Top of the Great Era

Chapter 1573 The right to control should be used in the right way

This trip to Israel was very successful. After Ziwei Star Global completed the reorganization last year, it may really take off this year.

At the beginning of the year, we ushered in two good starts.

Successively won two companies, PrimeSense and Lucasfilm.

However, this cost is not small.

At the beginning of the establishment of Ziweixing Global, all parties raised a total of 250 billion US dollars.Previous acquisitions of MGM, Summit Entertainment, Marvel, the relevant copyrights of "Spider-Man", DreamWorks Animation and Universal Pictures cost a total of 164.3 billion US dollars.

Among them, US$148.8 billion was paid in cash, US$10.5 billion was in the form of assumed debt, and US$5 million was in the form of stock.

This is not over yet, this series of acquisitions has to bear additional expenses, the total of consulting fees and taxes has reached 11.4 billion US dollars; after the acquisition is successful, business restructuring is required, and this work is not over yet, the budget has reached $6.5 million.

After this series of operations, Ziwei Star Global still has USD 83.3 billion in liquidity on its books.

The acquisition of PrimeSense and Lucasfilm this time will further compress cash flow.

After returning to Los Angeles, Ziwei Star Global's budget summary for this year has been produced.

The biggest expenditures are mainly two: new film projects and headquarters buildings.

This year, Ziwei Star Universal will launch 42 new film projects, including 34 from Universal Pictures, 2 from Marvel, 2 from MGM, 1 from Summit Entertainment, and 3 from DreamWorks Animation.

The total investment budget reached 29.7 billion US dollars.

Fortunately, there are many benefits.

After the reorganization, Ziwei Star Universal will surely surpass Warner and become the most shining movie kingdom in the Hollywood box office market. It is estimated that the total revenue based on the movie business will reach 125.6 billion US dollars this year, and the operating profit will reach 10.8 billion US dollars.

However, the film market has changed too much.

Especially Hollywood commercial blockbusters have too much impact on performance. Once a certain film fails, it may lead to a sharp drop in performance at the end of the year.Similarly, if a certain blockbuster is a global hit, it may produce a very impressive report card at the end of the year.

As far as this budget report is concerned, Zhou Buqi doesn't believe it.

The annual profit is only 10.8 billion US dollars?
This is too petty!

DreamWorks Animation is now at its peak. This year's three animated films are all popular. It just so happens that the first animated film "Despicable Me" by Universal Pictures' Searchlight Animation Studio will also be launched this year.

The profit created by these cartoons alone may be more than 10.8 billion US dollars.

Not to mention the 3D blockbuster "Iron Man 2", which was highly anticipated by Zhou Buqi this year.

Well, I just don’t know how much income from the movies released this year will be included in this year’s income book when making the financial budget.

This kind of accounting is too complicated, and there are several systems.

Especially the film industry.

Movies are the best projects for money laundering, tax avoidance, tax evasion, and profit transfer. Hollywood has formed a complete set of detailed, complete and mature gray industry chains.

Many famous Hollywood blockbusters are invested by international black money, such as the famous "Wolf of Wall Street".

It's pretty much the same all over the world.

Ziwei Star Global is not short of money, so don't participate in black money activities, but it is still necessary to avoid tax properly and legally.Zhou Buqi didn't understand the twists and turns, so his confidant Ann Sanov came to help him as a consultant.

A profit of US$10.8 billion is indeed very small.

But there is no need for more profits.

In Ziwei Star Global’s shareholding composition, Zhou Buqi only has 10%, including the 16% held by Zhou’s family fund, the total is only 26%.

Making "profit" the book profit of the company means that only 26% of the book profit belongs to Boss Zhou.Now that he is in control, he can transfer the company's profits to his own pockets in a reasonable and reasonable manner, which is 100% in his hands.

Ann Sanov is the assistant to the chairman specially recruited by Zhou Buqi, and he is very loyal. "It is not easy to do in other industries, but this is the consensus of the film industry, which is the same all over the world. Film companies rely on the film market. To make money, the people who control the film project are relying on the film to make money, no matter whether the film is profitable or losing money in the market."

Zhou Buqi understood what she meant as soon as he heard it, and waved his hand, "Don't do this! My business philosophy is to be clean and aboveboard. It's my money, and no one can take it away. It's not my money, If you give it to me, I don't want it."

Ann Sarnoff didn't believe it, and tentatively said: "Zhou, the whole Hollywood is like this. Do you know why Spielberg brought DreamWorks to Disney?"

"what?"

Zhou Buqi was taken aback.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chief creative officer of Ziwei Star Universal and the president of DreamWorks Animation, has said many times that Paramount has no money to invest in DreamWorks, which has led to financial difficulties in the establishment of DreamWorks' new film projects. , There is no way to go to Disney, looking for Disney's financial help.

Ann Sarnoff shook her head, "In the past ten years, DreamWorks' live-action film business has never made any money. Otherwise, Katzenberg would not be so determined to spin off DreamWorks Animation."

"Have you ever made any money?"

Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows slightly.

This is surprising.

DreamWorks' live-action film business is directly led by Spielberg, a world-class director.Moreover, he has a very wide network of contacts in Hollywood. The directors and actors invited to make films for DreamWorks are also big names in Hollywood.

It's normal to lose a movie or two once in a while.

Is it really possible to lose money every year?
Ann Sarnoff said: "The money that DreamWorks earned was sucked up by Spielberg in the name of production bonus, consultant fee, director fee, screenwriter fee, review fee, etc."

"Too much!"

Zhou Buqi shook his head. He had a good impression of Spielberg, but now he was very disappointed. This guy is really a typical representative of the greedy nature of the Jews.

It's normal for Hollywood producers and big directors to suck blood from movies.

But you can't suck up all the profits and leave the company with a mess of losses every year, right?No wonder Paramount would drop DreamWorks and Spielberg.

In the previous life, Disney also resolutely gave up the long-term cooperation with DreamWorks after several years of cooperation with DreamWorks.DreamWorks, a film company that used to be the most popular in Hollywood, has been completely reduced to the point where there are no projects to accept.

Later, Spielberg had no choice but to give up DreamWorks, and began to cooperate with big companies as a personal director like in the 80s. He filmed "Washington Post" with [-]th Century Fox and filmed "Washington Post" with Warner. After "Ready Player One", he entered the end of his directorial career.

So the absolute control of a company is a double-edged sword.

If the person in control is a person with a broad mind and a decent style, then such an arrangement can avoid the excessive penetration of capital into the company's business, allowing him to develop the company completely according to his own ideas.

A large number of companies in Silicon Valley are doing this, and they are all in the form of AB shares. The founders hold Class A shares with 1 vote worth 10 votes, so they can always control the company in their own hands, so that they will not be swayed by short-sighted capital. Will stick to the implementation of the long-term strategic plan.

But in the hands of selfish people, it would be miserable.

This is also the clear requirement in the listing guidelines of most countries that the same shares have the same rights. It is to prevent the people who have absolute control from playing tricks and using legal means to transfer the company's interests into their own pockets.

The most typical example is of course Ali's splitting of Alipay.Most of Ali's equity is in the hands of foreign capital, but Lao Ma used absolute control to complete the split, resulting in a loss of hundreds of billions of foreign capital.

In Hollywood, DreamWorks and Spielberg are the biggest negative representatives.

Although Zhou Buqi personally holds only 10% of the shares of Ziwei Star Global, he has absolute control. As long as he wants, he can legally and reasonably convert 10% of the shares into 100% of the shares.

But this kind of thing is really too much damage to the personal image.

Unless he is about to go bankrupt in the future, he may play some "absolute control" tricks on Ziweixing International, Ziweixing Digital Media, and Ziweixing Global.Under normal circumstances, he would not do such a notorious thing anyway, and he should use his control in the right way.

Ann Sarnoff has only worked with Boss Zhou for a short time, so he can’t grasp his temperament. After all, it’s right to give him money, so he went on to say: “I read Forbes statistics, Hollywood movies Among the directors, the richest is George Lucas, with a personal net worth of 28 billion U.S. dollars, mainly from the assets of Lucasfilm. The second is Spielberg, with a personal wealth of 17 billion U.S. dollars. He is not an equity owner of DreamWorks, he just has control, and he has relied on production fees, consultant fees, director fees, etc. to draw blood around the profits of film projects in the past few years. DreamWorks is getting worse year by year, He's getting richer every year."

"Fortunately, I was cautious last year. I didn't accept Katzenberg's advocacy and bought DreamWorks in one go." Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "Don't mention this kind of thing in the future, as much as it should be, I don't mind It will take advantage of the company's penny. Ziwei Star Global is just starting now, and everyone should work together to make the cake bigger. It is far from the time to divide the cake. Even if the cake is to be divided, it must be fair and just. My principles."

"Is that so..."

Ann Sanov looked at him deeply.

There is a hundred unbelief in my heart.

fair and just?

This is just an argument to tease the inexperienced children. Looking at Boss Zhou like this, how can he have any naive pursuit of supreme idealism?

Regarding this point, it was inconvenient for Zhou Buqi to say more, and he waved his hand, "Okay, this matter is settled, and I will redo this budget sheet later! Hmm... the plan to build the headquarters building, let's put it on hold for now. With a budget of $20 billion, I think the people in the administration department are crazy!"

Buying Lucasfilm cost a lot of money.

Temporarily cut off large non-business investment projects, and stabilize the wave first.

(End of this chapter)