Korean TV series: King of Peninsula 1997

Chapter 593 2007 First Half Year

One very important thing for Li You to do when he went to the United States was to acquire shares in Marvel.

Before the millennium, Marvel could basically be regarded as a company that used comic magazines and peripherals as its main channels to reach its audience.

It became popular during World War II because of its war themes, entered its golden age in the 1960s because of its frequent heroic productions, and further expanded its influence in the mid-1970s thanks to television screens and direct sales.

But from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, Marvel began to be kicked around by different capital groups like a ball.

Just from what Li You knows, the three big studios, Universal, New Line, and Fox, kicked Marvel around and kicked it away when they were done with it.

Marvel, the ball tool man, has started to adopt an IP monetization model since the late 1980s. Everyone is coveting his IP, but is reluctant to invest huge sums of money.

After entering the 21st century, it was the era of Marvel movies, but that was after the appearance of "Iron Man".

When Marvel first entered the film industry, it licensed superheroes to film companies. For example, Fox obtained the license for the X-Men and launched the X-Men in the millennium, and Sony obtained the license for Spider-Man and launched Spider-Man in 2002.

In fact, these licensed movies have very good box office performance, but Marvel can't get any money. It is still just a tool. Spider-Man has a box office of more than 1 billion US dollars, but Marvel can only get tens of millions of shares.

Marvel didn't get a penny from the box office revenue of X-Men.

But for Marvel, which is on the verge of collapse, licensing is its largest revenue source.

Licensing revenues in 2005 were US$230 million, accounting for 60% of total revenues that year.

From the millennium to 2005, Marvel was burdened with nearly $300 million in debt due to declining comic book sales and unstable film licensing revenue, and its market value was less than $1 billion.

Marvel, which owns a vast number of IPs, certainly doesn't just want to be a tool for others to covet its IPs for the rest of its life.

So in 2005, Marvel used the copyrights of several of its characters as collateral, borrowed $550 million from Merrill Lynch, and announced the establishment of Marvel Studios, planning to raise funds for filming movies on its own, but the outside world generally doubted this comic book company that has always relied on licensing to make money.

They are about to start filming the Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain America series of movies, which is another gamble.

This year, Marvel Studios welcomed a new leader, Kevin Feige, who assembled six screenwriters, producers, and department chairmen who are all comic book diehards like him to form the core creative team of Marvel Studios.

The first movie they plan to release is "Iron Man", and the protagonist is Robert Downey Jr., who was once embroiled in scandals.

When Li You arrived at the Marvel Studios headquarters, he was really taken seriously.

It was Feige, all the core team members, and several leading actors of "Iron Man" who were waiting to greet him at the door.

For Li You, the best window to acquire Marvel is this year. Through debt restructuring, IP integration and early binding with the "Iron Man" team, he can achieve controlling stake at a cost of US$700 to 800 million, and then successfully achieve a valuation leap with the help of a series of movies.

"Iron Man," which started filming this year and will be released next year, grossed $585 million, and Marvel's market value soared to more than $2 billion.

In 2000, Disney offered a bid of $4 billion.

Even if the acquisition was made for US$700 million this year, compared with Disney's US$4 billion offer, the profit would be more than five times.

Not to mention that Li You has no intention of selling it at this price. Marvel's long-term IP dividends can last for at least fifteen years.

The cumulative box office, derivative products, and theme park revenue of the series of movies is hundreds of billions of dollars.

The key is to bet on Kevin Feige's strategic vision and the long-term value of the Marvel IP, and ultimately reap cultural assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars through capital operations.

"Mr. Lee," Feige said cautiously, "welcome to Marvel Studios."

It's no wonder he's cautious. Although they've had a few phone calls, a Korean suddenly said he wanted to buy a large number of Marvel shares.
Fortunately, Fei Qi had done some research and investigation into Li You's identity and the Kinmen Group, so he acted like this.

"Kevin," Li You shook hands with him.

The two walked all the way to the conference room. Although Fitch had his doubts, he still acted a little impatient.

This is not his fault. What Marvel Studios lacks most now is
money.

They have ideas, and even the core team of the startup are all idea kings.

They also have good teams to implement their ideas, but they lack dollars to help them implement them.

This time, Li You let go and prepared to do something big.

Lee Woo-jae
As for the issue of the Jewish bosses in Hollywood, his first destination when he came to the United States was to visit Willump.

After playing golf and watching a round of golf together, Li You and Willump had a detailed discussion.

Willump has indeed done a lot of research on the subprime mortgage crisis and the current chaos in the real estate market, and even cautiously used leverage to make money, which could trigger a financial crisis.
He really didn't think about it. After all, although there are chaos in the United States now, the attitude shown by the Federal Reserve and financial institutions is "it's okay."

After reading the research report, he realized that he, a so-called real estate tycoon, was also one of the prey.

After he expressed his gratitude to Li You again and again, Li You proposed to invite him to co-found a company with him and acquire Marvel Studios.

A Korean would be frustrated everywhere here, but having a background is enough, and Willump's eldest son-in-law is also Jewish.

It is a profitable business to make a small profit and gain a background.

However, the expected scene will only appear after Li You and Marvel have reached an agreement.

Acquire more than 50% of Marvel's shares to control the decision-making power of the board of directors.

"We already have a draft of the specific plan," Li You took the document handed over by the secretary and pushed it over.

After taking a quick look, Feige looked up in surprise and said, "Our market value is less than $900 million now. Mr. Li plans to use $500 million to $700 million in cash, plus assume some debt, to complete the control of Marvel Pictures?"

These conditions are quite generous. After all, Marvel's total debt is nearly $300 million, not counting the $500 million borrowed by mortgaging its IP.

"There are no additional terms," ​​Li You said frankly: "I will ensure that Marvel Studios has full control over the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) that you are building."

"And I'm very optimistic about you, Kevin," Li You chuckled. "It's written into your contract that you'll be retained as the CEO of Marvel Studios. Of course, if you want to leave, that's another matter."

Fitch watched it over and over again, but no matter how he watched it, it felt like a dream.

Such favorable conditions would never be given to those vampires in Hollywood.

Li You didn't want to be a scapegoat, but he had to do it.

Giants such as Disney and Warner may intervene in the bidding, so Li You must complete the transaction quickly this year.

However, the acquisition was not completed immediately. It was not until Li You flew to the United States for the second time in June that the acquisition of Marvel was completed.

A Korean Peninsular joined hands with Donald Willump, who often made a fool of himself in the film industry, to acquire Marvel. This news was not a small one in the American film industry, and most people were sarcastic about it, thinking that Lee Woo was a sucker.

After all, Marvel's future is not visible at all at a glance.

What kind of good movies can a film company that was founded two years ago by a comics company make?
Not to mention that Iron Man himself is a niche and not very popular comic hero. The early preparations for this "Iron Man" were extremely difficult and took two years. In terms of the choice of actors, the "perfect candidate" brought back by Kevin Feige turned out to be Robert Downey Jr., a "big drug addict" who was deeply mired in drug problems.

Many big Hollywood studios are already ready to buy Marvel's IPs when Marvel's movies fail.

No one in the entire film world knew that Marvel had won the gamble that had cost them their entire lives.

"The scales of goddess of luck have finally tipped in our favor," after bidding farewell to Li You, Kevin Feige looked at his expanded core team with excitement in his eyes.

Also in June, the hedge fund under Bear Stearns was forced to liquidate due to huge losses in subprime mortgage investments, becoming the first large financial institution to collapse.

Market liquidity began to dry up and trading volumes plummeted.

Many entrepreneurs who were treated as prey have also come to their senses.

Large financial institutions such as Standard & Poor's and Moody's rated mortgage-backed securities packaged with high-risk subprime loans as AAA, misleading global investors in order to suck their blood.

Willump specially brought his family to meet Li You and expressed his gratitude in person.

Not everyone can make these American entrepreneurs suffer in silence, but these financial institutions representing big capital are the ones who can do this.

The relationship between the major capitals in Europe and the United States is equally complicated and difficult to describe in a few words, but they all have a common understanding that when the time is right, anyone in the financial market below will be cut off like a leek.

Since Willump has accepted Li You's favor this time, he naturally has to give corresponding rewards and respect.

After this meal, in order to show his sincerity, Willump brought his family to have a meal together. In the next few days, Willump continued to personally introduce his connections to Li You.

Li You also accepted everyone who came.

The people that Willump introduced here are much more sensible than those I met in Los Angeles before.

In fact, he can't be said to be sensible, he just knows how much capital Li You controls.

When Li You left New York, his address book included dozens of tycoons in New York's financial and real estate circles.

When the private plane landed again, Li You had already arrived in Houston.

Bezos and Musk were also there. Unlike Li You’s enemies in his previous life, these two people became close friends instead.

Although their philosophies are different, their vision and ideas of exploration and progress are almost the same.

Bezos values ​​step-by-step research and insists on R&D.

Musk also values ​​research and development, but he values ​​acquiring excellent technologies more to further accelerate the development of private spaceflight and promote the commercialization of private spaceflight.

With Li You's introduction, the two companies, Blue Origin and SpaceX, have become complementary.

After nearly a year of construction, Li You's Dome Company finally looked like a private aerospace company.

After all, this kind of company does not exist ready-made. It is not an acquired ready-made company that can be put into use immediately.

After briefly explaining Li Lianchang's idea, Bezos frowned slightly and didn't say much.

On the contrary, Musk was somewhat interested in, "Building a satellite for the Korean Peninsula and sending it into space?"

From their perspectives, one is reluctant to get involved in politics, while the other sees it as a good opportunity to break through restrictions.

After working with Lee You, the two also learned some of the reasons for the slow development of aerospace technology on the Korean Peninsula.

To be frank, in addition to the fact that the Korean Peninsula itself is too high in latitude and longitude and the scientific research results are not good enough, a large part of the reason also lies with the United States.

Unlike Bezos, Musk doesn't like politics nowadays and prefers to do something contrary to political correctness.

It is not difficult to manufacture satellites, and it is not difficult to send them into space. Although Musk's self-developed rocket "Falcon" cannot send satellites into space, there are too many companies cooperating with him.

It should not be called cooperation, it should be called investment.

Whether it is Li You or Musk himself, the funds invested in SpaceX are not subject to investment restrictions and can be invested again.

Currently, a company like SpaceX holds shares as a company and is a shareholder of several companies in various fields including satellites and rockets, while Musk and Li You are shareholders of SpaceX.

With the help of these companies' R&D, this is quite easy.

Although making rockets is difficult and the technology exists, no private enterprise has ever sent their own rocket into space, but it is easy for Musk to borrow one if he wants to.

But when Li You called to inform Li Lianchang of the news, Li Lianchang hesitated.

It was not until Li You asked further about the reason that Li Lianchang sighed and told Li You the whole story.

This is because the Yongbyon nuclear facility is located in Pyongbyon County in the north and is also the main nuclear research center in the north.

It also has the only operating five-megawatt nuclear reactor in the North.

The Yongbyon nuclear reactor is a graphite reactor. Construction began in 1980 and was completed in 1987.

The spent fuel rods from this nuclear reactor can be used to extract plutonium, the raw material for making nuclear weapons.

After the last nuclear test, neighboring countries have been conducting six-party talks.

Now that the results of the Six-Party Talks are about to come out, the North will most likely choose to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear facility in order to avoid further economic sanctions.

As the commander-in-chief, Li Lianchang did not dare to offend any person or country at this time. Neither he nor the Korean Peninsula could be accused of disrupting the talks, otherwise their arguments would become unreasonable.

After understanding what happened, Li You did not force Li Lianchang, but chose
do it yourself.

It just so happened that Li You was also planning to use self-developed domestic navigation software on his future mobile phone.

Traffic lights, alley entrances, and the unique urban structure of the Korean Peninsula make current navigation systems very poor.

But the United States will not fully open up its GPS system access to them.

"Let the Korean Peninsula see it from a navigation perspective first."

(End of this chapter)