Although Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and Tom Murphy's Metropolitan Media Company do not have an absolute controlling stake in AB TV, the two companies' nearly 40% stake means that after Buffett privately negotiated with Firefly, it would be easy to lobby the board of directors to agree to the deal.↖,

However, the AB TV Network is definitely not a monolithic part. Although Buffett's tough attitude, it does not mean that other major shareholders of AB TV Network do not want to reach this deal with Firefly, especially since Firefly Pictures has achieved huge profits for many years since its establishment. Even at the end of last year, Buffett's contact with Firefly alone, some shareholders publicly expressed dissatisfaction with Buffett's behavior of concealing negotiation information.

After Firefly Pictures released its 1993 financial report, many investment institutions holding shares in ab TV network were even more urgent to promote this transaction. After all, some interests are very easy to calculate. With Firefly Pictures' profitability, after the merger of the two parties, even if the original shareholders of ab TV network only hold 30% of the equity in the integrated company, as long as Firefly's profitability does not change much, the annual profit dividends of shareholders are almost equivalent to those in the ab period, but they can embezzle a large amount of funds from this cash plus equity transaction for other investments.

After Firefly Pictures and Buffett failed to negotiate and publicly released the acquisition invitation, the board of directors of ab TV quickly passed a resolution to agree to initiate negotiations with Firefly Pictures.

On February 10, after receiving the official reply from AB TV, Katsenberg and Firefly Pictures' chief lawyer Edward Lewis led the acquisition team to New York and began formal acquisition negotiations with AB.

Because the equity and debt status of ab TV network is not as simple and clear as Firefly Pictures. Firefly also invited the Morgan Stanley team as a consultant with Chris.

During the acquisition of Disney, the two parties had a very pleasant cooperation. Although Firefly Pictures was no longer the same as before, and its rich administrative resources made Firefly no longer have to rely solely on Morgan Stanley's team in this acquisition, Morgan Stanley was still very enthusiastic. It can be seen from the entire Wall Street that this was Morgan Stanley deliberately showing goodwill to Firefly Pictures.

Because after the negotiations are over, Firefly will definitely launch a large-scale debt financing plan in order to complete the acquisition, and the agency issuance of stocks and bonds is the main business of investment banks. The profits obtained from this are much richer than those of the occasionally handled corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Eric did not rush to New York with Katzenberg, but instead communicated with Katzenberg on the phone every day to negotiate the progress of the negotiations.

Of course, before Carsonberg left New York, Firefly's senior executives had already discussed in detail the acquisition bottom line of Firefly Pictures. After many discussions, Eric authorized Carsonberg to allow Firefly to sell up to 25% of its shares, and as for cash, it was relaxed to less than $10 billion.

Of course, this data is not decided at will. Firefly Pictures and Ab TV are both in a period of very good performance. Therefore, No Rui will suspect that the merger of the two parties will have an effect of one plus one greater than two. Under the best performance expectations, once the two parties merge, Firefly's profit in the next few years is likely to reach US$2 billion under the strong alliance. In this way, the proportion of shareholders who own 25% of the shares will be equivalent to the annual income of holding Ab TV at this time, so this data is relatively easy to be accepted by Ab.

Of course, what will happen in the future? Except for Eric who can see the future, no one would expect that Firefly's revenue and profits may explode again after the merger, or perhaps under the heavy debt burden of tens of billions of dollars after the acquisition, Firefly will go to destruction.

Eric personally is always very optimistic about this deal. Although Disney's performance after the acquisition of AB in the original time and space has fallen into a downturn for many years, more of this is Michael Eisner's personal reason. After Michael Eisner stepped down, Disney Group quickly regained its vitality. Whether it is in scale or profitability, it will far away from the giants such as Time Warner and News Group, which are ranked behind. All this is enough to prove the correctness of this acquisition.

As for the huge debt burden after the merger and acquisition, Eric didn't take it seriously. The late 1990s will be the period of rapid economic development in the United States, and all economic sectors, including the entertainment industry, have grown significantly. Coupled with Eric's layout in the high-tech industry, even if Fireflies are really in a temporary embarrassment, Eric can easily raise enough funds from other channels to resolve the Fireflies crisis. What's more, the possibility of such a thing happening is not high.

Since last year, Eric has repeatedly requested to expand Firefly Pictures' 3D animation production department. However, in this era, 3D animation technology has just emerged. Except for Pixar, there is no large-scale 3D animation company in North America and even the world. As a last resort, Eric can only adopt an internal training mechanism. While expanding Pixar's scale, Disney's hand-drawn animation department also stopped recruiting and training hand-drawn animators and gradually tried to transform into computer animation.

While maintaining close contact with Carsonberg in New York, Eric has been focusing on his animation department in recent times. He has also personally led the organization of exchange meetings between Pixar and Disney Animation departments.

"The Lion King" produced by Disney's animation department has been completed and the preliminary promotion has begun. In addition to "The Lion King", Disney Animation also has several animation sequel projects including "Aladdin Lights 2". Because the production cycle of reclaiming animations is longer than 3D animation, these projects were determined before Firefly Pictures acquired Disney, but in addition to these, Eric no longer approved new hand-drawn animation film projects, and it is unspoken to say that if Disney's existing hand-drawn animators are unwilling to receive training in computer animation production, after all the hand-drawn animated film projects in hand are completed, these people will be able to produce low-cost cartoon projects for Disney Children's Channel in the future.

Most of Disney's hand-drawn animators are not too old, and with their very skilled painting skills, it is not too difficult to complete the training of computer animation production software. In order to avoid causing the rebound of hundreds of hand-drawn animators, Eric also promised to give these people full learning and adaptation time, and fully bear the costs required during the training.

Pixar staff who attended the exchange meeting successively came out of the headquarters of Disney Animation Studio in Burbank. John Lasseter, who was walking side by side with Eric, said: "Eric, although no one publicly refuted it for the time being, I feel that many people in the studio are still very resistant to this change. Maybe you will have some trouble."

Of course, Eric is also very clear about this. Disney Animation Studio has more than 700 hand-drawn animators. Although more than 70% of them are around 30 years old, some of them are even Walt. Old people from the Disney era, these people are definitely not able to adapt to the new animation production methods, so it is almost inevitable to be eliminated in the future. In this case, no one will be left alone. The reason why Eric didn't come out to refute when he spoke just now was mainly because the various advantages shown by Pixar 3D animation were almost overwhelming, and Eric's decision was a bit sudden, and many people couldn't react, so there was no one who would do this "showing bird" without any preparation.

"They all understand the advantages of 3D animation over hand-drawn animation. Both Toy Story and The Bug Crisis have proved this, so this transformation is inevitable." Eric and John Lassett said as he walked: "If this transformation cannot be completed, Fireflies can only cut them off, and I have done what I can do. The existing hand-drawn animation projects in their hands can last for at least two years, and the time is very relaxing for them. If they are really cut off, I think they will never be desperate. Major TV stations need many hand-drawn animators to make children's cartoons."

John Lasseter, who had worked in Disney Animation for a long time, sighed slightly when he heard Eric's words. But he knew very well that capital was ruthless. Although Eric was not a harsh boss, he was not a philanthropist. It was very difficult for him to do this. If it were other companies, if they were not optimistic about the prospects of hand-drawn animation, they might directly announce layoffs, and would never give employees such loose adaptation time.

It was still early, and because of the busy work, John Lasseter and others did not plan to spend the night in Los Angeles. Eric also specially arranged a business plane under Firefly Pictures to send the group back to San Francisco.

Eric originally planned to take John Lasseter and others to Santa Monica Airport in person, but as soon as he arrived at the parking lot, Eric saw Elizabeth with toad mirrors walking down from a red BMW sedan, waved to Eric, and walked over.

"Eric, I think we have to go to St. Monica by ourselves," John Lasseter said to Erik with a smile, and everyone else chuckled.

Eric and Elizabeth came over and took the initiative to introduce both parties. Seeing the girl's desire to speak but stopped, Eric had to give up the idea of ​​sending John Lasseter and others. Fortunately, John Lasseter and others didn't care much about these details. After saying goodbye to Eric, they got in the car and left.

After everyone left, Eric and Elizabeth walked to the red BMW together, smiled and reached out to knock on the hood, and asked, "New car?"

Elizabeth brought the toad mirror again, raised her chin and teased: "I bought it half a year ago. In the eyes of you, a guy who never cared about others, it is not wrong to say it is a new car."

Eric looked at no one around, reached out and pinched Elizabeth's chin, and smiled, "Don't you think you should put away your 'little paws' if you ask me for something?"

Elizabeth opened Eric's hand with a snap, looking confident, and said, "We have completed the acquisition of Miramax."

It was about to get off work time. Eric didn't want to be watched. He opened the car door and sat in the red BMW. He smelled the faint fragrance of the woman in the carriage and asked Elizabeth who followed him: "Oh, how much did it cost?"

Elizabeth started the sedan and slowly drove out of the parking lot, saying: "Acquiring 90% of Miramax's shares for $100 million, the Weinstein brothers retained 10% of the shares and continued to take charge of Miramax's business."

"It's a bit expensive, but it's a good choice to keep some shares from the Weinstein brothers, otherwise if they both leave, Miramax will not be of much value."

Elizabeth said: "If they left Miramax, wouldn't it be worthless? And with the entire News Corp as their backer, the profit-oriented brothers wouldn't leave so easily."

Eric said: "The Weinstein brothers suffered enough of the shortage of funds a few years ago. Of course, they would be very happy to work with Twentieth Century Fox in the first few years, but people have ambitions. When you can't tolerate the ambitions of these brothers, everyone will break up."

Elizabeth personally participated in the negotiations to acquire Miramax, and of course she knew very well what the brothers were like: "If that is true, just leave if you want, and Fox can't let them turn against each other."

Eric watched Elizabeth turn on the highway with the steering wheel, then remembered and asked, "Where are you going to take me?"

Elizabeth said in a fearless tone: "The company's senior executives have decided to let the Weinstein brothers personally serve as the producer of "Brave Heart". This project is the first thing you like, so everyone has dinner at one time and talk."

Eric was "shocked" by Elizabeth's tone for granted and asked weakly: "This, Firefly and Fox are competitors after all... Are I considered a foe when I do this?"

"For sure!" Elizabeth nodded vigorously: "If you don't want to, the woman named Sophie Marceau will go wherever she goes."

"Okay, you're ruthless."

"snort……"

The meeting place was chosen at an exquisite French restaurant in Beverly Hills. When Eric arrived, the Weinstein brothers seemed very enthusiastic, while Mel Gibson seemed much colder. Eric could also feel that this guy had either lost his nature by success or had a low emotional intelligence. However, Mel Gibson's agent named Ed Limato was very enthusiastic. Eric happened to have this person in his memory. It seemed that Ed Limato had served as Mel Gibson's scriptures since the early 1980s.
Chapter completed!