Heads Up Hollywood

Paris, Vivendi headquarters building, CEO's office.

Behind the desk, besides Jean-Bernard Levi, there was another young face—Dawn Walker.

On the desk, there were two thick stacks of documents, each with as many as seven or eight copies.

In front of the desk, there are two Vivendi internal staff, one is fiddling with the camera, the other is fiddling with the camera, looking very anxious.

This simple scene will be the signing ceremony of a blockbuster deal!

On behalf of Tang En Pictures, Tang En will annex Universal Pictures, Universal Music, Blizzard, USA Television Network, Houghton Mifflin and other related assets under the Vivendi Group!

There is no doubt that this is likely to be the most important transaction in the history of the two companies!

But for Vivendi, it is not glorious enough.

These assets to be sold are sunrise industries purchased by the former CEO of Vivendi, Jean Messier, who spent a lot of hard work and spent a lot of money.

But what happened?

If it didn't persist for two years, it would be resold to Americans at a low price.

Between buying and selling, Vivendi lost at least 10 billion US dollars!

No way, the situation forced it.

It was the era of the Internet bubble, and Vivendi's stock price was amazing, and its market value soared to US$100 billion. In that case, of course, Messier can buy at a premium, and the big money is frequent.

But it’s different now. The Internet bubble burst, and Vivendi fell into a debt crisis again. The market value was only 10.1 billion euros, and it simply couldn’t support such a huge media empire.

If Vivendi wants to survive, it can only sell assets!

"Twain, I have a hunch. With Universal and Blizzard, you can reach unprecedented heights in Hollywood!" Jean Levi sighed, with self-deprecating helplessness and expectations for Twain.

The reason why the transaction was successfully completed was that Tang En took the initiative to take a step back at the last moment.

This made Levi very grateful, and also deeply in awe of Tang En's persistence and decisiveness.

Tang En said humbly: "Mr. Levi, it is a great honor to receive such a high evaluation from you. I wish that after the completion of this transaction, whether it is Tang En Pictures or Vivendi, they can embark on a healthy, stable, A new period of rapid development."

"hope so!"

Jean Levy sighed softly.

Compared to the vibrant Tang En Pictures, Vivendi's situation is too complicated.

The completion of this large transaction will not allow Vivendi to escape the bankruptcy crisis. It will take years of operating and fiscal contraction to fully recover.

At this time, the cameraman finally adjusted the equipment and said, "It's done!"

Jean Levi nodded, and took a deep look at Tang En, "Then let's... sign it."

Tang En smiled happily.

Under the camera, Jean Levi and Dunn Walker shook hands intimately.

For Vivendi, this deal is not glorious, so it did not hold a public and grand signing meeting with great fanfare, but adopted this secretive and low-key handling method.

Tang En didn't care, he quickly signed his name in every contract.

Anyway, you're done!

...

On August 28, a photo of Dunn Walker and Jean Bernard Levy shaking hands at the signing table appeared on the front page of the MSN website!

At the same time, the MSN client also pushed related news - "A deal has been reached!" Dawn Walker, take Universal home! "

A month ago, Tang En went to the Microsoft headquarters and had a long conversation with Bill Gates, which not only solved the threat of QQ being attacked by Microsoft's monopoly, but also promoted the cooperation between Tang En Pictures and MSN.

Tang En Pictures will be the first to provide first-hand information to MSN; MSN will increase its news reports on Tang En Pictures.

The deal between Tang En Pictures and Vivendi has attracted great attention from the business and entertainment circles of the United States and France.

MSN can be said to be the first media to get inside news.

However, the specific details of the acquisition, MSN did not disclose.

Half an hour later, CNN TV station suddenly interrupted a piece of heavy news: "The latest news is that Tang En Pictures and the French Vivendi Group have reached an agreement to spend 16.1 billion US dollars to acquire Universal Pictures, Universal Music, USA Television Network, Huo Don Mifflin Publishing Company and other assets. This more than one month long negotiation has finally come to an end!"

Soon, Fox News also followed up the news: "Twain Films has acquired assets such as Universal Pictures, Universal Music, USA Television Network, and Blizzard Studios under the Vivendi Entertainment Department for US$6 billion in all cash. , and assumed debts of 10.3 billion US dollars, the total transaction amount was as high as 16.3 billion US dollars!"

NBC News also gave a similar statement, saying that Dunn Walker went to France in person to complete this "spectacular" merger transaction. Twain Pictures originally wanted to lower the price to less than 16 billion US dollars, but in order to prevent long nights and dreams, Twain and Vivendi's chairman of the board of directors, Jean Forto, made a concession after a phone call. It is reported that the total transaction value of this merger may reach 16.2 billion US dollars!

The statements given by several major current affairs news stations are similar, but there are slight discrepancies in the specific acquisition amount.

At 10:30 in the morning, Vivendi held a grand press conference. Almost all major French media were present, and even well-known media such as CNN, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal in the United States also participated in it.

During the press conference, Vivendi gave the most authoritative statement: For this transaction, Tang En Pictures will pay a total of US$5.9 billion in cash! And assume all 10.3 billion US dollars of debt of the entertainment department.

In other words, through this transaction, Vivendi successfully passed on the debts of Canal+ and Gaumont Films to Dunn Films.

This way of operation has an advantage: the less cash you trade, the less tax you pay.

The acquisition method of increasing debt and reducing cash is beneficial to Vivendi's finances.

There is no harm to Twain Films either.

However, according to the "Los Angeles Times" report: "Twain thinks that the debt of 10.3 billion US dollars is too high, and the interest alone needs to pay 600-700 million US dollars every year. , but the cash flow is still sufficient. Dunn will give another 2.3 billion US dollars to the bank to reduce the debt to less than 8 billion US dollars."

However, Tang En Pictures was uncharacteristically calm about this eye-catching big deal, and only announced a piece of specious news: "Twain Pictures will move to the new headquarters park within a week. September 5 , will hold a press conference at the conference center of the new headquarters park!"

In any case, Tang En succeeded!

Houghton Mifflin Press, Universal Pictures, Universal Music, Blizzard Studios, USA Television Network... These American assets have finally returned to the embrace of the United States!

The whole country celebrates!

...

After a busy summer, the deal was finally done.

$16.2 billion!

It was a little more than Twain's psychological expectation of 15.6 billion US dollars, but it was not important.

As long as you win assets such as Universal Pictures, Blizzard, and Universal Music, it will be fine.

He has yet to explain the deal to the public, mainly because it hasn't been finalized yet.

Now, only Tang En Pictures and Vivendi have reached an agreement.

It is also necessary for the judicial departments and securities regulatory departments of France and the United States to review this transaction and investigate whether there are any irregular operations such as related party transactions, insider trading, and monopoly transactions.

In short, not a big problem!

The French government urgently hopes that Vivendi can resolve the crisis; the US government urgently hopes that century-old brands such as "Universal" and "Houghton Mifflin" will return.

It is initially expected that within this week, the transaction can pass the official review.

"Twain, we will be under a lot of pressure to reduce the debt to below 8 billion US dollars." Bill McNick had a bitter face.

Before the acquisition of Universal, Tang En Pictures' cash flow was comparable to that of a bank!

This makes Bill McNick's life very leisurely.

Counting last year's $7 billion capital injection by Tang En, last year's net profit of $1 billion, and the first three quarters of this year's profit of $1.6 billion, Tang En Pictures' cash flow exceeded $9.6 billion!

This is on the premise that Dunn successively acquired Dolby Laboratories, imax, Pixar, and invested in "Ant-Man", "Harry Potter 2" and other film and television works.

But now it’s over, $5.9 billion has been paid to Vivendi, and another $200 million will be given to Michael Ovitz and the three investment banks Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Lehman Brothers as consultant fees for mergers and acquisitions.

Now, Tang En has to spend 2.3 billion US dollars to repay the debt, reducing the debt to below 8 billion US dollars.

In other words, there will only be 1.3 billion US dollars of cash flow left in the accounts of Tang En Pictures.

Tang En said lightly: "The annual interest must be kept down to less than 500 million US dollars. I don't want all the hard-earned money to be handed over to the bank."

Bill McNick said embarrassingly: "But "Ghost Rider", "The Day After Tomorrow", "Mad Max 4", and "The Walking Dead" all have to start shooting, and they need at least 500 million US dollars. Plus some reality shows, TV series , 100 million U.S. dollars needs to be set aside. And after the merger is completed, the company will definitely undergo a large-scale restructuring, and the cost of this restructuring... will not be less than 200 million U.S. dollars."

Tang En smiled disapprovingly, "Isn't there still $550 million in Universal Pictures' books? USA TV Network has $170 million in books, and Universal Music has $88 million in books. Cash from Blizzard and Mifflin Publishing The flow is relatively small, but these two companies, do not need to restructure."

The two sides negotiated very friendly, so Vivendi did not leave a mess for Tang En.

Generally speaking, in order to avoid taxes, Vivendi will withdraw all the book funds of these subsidiaries, and then complete a cash transaction at a lower price with Tang En Pictures.

This is in Vivendi's interest.

However, diverting the cash flow of subsidiaries will cause these companies to fall into temporary financial difficulties, or even panic.

Tang En did not want to see such a situation.

This is also the reason why Twain spent more money than expected in this transaction.

It is to make up for Vivendi's tax losses.