Chapter 374 Financing and Sub-bases
Chapter 374 Financing and Sub-bases
"How many?"
"20 billion?"
"If the release rate is 10%, that would mean a valuation of 200 billion!"
"Boss Wang, it's only been a year and your valuation has increased fivefold. That's too much!"
In a private room at Wanda Vista Starlight Hotel, the most luxurious hotel near Galaxy Film Metropolis, several major Hollywood film and television companies and venture capital institutions who had come specially for Galaxy Film's Series B financing all started making loud noises after hearing Wang Hao's offer.
A financing amount of 20 billion, a release ratio of 10%, and a valuation of 200 billion Chinese yuan. If people in the film and television industry heard these numbers together, they would probably gasp.
You should know that Huayi, the leading private enterprise in the domestic film and television industry, has a market value of only 86 billion yuan. Galaxy Pictures is now valued at 200 billion yuan, which directly surpasses Huayi and becomes the leading enterprise in the domestic film and television industry.
Although the development of Galaxy Group in recent years has indeed surpassed that of Huayi Group, its company was established relatively recently and its president Wang Hao is also relatively young. Therefore, in everyone's inherent impression, Wang Hao's Galaxy Pictures is still weaker than Huayi.
But today's valuation tells everyone that times have changed!
Galaxy Pictures and the Galaxy Group behind it have long grown into a behemoth without anyone noticing, and have trampled on their predecessors with a brutal attitude.
Of course, this feeling is not as strong for the Hollywood companies that come to the financing party.
They don't care who the former private leader of China's film and television industry was. The valuation of 200 billion Chinese yuan is only 31 billion US dollars according to the current exchange rate.
This amount is much lower than the 09 billion that Disney paid for Marvel in 40, but the value of the "Galaxy Cinematic Universe" is not much less than that of the "Marvel Cinematic Universe".
Moreover, now is the time when "Avengers" is selling well and the concept of "movie universe" is hotly discussed.
It is said that a hero recognizes a hero. These Hollywood film and television companies and investment companies have greater vision and insight than their counterparts in China.
Just from today's visit to Galaxy Group and [Eastern Galaxy Cinema], they have realized that the system, structure, talent pool and development potential of the entire Galaxy Group are not much weaker than those of the six major Hollywood film and television companies.
What it lacks is only time and foundation. If Galaxy Group is given another 10 years, it will surely develop into China's Disney. By then, let alone a valuation of 200 billion Chinese yuan, 2000 billion is possible.
So unlike domestic investment companies that are still haggling over the issue, film and television companies and venture capital companies from Hollywood have already begun discussing it in a low voice.
Perhaps the only thing they are not satisfied with now is that the shares released by Galaxy Pictures are too small, which is not enough for them to gain more benefits.
This financing intention dinner held by Galaxy Pictures was quite successful.
Although many investors said that the valuation was too high, by the end of the dinner, Galaxy Pictures' 20 billion share was sold out.
In addition to the existing investors Wanda Group, Huaying Group and Shenzhen Guotou, new domestic investors in this round of financing include Magic Shadow Group and Alibaba Group.
As for overseas, Sony Pictures, CJ Entertainment and New Zealand Asia Pacific Film Fund divided the remaining share.
"Come, let's raise our glasses together and wish Galaxy Pictures and [Galaxy Cinematic Universe] a bright future and a rising market value!"
Everyone raised their glasses to celebrate this perfect cooperation.
However, after the financing banquet of Galaxy Pictures, Wang Hao did not immediately return to the crew of "Gravity". The opportunity was rare, and he finally found the time to finish discussing other financing.
With the current scale of Galaxy Group and the numerous industries under its name, it is impossible to support its rapid development solely by operating profits.
Moreover, when doing business, it is not good to have the most out of yourself. Sometimes, financing may not just be about money, but also about connections and policies.
For example, Tao Piaopiao, a subsidiary of Galaxy Group, has reached cooperation with more than 3,000 cinemas in the past year by leveraging the group's connections in the film and television industry, and has deployed offline ticketing machines to most of the first- and second-tier cities across the country, and is also expanding to third-tier cities.
This kind of expansion requires extremely high funds. Before this, Taopiao.com had already completed two rounds of financing, and almost all the money raised was invested.
But even with the first-mover advantage, Taopiao.com does not mean it has no rivals.
In the past few years, the term "group buying" has become the darling of capital, and movie ticket group buying has become the second largest group buying industry, second only to the catering industry. Buying low-priced movie tickets from group buying websites has also become a trend among young people.
Although Taopiao.com is currently the leader in online movie ticket sales due to its greater professionalism and the largest nationwide coverage, competition will only become more intense in the future as the group buying industry continues to dissolve and merge, and as large Internet companies such as BAT enter the market. Even the era of watching movies for 1 yuan is about to come.
What those large Internet companies like to do most is to raise funds, burn money for subsidies, seize the market, raise funds again, and burn money for subsidies again. Only when other competitors have no money to burn and have completely monopolized the market will these companies show their true claws.
Faced with such brutal “Thousands of Groups War” and “Ticket Subsidy War”, if Taopiao.com wants to maintain its own advantages, it obviously needs huge investments, so it has to raise funds early and make financial reserves.
In addition to Taopiao.com, Galaxy Group's Xingyue Chinese website and Xingyou Entertainment also have financing plans.
For these two financings, Wang Hao spent an extra day before returning to the "Gravity" crew.
However, he only stayed in the crew for a week and then left again because of another matter.
From June 6th to June 16th, the annual Shanghai International Film Festival will be held.
This time, Wang Hao's "Inception" was nominated for an award at the Shanghai International Film Festival, but due to the tight filming schedule of "Gravity", he originally didn't want to go.
But the Galaxy Group happened to have something that needed to be coordinated with his big boss and local leaders, so he still found time to fly to the Magic City.
At the 15th Shanghai International Film Festival, the crew of "Inception" also reaped great rewards, not only defeating Xerro Masumi's film "Bears", but also winning the Golden Goblet Award for Best Picture.
At the same time, Wang Hao also successfully won the Golden Goblet Award for Best Director in the competition with Gao Shuqun, the director of "Detective Hunter Zhang". A movie won two important awards in the main competition unit of the Shanghai Film Festival. "Inception" and Wang Hao can be said to have made a lot of headlines.
And most people can say that they have no objection to this result. After all, the quality of "Inception" is there. It is said that this movie may even win an Oscar.
Of course, this is just rumored.
However, Wang Hao was still very happy to become the Golden Goblet Best Director. When he held the trophy in his hand, the smile on his face was particularly bright.
After attending the closing ceremony of the Shanghai International Film Festival, Wang Hao, together with a vice president of Wanda Group, met with the senior leader of ZJ Province in charge of culture and investment attraction, under the introduction of the Shanghai city leader.
The group went directly to NB City, which is not far from Shanghai, and conducted an investigation of the Xiangshan Film and Television Base there.
Today, the [Eastern Galaxy Movie Metropolis] jointly developed by Galaxy Group and Wanda Group can be said to be completely on the right track. A mature film and television industry production base has been built around the entire film and television park in the TZ district of Shangjing.
Although Shangjing is considered the core area of the cultural industry, its influence cannot cover the entire country. Moreover, the [Oriental Galaxy Film City] itself is mainly composed of large-scale studios and has its own limitations in landscaping.
Therefore, Galaxy Group and Wanda Group decided to imitate the model of [Oriental Galaxy Cinema] and open a branch base in the south so that [Galaxy Cinema] can take into account both the north and the south.
After some discussion, they initially selected the already well-developed Xiangshan Film and Television City as the location for this branch base.
As one of the top ten film and television bases in the country, Xiangshan Film and Television City is located in the scenic Datanggang Ecological Tourism Area in Xiangshan County, Zhejiang Province. With Lingyan Mountain as its backdrop, it cleverly combines the local mountains, rocks, caves, water, forests and other natural landscapes to create a film and television base that integrates film and television culture with tourism and leisure.
This place covers an area of 1091 acres. In 2003, because Zhang Da Huzi was going to film "The Return of the Condor Heroes", he built a Condor Heroes City here. It is also the Xiangyang City where the Battle of Xiangyang took place in the play.
Later in 2008, in order to cooperate with the great poet Chen in filming "The Orphan of Zhao", the local government built the Spring and Autumn and Warring States City to the northeast of The Return of the Condor Heroes City.
It can be said that Xiangshan Film and Television City is famous for its unique and numerous designed buildings, which can be used to shoot the Spring and Autumn Period, Qin and Han Dynasties, Tang and Song Dynasties in the distance, and Ming and Qing Dynasties in the near future.
Of course, because it is only 260 kilometers away from Hengdian, the long-time "leader" in the field of domestic film and television bases, the Xiangshan Film and Television Base is still in an embarrassing situation at the moment.
For most domestic film and television bases, Hengdian is undoubtedly a huge mountain that is difficult to match. Even with the strong support of the local government, the development of Xiangshan Film and Television Base is still not so smooth.
However, the arrival of Wang Hao, an internationally renowned director, has surprised and delighted the Xiangshan government and even the Ningbo government.
Especially after Wang Hao and Wanda's team explained their purpose, the local county, city and even provincial leaders became more enthusiastic.
A more modern film and television production base focusing on science fiction and marine themes is a big project.
However, after the on-site inspection, Wang Hao was not so satisfied with the Xiangshan Film and Television Base.
However, it rejected the idea of merging with Xiangshan Film and Television City.
Firstly, the development of "Xiangshan Film and Television City" is already very mature, and the architecture here is mainly based on the classical style of historical dramas, which conflicts with Wang Hao's idea of developing ocean-related film and television projects.
In addition, the geographical location of Xiangshan Film and Television City is still a bit remote, which does not help much for the future development of tourism in Oriental Movie Metropolis.
However, the local government had waited so long for such a big fish as [Eastern Galaxy Cinema Metropolis], so how could it just watch this big project slip away? It immediately began various lobbying activities, not only proposing many preferential conditions, but also stating that as long as the project was implemented in the province, it could be anywhere else.
The local government's sincere behavior, coupled with the fact that Wang Hao really wanted to build another film and television base in the southeastern coastal area, led to two days of inspection in Ningbo. Finally, Wang Hao chose the Hangzhou Bay New Area in Cixi City.
This place is located in the northern part of Cixi City. First of all, it has an outstanding geographical location. It is across the sea from JX City to the north and is located at the geometric center of the three major cities of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Ningbo.
Moreover, since November 2001, when the Hangzhou Bay Bridge project was approved and construction started, this place has developed rapidly and is one of the nine major marine economic clusters in ZJ province.
Corporate projects such as Volkswagen, Geely Automobile, Bosch, Visteon, CITIC Group, and Unilever have also settled here. There are 500 Fortune 13 companies and 16 projects settled here, so it is also called "Ningbo North Wing International New City District", "New Base for Modern Industrial Transformation", and "Orlando of the East".
What Wang Hao is mainly interested in is its excellent geographical location and convenient transportation. Moreover, this place is not far from Shanghai, so it will be extremely convenient to further develop the tourism attributes of the film and television industry park in the future.
The provincial and local governments not only did not feel embarrassed about Wang Hao's choice, but were very happy about it.
From a strategic planning perspective, the Hangzhou Bay New Area is an important node in the Yangtze River Delta Asia-Pacific International Gateway and a modern industrial base in ZJ Province, with its core being a cluster of high-tech industries.
Therefore, the new area is mainly dominated by the secondary industry. In addition to the automobile industry with Shanghai Volkswagen and Geely Automobile as the two leading vehicle manufacturers, the three emerging industries of chemical fiber industry, new materials, intelligent electrical and high-end equipment are also the core of Hangzhou Bay New Area.
But having only the secondary industry is naturally not conducive to the development of the entire Hangzhou Bay New Area.
After all, the local government does not want to just build an industrial base.
"Ningbo North New City, Ecological Hangzhou Bay", "There is Pudong New Area in the north and Hangzhou Bay New Area in the south", these are not just slogans.
The existence of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge is both an advantage and a disadvantage of the Hangzhou Bay New Area. People work in the Hangzhou Bay New Area, but prefer to go to Shanghai for consumption and entertainment.
Now, if the branch base of [Oriental Galaxy Cinema] can be established here, it will definitely be good news for the tertiary industry in Hangzhou Bay New Area.
This will greatly enhance the region's strength in the cultural industry, make the future development of the Hangzhou Bay New Area more diversified, and truly become a new international city that is "suitable for living, working, tourism, production, ecology and life."
(End of this chapter)