Kang Jianfei kept an eye on the stock prices of the major Hollywood giants in order to take action at the right time.
Among the major giants, MGM_United Artists was the first to be excluded by Kang Jianfei. This unlucky Hollywood giant has been tossed by three buyers since the 1970s, and various departments and subsidiaries have been split up and sold.
It has now become a ** film company.
MGM was already in a mess in the hands of its former owner, Turner Broadcasting. After Turner Broadcasting found out it couldn't afford the mess, it took away the last valuable thing MGM had - the last thing in the world.
The largest video library.
Now that MGM is in the hands of an Italian consortium, the only valuable thing is the copyright to the 007 series of movies. This is what the Italian consortium insisted on keeping when it bought MGM.
Kang Jianfei didn't want to spend a lot of money to buy a ** film company that was heavily in debt.
What was subsequently eliminated was 20th Century Fox, which was bought by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch two years ago. Murdoch is now ambitiously building a media empire, and 20th Century Fox is an important part of his empire. Kang Jianfei
You can only buy it through a hostile takeover if you have more money than Murdoch.
Then among the major Hollywood movie giants, there are still Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures and The Walt Disney Company.
Among them, Disney has been very prosperous in recent years. It has acquired small film companies and established its own TV network. Kang Jianfei cannot easily win it.
The situation of Universal Pictures is similar to that of Disney. This movie giant has been in the hands of American music companies for more than 20 years. Not only is it very profitable at the box office, but it is also doing well in TV movies, movie music and movie tours.
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What Kang Jianfei really likes and tries to buy is Paramount Pictures and Columbia_TriStar Pictures. And Turner Broadcasting Company, which bought the MGM film library (MGM's film library includes another Hollywood film library)
rights to all early films by giant Warner Bros.).
Paramount is now in the hands of Gulf Western Industries. Its boss is a businessman who knows nothing about movies. However, under his unreserved delegation of power, Paramount has frequently produced good films and achieved profitability in the past two decades.
It has been very good. The real management of Paramount is Barry Diller and his two assistants Michael Eisner and Jerry Katzenberg. These three people brought Paramount, which was once in trouble,
Bring back the top throne of Hollywood.
However, Barry Diller aims to build a new television network. He was poached by Murdoch who wanted to build a media empire three years ago. Paramount only has two assistants of Barry Diller left.
The assistants are not ordinary people either. Michael Eisner is the future head of Disney. And Jerry Katzenberg is the future head of DreamWorks.
But now these two future talents have failed to take power. After Barry Diller left, Paramount was controlled by a conservative. Paramount has been declining in the past three years. Such performance is not good, but it has strong strength and
The company has unlimited potential and has two talented people in the future. In Kang Jianfei's eyes, it is simply a piece of fat.
As for Colombia_Samsung, this company is now owned by the famous Coca-Cola, and its operating conditions are neither good nor bad. Anyway, it is just so-so. In another time and space, two years later, a Japanese tycoon who was not short of money became
The bully spent a whopping $6 billion to buy Columbia TriStar and then changed its name to Sony Pictures.
If Kang Jianfei insists on buying, there is now a major stock market crash in the United States. The stock prices of Columbia Samsung and its parent company Coca-Cola have plummeted. Kang Jianfei can spend up to US$2 billion to buy more than 60% of Columbia Samsung's shares - including Columbia.
Several subsidiaries of Samsung.
Kang Jianfei has not yet made a final decision on which company to buy. He has now transferred funds to the United States Bank of America and organized a professional team through a headhunting company. In the next period of time, Kang Jianfei's acquisition team will start work with Gulf Western Company and Coca-Cola at the same time.
Negotiate, choose the right time after identifying the target, and use black market acquisition methods to win over one of the movie giants.
The biggest headache was Turner Broadcasting Company. Kang Jianfei wanted to buy this company not only because of MGM's film library, but also because of its television network.
Under the protection of U.S. antitrust laws, U.S. film companies cannot operate theaters vertically. To become a Hollywood giant, in addition to making good films, it is also very important to have a media network. The parent companies of several major Hollywood giants are either
It's TV, newspapers, or records. After Coca-Cola acquired Columbia-Samsung, it also acquired shares in other related media companies, so that it can steadily make movies.
After being resold several times, MGM lost this advantage in resources for promotion and distribution, and now it has become an independent film company that no one wants.
Kang Jianfei's acquisition of the Hollywood film giant was not to show off his class. In addition to making money, he also wanted to distribute Hong Kong films through this company. If he could own a newspaper or a TV network, he would be able to get twice the result with half the effort in terms of distribution and publicity in the future.
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Turner Broadcasting not only purchased the world's largest film library from MGM, but also owned a complete television network. Kang Jianfei was even more determined to buy it than to buy a movie company.
…
Black Monday.
The U.S. stock market plummeted, the European stock market plummeted, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore... all plummeted.
Kang Jianfei is not in a hurry about the acquisition plan. The U.S. stock market will continue to fall for at least one or two months, and then it will rise again after a period of downturn. Kang Jianfei has plenty of time to wait patiently.
While directing "My Sassy Girl", Kang Jianfei dictated the plot outline, and then the screenwriters worked together to create "The Big Era". The framework has been completed. Several senior securities traders and economists were invited by East TV to serve as
Consultants, with the help of these professionals, the screenwriters began to slowly revise and improve the script of "The Big Era".
This stock market crash has only two impacts on Hong Kong movies: first, the box office of movies may shrink for a certain period of time in the next period, because the socio-economic downturn will pull many movie audiences back to the TV; second, the movie box office may shrink for a certain period of time;
At least in the next six months, overseas hot money in the Hong Kong film industry will decrease. The output of Hong Kong films will decrease slightly.
However, this situation will not last long. Hong Kong, Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries may suffer heavy losses from this stock market crash, but Taiwan will definitely be able to recover quickly.
Due to the continued appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar and the Japanese yen, coupled with the extremely prosperous industries in the two places, this stock market crash is a trivial matter for Taiwan and Japan. Not only will they recover in about half a year, the stock markets of the two places will continue to ride like a rocket.
Go up.
In the late 1980s, Japanese and Taiwanese businessmen had so much money that they didn't know where to invest, so they frantically invested and built factories in Southeast Asia and mainland China.
Taiwanese people call it "money floods the feet" in recent years, which means that there is so much money in Taiwan that the ankles are submerged. At that time, Taiwan's chief doctors earned more than NT$300,000 a month, which was much higher than 20 years later.
Taiwan colleagues.
Back in the day, Hong Kong films were at their peak around the 1990s. To a large extent, Taiwanese hot money blindly invested in the production of Hong Kong films.
It was not until the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1990 that Taiwan's so-called "great prosperity" ended. The weighted index plummeted from 12,495 points to 2,485 points. Taiwan's economy has never recovered since then.
The same is true in Japan. At the moment, Japan and Taiwan are still in the midst of a carnival. Even the U.S. stock market crash has not dampened the confidence of investors in both places.
All Kang Jianfei can do is to distribute the film to Japan on a trial basis. Anyway, the Japanese people have too much money to spend, and Japanese businessmen are clamoring to buy the entire United States.
"Fang Fang" directed by Kang Jianfei was released in Japan at the end of October. Due to the reputation accumulated over the years, many Japanese movie fans followed Kang Jianfei into the cinema. As a result, they fell in love with Tony Leung Ka-fai and Sophie Marceau.
"Fangfang" finally took away a box office of 10.76 million US dollars in Japan, which is not very high. It is equivalent to less than 2 billion yen, but as a literary and romantic film, it is already very rare.
"Fang Fang" was also well-received when it was released in various European countries, and Tony Leung Ka-fai and Sophie Marceau's fame skyrocketed. However, when it was screened in North America, it was coldly received.
Perhaps the American people are really not interested in this kind of film. After a lot of lively promotion, the North American box office only received a measly US$2.15 million.
On the contrary, after "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" landed in Europe, the husband-and-wife team's killer action film became very popular among European audiences, adding nearly $10 million to the global box office of the film.
Kang Jianfei rushed to finish filming "My Sassy Girl" in November, and then worked intensively on post-production work.
Time is passing by slowly. In the face of the approaching Christmas, Hong Kong businesses have begun to prepare for holiday promotions, and major film companies are also busy promoting Christmas movies.
However, Hong Kong's film market has been in a downturn since the end of October. Both DreamWorks and Golden Harvest have been prepared for unsatisfactory box office results.
The acquisition team hired by Kang Jianfei finally set its sights on Paramount Pictures after several contacts and negotiations with Paramount and Columbia.
This decision was based on the conclusion after data evaluation. Coca-Cola had no intention of selling Columbia Samsung. Kang Jianfei could only obtain at most 20% of the film company's shares through black market transactions. A forced acquisition would cost a lot of money.
As for Paramount Pictures, the film company's owner, Gulf Western Industries, has suffered setbacks in development due to the U.S. economic recession in the past few years, and was also greatly affected by the stock market crash. In addition, Paramount Pictures
It started to decline from prosperity three years ago and has not shown any improvement so far. Martin Davis, the boss of Gulf Western Company, has already made plans to take action.
However, after a series of contacts and negotiations, Martin Davis did not want to sell all his Paramount shares. This guy is a very interesting person. He doesn’t understand movies at all, but he likes to invest in the cultural industry.
He is not only the boss of Paramount, but also the American publishing giant Simon
If Japan's Sony goes to acquire Paramount, Martin Davis, who is not short of money, will not abandon Sony at all. The reason why he now agrees to sell part of Paramount's shares is simply because the buyer is Kang Jianfei.
Martin Davis didn't even know who Kang Jianfei was before. After contacting Kang Jianfei's acquisition team, he got Kang Jianfei's information. The result was shocking. Kang Jianfei's achievements in the film field were so good.
Martin Davis was full of interest in Kang Jianfei. His wishful thinking was to sell part of Paramount shares to Kang Jianfei, and then let Kang Jianfei, a film professional, reverse Paramount's three-year decline.
Paramount now nominally belongs to Gulf Western Industries. Martin Davis personally only owns 42% of the shares in it. He is only willing to sell 10% of his shares. The rest requires Kang Jianfei to go to the market and Gulf Western
Purchased from other shareholders of the company.(To be continued..)u