At Marvel Studios, the company's senior executives have been frowning for some time.
The reason is simple. It is mainly because with the development of the times, comics that were once popular are now less and less valued. The entire American comics industry market is also becoming increasingly sluggish and shrinking. The number of comics stores that once existed in large numbers is also decreasing.
In the past two years, in order to ensure that Marvel, a decades-old comic book company, can continue to exist, the company's top executives have discussed and were forced to sell off the copyrights of many comic heroes that were once regarded as treasures, including "Fantastic Four", "Spider-Man", "X-Men", "Thor" and "The Hulk".
What was hard for them to accept was that even after selling these "treasures", they still could not think of a way to save the company. They just felt that the comics industry was no longer sustainable, but they had no idea how to reverse the situation.
…
"BOSS, someone claiming to be a representative of Comet Capital called and hopes to discuss investment cooperation with us. If possible, they want to acquire Marvel!" The subordinate reported the latest call to the company's president Stan Lee.
"...What? You said there is an organization willing to acquire Marvel?!" Stan Lee was a little stunned and somewhat unbelievable, and he asked his subordinates again to confirm.
"Yes, that's what the other party said. Boss, what do you think? Do you want to talk to him?"
"We have to talk! If the other party can really invest in acquiring our Marvel company, then an old man like me won't have to worry about many things!" Stan Lee said excitedly.
This may be one of the few good news in the past two years! The last person who took the initiative to propose the acquisition of Marvel was Michael Jackson many years ago, but due to various reasons, the acquisition was not successful in the end.
Since the comic book industry gradually became a sunset industry, the situation of Marvel has become worse and worse. He is an old man who has been drawing comics for his whole life. He doesn't know how to run a business at all, let alone the ability to revive Marvel.
If Marvel can find a strong buyer to run and manage the company, it will be a good ending for him and the entire company! …
Perhaps Marvel was eager to find investors to take over... So in the subsequent negotiations, Stan Lee and other executives were too friendly and enthusiastic. When they heard that the representatives of Comet Capital were willing to bid 700 million for 51% of the company's shares and the copyright of the heroes currently held by the company, everyone was a little surprised.
It wasn't that the price offered by the other party was too low, but it was very fair, with almost no intention of deliberately lowering the price! According to the company's current situation, it was almost hopeless to find investors or institutions with higher bids. So they quickly reached an agreement and took advantage of this opportunity to directly sell the company's operating rights to the other party. They could be considered to have "landed safely"!
…
The most confused person should be the representative of Comet Capital. Originally, his boss gave him a maximum acquisition price of 1 billion US dollars, and he just followed the previous investment and acquisition management and did not offer the highest price, which would facilitate the subsequent bargaining between the two parties. But he never expected that the senior executives of Marvel Company would not follow the routine at all, and they were so eager to sell the entire company to them that he had an illusion.
"Is it really necessary to acquire such a company? Could it be that my boss said the wrong company name?" The anxious representative immediately confirmed with the person in charge, Mugur Hosking, and was relieved after ensuring that the information of the acquired company was correct. Since there was no mistake, the rest had nothing to do with him. As for whether this acquisition was profitable or not, let the leader worry about it!
…
The staff of Lehman Brothers, who had been paying close attention to Comet Capital's recent frequent actions, quickly reported the series of actions they had observed to Peter Fuld.
When Peter Fuld learned that Comet Capital's staff visited Qualcomm, Marvel and even some entertainment companies, he was very puzzled. In his opinion, most Internet high-tech companies are frauds who are selling dog meat under the guise of looking up. As for comic companies like Marvel, they are definitely marginal industries and sunset industries. There is no investment value at all. It is almost the same as saying that they are money-losing goods.
"BOSS, what should we do next? Should we follow them on a visit like before and negotiate with these companies?" the subordinate asked subconsciously.
Peter Fuld, who had a guess in his mind, sneered at Comet Capital's action and said in a very firm tone, "Comet Capital is purely speculative this time. They want to buy the once glorious companies at a very low price, hoping that these companies will have a chance to make a comeback in the future. However, such behavior is meaningless at all. Doing so will only make them lose money in vain!"
Seeing Peter Fuld, the "leader", say this, the subordinates nodded and did not continue on this topic.
After watching his subordinates leave, Peter Fuld's expression became somewhat gloomy. He recalled the report on the Jeju Island tourism project from Goryeo that he had seen before, and he felt upset for no reason. At the beginning, he thought that he had obtained secret information and could get the Jeju Island tourism project before Comet Capital, thereby disgusting that hateful guy Zhang Junfeng, and at the same time adding to his own achievements and increasing his prestige in Lehman Brothers.
But now it seems that the return on this investment may be far below expectations. First, the cost of shipping construction equipment and raw materials by sea has increased a lot. According to the analysis of construction experts, the weather in Jeju Island is relatively bad in winter. It is not only risky to carry out construction in the cold winter, but also the wages of the workers cannot be reduced or stopped due to the delay in the construction schedule.
"Damn it, that damn Zhang Junfeng must have taken all this into consideration, which is why he didn't attend the original project bidding conference!" Peter Fuld frowned and muttered to himself.
Peter Fuld was extremely angry when he thought that he might have fallen into the trap of this guy Zhang Junfeng. He wanted to find an opportunity to retaliate against Zhang Junfeng and even the people around him, otherwise he would not be able to swallow this anger.
As the malice continued to surge, a vicious plan quickly flashed through Peter Fuld's mind. His subordinates had reported to him an interesting thing before, that is, Zhang Junfeng seemed to have a close relationship with a woman in the United States, who was said to be an actress who had filmed a movie. Since there was no way to make trouble for Zhang Junfeng for a while, he might as well find trouble with this woman!
And if Zhang Junfeng really cared about this woman, he would definitely rush to the United States soon after getting the news. At that time, he could also set up a plan to calculate the other party. Even if he couldn't take the other party's life, he could make the other party pay a painful price!
Thinking that his plan was so "perfect", Peter Fuld showed a bright smile on his face. He quickly picked up the landline phone next to him and called his subordinates to come over. He had important things to explain.
——————Dividing line——————
Far across the ocean, in the conference room of SBS TV station in Seoul, Korea.
"President, according to the information submitted by our staff, senior screenwriters we recruited from other TV stations have submitted multiple TV drama scripts. However, according to our current financial strength, filming 2-3 TV dramas at the same time is already the limit. If all these 5 scripts are to be filmed, I am afraid that the funds of the entire TV station will be dragged down..."
The five scripts on the table were titled "First Love", "My Fair Lady", "Dae Jang Geum", "Love in Los Angeles" and "My Name is Kim Sam-soon". If Zhang Junfeng was at the scene, he might have realized that the ratings of these TV series based on the scripts in the past were all very high! ...
Listening to his subordinates' reports, President Park Jin-woo showed a thoughtful expression on his face. If before this, SBS TV station would directly put these excellent TV drama scripts into the filming process, why would they hesitate so much? However, with the help of Comet Capital in the past two years, SBS TV station has become more and more powerful, and more and more excellent screenwriters and behind-the-scenes staff have come here for the reputation. In order not to give competitors the opportunity to strengthen their strength, they still absorbed a lot of talents.
But new problems also arose. According to their current scale, they wanted to shoot multiple dramas and variety shows at the same time. Even though SBS TV station has abundant talents and funds, it is a bit overwhelmed.
"... President, why don't you contact Comet Capital? If President Zhang Junfeng is willing to help, the problem that has been bothering us may be solved soon..." Seeing this, a trusted subordinate at the side immediately spoke up and put forward his own point of view.
"This is a good idea. If we can really convince President Zhang Junfeng, with Comet Capital's strong strength, these 'small things' can definitely be easily handled!" Upon hearing this, the subordinate's eyes suddenly lit up and he quickly agreed.
If strong financial resources can solve many difficult problems, then Comet Capital, which is about to become the first financial institution in Goryeo, can definitely help them solve these problems with its "cash power".
…
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
Park Jin-woo returned to the office with several excellent TV scripts. After preparing his speech in his mind, he quickly called Zhang Junfeng's contact number.
Not long after, Zhang Junfeng got through to the call. After Park Jinwu described the situation truthfully, Zhang Junfeng smiled and joked, "The funding for filming is naturally not a problem. It's just that the professional team and actor selection for filming the TV series are a big problem. It's not certain that so many people can be gathered at once just from the people who cooperate with SBS TV station, right?"
"... President Zhang, according to your opinion, what should our SBS TV station do to be more appropriate?" After hearing what Zhang Junfeng said, Park Jinwu asked tentatively.
"According to what you said, the scripts of these TV series are all quite good, so they should all be filmed. However, the filming time needs to be planned well. For example, these scripts can be sorted from low to high quality, and the best ones can be filmed last. They can be set as the annual finale of SBS TV station, which can attract the audience with full gimmicks."
"Besides, filming multiple dramas in a row is also a rare opportunity for actors. As long as they can seize the opportunity to continuously hone their acting skills, their performances will get better and better as time goes by!"
…
Hearing what Zhang Junfeng said, Park Jinwu immediately understood what he meant, and then replied with a slightly excited tone, "Chairman Zhang, I understand what you mean! I will assign the work according to this idea later. However, in order to shoot these dramas with good results, the actors' own strength is also very important. In terms of the selection of actors, do you have any recommendations?"
Hearing that Park Jin-woo, the cunning guy, was offering the power to choose the role, Zhang Junfeng did not refuse. He smiled and mentioned Kim Tae-hee, a new generation actress whose popularity was increasing. As long as the role was suitable, he could let her try more.
As for the male lead, Zhang Junfeng did not interfere too much. Anyway, according to the previous "tacit cooperation", even if Zhang Junfeng did not mention it, the other party would consider the contracted male actors from SM Entertainment, and then the actors from YG Entertainment and other entertainment companies.
After the call ended, Park Jin-woo smiled brightly as if relieved. Although he had long suspected that Chairman Zhang would be willing to help, he did not expect that things would develop so smoothly. The request made by Zhang Junfeng was not too demanding. He just needed to give Kim Tae-hee, an actress from SM Entertainment, some resources and give her 2-3 leading female roles. The rest, SBS TV station still had a lot of initiative~!
…
On the other side, Zhang Junfeng, who was watching TV news in the office, ended the call and happened to see a report on the Korean political news about the "famous scene" in which several popular candidates recently released their campaign slogans one after another.
However, compared with the experienced and "outstanding" Lee Hoi-chang, the rhetoric and slogans of other candidates are not particularly outstanding, so Lee Hoi-chang is undoubtedly "far ahead" in terms of the current popularity and support rate! (Note: Lee Hoi-chang had previously served as a senior official in the Supreme Prosecutor's Office. He contributed a lot to the imprisonment of Mr. Jeon Kaka and Mr. Tae-woo, who once ascended to the presidency, so he has the highest popularity in the subsequent elections.) At this time, Mr. Wu Xuan shouted his campaign slogan in the camera, "Realize the transition from the old to the new, break the old politics and privilege politics." This scene made Zhang Junfeng stunned for a while, and then he showed a meaningful smile, and an interesting idea rose in his mind.
"Since this person is just as hateful of evil as he was in his previous life, if I reveal some of the crimes of certain people in advance, would it make this election more 'fun'? And disgust this guy Li Huichang at the same time? Otherwise, once he takes office, I'm afraid there will be a lot of trouble~!" (End of this chapter)