Chapter 1791： Those who have a bond have the world

However, what is the purpose of Sony and Facebook investing in buzzfeed at the same time?

The purpose of Facebook is actually very good to guess, because the rise of media in the new era has greatly reduced their influence in the media field, and they can only stay in the same place as social.

Facebook, which has reached the ceiling, must develop horizontally. On the left, Google is pressing the search cake. On the right, Yahoo originally controlled the news dissemination field, but this one is gradually caught up and surpassed by the new era media.

Even on the other hand, he began to stretch out his sinful hand towards the social realm. How could this make Xiaozha not vigilant?

The opponent who lays out the headlines is also reasonable.

But what is Sony doing? You must know that the previous cooperation between the two parties was fairly pleasant, and the merger negotiations are also proceeding in an orderly manner. The opponents who ran to invest in the headlines at this stall are not competitive for the time being, but this has to be thoughtful.

Sure enough, he is a small RB, and he likes to be the second or fifth boy.

It is not the time to consider this issue. Yang Cheng is even more curious why Sanford would disclose this information on his own initiative. You must know that this is a company secret. Once discovered, you will definitely not be able to eat.

He asked directly the doubts in his mind, Sanford laughed and said, "Mr. Yang doesn't have to think about it, I just want to change my personal feelings~"

"Favorites?"

"Yes, I think the merger of New Era Pictures and Columbia Pictures is imperative. By then, I will become Mr. Yang's subordinate~"

Yang Cheng suddenly realized that this guy was preparing for his own future. If that was the case, the whole thing would make sense.

Clink glasses with each other and smiled, "Are you so optimistic about the merger of the two film groups?"

"Yes~ this is the general trend. The acquisition of Fox by Disney is unstoppable. If the remaining major companies want to fight the unprecedentedly powerful Disney, merger is the only way out."

After hesitating, Sanford looked around cautiously. After making sure that no one could hear their conversation, he lowered his voice and said, "If possible, I suggest that New Era Pictures include MGM in the negotiation terms. ."

Yang Cheng was surprised. He didn't expect Sanford to start making plans. Is this already his own?

But his proposal made Yang Cheng's heart beat.

If it is said that the most expensive giants of the eight Hollywood giants, it is actually MGM.

Not only created the film "Gone with the Wind", the highest grossing movie in film history, of course, this is on the premise of not considering inflation, and the birth of the Oscar statuette is also because of it. The film produced by MGM has won 170 Oscars. prize.

However, prosperity and decline are always the inevitable curse of giants. The nearly 100-year-old MGM is now long gone. Not only has it changed hands several times, but it was almost bankrupt in 2009.

James Bond, who has saved the world more than 20 times in half a century, is probably the most important rescue is to revive the lion of MGM. It can be said that without Bond, MGM has long become a history book. Text.

Yang Cheng sighed when he thought of the current status of MGM. He couldn't help but wonder whether his family and the new era media would follow the same path in the future.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, I've always thought that some of these are missing recently.

However, as far as he knows, the copyright issue of MGM's most important and valuable IP "007" has always been a trouble.

He asked, "Has the James Bond copyright issue been resolved?"

Bond is also considered a prodigal son. In 1961, out of love for the original, Canadian Harry Salzman bid for the filming rights.

At the same time, American producer Albert Brocury wanted to buy out the copyright again at a higher price, but Harry refused, but agreed to work together to produce the film "007", and then the two established a film production company. Danjaq.

In 1962, the first "Dr. No" in the "007" series was released, which caused a huge response and laid a good audience foundation for more than 20 "007".

But starting from the fourth part, the "007" series has fallen into a copyright dispute.

Danjaq was sued by one of the screenwriters for holding part of the copyright of "007", and thus fell into a protracted lawsuit.

Fifteen years later, due to financial difficulties, Harry sold all the copyrights of "007" he owned to United American Studios, one of the eight largest Hollywood studios at the time.

Later, MGM acquired Lianmei and changed its name to MGM-Lianmei Entertainment, becoming one of the largest film production companies in the world. At the same time, it was logical to take over the film copyright of the "007" series.

The "007" film series, which was born in 1962, joined the MGM Film Library family for the first time after 19 years, and has never left since.

Is this scene very familiar? Now, for the sake of the integrity of Marvel, Disney has forcibly acquired Fox, which is a complete reappearance of the scene when MGM acquired Lianmei.

However, the fate of "007" is the same as Bond, which is always full of waves.

In the second half of the twentieth century, MGM changed hands several times and became one of the major Hollywood film companies, few of which were declining due to mergers and acquisitions.

In the 21st century, business is even more bleak.

Not long after the millennium, Kirk Kokline announced the sale of MGM.

Although MGM no longer owned studios, locations or other hardware facilities, and only produced a limited number of films, it still had an asset of great value: one with 4100 films and 10600 TV series. The film library, and the most dazzling jewelry in MGM’s crown is the "007" series of movies, which may be the most valuable series in history.

It is the huge potential value of these IPs that buyers who want to take over.

Needless to say, just license the film library film copyright including the "007" series to pay TV, cable TV networks and TV stations around the world, and the average annual revenue can reach 600 million US dollars.

However, the seemingly profitable business is not so simple, because copyright is involved, and this considerable income needs to be shared with other film rights holders.

In order to evaluate the true value of the film library, Viacom, one of the buyers at the time, sent an experienced team of in-house professionals to evaluate the possible benefits of each film in the next 10 years. .

Counting other benefits after merging MGM and Paramount, the analysis report shows that Viacom’s managers value MGM at $3.5 to $4 billion.

After that, Disney also went through a process of appraising the MGM film library. Their valuation was $3 billion, but they also chose to abandon the acquisition of the company.

Unlike other buyers, Sony’s coveted MGM’s intention is to bet on the company’s future on its own Blu-ray HD DVD format. It needs to obtain support from other major studios for the HD DVD format to cope with the current situation. Format wars.

At that time, financial giants such as Dongzhi Group and Microsoft used ample cash to enable other major studios to exclusively copy and output their films in HD-DVD format.

If Sony can exclusively copy MGM’s film library in Blu-ray format, plus its existing Columbia Pictures film library, no matter how generous the incentives Dongzhi Group and Microsoft can provide, it will no longer be possible to win this There is a format war.

This is almost a stand that determines the fate of the group. Sony will never give up. So Sony united some Wall Street private equity funds to form a consortium and led the consortium to acquire MGM.

Although this leveraged buyout cost US$4.85 billion, in fact, Sony only spent US$300 million in cash for this. Don’t forget that the films in the library can still generate value.

For Sony, this gamble was extremely successful. After the acquisition of MGM, the size of Sony's film library doubled to approximately 8,000, including the "007" series owned by MGM.

By exporting 1,400 films in the MGM library into an exclusive Blu-ray format, they won the format war in one fell swoop.

But that was the year, if MGM now does not have "007", it may not be as thin as a camel.

In that acquisition that year, in addition to the biggest winner, Sony, there were also wealthy Wall Street investors.

But they are not as lucky as Sony, and this acquisition is almost a disaster for them.

Because this acquisition caused the partners of the consortium to lose more than one billion US dollars, who could have expected a historic turning point in DVD sales. In the US market alone, MGM’s revenue from DVD sales has shrunk nearly 80%.

A huge decline in sales, soaring revenue sharing, increasing issuance costs, and other issuance issues have caused MGM to be overwhelmed. In the end, it fell into a huge deficit and could no longer repay the bank’s $3.7 billion. Interest on debt.

In the end, MGM chose to file for bankruptcy protection.

Generally speaking, when a company is unable to repay its debts, bank creditors can force the company to enter bankruptcy proceedings to seek compensation, but MGM will face a very difficult problem if it enters the bankruptcy proceedings-the future sequel of the "007" movie series Copyright has special terms that once MGM goes bankrupt, the copyright of its sequel will automatically be transferred to the other party which is the company that owned the copyright of "007" earlier than MGM.

In other words, once the copyright value of "007" is lost, MGM, which has always been proud of "007", will become worthless even if it has a massive film library. Seriously shrink.

The loss of "007" will face another disaster for those banks who desperately want MGM to repay their debts-perhaps no buyer is willing to take over MGM anymore, there is no need for a format war, nor In order to continue to produce the inevitable "007" copyright in the future, the value of MGM's remaining film library and other assets can be regarded as worthless compared to the huge debt.

In desperation, in order to protect the residual value of MGM, the bank gave MGM a three-month "extension".

The final solution was that MGM merged with Telescope Films. After the New York Bankruptcy Court released MGM’s nearly $4 billion in debt, JP Morgan followed up with its endorsement and helped MGM obtain 500 million from the bank. U.S. dollar credit, with this $500 million financing, MGM did not need to go bankrupt and completed the restructuring.

Nine Heavens God Emperor

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