Chapter 1008： Return journey

Compared to other previous trips with various aspects of work, the scheduled New Zealand schedule was originally the easiest.

Eric has full confidence in Peter Jackson and does not intend to intervene in the shooting of the Lord of the Rings series.

This time, I just came to experience the filming process of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and relax. Once you return to Los Angeles, with the start of Gravity and the post-production of Iron Man, it will be busy for several months.

However, AOL’s affairs completely undermined Eric’s expectations for a trip to New Zealand.

New Zealand arrived in Queenstown on Wednesday, until all the dust settled on Saturday morning. Eric stayed in Los Angeles for only one weekend.

At the same time, on the New York side, when AOL held a press conference on Saturday morning local time, it announced that the company will continue to adhere to the original development strategy and the news that Chris Hansen resigned as a US online director. Time is awesome.

The New York Times directly used the ‘the big defeat of the firefly system’ as the title to describe the incident.

However, there are also a large number of media predicting that Firefly's investment will let go of AOL's control. For AOL, it is a huge crisis.

After all, many people can see that the complete let go of firefly investment is likely to mean that it will gradually sell the stock in hand.

As the largest shareholder with a shareholding ratio of more than 30%, once the firefly investment has sold a large amount of stocks, the impact on AOL's stock price is almost devastating.

On the other hand, as long as there are some sensible people, they will not believe that the two sides will continue to maintain the intimate cooperation posture in the past, as stated at the press conference. Without the support of the media resources of the firefly system, AOL will directly face the dilemma of content shortage in the process of developing Internet media business.

However, although the two sides can't agree on the American online development concept, Eric does not deny that Steve Case is a very capable professional manager.

In the face of the embarrassing situation of AOL after the press conference, Steve Case took a series of corresponding remedies.

On the second day, on Sunday, after an urgent consultation, Steve Case reconvened an emergency press conference to announce that in order to express confidence in the company's development prospects, AOL management will hold the company's shares through mortgages. , raised $1 billion in funds for the acquisition of AOL shares.

The management of a company buys and sells stocks, which undoubtedly shows their attitude towards the company's development prospects. Steve Case's move directly gave a lot of suspicious investors a reassurance.

At the same time, Time Warner Group's high management Chad Parsons also appeared at the press conference, and issued a statement with Steve Case, Time Warner and AOL will reach a strategic partnership in media content. .

It stands to reason that Richard Parsons is the CEO of Time Warner's Warner Bros. Film Company. AOL needs to develop portal business, and more needs news media support. The appearance of Richard Parsons at the press conference seems to be out of date.

But in fact, the media and investors who are slightly more savvy are very clear that Richard Parsons is a senior executive of Time Warner's major shareholder Gerald Levin. Richard Parsons came forward and basically represented the attitude of Gerald Levin.

Gerald Levin was the head and major shareholder of Time Media before the establishment of Time Warner Group. Time Media has a large number of paper media such as the famous Time magazine.

Even though Time Warner has been in existence for many years, Gerald Levin still has a strong influence on the media of newspapers and magazines owned by Time Media. This content is precisely the urgent need for Internet media businesses such as the US online portal. of.

What's more, Time Warner also owns CNN TV, the largest cable news network in North America and the world.

Even with Ted Turner behind CNN's control of the company's control, but in the company's beneficial media cooperation, Gerald Levin wants to get together, there is no big obstacle. As long as it can work with Time Warner, even if the firefly system is completely ruined, AOL's portal can get enough media resources from Time Warner.

Moreover, Richard Parsons’ attendance at AOL’s press conference once again reminded Wall Street and major media about the rumors that the two giants might merge.

The marriage of the old comprehensive media group and the emerging Internet media giants, in the eyes of many people, is a strong alliance of one plus one and two.

The capital market is far more blind than many ordinary people think.

Stimulated by a series of targeted positive news, on Monday, when AOL stocks reopened, in just two hours, the stock price returned to the price of Steve Case before the interview with CNN last week.

By the close of the day, AOL’s single-share price had reached $262.39, up 11.2% from the opening at $235.76, and AOL’s market capitalization reached $43.294 billion.

Driven by AOL's share price, the Nasdaq index finally broke through the 2000 mark on Monday, and the market situation is red.

Faced with this situation, the most entangled is undoubtedly the major shareholders of AOL except firefly investment.

The share of Firefly's investment in AOL's shareholding has been irreversible. To avoid a fall or even collapse of AOL's share price, other shareholders must take stock of the firefly investment.

At last week's video conference, Eric paid a $4 billion price directly to the 10% stake it was about to reduce, and disagreed with any discounts. However, the market value of AOL before applying for an emergency suspension was only $38.9 billion. The major shareholders naturally disagreed with the purchase of 16.5 million shares of fireflies with a price of $4 billion.

But just on the day of the resumption of trading, AOL’s market capitalization exceeded $43 billion.

According to Eric’s intention at the time, now that he wants to continue the transaction, the price will be calculated according to $4.3 billion, and it will cost more than $300 million in just three days. Anyone will be very distressed.

Eric was already flying back to the plane in Los Angeles. Representatives of major shareholders had to test Chris. In this case, Eric’s attitude was very firm and did not give Chris any autonomy. The temptation naturally has no results.

So until the next day.

According to the usual market rules, after the retaliatory rebound of AOL's stock price yesterday, most people thought that the stock price would fall back today, but the facts made many shareholders happy and mixed with the incomparable entanglement.

AOL's share price not only did not show signs of falling for the second day, but rose again by 3.1%, with a market value of 44.636 billion US dollars, which was directly at the $45 billion mark.

Even some small shareholders who predicted that US online stock prices may have peaked secretly sold millions of stocks, and did not stop this strong upward trend.

In addition to firefly investment and management shareholding, AOL's other shareholders are basically the major investment banks and US state retirement insurance funds, which buy stocks, even if they do not hold for a long time, than those for short-term arbitrage Hedge funds are held for a long time, and they are also the capital of the US stock market.

Due to the nature of capital, especially the retirement insurance funds of various states, the investment principle is based on caution. Now the NASDAQ stock market bubbles and more and more obvious, brokers institutional investors were naturally considered taking advantage of AOL's stock price high of cash now.

But in the face of firefly bent to large-scale reduction of investment, these institutional investors had to bear with such thoughts.

Everyone knows that cashing together will only lead to nothing for everyone. If AOL's share price collapses, the firefly investment losses billions of billions of dollars, for the company that has assets of more than 200 billion US dollars, will not cause too serious impact. But for the major investment institutions, even if the value of the stock is only worth hundreds of millions of dollars, many people have to lose their jobs.

In the current situation, only the first 10% of the stocks of the fireflies will be invested, and they will be able to sell their stocks for half a year.

Of course, there is also a premise that the relevant managers can endure the temptation that AOL’s stock price has been rising. After all, most people are waiting for a stock market crash in the expectation of 'maybe to go up again’. Only suddenly wake up and regret it.

Therefore, when Eric’s private jet landed at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday afternoon, John Mark, Morgan Stanley’s president, who was elected as a shareholder’s representative, also arrived in Los Angeles.

Although after more than ten hours of flight, Eric did not feel the exhaustion of long-distance travel because of the very luxurious and comfortable private flight. I slept on the plane for a few hours and arrived in sunny Los Angeles. The depressed mood has dissipated a lot.

The two female assistants and a group of bodyguards who accompanied me around the earth took a vacation and sent them to leave. Eric returned to the sharp corner manor by car. When people were still on the road, they received a call from John Mark. The other party has been waiting for himself outside the sharp corner of the manor.

Although I didn't want to deal with these people at this time, but others blocked the door, Eric and I couldn't avoid it.

Getting off at the corner of the Sharp Corner Manor, Eric greeted him with John Mark and walked into the manor.

Walking side by side with Eric on the clean lane leading to the shell villa, John Mark looked around the carefully constructed green lawn and complimented: "It's more beautiful than it was a few years ago."

Eric rarely entertains guests at Sharp Point Manor. However, in the process of selling Disney's hand-painted animation department and acquiring Marvel a few years ago, Eric held a conference for major investment banks and fund managers at Sharp Point Estate. Business party, when John Mark was also present.

"John, you can also buy a manor in Los Angeles. It is not bad to come on vacation occasionally. The environment in Los Angeles is still very relaxing."

John Mark smiled and shook his head: "Maybe, when I retire, I can have this time."

The two chatted, the twins on the other side of the villa greeted them together, and walked to the front to scream a master together, just beside Eric.

John Mark has long been in a high position, and there is no shortage of women around him. However, in the face of twins who are exactly the same in appearance, they can't help but look at them more. I am somewhat envious of Eric's beauty.

Eric also did not tell John Mark the meaning of twins, just asked: "Drew?"

Natasha said: "The boss is at the company and will come over from work."

Eric nodded and said: "Wait for me and Mr. Mark to brew the coffee, my luggage is in the back of the car, and everyone's gift, Carly has been sorted out. You both have, find yourself The name is OK."

After the command, Eric and John Mark came to the reception area next to the glass curtain wall of the villa and sat down for a while, waiting for the twins to come to the coffee, leaving them to leave and Eric was holding the coffee. The cup, leaning back on the sofa, asked: "So, John, are you coming over this time?"

John Mark smiled bitterly and said: "Eric, what you really understand in your heart, is still a matter of AOL stocks."

"Actually, I just got off the plane," Eric shrugged and asked: "How much is the stock price closed today?"

"$270.52," John Mark said: "compared with yesterday, it has risen by about 3%."

Carefully sipped the coffee, Eric said: "It seems that the stock split, I think it is more appropriate to split the 10 directly, AOL's stock price still has a lot of room for growth."

John Mark said: "In this case, Eric, why do you still insist on not selling?"

"Everyone..." Ericton got down and didn't know how to translate the words. "If the direction is not right, the current glory is only temporary."

"Eric, none of us know what the future will be like. How dare you be sure that AOL is not looking for its own direction?"

Eric turned his head and looked at the open blue sea outside the curtain wall. It seemed to be absent-minded: "Yes, so we can only insist on a direction that I think is right. I have my insistence. Steve has Steve. Persevere, you have your persistence. Everyone insists on something different, and they can only drag each other together, so they are still separated."

I feel that Eric has the meaning of opening the topic. John Mark has to take the initiative to mention the purpose of this trip: "Eric, according to the price you opened last week, how about 10% off, we can complete it in a week. Trading, cash payment."

Eric’s mouth smiled and said: “John, have you noticed the recent fluctuations in the Russian ruble?”

John Mark squatted, wondering why Eric suddenly raised the issue and shook his head: "Eric, I am not responsible for foreign exchange business, what is the problem with the ruble?"