Reborn Tycoon Rise

Chapter 403 The acquisition begins

The second offer was still rejected. Instead of continuing the offer, Peter kept the offer open for five days and announced to the public that it was still being discussed internally.

Disney's board of directors met twice in a row to discuss Blackstone's intentions. As for Ron, who was jumping up and down in an attempt to stop the merger, everyone ignored him.

What about Walt Disney’s son-in-law? The entire Disney company has been severely damaged by your hands. Now many shareholders finally have a chance to cash out, so how can they waste this opportunity?

Affected by this, the stock price fell sharply again. Originally, Blackstone Fund's quotation made the stock price rise by 23%. Now, due to a lot of negative news, the stock price has fallen by nearly 20%, almost back to before liberation.

Peter also took advantage of this opportunity to aggressively acquire Disney shares in the secondary market. In fact, when he learned about his boss's plan at the beginning of the year, he was already secretly acquiring Disney shares. After all, it was now a low-price acquisition. , the more you acquire, the less money you will spend on overall acquisitions in the future.

At present, Blackstone already controls 10% of Disney's shares. Even at the current 30% premium, it can save an additional US$30 million in consumption.

Of course, this can only be said to be pocket money. It is good to have less money, but the priorities must be clearly distinguished. Among acquisitions, the most important thing is to complete the acquisition.

Therefore, even if he could save more money by delaying it for a few more days, Peter still followed the original plan and personally led his more than 30 elites and dozens of legal professionals to go to Disney's office in a mighty manner. Headquarters, the two sides conducted negotiations for seven consecutive days.

In the end, the two parties reached an agreement on the price. Blackstone Fund fully acquired the entire Disney Company for US$2.4 billion, and at the same time needed to bear all the company's debts totaling US$1.24 billion.

Of the US$2.4 billion acquired, US$1.8 billion came from Standard Chartered Bank, and the rest was handled by Citibank introduced by Goldman Sachs.

(Because it is a comprehensive acquisition, even the previously acquired stocks need to enter the trading system, which is equivalent to exchanging the left hand for the right hand)

Including the liabilities that need to be assumed, the acquisition of Disney cost the equivalent of US$3.6 billion.

But it's all worth it. Disney's core assets are the two Disney resorts in the United States and their internal hotels. These two resorts generate hundreds of millions of cash flows every year, but they only suffer huge losses due to excessive early investment. High loan and maintenance costs, and the oil crisis in the 1970s caused a sharp drop in people's willingness to consume, resulting in poor performance in recent years.

But it is now 1983, and the second oil crisis has passed. At the same time, the U.S. economy has begun to recover, and people's willingness to travel and consume has increased.

And if you have more money, you will naturally be full, warm and happy. In a few years, you will have more children, and the number of people coming to Disneyland will definitely increase significantly soon.

At the same time, the Reagan administration will significantly reduce interest rates, which will also stimulate the economy and reduce the interest expenses of Xu Zhi and Disneyland. This is also a huge sum of money.

The soon-to-open Japanese Disneyland is a real cash cow. Unfortunately, Disney management did not dare to make huge investments at the time. Disneyland in Japan is a franchise model. Disney exports technology and authorization, and the Japanese side invests and manages it. The Japanese side owns everything. of equity.

But relying solely on Disney’s naming fee, Japan Disney’s 5% of tickets, and 10% of the internal rent share, the net profit increased by this alone is as high as tens of millions of dollars a year, and there are still many tricks in it. For example, a large number of toys and souvenirs sold within Disneyland are owned by Disney, and there are huge profit margins.

In addition to theme parks, Disney also owns a large number of resorts. The entire company has a total of 14 resorts around the world. The largest one is in the American tourist resort of Hawaii, with 351 hotel rooms.

In later generations, Disney has another huge business that has not yet been involved, and that is Disney Cruise Lines. In its original history, this business developed in the mid-1990s. By the 21st century, Disney has eight large cruise ships, known as Walking Disneyland.

The current 1980s is also the best time to develop this project. The oil crisis has just passed, oil prices have begun to return to normal levels, and the entire world is trapped in ship disasters and shipping crises. At this time, the price of manufacturing cruise ships must be at its lowest point, and The U.S. economy will usher in 20 consecutive years of growth, which is just a little short of the four years when George H.W. Bush was president.

As long as Disney's operating conditions improve in the future, this cruise project can be launched.

In terms of light assets:

Disney holds patents for hundreds of comic characters, including the most well-known Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. It also has a large number of animation productions in terms of film copyrights. These annual peripherals and licensing are also one of Disney's main incomes.

What surprised Xu Zhi even more was that Disney owns a TV channel: Disney Children's Channel.

Disney Channel was officially launched on April 18 this year. It is a paid channel mainly used to broadcast cartoons, series, original movies, etc. independently produced by Disney Company.

The most powerful thing about Disney is its entire huge team. The reason why Disney's development has not been smooth in the past ten years is because after the death of the founder, the successors were not capable enough and did not dare to be too flexible. They were unlucky enough to encounter two oil crises.

Now, Xu Zhi has taken over Disney. As long as he provides the business and film projects that have enabled Disney to turn around and grow rapidly in later generations, Disney with strong execution capabilities will soon be able to get out of trouble and soar into the sky.

However, just because the price has been negotiated with the Disney board of directors, it does not mean that the transaction can be completed smoothly. Any country will restrict foreign companies from acquiring domestic companies. In the United States, foreign investment in the acquisition of American companies must be approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment before the transaction can be formalized. start.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is an executive department directly under the White House. The Secretary of the Treasury is the overall leader of the department. Other members are members of eight executive departments and seven White House agencies.

Although the department nominally controls all foreign investments, in fact, only some large enterprises and overseas mergers and acquisitions that affect U.S. national security and threaten a large number of job opportunities will attract the attention of the department.

In the past, when Midea acquired RCA's television business, because of its small scale, the Committee on Foreign Investment at the time only asked whether there would be a large number of layoffs. After receiving a negative commitment, it approved the acquisition.

But this time is completely different. This merger is the largest foreign merger in U.S. history, outside of the oil industry. The Committee on Foreign Investment will obviously conduct a comprehensive investigation into this acquisition.

Tap the screen to use advanced tools Tip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between chapters.

You'll Also Like