Chapter 690 Some Changes
If you look at the sales of movies, TV series and music albums starring Fan Wumian in the island country, you will find out how popular he is in that land.
Even when Jack Long and Andy Lau were at the peak of their careers, they were not as popular as Fan Wumian in the island country. After all, he was much more handsome than the two old predecessors, and his face alone could make young girls fall in love with him.
Some businesses even printed his photo on long pillows so that girls could sleep with their legs around them at night. Such a bizarre product is in short supply in the island country.
Fortunately, those vendors still have some bottom line. If they printed his photo on some adult products, Fan Wumian would be really embarrassed.
"The Golden Eyes", which has not yet been completely taken off the shelves, has already earned 71 billion yen at the box office in the island country, and "The Invisible Guest", which was just released during the summer vacation, is even more powerful than "The Golden Eyes".
With the movie "You Are the Apple of My Eye", Fan Wumian charmed countless Japanese girls and became the top of the list of "male artists most want to marry". Now he is working with Zuo Ziyan again, and he is starring in a brain-burning suspense film. The box office took off as soon as it was released.
Fan Wumian is very popular in the island country. By chance, the Hokkaido Hoshino Tomamu Ski Resort that he acquired naturally and successfully caught the attention of countless people.
With the extensive publicity from the media and fans, it has quickly become the most famous ski resort in the entire island country in a short period of time.
During the peak ski season from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, the resort received tens of thousands of tourists, including many fans who came from the mainland.
Fan Wumian attaches great importance to the island country market, but does not want to use his influence to boost the skiing tourism industry in Hokkaido. For this, he was criticized by countless netizens, who also seized on the opportunity to point fingers at him.
Especially when an island suitable for fishing was forcibly occupied by an island country, he felt that it was better to have less trouble than more. Since someone sincerely wanted to acquire it, it would be more reasonable to sell it at a high price while the negative impact of the subprime mortgage crisis was not so great.
After talking to Pu Jiajing, Fan Wumian also thought of Zhao Benshan, whom he had just met.
He felt that it was appropriate to add a ski resort to the cultural and tourism project. At least it was close to the airport, making it more convenient for vacation in the winter, which could increase the success rate of this cultural and tourism project.
A re-estimate of profits based on the accounts of Hoshinoya Tomamu Ski Resort in Hokkaido puts the figure at between $5500 million and $6000 million.
After deducting loan interest, taxes and other fees, Fan Wumian felt that it was indeed difficult to do physical business.
If the transaction was successfully completed at the price of US$6000 million, the total profit would have been just over US$ million. It would have been better to sell it directly and use the money to invest in a movie.
After getting used to making quick money, Fan Wumian felt that there was no future in doing traditional business.
In fact, it has only been one year since the start, and the company has earned hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars from a ski resort. This is already extremely exaggerated and can make colleagues so envious that they can't eat.
After further communication with Boston Consulting Group over the next two days, Fan Wumian found out that the potential seller was actually the owner of Youyiku, and without saying a word, he raised the offer price to US$7000 million.
Originally, they thought that they would bargain for a deal of 6200 or 6300 million U.S. dollars, which would be good enough. However, the boss of Uniku was very wealthy and really liked to spend time at the Hoshino Tomamu Ski Resort, so he quickly offered a purchase price of 6800 million U.S. dollars.
What's there to hesitate about?
Fan Wumian agreed without hesitation and asked the other party to send a lawyer to Hongcheng to draft the contract for signing.
At the same time, Zhao Benshan also made a decision to offer a total of 1.8 million yuan for Benshan Media, Folk Art Troupe and other companies under his name, which was only ten times the net profit of last year. It was obvious that he was very optimistic about the cooperation with Fan Wumian and believed that it could bring other benefits.
After consultation with the responsible team, it was also learned that Zhao Benshan hoped to take advantage of the financing opportunity to reorganize and integrate the companies under his control in order to carry out more detailed management.
Fan Wumian had no objection and agreed to invest 1 million yuan in the name of a private studio. He actually only paid 30% out of his own pocket and negotiated a loan with the Bank of China for the rest.
Using 3000 million RMB in cash to exchange for 35% of the shares of the planned new company "Benshan Holding Group" is a very cost-effective deal, and it will probably take less than two to three years to recover the cost.
Through Zhao Benshan and his apprentices, the company can also produce a few low-budget film and television dramas and variety shows to test the waters. Even if it doesn't make much money, it can be considered as a loss-making business to gain publicity, and it is also good to support the artists under the company.
Every day was busy, and more than half a month passed. Regarding the Bailutan Hydropower Station, Fan Wumian only briefly learned some information, and sent someone to investigate the A-share hydropower leader "Yangtze River Hydropower Group". He found that this company actually made a lot of money, but in order to invest in the construction of the hydropower station, it owed too much financing and loans, and had to pay a large amount of interest every year.
Fan Wumian himself also owed a large sum of money to others, but his income was much higher than the loan interest, so he never had to worry about the debt.
The Yangtze River Hydropower Group is different. Investing in hydropower stations is too capital-intensive, with a long turnover cycle and limited profit margins. Fan Wumian feels that if a large amount of financing is provided to help the company move forward with ease, its stock price on the Shanghai Stock Exchange will probably rise sharply.
There is no rush to discuss these things for now. The best opportunity to buy at the bottom will only appear after the financial crisis ends next year.
In addition to being busy with filming and business during this period, he also wrote more manuscripts for "Emperor of the Desolate Sky".
On July 7, Alexandra Daddario, who hadn't seen each other for a while, flew from Los Angeles to Hong Kong to visit Fan Wumian and brought the good news that with the help of Britney, she had auditioned and got the leading female role in "Twilight" with a salary of $17.
Although so many things have changed, Fan Wumian was still speechless when he learned that Daddario would play the heroine of "Twilight".
While congratulating her, he was busy with business, which soon made Daddario too busy to chat and seemed to be out of his body.
Some changes have taken place during this time.
Zuo Ziyan accompanied her parents to Singapore, where she was busy learning how to develop and manage real estate projects. Pu Jiajing was temporarily sent away by Fan Wumian and joined the crew of "The Confidence Man" as the second female lead, playing a young and righteous new con man. The female lead was played by Feng Ying'er, who partnered with Brother Hu and Uncle Da.
Fan Wumian was just thinking that he finally had a chance to relax for some time, when he received a call from Dadario, who said that he had come to the port city for a "trip" and would soon join the filming crew.
He came all the way here to give her benefits, and of course he didn't disappoint her. After he had given her all he could, the two of them got bored and started chatting in bed.
Daddario ignored the fact that he was being manipulated and said enthusiastically:
"Did you know that something happened at Marvel Studios a few days ago? It seems that there is a dispute over the position of CEO. Britney told me that it is related to you. Because of the falling stock price, some board members want to sell the company to you, while others don't want to sell it."
Fan Wumian nodded and said:
"Of course I know that if we can't come to a conclusion this time, I feel it will be difficult to acquire Marvel Entertainment as a whole, because Iron Man has been filmed, and I heard that the script is interesting and is in post-production."
The reason for the disagreements within Marvel is nothing more than the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis, the sluggish U.S. stock market, and the decline in performance in the second quarter, which has caused Marvel Entertainment's stock price to fall 12% this year.
Fan Wumian's team found the right time to remind the team that "although Marvel Entertainment's stock price has fallen, the previous offer of $10 billion for the overall acquisition remains unchanged, and they are willing to increase the offer by another $5000 million." This incident completely divided the board of directors of Marvel Entertainment.
Some smart people are worried about the failure of the "Iron Man" project, the financial crisis, and the company's excessive debt, and hope to sell the company directly. However, some conservative shareholders do not want to make a transaction.
The total market value of Marvel Entertainment is only US$8.4 million, but Fan Wumian offered an overall acquisition price of US$10.5 billion, which is a 25% premium on the stock price. Of course, many major shareholders will be tempted.
Since the equity of Marvel's board of directors is relatively dispersed, scattered acquisitions can only get a small amount of equity of 20% or 30%. This led to Fan Wumian insisting on either a complete acquisition or giving up completely, and using bluffing to force the Marvel Entertainment board of directors to negotiate a result as soon as possible.
The fact is that even if he was rejected in the end, Fan Wumian was still happy to buy back some of Marvel Entertainment's shares at a premium.
The difference is that if he controls Marvel Entertainment, he will hold it for a long time and try to grow and expand the company.
If he only holds a partial stake and is subject to the board of directors, then Fan Wumian will treat the Marvel project as a pure investment and look for opportunities to sell his shares at a good price. (End of this chapter)