During Xiao Ran and Lin Qingxia's honeymoon, Phantom and its subsidiaries did not rest at all. Wei Dongling was now so busy that his heels could not even touch the ground. First, he completely acquired Dolby Laboratories for 20 million US dollars.
This is the turn of Lucas's Light Demon and Skywalker.
The negotiations with Lao Lu did not go very smoothly. The only good thing is that the current Lucas Company is at its lowest ebb in history, and the other major shareholders are quite dissatisfied with the performance, although Skywalker still has a certain market.
But after negotiating with Wei Dongling, the vast majority of shareholders were persuaded and successfully obtained 42% of the controlling stake at a price of 200 million US dollars.
The only thing that needs to be settled is classmate Lao Lu. But it is this damn stubborn guy who refuses to sell it no matter what. Wei Dongling understands that the hard work of his own creation is sold like this, and no one will be happy if he replaces it.
However, understanding is understanding, and the business still needs to be discussed. However, when Xiao Ran came back, the deal still could not be settled.
In fact, Wei Dongling absolutely did not understand Xiao Ran's determination to completely acquire Light Demon and Skywalker. He did understand the complete acquisition. He knew very well that Xiao Ran had an indescribable desire for control and would not allow control to fall into the hands of others.
.However, everyone who really does big things has this desire for control.
This may be the reason why Xiao Ran would rather take out a mortgage than finance with a large consortium. A typical example is that Yindu tried to get financing, but Xiao Ran simply refused, even the financing plan from Changshi
.
What Wei Dongling couldn't understand was why Xiao Ran claimed that computers could mature rapidly within three years and become one of the main tools for film shooting. He didn't understand, but he was still convinced of Xiao Ran's decision, because Xiao Ran seemed to have never failed in his decision-making.
Record.
Take karaoke for example. Before it became popular, this thing had been around for a long time, but no one could have imagined that this thing could be so profitable. In just three months, the karaoke sales report submitted by Dynamics made
Wei Dongling was shocked. In these three months, the sales reached a billion dollars, and the profits were even as high as 400 million U.S. dollars. This did not include the profits of production and manufacturers.
However, when I think about it, it seems normal. After all, Momentum holds this patent, which is an ironclad fact. The acquisition of the equity of Dolby and Lao Lu was done with this money. Wei Dongling is even more
Unexpectedly, after just two years of development, global sales of karaoke reached US$18 billion in 1991, and Dynamic's profits that year amounted to US$3 billion.
This is completely in line with the laws of the market. The emergence and popularity of every new thing is always accompanied by huge profits, and then the profits will gradually decrease. It is now gradually reaching the end of the year, and Dell's stock has risen rapidly. So far, it has made money for Phantom.
That’s at least 3.5 billion Hong Kong dollars.
This was in 1988. After Xiao Ran heard the news that Berkshire Hathaway was listed in New York in the news brought back by Fang Xiaoqiang, he thought hard for a long time and finally realized that it was the company of the stock god Buffett. So he immediately
So I invested about 80 million US dollars in it, and successfully obtained about 10% of the controlling stake before going public.
And this company has lived up to Xiao Ran's expectations, appreciating about three times in one year. Except for Cisco, which still has no movement, basically the stocks of these two companies alone have added about 5 billion Hong Kong dollars to Phantom.
of wealth.
With such a lesson learned from the past, Wei Dongling felt that he had no reason to doubt Xiao Ran's judgment. Although everything seemed so incredible, he still worked hard on it. Unfortunately, classmate Lu was really stubborn and had no idea.
In the second half of the year, Phantom basically stopped its exaggerated expansion speed, and instead stabilized its interests in a stable state. The subsidiaries are running very well, especially ATV, which is currently planning to go public under the wishes of Wei Dongling and Xiao Ran.
The only thing that irritated Wei Dongling was the computer department. This department seemed to be burning money. No, the rate was even faster than burning money. This year, a full 1.8 billion was invested to purchase every necessary equipment.
For example, the Super Graphics Production Station and so on, even invited many top experts in this field from the United States, but still failed to achieve any results.
Wei Dongling felt that Xiao Ran's biggest failure so far was here. Originally, he made a big hole for no reason and put it here, but no matter how much money he had, he couldn't withstand it. However, sometimes he still thought, with Xiao Ran's judgment,
, it’s really impossible to hit it.
Of course he didn't understand that what Xiao Ran wanted was completely his own technology. It was as if he was currently throwing money at the later stage of Thinking, asking them to burn out their own technology no matter what. In the future, he would master it.
Technology is taking over the world.
Of course, technology needs to be patented around the world, and Xiao Ran will never make the same mistake as the mainland. The most important thing is that he hopes to take it easy on burning money and wait for Dell or Cisco, or Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to succeed.
When the stock price goes up, they can do whatever they want to do with it, and Xiao Ran doesn't care at all.
However, we definitely can’t say that this money was wasted in vain. At least at present, in terms of photoelectric special effects, it is fully able to compete with Hollywood. Otherwise, how did those wall-penetrating actions in "The Love of Ghosts" be made?
It was only in further development that bottlenecks appeared. In fact, computer effects around the world fell into an unprecedented low ebb at this time.
On November 1st, the honeymoon couple finally returned to Hong Kong after more than a month. They had a great time along the way, but were immediately caught by Wei Dongling and extorted a Ferrari. Wei Dongling liked this guy very much.
Regarding cars, this may be something he is relatively passionate about.
After getting jet-lagged, Xiao Ran went to meet Rong Xiaoyi and Lin Yongqiang on the third day. Lin Yongqiang was quite good at doing business intelligence now. This Tianxia Fund was doing quite well, and its current assets were as high as 1.4 billion.
Although he currently needs money to make expansion acquisitions, he still has not used the funds here.
When he came to the office of the chairman of the board of directors of Phantom, Xiao Ran was very complacent for a while. Just thinking that the damn board of directors only consisted of Wei Dongling and Fang Xiaoqiang, he felt boring. He called Tang Yan and Wei Dongling and asked about the situation.
, his fingers kept tapping like a little man dancing on his legs.
"Since Lucas doesn't want to sell, then we let him sell!" Xiao Ran smiled strangely. This is what happened in the mall. If you want to grow, you have to hurt the interests of others. He thought about it and then asked: "The current momentum is
How much liquidity does Phantom have?"
"Because Mr. Xiao said hello in advance, I started making preparations half a year ago." Tang Yan said it almost casually, with a good memory: "Currently, I have earned approximately 430 million US dollars from karaoke.
, and after selling other stocks and unnecessary real estate, I got about 100 million US dollars. Last time, Mr. Wei took 200 million from me, and now I still have 330 million left!"
"Phantom now has 3.2 billion Hong Kong dollars. Excluding the necessary working capital, it can use 2.4 billion!" Wei Dongling obviously guessed what Xiao Ran wanted to do, and gave the answer with a smile.
"Momentum can leave 80 million U.S. dollars, so it only amounts to a little over 500 million U.S. dollars." Xiao Ran found it funny. He also wanted to acquire a film company, but now even Lao Lu can't do it, and he has only raised 500 million U.S. dollars.
!
Xiao Ran didn't think about it carefully. Phantom's market value last year was only about one billion US dollars. Now it is extremely rare to be able to come up with 500 million US dollars of working capital without loans. Especially since he has not used it yet.
The funds of subsidiaries, and some industries are welded into stocks such as Microsoft.
"But..." Tang Yan chuckled, thinking that although the sales profits of karaoke in the past six months were only so much, there were also agency fees paid by other companies, which were not a few: "However, the production patent of karaoke
We still have 200 million US dollars left to spend!”
Xiao Ran was stunned. He didn't expect to be tricked by this foreigner. He and Wei Dongling couldn't help but laugh. In fact, Xiao Ran could have used a loan to make the acquisition. Not to mention anything else, even Dell would have given him a loan.
One billion and eighty billion US dollars. But Dell was appreciating in value, so Xiao Ran thought of using it at the critical moment.
Three days later, Xiao Ran came to California accompanied by his entourage. He had been to many countries in Europe, but had never been to the United States! During this trip, he had no contact with anyone. He was only accompanied by Sunshine, Monkey and An Yuxuan.
The rain came quietly.
California is the most famous state in the United States, probably even more famous than New York, because there is Hollywood here. However, the address of Industrial Light and Magic is not in Hollywood, but at the famous Skywalker Farm in San Francisco.
Although Phantom has a branch in California, it is located in Los Angeles, so no one from the branch was notified of this trip. It is not easy to make an appointment with Mr. Lu, but Mr. Lu is obviously very interested in the mysterious guest from the far east.
Interested. So, after Xiao Ran was busy mysteriously for a while, it didn't take much time to meet this amazing man who was obsessed with technology.
Lucas is still very young now. Of course, this is only compared with more than ten years later. However, in Xiao Ran's eyes, this foreigner always seems to look older. In Lucas's office, the two of them
They looked at each other and judged.
Xiao Ran had countless thoughts running through his mind at this moment. If Lucas could be invited to join a Hong Kong film, it would definitely be a fatal blow to American films. Unfortunately, such an idea is obviously not realistic enough.
The first thing to do with this is the remuneration. The current remuneration for Hong Kong films is far less than that of Hollywood, and even less than that of Europe. Why does this attract people? Of course, equally important is the space for development, and the overall Hong Kong film industry.
The environmental background must be of a sufficiently excellent level.
It was obviously a bit inappropriate to think about this now. Xiao Ran quickly calmed down and looked at this old guy who had been involved in Star Wars all his life and said in fluent English: "Hello, Mr. Lucas, nice to meet you.
!”
Lucas just felt very strange, why are the Orientals so interested in the company he holds? Moreover, why do Orientals seem to like to make acquisitions in the United States recently? Doesn’t the Oriental in front of him know that in the first half of the year?
Did Sony's purchase of Colombia almost cause riots in the United States?
Of course Xiao Ran knew, but Light Demon and Skywalker were not Columbia. What he wanted to buy was just these two, not Lucas. So, he said politely: "Can I call you George? In this way, George,
You know that I already control 40% of the equity of your company, and you should also know that from this perspective, if I want to go against you, what a serious matter it will be!"
Xiao Ran is not worried. With his current 40% equity, he can get a lot of benefits from a "separation" with Lao Lu. Of course, his purpose is not to split with Lucas.
But to complete the Light Demon and Skywalker.
Lucas's face changed slightly. He currently only controls 51% of the absolute shareholding. He can certainly have the right to decide on the company's decisions. But if Xiao Ran loses all this money, he can still make it.
Student Lu is in crisis, and he is still very aware of this.
Don’t think that both Light and Magic and Skywalker were founded by Lucas, and that they are his wholly-owned companies. Americans always like to raise funds when doing business, in order to avoid risks. Unless it is a very certain kind of business, otherwise they usually
It requires financing.
Classmate Lu was still founded with financing, so Xiao Ran was able to acquire 40% of the controlling stake. This obviously gave Lucas a headache. He felt that the guy in front of him used a very straightforward sentence, but also used very sinister methods.
, forcing him to a crossroads.
"Mr. Xiao..." This was probably the second time in his life that Lucas pronounced it in pinyin like this. It felt very awkward. There was a hint of a strong man breaking his wrist in his expression, which Xiao Ran knew was bad at a glance: "You don't need to threaten me.
I, I don’t understand why you are trying to acquire it wholly. However, I can tell you clearly that Light and Magic will definitely be able to make a lot of money for you in the future!”
Isn't it? Xiao Ran's eyes widened, and his expression of disbelief was revealed without concealment. Listening to this tone, it seemed that Classmate Lu was planning to persuade Xiao Ran in turn and let Xiao Ran continue to invest so that Light and Magic could survive safely.
current difficulties.
Lucas was really planning to persuade Xiao Ran in order to get more investment. Because he suddenly felt that the Orientals might be very rich, and if he didn't take advantage of them, he would be sorry for his parents: "You know, at present, just
Light and Magic is indeed in a very awkward position. However, I think that just one more investment is enough for Light and Magic to break through the current situation and make a lot of money for us all! Please believe me."
Xiao Ran admired the American so much. He was here to discuss acquisitions, and Lucas actually wanted to get investment from him. He couldn't help but admire the American's adventurous spirit in business. He knew he couldn't do anything, but he still tolerated it.
Don't hesitate to test it out.
Thinking of this, he couldn't help but laugh, and his laughter was so hearty that even Lucas behind the desk was stunned...