Huayu started as a substitute director

Chapter 597 Oval Office Conversation (Two in One)

Recently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the transfer of Bona’s equity, and the Depository Trust Company, or DTC, has updated the records.

51% of Bona’s shares belong to Yuanmeng Tiancheng!

DTC is the world's largest securities depository, through which stock trading and transfers are completed.

Anyway, the procedures are complete, it is legal and compliant, there is no stock price manipulation, no insider trading, and everything has been disclosed in the announcement.

As for whether the founder was notified, that is a minor issue. Bona is not a big company that needs to be made a big deal.

If you are nitpicking, you can find problems with any acquisition.

That’s why the outside world is reacting so strongly now. We are just waiting for the response from above to see whether it passes the review. If it passes the review, Bona will change its owner!
Zhang Hongsen called because the process here also needs to be followed up. There needs to be an explanation as to whether it will be rejected or approved.

I asked Fang Hong why he wanted Bona to come?
"We need an explanation from you, that is, why you want Bona to come and what you want to do. You have to explain it clearly, otherwise we can't approve you." Zhang Hongsen went straight to the point.

"Director Zhang, I think you are mistaken. I didn't want Bona, and I didn't acquire it." Fang Hong denied.

"Don't play tricks on me here. The whole world knows that you acquired it. How could that mother and daughter do such a thing?" Zhang Hongsen said bluntly.

When he is a fool, think he knows nothing.

"But it's definitely not me, and it's not my name," Fang Hong explained.

"Yes, legally it is not you, but we all know that it is you, so you don't have to pretend in front of me. Just answer my questions seriously. If you can't answer my questions, it will be difficult for us to pass the review with you." Zhang Hongsen said it very clearly.

"Then you are biased." Fang Hong said.

"I am not biased towards any of you. I will be fair. You just need to explain to me why you are here to acquire Bona."

Zhang Hongsen was unhappy when he heard this, and he continued, "Why are you so wary of me? Would I hurt you?"

I am really speechless. He tells everything to his wife but nothing to anyone else. He is always on guard.

Is it necessary to do this?

"No, no, how could that be? I have always respected you very much." Fang Hong smiled. He just wanted to wait for the other party to tell him the attitude before he didn't admit it.

"That's fine. Let me tell you the truth. It's not possible for Yutu to merge with Bona. This is not allowed." Zhang Hongsen was very sincere.

The main thing is to remove this person's defense against him, so that he won't always feel that someone is trying to harm him.

Between Fatty Yu and the principal, he still favors the principal. Although there is no monopoly in the film and television industry, it is necessary to maintain healthy competition and maintain vitality.

Now Yutu has become a standout, ranking first at the box office every year and producing a large number of excellent films every year. Together with Bona, it has occupied half of the Hong Kong film market.

"I have never planned to merge with Bona. Bona will remain independent and autonomous. It will remain the same as before," said Fang Hong.

Bona is one of the leaders, and he has never thought that Yutu can absorb Bona.

"Are you serious? Do you really think so?" Zhang Hongsen was a little unconvinced. Mainly because this was not like the principal's style. He was a person with a strong desire for control.

"I told you this but you don't believe it, and you still want me to say it. You always say that I don't trust you, but how can you trust me?" Fang Hong was unhappy.

Zhang Hongsen smiled awkwardly and said, "As long as what you said is true and you don't want to annex Bona, we won't care about it."

"Let me tell you, there is no benefit in Yutu absorbing Bona. Our production capability is no worse than theirs. We have Tu Piaopiao as our distribution team, and we also have our own publicity and promotion system. It's nothing more than more copyrights, more cinemas, and a few more houses." Fang Hong said.

The buildings he mentioned are film and television bases, office buildings, and branch companies in various places.

Of course, there is also brand value. Bona has a branch in the United States and has also participated in the investment of films such as "X-Men" and "Independence Day 2".

I also invested in "Interstellar" in my previous life!
However, they are all small investments and are only responsible for distribution in China, so Bona’s distribution network is very wide.

It is not something that Yutu can compare to in just a few years of operation.

It’s just that Yutu has placed all its focus on the domestic market and has concentrated on domestic layout, and its development has been so fast that people feel that it is very strong.

Because Fang Hong knows which domestic films can make money.

For those who don’t know, Alibaba, Wanda, and Tencent are all investing in movies overseas. Basically, all future Hollywood blockbusters will be acquired by these companies.

There are a lot of movies like "Warcraft", "Mission Impossible 5", "Wonder Woman", "Kong: Skull Island", etc. Of course, there were many scams, otherwise I would have been more cautious later.

The purpose of investing in and producing a film in Hollywood is to obtain the distribution rights.

Because they have no production system, no directors of their own, and no idea what kind of movies can make money, they take shortcuts and get Hollywood film distribution.

The most direct way is to invest money.

This is the trend of this era. Hollywood movies are popular all over the world and also have a large market in the country.

For example, "Fast and Furious 4", which was released in mid-April, has grossed over 7 billion yuan. Instead of making Chinese-language films to compete with Principal and other films, it would be better to invest in Hollywood movies and reap the benefits.

Because Hollywood movies have been proven by the market.

Don’t look at this era with hindsight. In this era, Hollywood movies were a guarantee of box office success.

"Okay, I believe what you said. As long as you do what you say, we will not stop you from holding Bona." Zhang Hongsen had nothing to say. As long as Bona remained independent, it would be fine!

In fact, there is no way to stop it according to regulations. They are acquiring shares legally and have not yet reached the stage of being acquired.

Of course, they are just taking precautions. What if the principal acquires Bona and immediately initiates the merger?
"But let me be frank. I can only guarantee that Bona will remain the same in recent years. I cannot guarantee what it will be like in the future. Even if it disappears, that is a market behavior and an investment failure." Fang Hong said this to make up for himself.

He wanted Bona to disappear so that the higher-ups would stop questioning him.

"What are you going to do with Fatty Yu?" Zhang Hongsen heard the hidden meaning in his words.

Logically speaking, with the principal's ability and the resources he controls, it would be difficult to kill Bona, but if Fatty Yu disobeys, the principal will make Bona disappear.

Fatty Yu holds more than 30% of Bona's shares, so he still has certain rights.

“You shouldn’t ask me this, you should ask him. If he keeps confronting me and doesn’t want to coexist peacefully, he should end this dispute and sit at the negotiation table.

Then I will just have to keep this fight going until Boehner is gone.”

Fang Hong basically revealed all the secrets.

What he meant was that this time he didn't want to fight. If the other party continued to resist, he could only use thunder-like means.

This acquisition event should be over. We have got what we deserve. The next goal is to make Fatty Yu a dog.

"You are such a person. You didn't even notify anyone when you started it, and now you want to end it but you say others are making trouble."

Zhang Hongsen shook his head and laughed, not knowing what to say. Like a politician, he said again: "Okay, I understand your thoughts."

The two chatted for a while and then hung up the phone.

No one knew how Zhang Hongsen talked with Fatty Yu next, but Fang Hong knew the bottom line.

Bona cannot be taken over. What happens in the future is a matter for the future. It cannot be taken over at this stage. The film and television market must remain vibrant.

Fang Hong had just hung up the phone, and before he could recover, he saw Chen Zhixi push open the door and rush in.

"The scheduling and promotion and marketing of our two recently released movies, Wolf Warrior and Let's Get Married, have all been blocked," she said anxiously.

"What's going on?" Fang Hong asked.

"Ali, Tencent, and Wanda jointly sanctioned us. Ali and Tencent restricted the flow of Let's Get Married, and Wanda reduced the number of screenings.

It’s good that “Wolf Warrior” has the military, and its early release date wasn’t affected much.

The recently released "Let's Get Married" did not make any splash. We were unable to promote it online except through the Chang'e channel. " Chen Zhixi reported.

"Wolf Warrior" was released in early April. At that time, Fang Hong had not yet launched the "acquisition of Bona" incident, so everything was normal. Now it is the end of April, almost one month after its release, and the box office has exceeded 4 million.

Moreover, the military is involved in this film, so the other party won't go too far.

"Wolf Warrior" is a project brought over by Chen Zhixi.

"Let's Get Married" is a copyright owned by Yutu and was originally scheduled to be released during the May Day holiday. However, due to the "Bona acquisition" incident, the three major giants could not stand it and jointly banned the film.

This resulted in the film's promotion not making much of a splash.

"How many screenings are there for 'Let's Get Married'?" Fang Hong asked.

"The screening rate is 8%, and the box office is 733 million, which is very low. Our movies have never been so low before." Chen Zhixi said.

"It's okay. It's impossible for every movie to be successful. There will always be failures. Let's deal with the Bona matter first and put everything else aside." Fang Hong said casually.

It is impossible for all films to be successful and sell well. There will always be times when investments fail, but no one can stop him from acquiring Bona.

Chen Zhixi had no objection. He believed that it was right to deal with things one by one without being interfered with by external forces.

If you pay too much attention to external forces, you will only be led by the nose.

Moreover, the first half of the year is the off-season for the film market, and the peak period is during the summer vacation, which means that the second half of the year is when competition in the film and television market is the most intense.

It can't hurt Jade Rabbit at all now, at most it will just make it feel disgusted.

Moreover, Yutu is not limited to movies. TV series, web series, variety shows, etc. are all in the explosive period and have their own platforms.

Recently, the second season of "Running Man" was aired and it is still very popular and a phenomenal variety show. The topic has been read more than 100 billion times on Weibo.

The average number of views per episode exceeds 3 million, the highest number of views for a single episode is close to 5 million, and the total number of views exceeds 50 billion.

Let me put it this way, on Chang'e Video, a 15-second ad can generate revenue of over 30 yuan; a -second ad can double that, to million to million yuan.

The total advertising revenue alone is around 7 million, almost 1 million US dollars.

Add to that the naming rights at 2.5 million and sponsorship at around 1 million, and the total revenue exceeds 10 billion.

However, this variety show is also expensive to produce, with a cost of 6 million yuan. The team is too large and the stars' pay is too high. Not only the resident stars, but also the stars invited as guests in each episode, all of which cost money.

Anyway, it is profitable no matter what. But these are just numerical profits. The invisible profit is that this variety show helped promote Douyin.

In the lower left corner of Chang'e, there is a "Tik Tok" logo that jumps from time to time, which has attracted a large amount of traffic to Tik Tok, and the daily active users have quickly exceeded 300,000.

However, due to the imperfect quality of the content, user loss is very serious, which needs to be addressed urgently.

Fang Hong asked Zhang Nan to learn an American software, Musical.ly, to shoot his own videos, add popular music to them, and quickly fill them with content.

In its previous life, TikTok learned from Musical.ly, and later acquired it.

In fact, the development of the Internet in China is basically learned from the United States. Taobao learned from eBay, and Alipay learned from PayPal.

PayPal was created by Musk, who later sold it and earned his first pot of gold, $1.8 million.

That's a legendary life, even novels don't dare to write like that.

Baidu learned from Google; Weibo learned from Twitter; Youku and Tudou learned from YouTube; Renren learned from Facebook; Meituan learned from Groupon; Didi learned from Uber.

Many things are developed by others first, and then the Chinese students studying abroad who go there to inspect see them and think, hey, this has potential, so they return to China to start their own businesses.

Do you think they have many ideas and creativity? That's not the case. They see a lot abroad and see things that ordinary people can't see, so they discover business opportunities.

So the children of wealthy people will arrange to go abroad to see the world, which can really broaden their horizons.

Some investors will also look at the wind direction and then invest in domestic industries.

For example, the founders of Ideal, NIO, and Xpeng did the same thing. They all bought the first generation of Tesla and then built their own cars in the country.

Unexpectedly, these people were not up to the task. The country’s support and subsidies ended up in a mess. In the end, there was no choice but to let Tesla in.

Then those people suddenly seemed to feel that they were capable and became stronger. That’s the reason.

But this is a concession made by the country. You should know that Tesla is the only foreign brand car that is not a joint venture. BBA does not have such treatment.

The country is worried sick because of these idiots!
So it’s not that the country doesn’t want to create, it’s just that these people are too lazy and just want to take what’s ready-made. It’s not the country’s fault that it controls everything, because it really has no choice but to not control it.

If we ignore them, they will only consume resources and countless subsidies will go down the drain.

Of course, Fang Hong has no interest in cars, as that is beyond his professional scope.

He had to fight hard to make a living in the film and television industry and the Internet, and he was always trembling with fear. He didn't want to passionately shout in a short video in the future: "We are far ahead!"

“I have everything Tesla has.”

He couldn't bring himself to do that, nor could he put on a show in front of the camera. He was too shy, so it was better for Liu Tianxian to shout: "Far ahead!"

It's the May Day holiday recently, and there are no big movies or anything good to watch during this period. The box office of "Wolf Warrior" has reached its peak, and coupled with the criticism of "No Promise", it can basically be taken off the screen.

Although they dare not do it openly, they can still make some adjustments. The box office has just exceeded 500 million, which is about 40 million less than the previous life.

In addition, there are "The Left Ear" produced by Light Media, "Equator" produced by Wanda, and other major movies, all of which were overshadowed by "Furious 7".

Even though the movie has been released for almost a month, it is still going strong.

Just when the May Day period was relatively dull, a breaking news broke in the entertainment and financial circles.

The market supervision department issued a written notice of "Decision on Review of Concentration of Operators", approving the recent acquisition of Bona by Yuanmeng Tiancheng!

This written notice was announced in designated media such as China Securities Journal and Shanghai Securities News, disclosing that the acquisition transaction had been approved by domestic regulatory authorities.

At the same time, the lawyer issued a legal opinion confirming that the acquisition transaction complies with laws and regulations and has been approved by relevant regulatory authorities.

These documents were sent both by mail and electronically to Bona Chairman Yu Pangzi and shareholder Sequoia.

After seeing this news, everyone in the entertainment industry sighed and felt disappointed. In the end, Bona still lost and was acquired.

The existence of Yutu makes them look up to her even more!
Huayi, Guangxian, Tencent, Alibaba, Tencent and others all remained silent and watched how the principal would deal with Bona.

Of course, if Fatty Yu fights to the end, they will support him. Although they can't do anything, at least they can make things difficult for the principal.

At this time, Fatty Yu was sitting in front of his desk, with his hands on his forehead, motionless, feeling extremely depressed, as his superiors still did not help him.

In fact, after Zhang Hongsen finished talking to Fang Hong on the phone that day, he talked to Fatty Yu again.

As long as he cooperates well, the principal will not swallow up Bona, and Bona will still be his. Isn't this just making him his younger brother?

He thought too superficially that Fang Hong wanted him to be a dog.

"Mr. Yu, Mr. Fang from Yutu asked you and your senior executives to come to Yutu's Oval Office for a meeting on May 5." A tall secretary walked into the office to report.

"Fuck you, I, Yu Dong, have been an upright man all my life and I will never be inferior to anyone." Fatty Yu suddenly jumped up and swept away all the items on the desk.

Suddenly, the sound of "crackling" was heard continuously!
The secretary was so frightened that he shrank his neck and took several steps back.

"He also said that if you don't come, you'll have to resign." This time the secretary's voice was much softer, fearing that Fatty Yu would get angry again.

After hearing this, Fatty Yu suddenly slumped down in his chair, as if he had lost all his life. His fat body made it difficult for the chair to bear his weight.

This is a blatant threat. If he doesn't go, he will be removed and replaced by a new leader.

Seeing him like this, the secretary quietly retreated.

Now Fang Hong has every right to remove him and make him an "idle shareholder". As time goes by, the shares he holds will only become less and less until they disappear completely.

Just like how he used capital means to become independent from Poly in order to break away from Poly, and then completely diluted the other party's equity.

The principal is not Paulie, he doesn't have the chance to be independent again.

"Mr. Yu!"

"Mr. Yu!"

Several people came into the office at once, all of them were Bona executives, including CEO Jiang Defu; Chief Financial Officer Qi Zhi; Publicity Director and Distribution Manager Sun Chen; and Human Resources and Administration Director Tu Shan.

These people are Bona’s core executives.

"You're here, sit down!"

Fatty Yu rubbed his face and cheered himself up, "The principal wants us to negotiate with him in the Oval Office on the 15th."

Several people sat on leather chairs facing each other. After looking at each other, Jiang Defu asked, "What does he want to do?"

"We can be sure now that the president will not swallow up Bona, but he wants us to cooperate with him. We don't know what he wants to do. We will know it after we go there."

Fatty Yu said this with a somewhat depressed look, "We still have to go. We have to go."

Now they are in control and can hold a shareholders' meeting to remove him at any time. Even if he is not removed, he can't do anything because they have the veto power.

So you have to go, otherwise things will get worse!
"Mr. Yu, don't worry. We were all brought up by you and have followed you for so many years. If he goes too far, we will resign collectively." Sun Chen said firmly.

"Yeah!" Tu Shan agreed.

They have been in Bona for more than ten years and have deep feelings for it.

Of course, these two people only represent themselves. The others are silent and do not express their opinions. It would have been fine to say this before, but it is inappropriate to say it now.

Which company can give them such a high position again?
And the president said that he would not merge with Bona, which means he would keep the company, so they probably would not move.

Although their senior executives receive compensation when they leave, it is not as important as a stable job and status. How could they be so impulsive?

The compensation for these executives comes from the golden parachute clause, which means that when executives leave due to a change in company control, the company must pay high compensation.

Typically one to three times the executive's annual salary.

If an executive's annual salary is one million yuan, he or she will have to pay two million or even three million.

Basically all listed companies have such clauses for the purpose of defense, especially A-share listed companies, which are basically standard.

This is also a benefit for yourself. For example, a founder like Fatty Yu can get a large sum of money when he leaves the company.

The founder also serves as the chairman of the board of directors of the company!
"Don't be so impulsive, let's go meet him first and see what he says!" Fatty Yu calmed down a little.

He still has a chance to take charge of Bona. If all these executives instigated him to resign, he will have no chance and the president may have to deal with him.

Bona cannot be in chaos, it must be stable!
Just when everyone outside was paying attention to Bona’s follow-up situation, the time quickly came to May 5th.

It was a sunny day, and the entrance to the Yutu Film and Television Base in the HR area had been cleared and was surrounded by reporters with cameras.

They were all here to broadcast and report on this: the Oval Office talks.

This will be a meeting that will change the landscape of the film and television industry, and will have a far-reaching impact on other film and television companies as well as the film and television industry as a whole.

Celebrities in the entertainment industry are paying attention to this meeting, including some celebrities in Hong Kong, most of whom have cooperated with Bona.

The fate of Hong Kong films such as "SPL 2", "The Legend of the Gods", "From Vegas to Macau 3" and "Chasing the Dragon" were all discussed in this meeting.

Closely related to many Hong Kong filmmakers.

The capital market is also paying attention to Bona’s future development and whether it will be privatized and listed on the A-share market, which will also have an impact on capital investment in film and television.

Cinema chains including Wanda, Dadi, and Stellar Media are also paying close attention to this meeting. Whether Bona’s films will be released through Tu Piaopiao in the future and scheduled through Tu Piaopiao will also have an impact on them.

It is unknown how the films will be supplied in the future and whether the agreement will change.

The film supply agreement of each film and television company is different. Bona is different, and Yutu is also different.

They are so concerned, do they not know how the president will deal with Bona? Is it annexation? That's easy, according to the Yutu standard.

If Bona is allowed to develop independently, will it be subject to two sets of standards?
Huayi, Guangxian, Alibaba, and Tencent are naturally paying attention. The markets of the former two will be squeezed, and the latter two will see the impact of the expansion of the principal on them.

Several black business sedans stopped one after another in front of the gate of Yutu Film and Television Base.

(End of this chapter)