game trailblazer

Chapter 341 Hasbro's Future
Because he believed too much in Alan Hasenfeld's ability to control the company, Al Verikchar hadn't fully considered the solution, so he had to turn over the suggestions of his subordinates in desperation: "Hello shareholders, I think the key to solving Hasbro's current problems lies in three points, 'returning funds', 'reducing production costs', and 'exploiting emerging markets'. As long as these three points are done well, the problems we are facing now will be easily solved. The so-called 'returning funds' and 'exploiting new markets' are related, we plan to sell the current backlog of Star Wars toys to the emerging Chinese market through agents...'Reducing production costs' is by transferring production plants to those Places with lower labor costs, or increase the proportion of OEM production..."

After all, Al Verikchar is an old fritter who has been on the street for many years. Although the plan is not perfect, but after he has polished it, there are steps, processes and conclusions. At least it sounds very good. Many shareholders After listening to it, I was really moved.

"Mr. Verikchar's speech was very exciting. Next, I would like to invite Goldner to introduce his development strategy." Ryan Goldner got pushed out.

Brian Goldner, who is in his 30s, looks very young compared to the old Al Verikachal. After he walked up to the podium, he smiled politely and began to speak : “Let me introduce myself first, I was born in Huntington, West Virginia, and went to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where I was a radio DJ for a while. My first My first job was as a sales assistant in a medical company in Long Island, and that was in 85, and then I worked as a director at JWT, and then I joined Camry Toys North America, and now I am the director of the toy division.”

After a brief personal introduction, Brian Goldner started to get to the point and introduced his plan: "...the previous practice was that toy manufacturers fought for the image authorization of popular movies, I think it can be considered in reverse, why not authorize our toy image to a film company and let them make a movie, so that we can not only get income from the authorization, but the movie will also become our free marketing advertisement, which will bring There are huge related benefits... After consulting the experts in the film industry, I made a calculation. Taking Hasbro’s core brand Transformers as an example, we can get 12% to 20% of the box office revenue from shooting a movie. , In addition, it can also drive the sales of derivatives (that is, the new version of Transformers) of 3 to 4 million US dollars, which is only a small part of Hasbro's huge resources. If "Special Forces", "Battleship", " Elastic Superman, "Real Estate Tycoon" and so on are all developed, and the benefits will be huge, and there is no need to pay others licensing fees like before..."

Brian Goldner’s remarks made many shareholders feel excited, “12% to 20% of movie box office revenue” and “3 to 4 million US dollars in derivative sales revenue” are very attractive, and they are in harmony with Compared with former CEO Al Verikchar, Brian Goldner is more operable, and more importantly, he doesn’t need to spend any more money for it. It’s a great thing to sit back and wait for the money .

Alan Hassenfeld didn't believe it at all. In his opinion, what he said was nothing more than personal subjective conjecture. At least no toy dealer had ever done it successfully. If Brian Goldner really said It's so good, how come no one else has tried it.There are still many shareholders who have the same idea as Alan Hassenfeld. They have certain doubts about the feasibility of Brian Goldner's plan. Brian Goldner has not yet come up with a substantial The evidence came, but they very much hoped that it was true, because the interests behind it were too tempting.

……

After Brian Goldner finished his introduction, Thomas Kalinske looked at the expressions of everyone in the stands. Almost half of them were skeptical. To be honest, if it wasn’t for the strong support of the big boss, he would have been very supportive of Brian Goldner. Dana's plan was a bit skeptical because it was so unconventional that no studio would be willing to accept it, but for now he had to support Brian Goldner.

"Considering that some shareholders may have some reservations about Mr. Goldner's plan, we still have an alternative plan for everyone to choose. If someone lacks confidence in Hasbro's future, we are willing to buy it at yesterday's closing price of 13 yuan. The premium is about 80%, that is, the price of 23 seven yuan to buy the stocks in everyone’s hands.”

The shareholders in the audience suddenly became excited. US$23.7 per share is a very high price for now. It is very tempting for many small and medium shareholders to make a fortune, even Gail Trim, the representative of Van Locke United, is tempted.

The situation is already very unfavorable for Alan Hassenfeld. The CEO candidate recommended by the opponent is obviously more aggressive than the old Al Verikchar. The timing of the other party's tender offer is also very clever. The dilemma is whether to be optimistic about the future of Hasbro and support Brian Goldner as CEO, or to simply sell the stocks in hand at a high price, no matter which one you choose, it will be very beneficial to Camry Toys. .

And Alan Hasenfeld is in trouble. The 26.2% of the shares he owns are not owned by him alone, but by the entire Hasenfeld family. It may be more tempting to have more cash and then look for better investment opportunities. That is to say, if he fails to deal with it well, he may not even be able to maintain the 26.2% of the shares in his hand.

……

Alan Hasenfeld's conjecture was quickly confirmed. After nearly two weeks of repeated negotiations, Camry Toys increased its purchase price to $25 per share, which became the last straw that crushed everyone's psychological defense. Not only did Citibank and Van Locke United sell their shares happily, but other small and medium shareholders also accepted the offer. To make matters worse, there was a split within the Hassenfeld family, except for Alan Hasenfeld Outside of Germany, other family members were inclined to accept the offer of $25 per share.

Perhaps for these unambitious people, it is more tempting to invest the exchanged funds in other profitable industries, but for Alan Hassenfeld, it is like strangling his own children with his own hands, losing a whole family. General family inheritance.But he is also powerless now. When the inheritance was divided, he only got about 35% of the family shares (converted into Hasbro’s shares, which is equivalent to about 9.17%). At the time, he couldn't actually do anything.

When Alan Hasenfeld thought that he had been in charge of Hasbro for nearly 20 years and ended up like this in the end, he couldn't help but feel disheartened, so he simply signed the family share transfer agreement in exchange for With $2 million, he left Rhode Island with his family and has never returned.Later, someone saw a person who looked like Allen Hasenfeld in the Bahamas. It is said that he bought a small island and his family lived there carefree.

After Hasbro’s former CEO, Al Vilicchar, sadly dismissed his get out of class, and with a compensation of more than 5000 million US dollars, he really reinvested in the toy industry. The dramatic thing is that his first business was with Hasbro made.Al Verikchar bought a batch of unsalable Star Wars toys at a lower price, and then contacted an ocean-going freighter, and was really going to ship them to China for a big fight, even the local agent He's already connected.It's a pity that people are not as good as God. The ocean-going freighter was about to arrive in China, but somehow it collided with other ships while crossing the Strait of Malacca and sank to the bottom of the sea. Insurance, the compensation alone is enough to make him completely bankrupt.

Al Verikchar was unwilling to fail like this, and when the insurance money was received, he bought another batch of Star Wars toys from Hasbro, this time the price was slightly higher than last time, but as long as he could Safely transported to China, he can still make a lot of money.Out of distrust of ocean-going freighters, this time Al Verikchar chose to use cargo planes for transportation. It is a bit more expensive, but the safety should be guaranteed, and the speed is much faster Woolen cloth.

However, as the saying goes, "If you are unlucky, you will get stuck in your teeth if you drink cold water." The cargo plane, which was supposed to have a smooth journey, miraculously encountered a thunderstorm while crossing the Pacific Ocean, and plunged headlong into the vast sea.When he heard the news on the phone, Al Verikchar was stunned, and his ambitions completely disappeared. When he got the insurance money for the second time, he simply put all his Part of the money was invested in a hedge fund, and then returned to the farm in his hometown, and became a farmer with peace of mind.

After Camry Toys took control of Hasbro, it began to reorganize the company. Camry Toys North America and Hasbro merged. After nearly a year of personnel exchanges and integration, a new Hasbro was born. Thomas Kalinske got his wish and became the chairman, while Brian Goldner became the new CEO of Hasbro.After some capital operations, Hasbro became a member of Universal Entertainment Group, an independent company equal to Camry Toys, and even surpassed Camry Toys, which has eaten part of Bandai, and became the second largest company in the world. Of course, the powerful Mattel still occupies the top spot, but the advantage is not as obvious as before.

With the help of Citibank, Hasbro, which had finished its internal reorganization, returned to the stock market after eight months. However, considering the future development strategy, Hasbro left the New York Stock Exchange at 18 Broadway and moved to the stock market. Re-listed on the NASDAQ exchange located on the Condé Nast Building at [-] Times Square next to Times Square in New York.

With the re-listing of Hasbro, Bryan Goldner, who has abundant funds, has put more energy into his proposed movie strategy in addition to acquiring several small toy companies to expand Hasbro’s product reserves. superior.At this moment, he happened to see in the news that the producer Don Murphy, whom he had met a few times, was planning to shoot a film about military science and technology. He immediately thought of Hasbro's "Special Forces" , he believes this must be a very suitable choice.

……

The time went back to when Thomas Kalinske and others negotiated the purchase price of Hasbro. Zhang Lexing was very happy to hear the news. He had a lot of ideas about Hasbro a long time ago, but at that time Hasbro was still a well-run private company, and he had no chance if he wanted to.When Zhang Lexing saw the "Transformers" cartoon for the first time, he could only stare at the expensive toys in the department store. When he watched the "Transformers" cartoon again after watching the live-action movie , the idea in his heart is different, he is no longer nostalgic for the toy models in the department store, although out of personal hobbies, he bought some larger models and threw them at home, but what he wants to do more is to let Transformers play in the game world. Because he feels that for a Transformers fan, just watching it is not enough. If he has the opportunity to personally operate the Transformers, or have the opportunity to fight side by side with the Transformers, that feeling is like a movie or an animation. Tablets are not given.

Zhang Lexing will not waste the potential of other aspects of Hasbro's resource library, such as using "Transformers" and "Special Forces" to shoot live-action movies, develop stand-alone games, and even consider making online games when conditions are right.Although online games are definitely not like stand-alone games, giving each player the opportunity to play Optimus Prime, Megatron, and even Bumblebee, Noisy and the like, not everyone has the opportunity to take the wheel. After all, the characters in "Transformers" No matter how many characters there are, it is impossible to satisfy the huge player base of online games, but online games can bring a different sense of interaction. For example, a group of people follow Optimus Prime to beat the Decepticon. It is one or two people. Sitting in front of a monitor or TV can't experience it.

Of course, if Zhang Lexing intends to use "Transformers" to change online games, he will definitely not be like some game companies that dare to call "Transformers Online" after just changing a web game.It's just that the current environment is not suitable for the development of "Transformers" online games. In the era when 56K kittens were popular, 2D online games were not particularly smooth, let alone "Transformers" that needs 3D graphics to display.However, you can try to develop stand-alone games, especially on the powerful DreamBox128 platform. Zhang Lexing believes that it is enough to express the style of "Transformers", especially the animated version, but all this is just his idea now. , and he didn't even have an accurate idea of ​​what it would look like.

Now because of Chen Zishan's relationship, Zhang Lexing doesn't have much time to think about game development besides dealing with the company's daily affairs. Maybe next year, he can organize a game development team directly managed by him as before. , to make games that he wanted to make but hadn't had the chance to make yet.

(End of this chapter)