Chinese Entertainment

Chapter 764: Year-end review of Alibaba’s acquisition plans

It's the end of another year. While Gu Wei is auditioning and selecting roles, other departments of Xingchen Film and Television Company are beginning their work summary for the year as usual.

There is less than a month left until the Spring Festival. This time of year is almost always the busiest time for the company's finance department.

Take inventory of income and expenses!
Calculate year-end bonuses, bonuses from movies, TV series, and variety shows.

A lot of things like preparing for the annual meeting, purchasing gifts, welcoming and seeing off guests, etc. will be completed during this period.

In the Finance Department located on the 11th floor of the Xingchen Film and Television Building, dozens of accountants are extremely busy at the moment, and the financial manager is in charge of the command. After all, every piece of statistical data will eventually be shown to Song Ge and Gu Wei for review and signature.

No one dared to be careless at this time. After all, if the result was wrong, the worst outcome would be firing, and the worst outcome would be imprisonment.

Since the establishment of Xingchen Film and Television Company, even though Gu Wei has strict management, there have been many cases of corruption. For those who made mistakes, Gu Wei handed them over to the police for handling without exception, and showed no mercy.

"Manager, this is the data that has just been compiled." The financial director came to the financial manager with a thick stack of documents and reported.

The financial manager is called Chen Guoping. He joined the company at the beginning of its establishment and worked his way up from an accountant to a department manager. This person is a somewhat related relative of Gu Wei and has won Gu Wei's trust.

After all, those who can manage money these days are all the bosses' confidants.

Chen Guoping took the document and nodded slightly, then began to check it intently.

This year, Xingchen Film and Television Company made varying profits from its TV series, with a total net profit of over 300 million, which is a considerable profit for the company.

In terms of variety shows, Xingchen Film and Television Company mainly focuses on "Running Man". Thanks to the popularity of this program, it has made a net profit of over 100 million yuan from advertising revenue alone.

However, no matter how much profit TV series and variety shows make, they are still far behind movies.

Not to mention anything else, just the "Wolf Warrior" released during the National Day holiday, after deducting various expenses and taxes, and then deducting the share of partners, the net profit reached 5.13 million yuan.

This doesn’t even include the several movies released in the first half of the year; the total easily exceeds one billion.

And these are just the profits of Star Pictures, not including Hollywood's Rising Star Pictures, which makes US dollars.

The only one that lost money was Xingchen Ticketing, which operated as a subsidiary. It burned through more than 500 million yuan last year, which is equivalent to burning all the profits earned by the TV drama and variety show departments.

Fortunately, Xingchen Ticketing was the first to offer ticket subsidies in the Chinese-language film market, and it was one step ahead of Maoyan Movies when it started implementing it the year before last.

Although up to now, Xingchen Films has been losing a little money through ticket subsidies for every movie released, Gu Wei doesn't care at all and even hopes to invest more.

In other words, these are all equivalent to investments, and when Star Ticketing is successfully listed in the future, everything will be earned back naturally.

For example, Taomao, the ticket purchasing software originally owned by Ali Shikong, was left behind by Maoyan Movies because it started too late. Later, it spent 15 months and burned 32 billion yuan before it could barely catch up with the other.

In this time and space, after Ali entered the entertainment field on a large scale, it immediately launched this software.

It was launched in mid-December last year and has only been in operation for more than a month. Even though it cost more than 12 million yuan, its market share is still quite low due to the existence of Xingchen Ticketing and Maoyan.

Therefore, as long as the direction is correct, Gu Wei has never been stingy with these investment expenses.

Just like when the project of "The Wandering Earth" was launched, the starting cost was 1 billion RMB, and when it came to "The Battle of Nantianmen", it was even boldly stated that the cost plus investment could reach 400 to 500 million US dollars.

To quote the words of the duo taking the postgraduate entrance exams in "Crazy Racing", "Love what you do" and "Without courage, there will be no productivity."

Here, the financial manager checked the data and looked at the time. Thinking that the boss was still auditioning, he had to postpone the report to the evening.

.........

at the same time.

Hangzhou, Alibaba headquarters.

Because the "Ali Entertainment Group" has not yet been established, there is only a concept of a "large cultural and entertainment sector" at the moment.

So Taiji Ma called the heads of Xiami Music, Ali Pictures, Taomao Films and other companies together for a meeting.

Tai Chi Ma sat casually at the main seat in the conference room and started, "Everyone, what we are discussing today is the matter of investing in Guangxian. This matter has been going on for some time. We have discussed with Guangxian about investing 2.4 billion and becoming its second largest shareholder.

But before investing, I would like everyone to speak freely, is there any hope that the domestic entertainment market can reach 2000 billion?
If it can’t be achieved, then it means that the business is still too small and Ali may not invest in it! ”

Everyone on both sides of the conference table smiled at each other. Their boss always spoke in such a "witty" way and everyone was used to it.

The jokes were just for fun. When the big boss asked questions, everyone had to answer. After a while, the general manager of another department in charge of Alibaba's daily operations spoke up: "On Singles' Day last year, our single-day turnover was 571 billion. The annual box office revenue of several billion is just a small business for us.

Then why should we invest in Guangguang and engage in large-scale cultural entertainment?"

Hearing this, everyone fell into deep thought, and Tai Chi Ma's expression also relaxed. Only Zhang Qiang, general manager of Ali Pictures, spoke after thinking for a while. After all, the more film and television companies Ali acquired and invested in, the more power he would gain and the higher his position in the company would be.

“As early as 12, there was a big discussion within the group on the theme of “What will China need most in the next 10 to 20 years?”

The topic of discussion at that time was: What will the Chinese people lack most in 10 years?
After these two years of development, I feel healthy and happy!

It is precisely because of this that the company has begun to make arrangements in the field of culture and entertainment based on the "happiness" strategy.

In 13, it acquired Xiami Music, and in 14, it acquired Ali Pictures. In the future, it has plans to establish Ali Music, Ali Sports, and acquire Youku.

I think it is imperative to invest in Guangxian. We cannot give up just because the overall domestic entertainment market is not big now. I believe that if the current momentum continues, the scale of the domestic entertainment market will not be inferior to that of Hollywood one day.

Therefore, we must act early and use our abundant funds to gradually occupy the largest share of the entire market. "

Upon hearing this, Tai Chi Ma's expression remained unchanged, while managers from other business departments of Alibaba seemed to be thinking about something.

The general manager of Xiami’s music department naturally nodded in agreement. After all, once the big entertainment plan is launched, Alibaba’s entertainment departments will receive a lot of funding and start to make drastic moves.

"I agree with Mr. Zhang. It's better to act early than late. The big entertainment plan is imperative." The general manager of Xiami Music spoke up, and when no one objected, he continued, "In addition to the film and television industry, I think we should make great acquisitions in music, sports, video websites, and even games. Eventually, we will merge all of them together and become the leader of the entire entertainment industry."

"That's true." Li Jie, the person in charge of ticket purchasing at Taobao, also echoed.

Seeing that several managers in the entertainment department had expressed their opinions, and their boss did not object, managers in other departments of Alibaba naturally had no opinions. To be honest, among the many acquisition plans, Taiji Ma was most optimistic about the acquisition of Xingchen Film and Television Company and its holding Xingchen Ticketing Software, and even the plan to acquire shares in its Hollywood film and television company.

However, when Taiji Ma and Gu Wei met before and talked about this matter, the two sides contacted each other several times, but Gu Wei did not respond much to Taiji Ma's acquisition intention. In addition, Taiji Ma was too busy, so there was no progress.

"Acquiring Guangguang is just a small step for us to enter the film industry. Our ultimate goal is to take over the big fish, Xingchen Films, and the small fish, Xingchen Ticketing."

Tai Chi Ma finished speaking, and immediately said to Zhang Qiang, the general manager of Ali Pictures: "Boss Zhang, this important task will fall on you first. When the time is right, I will go meet Director Gu again!"

Zhang Qiang's face turned bitter when he heard this, and he felt under great pressure, because in recent years many capital companies wanted to invest in Xingchen Film and Television, but were all rejected by Gu Wei.

It is not easy to acquire shares, let alone acquire.

Besides, what else can he do? He can only meet with Gu Wei and Song Ge and try to negotiate the terms by using soft and hard tactics. Just sell it to Ali, we have plenty of money!

Then, when they have almost finished all the preliminary work, Tai Chi Ma will appear in a very cool way and say something like "Can Xingchen Films achieve an annual revenue of 30 billion? If it can't reach this level, it means the business is still too small and we may not accept it!"

However, as he is now the general manager of Ali Pictures and works for Tai Chi Ma, he has no choice but to accept the job.

Then Tai Chi Ma said, "Li Jie, you should also talk to Tao Piao Piao. If we can acquire it and merge it with Taomao Movies, we will be able to overtake them in the online ticketing business!"

Hearing this, Li Jie breathed a sigh of relief and agreed immediately.

After all, the pressure of negotiating with Taopiaopiao is not that great. Although the other company was established earlier, its scale has always been small. In addition, Xingchen Ticket Purchase suddenly appeared and the first-hand ticket supplement was launched, which directly occupied half of the ticket purchasing software market. Li Jie believes that if the price is right, there is still a great chance of acquiring Taopiaopiao.

Who knew that just as Li Jie relaxed, Tai Chi Ma spoke again, "Well, I thought about it, you should also go and talk to Xingchen Ticket Purchase, and we can proceed on both sides."

At this moment, Li Jie's face suddenly turned bitter again. Everyone in the industry knew that Gu Wei was the boss of the domestic entertainment industry and he had many high-quality companies under his control. But the same thing went, this person was not easy to approach.

The two sides are currently fighting fiercely for Youku Video. Everyone knows that there is little chance of success if they go to Xingchen Film and Television Company to discuss this matter now.

However, the workers had no choice but to agree to it.

The meeting was over, and Tai Chi Ma left in a hurry. Li Jie approached Zhang Qiang and said with a smile, "Boss Zhang, I have never dealt with anyone from Xingchen Films before. When are you going? I can go with you."

Zhang Qiang sighed, "I'll call Song Ge first and try to arrange it in the next few days!"

After leaving the meeting room, Zhang Qiang felt that he should first negotiate with Guangxian about the investment. After all, this matter was already a foregone conclusion. Once Ali invested in Guangxian, these shares would then become one of the bargaining chips in negotiations with Star Films.

.........

On the other side, Wang Changtian of Guangxian was also in a dilemma at the moment.

There is no doubt that if Ali Pictures can acquire shares in Light Media, it will be of great benefit to the development of Light Media.

But after having contact with Gu Wei for so long, Wang Changtian knew that the other party had always been resistant to Alibaba's "buy, buy, buy" style.

It was previously reported that Tai Chi Ma had an unpleasant experience with Gu Wei because he wanted to acquire Xingchen Film and Television Company.

Although I don’t know whether it’s true or not, I can see that Gu Wei is very resistant to the other party.

However, at present, the development of Guangguang has reached a bottleneck. It does not have a regular big director to cooperate with, and except for the "Four Famous Detectives series", it does not have any popular big IPs. To put it bluntly, it does not even have many famous artists under its banner.

To put it bluntly, even in terms of funds, Guangguang does not have enough. Otherwise, relying on the relationship between Wang Changtian and Gu Wei, if the funds were sufficient, Guangguang would definitely get a larger share than Wanda in the "Battle of Nantianmen" project.

It can be said that if there had been no entry of foreign capital, Guangxian would have been left with only this situation. But looking at the share price of Huayi rising day by day, it would be a lie for Big Wang to say that he was not tempted.

"Alas, with a large group of people to support and fierce competition among peers, it's not easy to be a boss these days." Wang Changtian couldn't help but sigh.

As he was thinking, Wang Changtian thought of "The Wandering Earth 2" again. This project will be launched next year at the latest. According to the share of Light Media, it will be another huge investment, all money.

But thinking of this, Wang Changtian suddenly had another idea, "I wonder if Gu Wei is willing to invest in Guangxian?"

As soon as the idea came to his mind, Wang Changtian thought about it for a while, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that it was possible.

...

In Xingchen Film and Television Company, Gu Wei, who was auditioning, had no idea that someone was targeting him again.

"Ah."

"Are you catching a cold?" Guo Fan next to him turned his head and asked with concern.

"It's okay, maybe someone missed me, haha." Gu Wei made a joke.

"It should be Yifei, haha." Guo Fan also joked.

"Haha, it must be her."

The two of them were chatting and laughing, and Song Yi on the stage was a little confused.

I kept thinking in my mind, was it because my performance was too funny? Or was it because my acting skills were so average that the director couldn't help laughing?

"Ahem." Looking at the little girl on the stage who seemed a little at a loss, Wu Jing couldn't help but remind her again.

"Good guy, so you called me here just to do this job?" Wu Jing couldn't help thinking.

Gu Wei looked at the little girl with her eyes wide open, not knowing where to put her hands, and immediately put away his smile, "Good performance, but you may have performed too many dramas, your expression and body language just now were a bit exaggerated..."

"That's it for now. Someone will inform you of the follow-up results." After commenting a few words, Gu Wei said with a smile.

Poor Song Yi was feeling very nervous at the moment, but he still bowed obediently and left.

"Next, Wang Lei."

.........

(End of this chapter)