Hollywood Hunter

As many times in the past, the results of the 64th Oscars have once again triggered controversy in the media.

Three women were nominated for Best Director Oscar at the same time. In the past few months, under the politically correct atmosphere of public opinion, no one would think that this Oscar Best Director award should not be awarded to a woman.

However, in the eyes of many media, Barbra Streisand's water is too obvious in comparison with the other two female directors nominated this time.

You know, this time the Oscar eight mentions the Sixth Middle School's "Times and Storms", the media score is only a barely good 6.8 points, the other two movies, "The End of the Road" has a score of 7.4, and "Piano Love" is even higher. 9.2 points.

Even if the media trend does not represent the meaning of the Oscar judges, and even if Barbra Streisand’s qualifications in Hollywood surpass the other two directors, it’s all about the Golden Man, even the best film in "Times and Storms". It also seemed that the Oscar was too unfair.

Of course, some media are very expert in making analysis from another angle.

These media believe that the three works of female directors, "The End of the Flower" and "Farewell to the Piano", are all films produced by Daenerys Entertainment. This is the key to the outcome of this Oscar award.

Because of the past few years.

The 61st Oscar, Best Picture, "Rain Man", produced by Daenerys Entertainment.

The 62nd Oscar, Best Picture, "Drive for Miss Daisy", produced by Daenerys Entertainment.

The 63rd Oscar, Best Picture, "Dancing with Wolves", produced by Daenerys Entertainment.

For three consecutive years, Daenerys Entertainment has won the best picture Oscar three times in a row, but three things, if this time, the best picture and a large number of other awards are still awarded to Daenerys Entertainment, then the Oscar will become Dany Lisi Entertainment Group’s exclusive Oscar.

Even though the previous "Rain Man", "Driving for Miss Daisy" and "Dancing with Wolves" all have excellent quality enough to win the Oscar for Best Picture Golden Man, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences certainly does not want an Oscar. Become Daenerys Entertainment's own place.

Therefore, this time, the film produced by Daenerys Entertainment, not counting the films released by other labels, still won 23 nominations, but only got two figurines. This result is completely expected. in.

Simply put, Oscar is playing balance.

The academy naturally strongly denies this balanced view of the media, and some of the senior academies and the Olympic award judges who know that "Times and Storms" is operated by the public relations team of Gaomen Pictures are even more mixed.

Since it is still an award operated by itself, Daenerys certainly will not manipulate public opinion to question the fairness of the Olympiad, but only slightly contributed to the controversy between the three films in order to stimulate the commercial potential of the three films.

Both "Farewell Piano" and "Times and Storms" were released in December last year, and there was no downgrade at this time.

As of last Friday, "Farewell Piano" took advantage of the attention of the awards season beginning at the beginning of the year, and has been shown on a small scale for more than three months, with a cumulative box office of 36.32 million US dollars.

Compared with the production cost of the film of 7 million US dollars, "Piano Love", which is expected to hit the box office of 40 million US dollars before the downgrade, is definitely a big seller.

As of last Friday, the cumulative box office of "Times and Storms" in North America reached 71.51 million US dollars.

This mainstream movie directed and starred by Barbra Streisand has won multiple awards including best picture, and it is expected that the total box office in North America is expected to exceed 80 million US dollars before the downgrade.

"The End of the Road" was released on September 6 last year, and it was already down in early December. The total box office in North America was 45.36 million U.S. dollars, which was also a hit.

After a three-month window period, Daenerys Entertainment officially released the video tape of the film before the Oscars in early March.

Taking advantage of the enthusiasm of the awards season, "The End of the Road" has sold 730,000 boxes in three weeks, and the follow-up total sales are expected to reach 1.5 million to 2 million boxes.

According to the average video tape price of $30, the film’s sales of up to $60 million in video tapes may be even better than the box office.

With the holding of the Oscars and media controversy surrounding the results of the awards, the box office and video tape sales data of the three films have seen a significant increase in the new week.

In the final analysis, for Hollywood, Oscar is not only a hall of glory, but also a commercial feast.

Cersei Capital’s competitor, KKR, made a bid of $2.15 billion to Victoria's Secret parent company LTD on March 30. Simon therefore flew directly to New York after dropping four women in Los Angeles.

The results of this year's Oscars were basically within Simon's expectations.

Daenerys Entertainment's best foreign language film Golden Man other than the best actress in "Piano Love" is also a layout of Simon in advance.

Many years later, the "Transformers" live-action movie once broke the box office record on the other side of the ocean. The foundation is that in 1987, Hasbro Company gave the "Transformers" cartoon to the local TV station for free, thus creating the image of Transformers. The national visibility.

The marginal award of best foreign language film is not difficult in public relations, and there are no other outstanding foreign language films shortlisted this year. The public relations team of Gaomen Pictures easily pushed "The Red Lantern High" on the podium.

While Hollywood was still immersed in the aftermath of the Oscars, Simon socialized some thank-you calls the next day, which swept the matter into the past tense.

After KKR's bid, Blackstone also proposed cooperation with Cersei Capital's Apollo Asset Management team, hoping that both parties would jointly fund the bid for LTD.

If you do not have enough confidence in the LTD, or the financial strength is not enough, choosing a partner is also a good choice.

However, this time is different from Simmons, which previously chose to cooperate with other capitals to acquire. For LTD, Cersei Capital neither lacks confidence nor lacks funds, and does not intend to give half of the potential future benefits to the Blackstone Group.

There have been two private equity offerings, and another private equity giant is eyeing the eye. Many arbitrage capitals have entered the market to buy LTD shares, leading to a further rapid rise in LTD stock prices.

On the day KKR made the offer, the market value of LTD broke through 2 billion US dollars.

From 1.3 billion US dollars two months ago to 2 billion US dollars at this time, the market value has increased by more than 50%, which makes the mood of the LTD board and major shareholders quite complicated.

If the LTD can have such a market value before the acquisition news is leaked, relying on the confidence of the market, whether it is additional stock issuance or bond financing, it will be able to let this company easily get through its not serious cash dilemma.

The current situation is that the acquisition of LTD is almost a foregone conclusion.

Otherwise, once the acquisition fails, the rate of decline of LTD's stock price will never be much slower than the rate of increase. Even though the acquisition of Cersei Capital has made many shareholders realize the potential of LTD, they are still more willing to directly choose high cash than the stock price plummeting again.

"KKR has still not gotten rid of the haze of the Reynolds Nabisco acquisition. My personal judgment is that Henry Kravis of KKR's bid for the LTD with us this time mainly hopes to revive KKR through a successful acquisition. The morale of people may also have the idea of ​​diverting investors’ attention."

The conference room at Cersei Capital's headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.

Leon Black, president of Cersei Capital’s Apollo Management Company, is introducing the process of the acquisition: “Because the negative impact of Reynolds Nabisco is too great, the U.S. economy has not yet fully recovered, facing the KKR board of directors and investors. KKR will never offer unlimited quotations due to the pressure of the company. Therefore, $2.5 billion should probably be the limit of KKR."

The acquisition of Reynolds Nabisco caused a disaster because of the out-of-control of the quotations under the irrational competition of all parties.

LTD had a market value of only about $1.3 billion before the news of the acquisition in February was leaked.

If KKR’s offer exceeds US$2.6 billion, a 100% premium will undoubtedly make investors question whether this private equity firm will encounter the mistakes of the Reynolds Nabisco acquisition.

Therefore, KKR is indeed very likely to control the premium limit within 100%.

For Cersei Capital, $2.5 billion is also the upper limit set by Simon.

Even if the LTD cannot be obtained, Simon will not allow this price to rise even one dollar.

In fact, at the end of the bidding, when the transaction price is not much different, everyone's competition is more likely to be a specific trading plan.

Simon thought about this, then asked Leon Black, "Where is Blackstone?"

“I’m not sure for the time being. However, Blackstone and us have no results. They may switch to cooperation with KKR. The two companies chose to bid mainly because we are interested in LTD. They should be interested in the future of LTD. There is not enough confidence. Of course, if KKR also rejects Blackstone’s invitation to cooperate, Steve Schwarzman is more likely to give up completely. He is a very cautious and conservative person, and the current economic situation does not allow Blackstone to take risks. It’s too risky. Besides, the fashion industry is not what Blackstone is good at."

Simon played with a pencil in his hand, thought for a moment, and said, "So, you try to contact some media to spread the news that KKR and Blackstone are just blindly following Cersei Capital, and have as much impact as possible."

If any company loses its own judgment and just blindly follows others, it will obviously not gain the trust of investors.

Leon Black said: "The media has already commented on this, and we can really help it. However, Simon, doing so may also attract other bidders."

"You only need to hold the upper limit of 2.5 billion US dollars," Simon said: "Even if it really fails, we still hold about 5% of LTD stock in our hands. Well, how much profit can we make if we sell?"

"At least fifty million dollars."

"So, that's it, let's talk about your specific acquisition plan."

After more than an hour, in addition to the basic acquisition offer, everyone also readjusted the future payment methods, management arrangements, and the means to ease the pressure on LTD cash and other acquisitions.

Simon finally agreed to the request of the major shareholder of the LTD Wexner family to retain 10% of the shares and the current chairman and CEO Leslie Wexner to continue to hold the existing position. Leslie Wexner was officially the founder of LTD Group, and the Wexner family still held about 30% of the shares of LTD.

In the original time and space, the LTD was controlled by Leslie Wexner until many years later. The later development of the LTD also proved the ability of the founder. The acquisition of Cersei Capital is more of an investment, and Simon has no plan to grab the control of LTD.

The meeting ended, and it was five o'clock in the afternoon.

Simon and Janet returned to the apartment on Fifth Avenue together, and on the way went to the construction site of the Westeros Building.

Today is Wednesday, April 1.

April Fools' Day.

After the official start of construction in January, the original buildings have been demolished, and foundations are being excavated at this time.

The workers had already got off work, but after a brief look at the construction site, the couple left.

"After negotiating with the New York Subway Company for a long time, they agreed to add a subway station next to our building. However, we had to pay for the renovation cost, which would cost about US$10 million. Also, there are actually many Eastern European workers employed by Tishman Speyer. Regarding illegal workers, I talked to James about it, and he said that the problem is not big."

Janet and Simon talked about the construction of the mansion, and soon returned to the apartment on Fifth Avenue.

When Simon heard about illegal workers, he didn’t care too much: “There are probably no construction sites in New York who do not use illegal workers, because there are simply not enough workers here. Moreover, even if something goes wrong, the iron The Speyer family of Lionsgate can also handle it. They have been in this business for almost a hundred years."

Entering the apartment while speaking, it was Alina Makhji, the yoga teacher Janet had found from India.

After several months of exercise, Janet's figure is a bit better than before she was pregnant.

However, the Indian girl who is very good at yoga and has a first-rate appearance and figure has always stayed.

Simon has seen Alina's body softness as much as an acrobat, unlocking 100% of the scale, so he also joked whether she had plans to go to Hollywood to develop.

There are actually a lot of stars in Hollywood who have turned from fitness coaches to actors.

Steven Seager was once Michael Ovitz's judo coach.

Alina obviously has this kind of mind, but she doesn't seem to lack further patience and ambition. Simon didn't care about it, and let the charming Indian girl stay.

After taking a shower with Janet, the woman went to the kitchen to arrange dinner, Simon changed into a casual sweater and slacks, and sat on the sofa in the living room while watching CNN's instant news while holding a drawing book to paint at will.

When the special fragrance came, Simon stopped painting and looked up to see Alina put a cup of coffee in front of him, only smiled, and then turned his attention to the sub-shot sketch before him.

After a while.

Youxiang still didn't dissipate, and a voice came from her ear: "Sir, you paint really well."

Simon glanced sideways, and the Indian girl squatted beside him, her arms resting on the armrest of the sofa, with just the right curiosity and admiration in her eyes.