength is more than twice that of Viacom, and Time Warner's previous downturn in the film business gave it a good reason to grab the Disney animation department. therefore. The impact of this failure on Time Warner is even more than the simple failure itself. Many media even suspected that Time Warner had a financial crisis.

The firefly suddenly announced the means of extending the payment deadline on the day of the auction. Despite the disruption of Time Warner’s internal and repeated bidding strategies, Terry Semel is the top leader of Time Warner, but the Time Warner Group has far less authority than the previous generation of Steve Ross. This also made it impossible for him to flexibly change his strategy because of the sudden attack of fireflies, which eventually caused Time Warner's failure in this auction.

Although the ultimate cause of this failure is the time Warner shareholders and the board of directors to Terry Semel's constraints, it is clear that Time Warner's shareholders and directors will certainly not take the initiative to take responsibility, this black pot is finally buckled Terry Semel’s head.

Time Warner’s share price has been falling for several months because of the bleak box office in the summer. With the failure of this auction, Time Warner’s hopes of entering the field of animated films have shattered. The negative impact of this incident is that Time Warner’s share price, which was originally stopped because of the summer file, has once again begun to fall.

In the face of increasing pressure and busy work, Terry Semel himself even had some thoughts of resigning. Of course, this kind of thinking is just a flash, not to mention the rich salary brought by Time Warner's position, and tasted the power of the position of a large media group at the helm, no one will take the initiative. give up. Therefore, Terry Semel can only be painful and addicted to find ways to solve the current predicament.

of course. As a seller, the Firefly Group has gained $2.5 billion in huge cash for this business. But the media’s attitude towards fireflies is not much congratulatory.

Most media generally believe that Disney's animation department's $2.5 billion auction price is still far below its actual value. You don't need to pay attention to the future. The "Lion King" still showing this can prove this. "The Lion King" III The expected net profit of 1 billion U.S. dollars during the year means that the average annual income will be more than 300 million U.S. dollars for fireflies. According to the company’s market value, it is usually more than 10 times the annual profit. The media believes that the actual value of the Disney animation department is absolutely It should exceed $3 billion.

Relative to the scorching need to personally go to the media to interview, in order to reverse the recent decline of Time Warner's Terry Semel, Firefly only held a routine press conference when signing with Paramount, then there is no more Any response from the media speech. This also reflects the benefits of non-listed companies, without having to bear the pressure from the media and capital because of stock prices and financial reports.

Moreover, although the media in the media because the Firefly Group abandoned the Disney animation department, and then the Disneyland, Disney stores and other businesses have seen a decline. But in fact, the pace of development within the Firefly Group is very clear.

After stripping the hand-drawn animation department, Kasenberg immediately started the reconstruction of the Disney animation department.

Although most of the best digital animators are concentrated in Pixar, in recent years, advertising design companies and special effects studios using computer graphics technology have been arrogant, and they have learned from these companies that they have both computer and artistic skills. Professional and technical personnel to carry out training, restarting the Disney animation department in a short period of time can be said to be a breeze, Firefly Software Company and Pixar Studio can also provide a full set of mature animation technology and some management talents for the new Disney animation department.

In the case of Kasenberg, the helm who once dominated the renaissance of Disney's animation department, personally, if everything goes well, the new Disney animation department will be able to launch its first work within three years, so the rhythm of Disney's release of animation will only be In 1996, there was a short break, and then it was possible to restore the best production status of Pixar and Disney.

The continuous divestiture of the sale of paper media assets and the hand-painted animation department's two businesses has caused the Firefly Group's cash reserves to skyrocket again. However, Eric has no intention of rushing to expand again.

Although the process of annexing ab was very smooth, there was no violent shock. But at this time, the Firefly Group is like a huge media machine that has just been combined. This media machine has just realized the most basic operation, and there is still a long distance from reaching the highest operating efficiency, which is even more Many problems need to be resolved if you ignore them completely. Can't wait to expand next. Then the final result is only two. One is that the group's expansion is becoming too bloated, the internal problems are reduced, and eventually the business collapses and falls into operational and financial crisis. The other is Time Warner's powerful but internal contradictions. It is difficult to avoid going down.

Eric hopes that the Firefly Group will be reorganized and coordinated to achieve the perfect state of smooth operation even with high-level iterations like Time Warner.

therefore. While rebuilding the Disney Animation Department, in order to further integrate the two major business segments of the film and TV, the Firefly Group is constantly adjusting its business to departments such as Ab TV, Disney Channel, espn, and Marvel Entertainment.

Internal business adjustments often do not require much capital expenditure, and the operating cash flow within the Firefly Group is sufficient to deal with these adjustments.

In the case that the firefly's various businesses still maintain strong profitability and just brought huge amounts of money through the divestiture of the two parts of the assets, there is a huge cash surplus within the group. Firefly temporarily chose to extend the payment period when auctioning the Disney department. There are also reasons for this reason, because there are too many credits in a short period of time, but if you can't put into operation, you have to pay taxes!

If this was the case in the past, Eric’s first reaction was often to choose to pay off the fireflies’ debt.

But after a few years of experience. Eric’s original conservative business philosophy has also gradually changed, and he has gradually accepted the state of corporate debt management. Although the current firefly debt reaches 10 billion US dollars, the debt ratio is only about 30%. For most group companies, this debt ratio is very healthy, and it also helps to use debt to avoid tax.

In addition, although the debt is paid off in advance, it can save some of the interest expenses for the fireflies, but even if all the $10 billion in debts are repaid in the short term, the fireflies can save only about $5 billion in debt, but if you use the $10 billion to invest, Within the 10-year long-term debt period, there is absolutely no problem in reversing the $10 billion by Eric’s rebirth advantage. Therefore, it is almost completely unnecessary to choose what to choose before paying off debts and investing. Things to consider.

With abundant cash support, although the internal expansion of the firefly has temporarily stopped, Eric has accelerated the pace of investment in the high-tech field that he is familiar with. It is about to enter the second half of the 1990s when the rise of the high-tech industry. This is also the best opportunity to enter.

To support the technology development of the Yahoo! Advertising Alliance and the Yahoo! Technology Alliance, Eric once again injected $200 million in development funding to Yahoo.

The $200 million debt financing promised to AOL was also hit on the other party’s account.

At the same time, according to the original angel fund plan that was originally drafted to promote the Yahoo! Advertising Alliance, Eric began to accelerate the funding of sites with good development potential.

However, these investments still account for only a small portion of the Firefly Group's capital reserves. Of course, Eric will not blindly increase investment to make a big profit. Therefore, leaving nearly $1 billion in cash after other shareholders’ dividends has become a more distressing thing for Eric.

"It’s a happy distress," after more than a week after the Disney animation department auctioned, Eric sat in the office of Firefly Studios and looked at the recent group financial statements, feeling so sigh.

Kelly, who just walked in the office door, gently slammed Eric to the opposite side of Eric and handed a schedule to Eric. He quickly said: "I have already contacted a Gulfstream business. The passenger plane, the Wei Mi team will be able to fly to New York tomorrow morning, Miss Brighton has arranged a press conference there. In addition, the set of the Arsenal at the Lewiston Avenue in Manhattan has been arranged according to the drawings you gave, but you Said camera remote control slide is still in the customization, it may take another week. There is also a headset recorder..." Here, Kellyton said, "I really don't know how many strange thoughts you brought, However, Motorola said it is willing to customize for free, but they need to print a striking Motorola trademark on the device."

Eric nodded: "This is fine, but they also have to hand over the equipment within a week."

"Of course, I have already yelled at them," Kelly nodded and said: "This is a Victorian thing. In addition, Mr. Kasenberg's assistant just called and he will go to New York tomorrow."

Eric, who was looking through a document, looked up: "What did he do with him?"

Kelly did not ridicule Eric this time, explaining: "Tomorrow is on the 19th, Monday, "Survivor" premiered on Tuesday, Mr. Kasenberg should hope to see the survivors' ratings for the first time. The news, if ... some conditions, it is also convenient to adjust as soon as possible."

Eric nodded, he just remembered that "The Story of the Emergency Room" and "Friends" were broadcast on September 28th and September 29th, but ignored the "Fast Survivor" first broadcast date one week earlier.

After the trial broadcast, ab has not worried much about the ratings of "Emergency Room Story" and "Friends", but for the "Survivor" this program is a very novel reality show, although this program is Eric. I personally picked it, but many people still have doubts. Moreover, because of the special program format, "Survivor" can not arrange a pilot episode, Kasenberger wants to personally sit at the headquarters of New York ab, and it is not unexpected to make immediate adjustments to the possible consequences of this program.

Eric’s heart was not too worried about the “Survivor” program. After all, the previous show has proved its popularity. Even after more than a decade of program launch, various types of similar Follow the reality show. However, Eric did not interfere with Kasenberg's decision.

Kelly saw that Eric didn't say anything, and handed over a thick document: "This is the information you asked me to collect. The product developed by this radio communication technology company completely deviated from the mainstream gsm format. I didn't look at it. There is a need for any investment, unless you are confident that their communication system can completely replace gsm, but I think this situation is not possible. The first generation of analog signal transmission used more than 20 years before being eliminated by gsm Even if this new communication format is a bit more than gsm, I don't think he can replace gsm in a short time. After all, all the major communication technology companies and mobile device manufacturers in the world use it now. It is a gsm system and has invested a lot of research and development funds. These world-class electronics giants are also unlikely to allow the newly acquired technology to be replaced by other technologies." (To be continued.)