Hollywood Hunter

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After eating something, Simon got up and started to socialize in the crowd.

Janet was not by Simon's side, and Sandra rudely began to make a cameo as his female companion. Courteney knew that her relationship with Simon could not reach this level of closeness, so she took the initiative to leave.

Sandra waited for Simon to chat with Mike Medova, president of Orion Pictures, and the two walked to the villa together and asked, "When are you going to Australia?"

Simon raised a toast to a guest who was not too familiar with him, without stopping, he said, "The day after tomorrow."

"The day after tomorrow?" Sandra was a little surprised: "In such a hurry?"

"It's not urgent, it's been arranged a long time ago," Simon looked at Sandra's unexpected look and said, "I will probably stay in Melbourne for more than three months. If you are free, you can come to visit the class."

Sandra looked around and pretended to be worried: "Australia is Jenny's home base. Her family is still mining. If I go there, will I be caught and filled in the mine?"

Simon nodded with a heavy expression: "It's very possible."

Seeing Simon's appearance, Sandra became dissatisfied again and said, "You don't care?"

Simon's mouth had a smile, but his tone was very embarrassing: "It's hard to manage, there are many mines in her family, and some are still in Africa."

Sandra rolled her eyes: "Bastard."

Saying this and laughing, Simon came to the "Scream" director Wes Craven to chat.

Although the two sides had some friction on the director's remuneration for the sequel to "Scream", after some consideration, Wes Craven accepted a package of $15 million for the two sequels of Daenerys Entertainment.

Apparently, Wes Craven didn't get carried away by Scream's success, repeating his exit from the Elm Street franchise. The $15 million director’s pay for two sequels is hard to come by for a horror movie.

After a few chats, Simon and Sandra were about to move forward. Nancy Brill, president of the consumer goods department who had just joined Daenerys Entertainment, brought a middle-aged man in his fifties and a little fat. The old man came over.

"Nancy, you are so beautiful tonight," Simon and Nancy Brill shook hands, looking at the middle-aged man curiously, waiting for Nancy's active explanation.

Nancy Brill smiled and shook hands with Simon, and then said hello to Sandra, "Simon, this is Mr. Wayne Huyzanga, he is the chairman of Blockbuster."

Simon originally thought that the middle-aged man was Nancy Brill's husband, and sighed inwardly that a flower was inserted into the cow dung. After listening to Nancy's introduction, he realized that he had misunderstood.

Since the last meeting discussed the possibility of getting into the videotape chain business, Nancy has been collecting data on it while juggling Daenerys Entertainment's consumer products division. It can be seen that this woman is not willing to be in charge of only one consumer goods department.

Simon actually likes ambitious women, especially ambitious beautiful women. Of course, the premise is that they need to have the ability to match. Although the understanding of Nancy is not too deep, Simon can basically judge that this is a very capable woman.

Thinking of this, Simon did not hesitate, stretched out his hand to Wayne Huyzanga and said with a smile: "Hello, Mr. Huyzanga, your surname is really special."

"Hello, Simon, in fact, the surname Westeros is really unique," Wayne Huyzanga shook hands with Simon with a smile, and then obviously added: "Our family is a Nordic immigrant. , Huey Zanga is a Dutch surname."

Simon suddenly said, "Nordic surnames, I know some of them, they seem to be quite tongue-in-cheek."

While chatting with Wayne Huyzanga, Simon also had the details of Blockbuster in his mind.

The company was founded in 1985 by a Texas software engineer named David Cook, but after just over a year in business, David Cook sold Blockbuster and exited the company.

Wayne Huyzanga, who runs a garbage-hauling business, discovered the company, bought Blockbuster with several other partners, and began investing heavily in its expansion earlier this year. In just one year, Blockbuster has grown from dozens of chain stores to 386 stores in Simon's recent data, which is growing at a rate of almost one store per day.

In this era, the cost of investing in a videotape rental store is about 500,000 US dollars, which is considered as other expenses. In just this year, Wayne Hewyzenga and several of his partners have invested nearly 200 million US dollars funds.

However, judging from the revenue data of the previous quarters, in 1988, Blockbuster's total turnover was only about 130 million US dollars. Because of continuous large-scale investment, the annual financial report was naturally a loss.

Wayne Huyzenga also started from scratch. He has been in business for more than 20 years, and his personal assets under his name are less than 300 million US dollars. Naturally, he can no longer continue to support this rapid expansion of Blockbuster, even with several others. Partners split the investment, and Blockbuster has accumulated up to $80 million in liabilities over the past year.

Now, the North American stock market has not fully recovered, and Blockbuster is not suitable for financing through listing. If he wants to continue the current expansion frequency, Wayne Hewyzanga can only seek other investors to buy shares.

in memory,

Five years later, Blockbuster was acquired by Viacom for a huge sum of more than 8 billion US dollars. Even if the current Blockbuster valuation is higher, it will not exceed 300 million US dollars based on its various conditions. It also has less than 5% of the North American videotape chain market. .

Therefore, although Simon has always been concerned about the videotape chain business, it is definitely the best time to enter Blockbuster at this time, and it will definitely bring very rich returns.

Because it was an entertaining New Year's Eve reception, Simon didn't discuss too formal issues with Wayne Huyzanga. After making an appointment to meet tomorrow morning, Wayne Huyzanga took the initiative to leave.

Simon watched Wayne Huyzanga walk away, looked at Nancy, and said, "How's the talk?"

The day after tomorrow is about to leave for Australia, and Simon has no time to tug-of-war with Wayne Huey Zanga. At tomorrow's meeting, the two sides will basically determine whether they can reach a cooperation. Prior to this, Simon had instructed Nancy and Wayne Huyzanga to consult.

Nancy Brill said: "He originally wanted to get a $100 million investment from Daenerys Entertainment by transferring a 30% stake in Blockbuster, and I talked about 35%, $120 million. Simon, we're not The only company interested in investing in Blockbuster, Summer Redstone's Viacom Group, has also been in touch with Wayne Huyzanga."

Simon thought for a while and said, "The $120 million shouldn't be enough for Blockbuster's expansion next year, right?"

Blockbuster has already invested 200 million US dollars this year. According to the growth rate of one store per day, Blockbuster’s number of stores is estimated to reach 800 by the end of next year. Even if the company’s own income will offset some of the financial pressure, the investment next year will not be enough. Shouldn't be less than $200 million.

Nancy shook her head and explained: "It's really not enough, but the transfer of 35% of the shares is already the limit that Wayne Huyzanga and others can accept, and they don't want to lose control of this company. Viacom It was because they hoped to obtain more shares that the two parties could not negotiate. As for the remaining funds, Blockbuster should solve it through loans. When necessary, they may introduce other investors or conduct an IPO in advance.”

Simon also nodded slightly.

If Daenerys Entertainment is in desperate need of funds now, even if he owns 100% of the factory, the maximum share of shares Simon is willing to transfer is probably only 35%.

Wayne Huyzanga owns Blockbuster with other partners. No one holds more than 30% of the shares. Daenerys Entertainment used $120 million to get 35% of the company's shares. , should already be the company's largest shareholder.

It is conceivable that in tomorrow's meeting, Wayne Huyzanga will definitely propose a clause that Daenerys Entertainment should not interfere excessively with Blockbuster's business as a major shareholder.

However, if he can't intervene in Blockbuster's operations, Simon really doesn't have much confidence in the company's longer-term development.

David Cook previously founded Blockbuster, but to a certain extent imitated Walmart's warehousing logistics and information coordination system. This management and operation model was very successful in the first few years of Blockbuster's expansion, but video rental and sales The development and change of the industry is much faster than that of supermarkets. Entering the 1990s, Blockbuster's business strategy at this time will soon become out of date.

In memory, an important turning point in the development of Blockbuster was the acquisition by Viacom five years later.

After that, Blockbuster, under the control of Summer Redstone, who no longer had enough energy to manage the Viacom business empire, although the scale was still expanding, it has actually been in decline, just like the entire The same goes for Viacom.

Although Blockbuster still existed until Simon's rebirth, compared with its latecomer Netflix (comfix), the two are completely different.

In order to avoid repeating the same mistakes, Blockbuster must adjust its development strategy at any time during the development process in the next few years. Simon has no confidence in Wayne Huyzanga's ability to do that. Therefore, if Simon wants to get involved in the videotape chain business for a long time, grabbing control of Blockbuster is obviously the best choice.

However, this matter is not in a hurry.

The most important thing is to get a 35% stake in Blockbuster now. As long as Daenerys Entertainment ensures that this stake will not be diluted in the next few years, Simon will have enough chips to seize Blockbuster's shares if necessary. Control.

Simon and Nancy were talking in a low voice, and a hearty hello sounded from the side.

Turning to see Robert Redford, Simon smiled and said, "Bob, I'm so glad you can come over tonight, how are you doing?"

"Very good, Simon," Robert Redford shook hands with Simon and said, "I've seen that 'Metropolisians', a movie with great ideas."

Simon smiled. Although Sundance only accepted one movie from Daenerys Entertainment this year, he has no resentment towards Redford. Everyone is in the circle. Redford is still one of the most important stars of caa. It is also impossible to be completely unaffected by those around you.

Moreover, this Hollywood celebrity helped him a lot after all, except that "Lola Run" accidentally pushed the Sundance Film Festival into the fast lane of development, Simon himself did not repay the other party much. I owe Redford some favors.

The two casually chatted about the recent situation, and Redford restrained his expression and lowered his voice slightly: "Simon, there is one more thing, Michael hopes to talk to you in person, are you free tomorrow?"

The Michael in Redford's mouth is naturally caa president Michael Ovitz.

Recently, "Rain Man" has unexpectedly become popular at the box office, and caa's situation in this storm has become very embarrassing. Moreover, caa should have felt the state of Daenerys Entertainment's complete ban on its artists by now.

Not to mention the rest, it's just tonight's cocktail party. Except for a few people such as Redford, who worked with Daenerys Entertainment, Daenerys Entertainment did not invite other obvious ones from caa. Most of the big names in the party are basically wma and icm, etc. Obviously under the company's banner.

In fact, Daenerys Entertainment and caa have never publicly torn their faces. The several encounters between Simon and Ovitz can even be said to be pleasant. However, after a series of entanglements in "Rain Man", the huge rift between the two sides is almost well known.

Ovitz asked Redford to help spread the word this time, probably because he thought that if he personally contacted this side, he would probably be rejected by Simon. If Ovitz had been able to dissuade Barry Levinson and others from seeing through their faces, if caa hadn't done those little things in private before the release of "Rain Man", if caa hadn't been asking for a huge price on Meg Ryan's issue, the two sides would have There may be some wiggle room.

Now, Simon will indeed reject the other party, and he feels that he and Ovitz have nothing to talk about.

As for the complete fallout with caa, Simon didn't care too much. The nature of the talent agency itself has determined its dependence on Hollywood studios, not dominance. In all fairness, because caa has continued to significantly raise the cost of film and television project budgets of studios in recent years, even without this incident, Daenerys Entertainment and caa are destined to be in opposition due to conflict of interest.

Although he had a good relationship with Redford, it was impossible for Simon to agree with him unprincipled, so he shook his head regretfully: "I'm sorry, Bob, my schedule for tomorrow is full."

Redford did not give up and said, "Simon, it's just a movie, not to mention that Daenerys Entertainment has already achieved success, there is no need for everyone to do this."

Because of the alienation from the world in his bones, Simon rarely gets too emotional about things, but at the same time, he has never been a person who is good at forgiving. One person almost vomited blood from the other with various black fists behind his back, and after the incident, he wanted to get reconciliation by saying "there's no need for this". How is this possible?

Shaking his head again, Simon smiled and changed the subject: "Bob, what are your plans for the next movie, I'm looking forward to it?"

Robert Redford could only sigh in his heart when he saw that he was turning around to no avail. Although he has some friendship with Simon, with Simon's current status, he does not feel that he can influence this young man too much. Now that the word has been passed, Redford has no more wasting his words.

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