How can you become a star without money?

Chapter 144 Yin is within Yang, not opposite to Yang.

An open strategy is when you know there's a trap ahead, but you still go and check it out.

Because you don't know where the trap is, you're gambling on your own wishful thinking.

Yin is within Yang, but not opposite to Yang.

Xu Chen is a typical schemer, so his sensitivity to traps and crises is extraordinary. However, under Wang Yao's 'all-out' push this time, he repeatedly considered the matter.

Yet, no extremely high risk factor can be found, because whether it's the cross-shareholding of Meishe/Chengtian/Bona or the series of marketing assistance, it's a win-win situation for both him and Wang Yao.

If it's a conspiracy, one side will inevitably suffer losses.

But a win-win situation? Perhaps that's what a real win is?

Is he really doing this for everyone's good?

Xu Chen pondered for an afternoon and finally approached Wu Kebo.

"Did he really say that?" Wu Kebo frowned after hearing Xu Chen's account of the cooperation strategy.

"Yes, Mr. Wang has provided comprehensive support for Meishe's IPO preparations." Xu Chen's voice carried a hint of satisfaction.

“You guys are all of one mind,” Wu Kebo said meaningfully.

"We're all one family, and many hands make light work. I think this collaboration is mutually beneficial for both of us. Just the 'one-day store manager' role alone can increase cinema occupancy by at least 10-20%, right? Meishe's models do have a certain fan base."

Moreover, we no longer have film and television investment business, but Meishe will in the future. We will also jointly establish a new entertainment company with Sohu in the second half of the year, at which time we can obtain greater profit margins from our own distribution business.” Xu Chen continued to increase his investment.

Wu Kebo frowned when he heard the name Souhu.

The shareholders of Meishe.com are actually very diverse, with almost every entrepreneur in Beijing who loves to have fun involved to some extent. Among them, Zhang Chaoyang and Wang Shuo, one of the "Four Young Masters of Beijing" from Wangfu Century, are the most representative. Moreover, Wang Shuo's stepmother, Qing Gege, is still nominally a contracted artist and is currently preparing for a comeback.

All things considered, Meishe's resource network is indeed of very high quality.

"How many shares does Wang Shuo own in your company?" Wu Kebo asked in return.

"I can only tell you, quite a lot," Xu Chen said with a subtle smile.

“I hope to exchange the portion we hold with Wang Shuo. I need his resources in several shopping malls in Beijing to open cinemas,” Wu Kebo proposed.

"Mr. Wu, you overestimate me. I'm just an employee. How could I dare to interfere in Young Master Wang's affairs? Besides, wouldn't it be faster for you to discuss it with Sister Wang Yan yourself?" Xu Chen said, both amused and exasperated.

"If I could negotiate, would I need to trouble you, Mr. Xu?" Wu Kebo sneered, but that was already an admission of cooperation.

Chengtian and Kanpian'er have been supporting each other for almost a month now, and their performance, both online and offline, has been very stable. In fact, with the release of the movie "Love Dream", Wang Yao even helped Chengtian achieve a box office of over 10 million yuan in its first month in overseas theaters.

The collaboration was beyond his expectations, and he now highly approves of Wang Yao, a partner who keeps his word. The only thing that bothers him is that the stock price continues to decline day by day.

It's about to fall below 14 yuan, and the trading volume in the market is getting smaller and smaller. Either it has been targeted by large institutions, or retail investors are stuck with their losses and are just lying down. In short, it's a stagnant market.

The drop in stock price has little impact on the company's operations, but it does have a significant impact on financing. After abandoning the ticket subsidy war, Wu Kebo did indeed invest 70% of his working capital in the expansion of the cinema chain. In the past month, he has acquired and cooperated with nearly 20 small and medium-sized cinemas in first- and second-tier cities in mainland China, adding more than 100 screens. The average investment is more than 5 million yuan per cinema, and it is expected to break even in five years. Therefore, the funds are indeed somewhat tight.

A high stock price is a way to raise funds, but now that the stock price is so low, no one is willing to raise funds through private placement. Moreover, as a major shareholder, he cannot act easily, as it would cause even more trouble if it triggered a chain reaction.

However, the box office market has indeed improved noticeably, and leading cinema chains such as Wanda and Huaying are expanding rapidly. At the beginning of the month, Wanda even publicly announced its strategy to increase its box office revenue from 400 yuan to 800 yuan by the end of the year, accounting for more than 13% of the market share.

This means that the domestic cinema market is expected to exceed 6000 yuan by the end of the year, reaching a growth rate of over 30%.

The competition for expansion is equally fierce, and the negotiations to acquire Legendary Entertainment are nearing completion, which would be another major expense, so Wu Kebo is indeed short of money right now.

The previous desire to cross-shareholding with Meishe was not just to counterbalance a small figure like Wang Yao, but more importantly, to use Meishe shares as a high-quality asset for financing.

The value of Chengtian Entertainment has been anchored by its stock price, but Meishe, a high-quality stock that is still on the rise, has more value. It's like exchanging an inanimate object for a living one.

However, Xu Chen's asking price was too high, and the 1:1 ratio was unacceptable to him. He wanted to wait for the stock price to recover before lowering the price and holding the shares together. But unexpectedly, in less than a month, due to the ebb and flow of the stock, Meishe's valuation was about to exceed that of Chengtian.

At this point, Wu Kebo regretted it. He should have agreed when the ratio was 1:1.5 last month. Now he was in a very passive position.

Moreover, if they disagree now, the score might change to 1:0.9 next month, making him the weaker party.

不过1:1互持之后也有好处，同样10%股份，成天股份现在最多能质押1亿，但美摄股份最少能质押1.5甚至2亿。

Another point is Wang Yao's "one-day store manager" marketing strategy, which is indeed a strategic marketing strategy for cinemas in a certain sense. Therefore, this mutual holding is actually advantageous for cinemas.

Since I can't compete with giants like Wanda in terms of cinema expansion, I'll just focus on services.

The beautiful and handsome ticket inspectors are definitely a killer feature. And if we can really persuade Wang Shuo to participate in the expansion of the cinema chain and obtain the resources of those core business districts in Wangfujing, that would be even better.

After reaching a preliminary agreement with Xu Chen, Wu Kebo will have at least another 1 million yuan in working capital. Although the debt ratio may be as high as 40% or more, it doesn't matter because of the fixed asset appraisal.

Wang Yao's "one-day store manager" marketing gave him a lot of inspiration. He also had another project in mind, "Chengtian Integrated Cinema Cultural Center," which was originally intended to boost the stock price but was not planned to be launched so quickly.

Because this cinema is quite large, it is expected to have 30 world-class cinemas and be equipped with landmark cultural and tourism projects such as hotels and commercial facilities. The investment scale is around 6 million yuan. Although it will cooperate with local governments, at least 1.5 million yuan will be needed to start it.

Previously, Wu Kebo only regarded this project as a face-saving project to boost the company's stock price. After all, how can a world-class cinema chain company be without first-class cinemas?

But now that I think about it, maybe we can combine offline activities like "one-day store manager" to attract a stable customer base, and learn from the model of Songcheng, a leader in the cultural tourism industry. We don't expect to make a profit; as long as we do a good job on the books, it should be enough to boost the stock price.

After much thought, I felt it was a good way to transform my business, but relying solely on those low-class models from Meishe wouldn't work; we needed something more presentable.

So he picked up his phone and called Yangzi, with whom he had broken off relations last time.

"Mr. Yang, where have you been making your fortune lately?" Wu Kebo asked with a smile.

"Didn't Mr. Wu say he wanted to sever ties with me?" Yang Zi sneered.

"Just kidding. By the way, I saw your wife was on Wang Yao's show. You two made up?" Wu Kebo said with a smile.

"If Mr. Wu has nothing else to say, you can hang up now," Yang Zi said, his tone tinged with anger.

Huang Shengyi appeared on the show "Xianyi" without his consent. He only recently heard about it, and his subordinates only found out when they saw the program preview on Shanghai TV.

Huang Shengyi, as the last mystery guest, proved that the show had actually started filming a long time ago, and Yang Zi, who is both the boss and husband, was completely unaware of it, which made him break down.

The two sides had another big argument and are currently in a state of separation and cold war.

However, Huang Shengyi remained calm and did not reveal that he was an investor in the show, otherwise Yang Zi might have exploded.

Fine, fine, I told you to recognize Zhao Benshan as your godfather and you refused, but you turned around and gave money to Wang Yao's show. What do you mean by that?!

This matter has been his weakness recently, and he never expected that Wu Kebo would dare to come to his door to mock him.

"It's better to resolve conflicts than to let them fester. We're all in the same industry, having more friends means having more opportunities. Mr. Yang's decision was correct. I watched that program, and I found it quite interesting." Wu Kebo, oblivious to Yang Zi's anger, offered words of comfort.
"By the way, my acquisition process with Legendary Entertainment is in its final stages. Last time I heard you say you were going to make a big-budget film for your wife with a global release? How's the preparation going?"

We've reached the divorce stage, are you satisfied?
Yang Zi suppressed the urge to curse, "Why does President Wu care about this? Didn't you give up on producing and investing in the film?"

"I plan to cross-share with Meishe, which will give me more liquid funds. I'm currently considering what to invest in," Wu Kebo said with a smile.

"Hmm? Mr. Wu, are you addicted to cross-shareholding? I haven't seen any positive news about your stock price." Yang Zi couldn't help but mock.

“That’s why we’re continuing to hold shares in each other. I suspect someone is targeting me in the stock market, so I’m not going to raise money from the stock market anymore. The same goes for pledging for financing. Meishe is a relatively high-quality company.” Wu Kebo smiled.

"Oh, then congratulations, Mr. Wu," Yang Zi scoffed.

"Didn't you want to indirectly control Tianhuo before, Mr. Yang? Are you interested in joining in?" Wu Kebo asked with a smile.

He planned to issue shares directly to Meishe through a private placement. Since the stock price had already plummeted, he might as well temporarily abandon the stock price and use the share issuance and cross-shareholding as a way to indirectly pledge shares and cash out. Therefore, he wanted to bring Yangzi along to acquire more shares, which could also be considered a form of indirect financing. "With Tianhuo's valuation so high now, how can it be controlled?" Yangzi countered.

If Tianhuo were only worth 20 or 30 million before, there would still be a chance to make a move, but now that they have publicly valued it at 600 million, which is higher than Juli's valuation, how can we still make a move?
"It's precisely because Tianhuo has a high valuation that it has the opportunity and value. Meishe still holds 50% of the shares. If Tianhuo goes public in the future, Wang Yao's shares will definitely be diluted unless he has enough cash to invest."

"As long as we, as one of the major shareholders, can persuade Meishe to hold more than 67% of the shares, we can directly remove him from his position as legal representative through the shareholders' meeting, and temporarily dismiss him from his position as CEO." Wu Kebo offered this bait.

After hearing this, Yang Zi remained silent for a moment. "Wang Yao holds more than 45% of the shares. Based on a valuation of 6 million, he may need to spend at least 1 million to repurchase 12% in the future."

This plan is feasible; Old Sina did it this way back then.

Diluting equity usually involves a premium, but compared to the immense potential of Tianhuo, and Yangzi's resentment, this cost doesn't seem unbearable.

"Actually, it's not much, right?" Wu Kebo said with a smile.

“I have the money, but whether Tianhuo goes public or not is still up to Wang Yao. I need other promises from President Wu.” Yang Zi pondered, “The international blockbuster I want to invest in requires me to contribute overseas distribution and screening resources as equity.”

“No problem, but is the female lead still your wife?” Wu Kebo asked with a smile.

"I want her to know who her husband really is," Yang Zi said with a cold laugh.

Wang Yao spent two days in Beijing, mainly handling the follow-up procedures for the cooperation with iQiyi and waiting for feedback from Meishe.

By the way, let's monitor the sales progress of "Water Spine". In just four days since its release, sales have reached nearly 50 copies. Even after the peak period, sales are still stable at around 5 copies per day. Breaking one million in sales in the first month is inevitable, and related discussions are still heated on foreign websites.

The main reason for the unexpected popularity of the meme "Louis XVI looking for his head" is the cultural invasion of Chinese homophones.

This meme initially spread only on foreign websites. After reaching Japan, it was modified into various anime memes with knife-like elements, such as the "Makoto looking for his head" emoji. When Chinese anime fans accidentally discovered it, they shared it back on Tieba (a Chinese online forum). Some talented individuals created a batch of emojis, the most popular of which was a headless Louis XVI holding various fruits from the movie "Spine of the Sea," accompanied by text.

For example, 'Even jokes have an end, right?' 'These days of being broke should end eventually, right?' 'Are these hard times over?' 'What's with this feeling of endless suffering?'

After Jin Quan discovered these memes originally from China, he rewrote them in English and sent them back to the international internet. In terms of pranks and creativity, Chinese netizens are indeed more outrageous. The fact that they could develop the headless meme to this extent has greatly shocked foreign netizens.

As a result, the popularity continued indirectly, which was truly an unexpected bonus.

Another example is the promotional video featuring Xu Jiao wearing Hanfu and cutting fruit with a real Tang Dynasty knife. The Chinese-style clothing, combined with the same filter and background music as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," and the slow-motion/freeze-motion close-up videos of the girl cutting fruit, created a striking and cool visual effect that quickly inspired many foreign online broadcasters to follow suit.

This sparked a trend on YouTube of cutting fruit with real knives, with many professional chefs showcasing their knife skills.

Meanwhile, Xu Jiao posted her data of ranking in the top five of the global points leaderboard for "Water Spinner" in the comments of that video, which further expanded the influence of "Water Spinner".

Wang Yao predicts that after another promotional campaign for the "Water Spine" National Collegiate Championship next month, sales will reach a new high after the release of the Apple IV in June.

With the revenue from other paid items/effects/skins in the later stages, there is no problem in generating at least $100 million per month (after revenue sharing), which can be sustained for at least a year.

With just this one game, Stargame is expected to generate $2000 million in revenue this year. It's undeniable that games are still the most profitable sector.

Instead of receiving any updates from Meishe, Wang Yao received a visit from Zhang Chen of Kaixin Mahua.

Zhang Chen brought the company's data report, as well as his main partner, Shen Teng.

At this time, Shen Teng was not yet the greasy Uncle Shen; one could still vaguely see the outline of the military arts school heartthrob, but he was already very talkative.

He joined the company in 03 and played a crucial role in the company's most difficult early period as a key creator, lead actor, and director. He was undoubtedly a major contributor. In addition, due to his strong corporate personality, Zhang Chen would always take him along on business trips.

Although he doesn't have much fame or exposure in the entertainment industry now, he has a good network of connections. He can get in touch with He Jiong, Xie Na, and some veterans in the theater circle. Moreover, his sister Shen Na is a world-class singer. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so easy for him to appear on the Spring Festival Gala.

Wang Yao looked at the company data for Kaixin Mahua. Starting with the stage play version of "Crazy Stone" in 07, the company's revenue had been growing rapidly, marking the beginning of its profitability and expansion into new markets. In just over two years, the company had achieved a box office of over 4000 million yuan, which was quite impressive.

"Mr. Wang, I'm not bragging, but if you look throughout the entire industry, there's simply no theater that makes more money than our company," Shen Teng boasted.

"Is Deyun Society not as good as you?" Wang Yao joked.

"They belong to the rap scene, they have nothing to do with our entertainment industry." Shen Teng said without changing his expression.

"Guo Degang's movie 'The Three Smiles' is going to be released next month. He's a rapper who's one step ahead of you guys," Wang Yao joked.

"I don't even need to watch that movie to know it's going to be terrible." Shen Teng waved his hand. "President Wang can just pick any script from our company. If it doesn't do as well at the box office as his, I'll consider it something I owe you."

“I admire Teng Ge’s confidence.” Wang Yao smiled.

"This is a notebook I've always wanted to work on, but it's been delayed due to company budget issues. Could you please help me with some revisions, Mr. Wang?" Shen Teng casually pulled out a copy from a pile of folders and handed it over.

Zhang Chen tried to stop him but couldn't.

Dude, we're here to discuss business opportunities for our company, not to recommend ourselves to you!
Wang Yao glanced at the name "Earl of Wulong Mountain".

Shen Teng had a biased view of Western culture in his early years, and many of his creative ideas were Western in nature. This can be seen from the program elements he brought to variety shows, which were either superheroes or zombie viruses.

He insisted that works incorporating Western elements were more likely to attract young audiences, seeing it as a groundbreaking and innovative approach.

This script had been around for a while, but Shen Teng brought it out this year mainly to give the protagonist some buzz. He capitalized on the popularity of the internet celebrity "Sharp Brother" who went viral in February, thinking that doing so might make him a hit.

This script did receive a good response in offline theaters.

"Looks quite interesting. Mr. Zhang, don't you think it's a good idea?" Wang Yao asked with a smile.

"The main problem is that the company's resources can't keep up. This production requires more than twenty actors and crew. If we're going to do it, it has to be a major production, and the cost of trial and error is not low," Zhang Chen said truthfully.

"To put it bluntly, they don't have the money to support me, Mr. Wang. I'm here today to find a sugar daddy. I'm laying my cards on the table," Shen Teng said smoothly.

In fact, Shen Teng's family is quite powerful; he has been a young master since childhood.

Therefore, he possesses an aura that is quite different from most people in the industry. This is the main reason why he was able to break through the encirclement with this dignified and unyielding confidence in an era of bad movies dominated by capital.

"What form of cooperation do you two think would be best for us?" Wang Yao was amused by the unreleased joke.

“Of course, we hope for comprehensive cooperation. I just saw that Mr. Wang’s company has a lot of pretty young girls. If we put them on our stage, the attendance rate would at least double,” Shen Teng joked.

“Your company has quite a few beautiful women. Ma Li, Liu Yan, and Xie Nan are all very pretty,” Wang Yao said with a smile.

"Mr. Wang is really magnanimous and not picky at all. He even took a liking to Ma Li. Believe me or not, if I go back and pass on this message, she'll dare to come to your door and propose marriage tomorrow!" Shen Teng exclaimed.

"That won't be necessary," Wang Yao said, waving his hand.

"What Brother Teng said is actually right. Mahua's current situation can only support promoting one main drama series per year, let alone having the energy and funds to invest in film production. It's not that we lack the ability, but we simply don't have the capital of Deyun Society."
"So after Mr. Wang brought up the collaboration last time, the main creators and I had a three-day meeting. In the end, we wanted to hear your thoughts. Our only bottom line is that we cannot excessively interfere with the company's operations and program scheduling." Zhang Chen took over the conversation and stated their position.

"That's nonsense. Even if you ask President Wang to intervene, he doesn't have the energy to deal with these trivial matters," Shen Teng retorted.

“Brother Teng is right about that. I’m only responsible for the operational and business considerations. As for execution, I always judge by results. I can’t say I don’t interfere at all, as long as it doesn’t exceed normal expectations.” Wang Yao smiled, but his tone became more solemn.

Zhang Chen understood and said, "Don't worry about that, Mr. Wang. We are all honest creators and won't engage in any corrupt practices."

"Hey, hey, don't be so sure of yourself," Shen Teng laughed.

“Based on the data, your net profit has averaged around 500 million over the past three years, and the company only has 23 employees and no other fixed assets. According to the normal valuation of entertainment companies, the maximum valuation is 4000 million.” Wang Yao pondered for a moment.

This valuation is not low, and may even be a bit inflated, because Shen Teng, Ma Li, and several core directors are not signed with the company, but have a cooperative relationship with Mahua FunAge. Apart from a few drama IPs, they have basically no assets and rely entirely on cash flow. If it were a bank or other company, they would only give a maximum of 3000 million.

For entertainment companies, the most valuable assets are people and copyrights.

So it's normal that no one is willing to invest in them; they're too much like an empty shell company. At least Meishe has a website.

(End of this chapter)