Chapter 1978: Subdued

The city of New York is the economic center of the United States.

But if we talk about the center of the Chinese, then it should be the West Coast.

Because when Chinese people were abducted to work, the first places they arrived were Los Angeles and San Francisco on the West Coast.

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese live and thrive here. Coupled with the large number of immigrants from Xiangjiang and Baodao in recent decades, there are already millions of Chinese on the west coast.

Yin Jun also knows that by 2020, the number of Chinese on the West Coast will exceed 3 million.

I wonder if the Chinese will one day become the majority group on the West Coast.

In any case, with so many Chinese people, living here is a pleasant thing.

At least apart from Americans, we can also see many faces from home, which are not so unfamiliar.

Yin Jun was sitting in front of the street seat in the cafe in the morning, and saw several Chinese couples walking on the street holding children or pushing strollers.

"Master Jun, the current commercial mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. market are already a bit confusing." Colauti on the opposite side sighed, "From 1982 to now, there have been a total of mergers and acquisitions cases in the U.S. There are more than 3,000 pieces, and it seems that it will not stop at all. If the current situation continues, will the United States become a country controlled by monopoly giants in the future?"

Colauti is a senior partner at Goldman Sachs, one of the top five people at Goldman Sachs.

In recent years, due to the emergence of various mergers and acquisitions, several major investment banks in the United States, and even the branches of European banks in the United States, have made a lot of money and shared in such a feast.

Colauti is also one of those who benefited.

Not to mention anything else, just the companies he acquired for Yin Jun could already make him famous.

These acquisitions have made him and Goldman Sachs a lot of money. Currently, Yin Jun's service level at Goldman Sachs has reached the highest level.

If Colauti hadn't been following Yin Jun's line, one of the five people above would definitely have wanted to snatch Colauti as a customer.

But when encountering such a crazy merger and acquisition situation, which has been going on for several years and is still going on, Colauti feels a little scared.

He doesn't know what kind of country the United States will become in the future.

To put it bluntly, he is also worried about his future work and destiny.

Yin Jun is the smartest person in the world and a genius, so during the chat today, Colauti mentioned this by the way, hoping to get some inspiration and help from Yin Jun.

By coincidence, Yin Jun really knew about this.

When talking about the U.S. economy in the future, economists will roughly divide the U.S. economy into several stages.

One of them is the wave of mergers and acquisitions in the 1980s and 1990s.

What do the more than 3,000 pieces Colauti mentioned?

In the mid-to-late 1980s, mergers and acquisitions became more serious, and then Japanese assets entered the United States, adding fuel to the fire.

It seems that there are more than 20,000 merger buttons in the United States in this era.

Even though there are many companies in the United States, the number of more than 20,000 accounts for one-third of the total number of companies in the United States. This shows how exaggerated this wave of mergers is.

Countless small and medium-sized enterprises have disappeared amid such mergers and acquisitions.

Instead, countless large group companies have emerged, usually two, three, three or five large companies, controlling more than 80% of the industry's market share.

Then after the 1990s, the U.S. economy seriously lost its vitality because it was basically dominated by trust monopolies.

After 2010, the U.S. industry was basically finished, with only the financial and electronic industries still showing some promise.

For China, this is a good thing.

Without such changes as the United States, without a large number of factories relocating due to this, leaving only those enterprises that are easiest and least resource-intensive, China would have to wait another twenty or thirty years for the scale of its industrial base to develop. .

"Actually, if it is too dispersed, it will also be a loss of the country's strength." Yin Jun said with a smile, "Besides, don't worry so much. At least in the financial industry, the competition in the United States is so great, even if it is the same as Goldman Sachs There are more than a dozen large banks. It would be extremely difficult to defeat them, or if they defeat Goldman Sachs!"

"That's true."

After all, Colauti is a financial elite cultivated by Goldman Sachs. What these people care about most is always his own interests.

If you think about it carefully, all the banking giants around the world are doing business in the United States. They are all based on the country. How could they be defeated?

The same goes for Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. They have been fighting for decades and have gone through several crises, but they have never defeated each other, and they won't do it this time.

After recovering his mind, Colauti got down to business, "Master Jun, Warner has failed this time. They didn't have enough confidence when they contacted us. Although the quotation is 100 million U.S. dollars, I guess if we insist on It’s possible to close the deal for 80 million US dollars.”

Colauti has been discussing the acquisition of DC Comics with Warner on behalf of Yin Jun.

However, after negotiating for five or six months at a stretch, Warner was always hesitant and finally suspended negotiations with the North American branch of Kirin Group.

The reason is that in May, DC Comics' second most popular character, Batman, is about to usher in another big-screen movie.

Popular idols like Superman and Batman will, of course, have a movie or TV series about them every ten years or so.

But the previous effects were not very good.

"Superman", the most popular show in the United States, only became popular in the first episode. It was sniped by "Speed" in the second episode, and the third episode did not even reach 100 million US dollars.

This seems to confirm once again that comics are not suitable for transformation into movies.

The movie "Batman" represents Warner's final test of DC Comics.

For "Batman," which was released in early May, Warner not only secured more than 2,000 regular screens, but also secured 1,000 IMAX screens, the same as the previous hit "Resident Evil."

But unfortunately, "Batman" did not repeat the magic of "Resident Evil", but directly hit the streets. In three weeks, it only took in more than 60 million US dollars at the North American box office.

At first glance, this is actually a good result, but if you consider that with the special effects, the total cost of "Batman" is 60 million US dollars, and the publicity cost is also 10 million US dollars, you will know that this time "Batman" It's a definite loss.

Even if after a long period of reaction, the box office of "Batman" exceeds 100 million US dollars, their losses will exceed 20 million US dollars.

Even if there is still income from video tapes and TV rights, it is really a shame that a brand as big as "Batman" will take three to five years to recover the cost.

This is completely inadequate in terms of economic efficiency.

It would be better to make a few more low-cost movies, or follow the trend and shoot action movies, so that it would be easier to earn millions and tens of millions with a cost of 20 to 30 million.

So Warner didn't insist anymore and planned to sell DC Comics to the North American branch of Kirin Group.

When Colauti talked about this, he felt a little gloating.

Warner was really too hesitant. It was clear that DC did not have the strength, but it had to hit the wall before turning back, wasting so much time.

Now they still want $100 million?

What a dream!

If they had raised the price to US$100 million two or three months ago and said they wanted to sell it, maybe Yin Jun would have agreed.

But now DC Comics' live-action movie has failed again, and it will take several years to recover. It will not be easy for them to sell it, let alone raise the price by 20 million to sell it.

So Colauti said, as long as they grind them, 80 million is completely fine.

Yin Jun's answer to this was, "Don't worry. Anyway, we are the only ones who really have determination and money now. Take your time and don't let this big fish get away."

"good."

Colauti smiled and said, "Don't worry, they can't run away."

Yin Jun said without hesitation, "100 million is just 100 million. I have the money, so I can just buy it."

Never do business like this.

Even if you have money, you can't express your preference for a certain company on your face.

People in Hollywood and Wall Street are smarter than monkeys. If you agree too readily and act too eagerly, you will definitely cause more troubles.

Colauti is already a veteran of acquisitions, and he certainly knows what to do to maximize Yin Jun's interests.

"Master Jun, if DC Comics is obtained, are you going to start consolidating resources in the near future to shoot a live-action movie belonging to Qilin Movies?" Colauti was also a little curious.

"We have this plan, but within three to five years, we probably won't be able to put it into action." Yin Jun said half-seriously, "The main reason is that the special effects technology is not enough, and then there are also personnel and shooting considerations."

"That's such a pity! I'm still a die-hard fan of Superman!" Colauti said with regret.

Americans must have grown up reading various comic books during their childhood. It is not unusual for the most popular hero like Superman to attract Colauti.

DC Comics, which was already in dire straits in its previous life, finally turned around thanks to which movie?

It's still "Batman", just the sequel to "Batman", "Batman 2" four years later.

The movie grossed 400 million U.S. dollars at the box office, contributing more than 150 million U.S. dollars in box office profits to Warner Bros. Pictures, and earned more than 200 million U.S. dollars from peripheral products.

With such a crazy achievement, Warner immediately gave up its plan to sell DC Comics and began to slowly and seriously operate it.

From Yin Jun's point of view, "Batman 2" is just the way it was shot, and it can't compare to "The Dark Knight" shot by Nolan, which is such a classic and unsurpassed.

So if the boy wanted to film, it would definitely be "The Dark Knight."

The problem with special effects technology is actually not that big. With the rapid development of the digital field and the slow progress of computer special effects technology, the Dark Knight will be filmed in three years at most.

Yin Jun finished filming "Forrest Gump" this year, will take a year off next year, and take up the drama the year after that. There is no pressure at all.

If you really don't have time, then whether you entrust James Cameron or Lester to be the director, you can completely save the "Batman" series.

But that's not the problem.

The problem is that Yin Jun also wants to acquire Marvel, which is more valuable!

If you make "The Dark Knight" a hit and Marvel sees it and insists on giving it a try, wouldn't that make Yin Jun's acquisition more difficult?

Marvel is already in a very difficult situation. It would not be a good thing to give them a life-saving straw!

…

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