Chapter 237 Earn and spend
Before, due to the explosion of "Titanic", Roland was in a good mood.
When the box office was skyrocketing and records were being set in a row, David still didn't want to ruin Roland's good mood by using the "Sony to cheat money" thing even though the annual payment point had been reached.
But now, since Roland took the lead in clarifying and guessing the inside story, and did not express too strongly, David no longer had any worries, and while it was still early, he decided to give Roland a clear calculation of this year's harvest. .
"In the Thai baht business, I used Berkshire Hathaway's stock to lend 500 million."
"Although calculated based on exchange rate fluctuations, the short-selling income is theoretically more than five times their estimate, but in the end, they still settled with us at five times. They sent us the money at the beginning of last month. The income is 2.5 billion, and after deducting the 20% commission they want to take, we get 2 billion, and then redeem your pledged stocks. After deducting the loan interest, the actual money you get is 14.7 Three hundred million."
"Wow? Half a year, 1.473 billion? This is money grabbing!"
Seeing the report that David pushed, Roland, who was still thinking about **** Sony, exclaimed.
Looking at the string of zeros, Roland coughed a few times involuntarily. After eight years of filming, the sum of all the remuneration was not as much as this time. Even though he was mentally prepared, after seeing the numbers, his heart still remained the same. Very emotional!
No!
I am so happy!
"Fuck! I've never seen so much cash in my life!"
Counted the number several times, and after confirming that it was correct, Roland laughed and cursed.
"Do you think I've seen so much cash?" Seeing Roland smile again, David also relaxed, rolled up his sleeves, leaned back, rested his left arm on the armrest, and opened his fingers slightly, telling about the past.
"Shit! When they called me to settle the bill, I couldn't believe how easy it was!"
"I followed suit and made 200 million yuan. After deducting the principal, commission, and fees, I got more than 500 million yuan!"
"I built a house with your father before, and it took more than 20 years to build a net worth of more than one billion yuan. After getting mixed up with these financial players, I quit doing nothing and spent half a year eating, drinking and having fun, and the 200 million principal Can you give birth to the wealth that I have worked hard for more than ten years?"
"This feeling is so wonderful! It's so wonderful that I feel that my life has been wasted!"
While feeling emotional, David seemed to remember something.
Opened the drawer, took out a pack of cigarettes, took out two, and threw one of them to Roland.
Following the trend, he took it, put it in his mouth, half got up, and walked along the lighter on the table.
Hearing the piercing sound, the flint brought out a flame, took a deep breath, paused for a while, and then swallowed.
When wisps of white smoke slowly exhaled from the nasal cavity, Roland, who was in excitement, squinted his eyes.
Like a cat, leaning lazily on the seat.
"Unfortunately, not cash..."
"If the 1.4 billion Franklin is in front of me, I think I will be more excited..."
"Pounce over excitedly and swim in it!"
"Numbers on paper will never face Jinshan directly, and have more impact!"
The greedy remarks made David, who was also leaning on the seat, sneer, "Roland, you usually look calm, why are you so whimsical now? 1.4 billion US dollars is in front of you? Do you still want to rush? Are you not afraid? Was crushed to death?"
"One piece of Franklin is 1.05 grams, 100 million is 1050 kilograms, 1.4 billion is 14,700 kilograms, which is 14.7 tons! Once you pounce on it, Jinshan can fall down. It smashed your head, okay?"
"Bad luck, my life is gone! How about swimming? When I dig you out, I have to hire an excavator!"
The imaginary coupled with complaints made the two of them giggle.
If they were still thinking about the gains and losses of Warcraft Film and Television after Sony made the accounts, then now...
Letting Sony do the accounting for another five years, it will not be worth Roland's half-year empty-handed white wolf!
Sure enough, the fastest way to collect wealth in this world is to rob!
After laughing, while flicking the ashes into the ashtray, David continued: "But, although I made money, I can't spend it all according to your request. Don't you want to continue eating Do you want to invest in Apple shares?"
"Unfortunately, many holding institutions have stopped selling."
"I received 6.83% for you, and spent almost 190 million."
"You currently hold 17.2 percent."
"At the beginning of last month, you still had 1.473 billion, and now, you have 1.283 billion left..."
"Those holding institutions that clamor that Apple is a shame for technology companies will not sell?"
Roland opened his eyes, closed them again immediately, and said lazily: "Whatever, 17.2 will allow me to keep my position as the major shareholder. Unless the rest of the guys unite, who will oppose Steve?" , whoever has to get out!"
Although Roland had repeatedly stated before that he would get a veto.
But that's just kidding.
If it really takes so many shares, it will trigger the acquisition of regulations.
Roland never thought of acquiring Apple, because this kind of technology company cannot become more inflated through privatization.
What's more, just like General Electric is optimistic about Steve Jobs, not all capitals think Apple is rubbish.
And in this case, why would Roland think of eating alone?
The more diverse the shareholders' identities, the better the company will develop, because in many cases, these shareholders who want the company to develop better are capable of helping the company solve some difficult things.
Capital has always been in a group.
This is why Spielberg wanted to pull Roland to acquire Sony Columbia Samsung.
Before, Roland in the eyes of the old man might not be qualified, but after having a meal with Bill Gates, the old man also knew how rich he was as a student.
"After the acquisition of Apple shares, there is still 1.293 billion, plus the 63.5 million income of Warcraft Film and Television this year, the money available to me is 13.5..."
Before Roland could finish the calculation, David interrupted: "Don't calculate how much money you have, I have other things that I haven't told you! Now that we are talking about Shouwang Venture Capital, I will Let me tell you another thing..."
"Amazon, do you know? The one I voted for you..."
“After Amazon went public this year, its stock price has been rising all the way, and Jeff Bezos, who has money in his hand, wants to expand.”
“Since the online bookstore is already the largest, he plans to develop into the field of audio-visual products.”
"Video discs are the same as books, and they need to be introduced, but video discs are different from books. People who buy books can know whether it is the book they want just by looking at the title and author of the book. People who buy video discs often cannot see the name and name of the movie. After I introduced it, I knew whether I was interested in this movie or not, so... this guy asked me for the price."
"Amazon wants to acquire IMDb from us, and complete the acquisition in the form of shares and cash."
"The price they offered was 320 million."
Wow! Wow! Wow!
After hearing the news, Roland, who squinted and leaned on the seat, smiled even wider.
Holding the empty glass that he had finished drinking, he got up and wanted to go to the water dispenser to pour a glass of water, but halfway there, he remembered the wine cabinet that David hid in the study, walked straight over, took out one casually, Unscrew the cap and fill yourself up.
"He wants to buy IMDb? This news really caught me off guard."
Although Roland was a little surprised in his wording, his words were full of jokes, "But, I also know that IMDb can only play its greatest role in the hands of Amazon."
“After they bought IMDb, they can add a link to buy the movie directly on IMDb.”
"After clicking the link, the user can place an order to purchase, so as to achieve precise traffic guidance."
"Or in other words, this is the way to maximize profits."
"But, IMDb is also very useful to me!"
"Since Jeff Bezos knows that IMDb is my industry, why doesn't he choose to cooperate with IMDb?"
“Am I like the type of person who would refuse to cooperate? Amazon just pays a licensing fee and we can open the link.”
Roland's question made David chuckle, he drank the lemon juice in the glass, and then filled it up for himself, "Because Jeff Bezos thinks that the acquisition of IMDb is the most economical way. .”
"In addition, he also specifically named his name in the acquisition offer. He will not interfere with IMDb's operations. He only needs IMDb to insert ads for Amazon. He doesn't care what Cole Needham and you are doing now."
"And he really wants to see you still have a lot of enthusiasm for IMDb after the acquisition."
"Oh... This guy wants to buy IMDb, I still give IMDb a platform!"
Roland understood, and asked self-deprecatingly, "Do I look like such a stupid person?"
"The company is not mine anymore, why should I make some explosive topics exclusive to IMDb?"
Roland thinks that Jeff Bezos is simply making a good plan-stingy to death.
If it is a cooperation, Amazon will have to pay a large amount of advertising fees every year, and the money will increase with the continuous appreciation of IMDb, but if it is an acquisition... the money will be saved. The most important thing is that from now on Look, the lunatic who can increase the value of IMDb is not the second largest shareholder of Amazon...
But David, obviously don't see it that way.
"Because after you sell IMDb, you can eat 18.35% of Amazon's shares..."
"In this acquisition, they plan to take 5% of the shares and 200 million in cash."
"Based on your shareholding ratio in IMDb, you can get 335 million shares and 134 million cash."
"Don't you want me to continue sweeping Amazon shares for you?"
"Now you don't need to scan, sell IMDb to him, and he will pay you back!"
Roland touched his chin unexpectedly.
Although on the surface, IMDb, which is estimated to be 500 million by the outside world, is sold to Amazon for 320 million, which is simply a discount, but the problem is that Amazon's 3.35 shares are really valuable. !
Besides, for Roland, the current IMDb actually serves as a control review.
In his previous life, Roland himself used the IMDbPro and TV series interfaces. He didn’t even think about what to do. If Jeff Bezos is willing to delegate power and ensure Roland’s influence on IMDb, then selling it to Amazon is the best choice. ah!
"This is really a good deal." Roland thought for a while, and agreed with a smile, "This is the second good news."
"Is it right?"
"Of course." David took a sip of wine, then found the cooperation invitation from the data mountain, pulled out the pen, and was about to write notes on it, and at the same time he asked affirmatively, "Then I'll let someone talk about it." ?”
"Hmm." Roland pronounced with his nose, "By the way, I want a board seat, and then it's still you."
"Shit! You really think I'm not busy enough!" David cursed, but still wrote down the operation plan on the information.
In fact, throughout 1997, Roland's company was the same as Roland's, with no personnel involved.
Although Warcraft Film and Television is a film and television drama production and distribution company registered in Los Angeles, the problem is that under Roland's showmanship, the company that should have been developing with great fanfare has been played by him as a copyright management company.
Although Shouwang Venture Capital is an investment company registered in San Francisco, it is a pity that the entire company has only made two angel investments so far. In addition to Yahoo and Amazon, IMDb directly acquired Apple and Microsoft. Scan goods.
And Interstellar Records, which has been in operation for several years, finally opened this year, but...
Well, this is actually a copyright operation company.
Unsigned people's development ideas make it a leader in the entire music industry.
In addition to these three companies, Blizzard Entertainment, which has the best development momentum, has not honestly developed this year.
After Mike Mohamy received a call from Roland at the beginning of the year, they launched an acquisition of the game studio in England.
The rock star was successfully embraced by Blizzard Entertainment. The "GTA" released this year was also a big hit in Europe. However, when the acquired subsidiary released blockbuster models one after another, some problems appeared in the Blizzard headquarters.
"In fact, in the past year, the most reports I received were from Mike."
"He kept telling us that "StarCraft" will be skipped, "StarCraft" will be skipped, and "StarCraft" will be skipped."
"In the beginning, it was the cynicism at last year's E3 exhibition. The effect of the DEMO of "StarCraft" was very bad, so they chose to tear it down and redo it; but, after returning from vacation this year, didn't you let them recruit people to expand? Then new and old There was a problem with the handover of the employees, which led to countless bugs when they wrote the game..."
"The thing that slows down the progress the most is that they don't understand. Since the engine of "Warcraft" was developed in C language on MSDOS, when it came to "StarCraft", after the PC system entered the Windows era, they decided to use C++ to write " The engine of StarCraft. But unfortunately, people including Mike don't know much about C++, so they write as they learn, and then..."
"Created a disaster."
"When you were filming Saving Private Ryan, Mike called me specifically to ask if I could help him borrow some engineers from Microsoft. In his words, 'Writing games in C, it's easy to be careless. If you hit your own foot, C++ is less likely to hit your foot, but once you hit your foot, your whole lower body will be useless.'”
"At the beginning of this month, he called me and told me that "StarCraft" has encountered a BUG that cannot be solved at all, that is, farmers will be congested due to the unit volume during the mining process. Although I don't understand, What do they mean by 'the units are all textures, so the collision volume will be particularly large', but I know one thing, that is, Mike said that they will not skip the ticket this time. If this problem cannot be solved, then Just change it to ignore the collision volume."
Okay! Well! Well!
No matter how strong the banknote ability is, it can't do the tradition of bouncing tickets!
Shaking the water glass, with his movements, the wine inside created a vortex.
Regarding the situation facing Blizzard, Roland really had nothing to say, "So they won't hold the annual meeting this year?"
"What kind of annual meeting is this? "StarCraft" will be released on March 31 next year. They can't even play normal games until now. How can they have the mind to go out and play?" David shrugged his shoulders with a sense of reason As it should be.
"Well, it seems that you have to buy those game studios." Roland was about to entrust him again.
"What? Acquisition? What do you want to buy?" David was shocked. You just got the money, and you are thinking about how to spend it?
If you have money in hand, you will naturally have to spend it.
Otherwise, how to reflect the value of the money?
What's more, the current acquisition is for future attacks...
Since Amazon's acquisition of IMDb will not be concluded for a while, the 130-400 million cash is like a moon in the water for Roland, but even if the money is not added, there is still a double-star group to give. Roland already has 1.4 billion in cash for his share of goods, and in this case, if he doesn't expand, he will be sorry for himself.
Written on paper Naughty Dog, which belongs to Universal, SuckerPunch under Microsoft, Bend Studio, which is well-known in the industry, and CDProjekt, a Polish company that has been born but is a game agent.
"Let's buy these four first."
David frowned upon hearing the light and fluffy words.
This is an acquisition company! It's not going to the vegetable market to buy Chinese cabbage!
How can you say something simpler than eating and drinking?
Thinking of this, David, who was about to stab back, suddenly felt something was wrong...
hiss...
For Roland, acquiring a company is indeed easier than eating and drinking!
Because he doesn't have to do anything except pay money!
I was helping him run!
Thinking of this, David, who thought Roland was generous, turned dark, "I'm going to do it again, right?"
"Including Amazon's offer to acquire IMDb, it's only a week before 1998, and you've already arranged the Wuzhuang case for me, right? It's ruthless enough, ruthless enough, really ruthless..."
Roland's face was full of glory when he heard the broken thoughts. He took the initiative to get up, took out a cigarette and lit it for David, then filled his glass with wine, and bumped into him lightly, "David, others don't know that I Don't you know?"
"This kind of case can be handed over directly to the managers in the company."
"But I have to sign it in the end!" David glared at Roland angrily, "I won't show you, what if those managers just used money to throw those founders out in order to complete the task?"
"You want to buy them, but you want them to continue to be independent. This kind of case is very troublesome, okay?"
"And, based on what I know about you, these four acquisitions should be just the beginning, right?"
"Although I don't know these companies, the acquisition of them will cost three or four billion at most, and there is still one billion left. I think you will definitely find a way to spend it tonight, just like last year, huh?"
The sharp words made Roland give a thumbs up.
"David, you really know me too well."
"If I don't spend my money, I feel bad all over."
"Actually, if it wasn't for ZeniMaxMedia not selling it, I would actually like to acquire their Bethesda game studio. If it wasn't for EA's acquisition of MaxisSoftware for 12.5 billion last year, I think its name would also appear in this On the list, if it weren't for Konami, it would be impossible to put Hideo Kojima..."
"If you want to die, just say so." Before Roland could finish speaking, David interrupted him, rolled his eyes and said, "Aren't you afraid of being overwhelmed by acquiring so many studios at once?"
"Game studios are different from other companies. During the R&D cycle, they can only rely on old games to make money, while emerging studios have no source of income, so they have to pay for it themselves, even if the current Blizzard can support Blizzard. Headquarters, Blizzard North, and Rockstar R&D, but if you acquire seven companies at once, you will only have a shortage of funds, and you may go bankrupt.”
"So I will buy four companies first, and use the rest of the money to do other things first."
As soon as David finished speaking, Roland blocked his question.
The reasonable words choked David who wanted to continue preaching.
have to!
According to what you said, your idea of acquisition and expansion is still correct?
David didn't care, "Okay, I can't say enough about you, what else do you want to buy, just tell me..."
"Which company are you looking at again, or who are you looking at again?"
Roland understands that David is complaining about the way he looks at people's investment, especially after spending nearly 400 million on Apple, this kind of madness makes people feel helpless—if you like Pixar, then you can directly spend 1 billion Is it not good to buy it?
Perhaps after Jobs took the money, he directly bloodbathed Apple's shareholders!
But Roland doesn't care about these complaints, and he knows that David, who has been helping him for so many years, is just talking casually, just as a joke, "No, no, there is one billion left, and I won't buy the company for the time being. "
"David, it's time for you to use your expertise. You can help me find a piece of land or look at an island."
"Next, strive to build the zoo before February 16, 2000."
?
? !
? !
David, dumbfounded.
He always thought that the words about building a zoo were used by Roland to coax his daughter, and as her daughter grew older, she might understand this and would not be entangled with it, and after Roland owned a billion, David always thought that he would repeat the behavior of investing in Apple last year and spend one billion directly into the stocks of technology companies, but he didn't expect...
"Are you really going to build a zoo?" David's voice rose instantly.
"Of course, is there any problem?" Roland felt very normal, "Of course we will do what we promised Li Qi, and if we say we will build it for her when she is ten years old, then it will not be delayed until she is eleven years old. "
"Then do you need to take out one billion? This is one billion! One billion! You just spent it on Liqi? Wait... You can't really do what James said, to Li Qi Is Qi interesting?"
"Fart! James is talking nonsense again? And! Who said that a billion is all used to build a zoo?"
"What?"
"When choosing a location for the zoo, please show me a house by the way... I can accept a villa worth 10 million yuan or a manor house worth 100 million yuan... Then, prepare me a diamond ring and a necklace... Look at the diamond ring Buy it, but the necklace must be a blue diamond, not the tanzanite that Fox and the others fiddled with, it must be big enough! It doesn’t matter how much it costs, but it must be done before Oscar, it will be of great use..."
Note: ① "StarCraft" has actually undergone two reworks. At the beginning, what Blizzard wanted to do was "Warhammer 40K". Replaced the elements of "Warhammer 40K" and created "StarCraft". However, while working on "StarCraft", they also acquired Blizzard North. Everyone in the company agreed that "Diablo" is the top priority level, so "StarCraft" was stopped, and after "Diablo" was launched, Blizzard re-made "StarCraft", but it was ridiculed by the crowd at E3 in 1996, and the industry also changed from C language to C++, so the "StarCraft" written in C language was redone again, and there is no unit volume collision, which is indeed a BUG. ② Bethesda studio produced "The Elder Scrolls" and "Radiation". ③ MaxisSoftware studio produced "The Sims".
(end of this chapter)