Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 725 Acquisition, Initiated!
Zhang Zhao has been following Jia Yueting closely. That old fox Jia Yueting is incredibly cunning. On one hand, he's raising money everywhere to start a new energy vehicle business—and he's actually managed to raise funds recently; the factory is reportedly already under construction. On the other hand, he's unwilling to sell LeEco's truly valuable assets.

A year after the scandal broke, he has only sold a few plots of land and the Super TV business, and still holds onto LeEco Pictures.

Not to mention LeEco, a listed company.

Despite its drastic decline, LeEco, as a listed company, still has some value.

However, behind its value lies enormous debt pressure and complex equity relationships, which is why many companies want to buy LeEco but hesitate to do so.

Jia Yueting knew that LeEco was still valuable, so his previous requirements for potential buyers were to acquire LeEco and assume its historical debts.

No buyer dared to agree to his condition.

But now, for some unknown reason, Mr. Jia has relented.

Li Qiutang guessed that the relevant departments above had put pressure on him, and since he really needed a lot of money to make cars, there was no point in continuing to hold on, so he finally relented.

He filed for bankruptcy reorganization of LeEco, deciding to sell LeEco's core assets to repay debts.

Without divesting its high-quality assets, no fool would take over LeEco.

LeTV's most valuable assets are undoubtedly its video platform and its vast copyright library.

In an instant, outside capital swam in like sharks smelling blood—this was exactly what they were waiting for!
According to Zhang Zhao, the most direct trigger for Jia Yueting's agreement to sell LeEco was the collapse of his 200 billion yuan overseas family trust a few months earlier. This made Jia Yueting a pariah, with no room for excuses.

He couldn't borrow any more money domestically; even underground money lenders wouldn't lend him any. He had no choice but to actually start selling assets—of course, under the guise of actively reducing debt and taking full responsibility.

"The court has accepted LeEco's application, but there are many complicated procedures to go through." Zhang Zhao was not in Yanjing and communicated with Li Qiutang by phone. "Nobody knows exactly where it is at."

Li Qiutang's biggest concern right now is: "Which companies will be competing?"

“Almost every investor you can think of related to film and media will participate in this acquisition. Fosun, Sunac, CMC, iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video, and even some asset management companies are very interested in this.”

"Why are asset management companies getting involved? Do they even understand platform operations?"

"You don't need to understand it. Just buy it and hand it over to professional managers. LeEco has the largest film and television copyright library in the country. It can earn hundreds of millions of yuan every year just from copyrights. In two years, just resell it and the money will be in your hands."

Li Qiutang could see the value of LeEco, and so could others.

"It's going to be a tough battle."

“Yes,” Zhang Zhao agreed, “If we can really buy LeEco, the company’s development will reach a new level.”

Such a tough battle requires thorough preparation beforehand. After concluding her communication with Zhang Zhao, Li Qiutang returned to the company the next day and convened a closed-door meeting with relevant personnel. They decided to immediately form a team to formulate an acquisition plan while closely monitoring the progress of LeTV's bankruptcy reorganization.

Law firms, investment banks, accounting firms, internal operations, and external industry and technology experts are all essential, so I won't go into details.

During a conversation with some internet technology engineers, Li Qiutang suddenly asked a question that seemed unrelated to the LeEco acquisition: "What impact do you think artificial intelligence, or AI, will have on our film and television industry?"

This idea came from Li Qiutang on a whim, and the engineers were astonished that a film director would be interested in such cutting-edge internet technology.

Li Qiutang really didn't know much about this, and he was genuinely eager to learn. He didn't know the difference between the AI ​​of today and the AI ​​he remembered.

However, he knew that AI had a very high chance of revolutionizing film and television, so he had to learn about it.

However, the technical expert hired in the autumn was not from the field of AI and only had a superficial understanding of AI, so he could only give Li Qiutang a general overview.

Li Qiutang listened with great interest.

Regarding the current impact of AI on film and television, various parties remain relatively optimistic and clear-headed, believing that AI is merely an auxiliary tool responsible for analysis, recommendation, and optimization, which helps improve efficiency. After listening, Li Qiutang said, "Will AI one day play a front-end role in creation and decision-making? Because of technological development, AI is shifting from back-end analysis to front-end decision-making."

The engineer said, "This is the ultimate goal of AI, but achieving it faces complex ethical and technical issues and will take time."

Seeing this, Li Qiutang said nothing more.

"Is the director interested in this?"

"I read some news and just started speculating. Hehe."

But Li Qiutang then really started to understand AI and began to figure things out on his own. It's unknown what he could come up with.

The company is preparing to deal with LeEco's acquisition, while in the film market, the second half of the summer movie season has officially begun.

On this day, "Hello Mr. Billionaire" had surpassed 20 billion yuan, and Autumn Pictures' two films together achieved a proud 50 billion yuan.

Of course, the co-producers of both films also said that the 50 billion was their achievement.

Let’s make money together.

Of course, the positive impact of the 50 billion yuan box office, especially the widespread social discussion surrounding "Dying to Survive," on Autumn Pictures' stock price, which brought Autumn Pictures' market value back to the 700 billion yuan mark and made its partners envious, is another matter entirely.

Buying stocks in the fall is thrilling and exciting. The film and media industry is declining, and the fall stock also falls, but who knows when it will pull out a blockbuster and drive the stock price up again.

Over the course of two years, both "Wolf Warrior 2" and "Dying to Survive" followed this approach, which resulted in many stock market investors making money.

On the 10th, "The Island," "iPartment," and "The Meg" were released simultaneously.

"iPartment" was the first to be criticized.

"A fraudulent movie!"

"A Cemetery of Love!"

"F*ck! Give me back my money!"

No wonder they didn't have a preview screening; how could they possibly have the nerve to screen something like this?

If they screen it ahead of time, wouldn't everything be exposed? How would they then profit from their fans?

"iPartment" grossed 300 million yuan on its opening day, more than the combined total of "The Island" and "The Meg". "The Island" grossed 150 million yuan on the same day, and "The Meg" grossed a little over 100 million yuan.

They have the nerve to claim it's the highest-grossing romance film on its opening day in mainland China's film history. Is that even a romance film?!
Amidst a barrage of criticism, the screening share of "iPartment" plummeted from 51.8% on its opening day to a mere 26.5% on its second day, which was a Saturday.

On the third day, it was cut in half again, down to 13.8%.

The company earned 490 million yuan in revenue over its first three-day weekend.

The freed-up screenings were naturally taken up by "The Island," "The Meg," and "Hello Mr. Billionaire."

The Meg earned $3.5 million in its opening weekend, with $4500 million in North America and $8000 million worldwide, making it the top-grossing film worldwide that week, which is quite a good result.

To be fair, Li Bingbing's success in the US market is far superior to that of Fan Bingbing, which explains why foreign fans recognize Li Bingbing more than Fan Bingbing.

(End of this chapter)