Chapter 157 Response and Total Acquisition Funds

"Golden Harvest officially changes hands, mainland director Liu Zhou becomes the new helmsman!"

"Can Liu Zhou lead Golden Harvest to rise again?"

"Liu Zhou takes over Golden Harvest and creates a new landscape in the entertainment industry!"

"The decline of Hong Kong films, Golden Harvest's Hong Kong flavor is gone!"

"The new film and television tycoon Liu Zhou reveals his unknown story!"

……

After the press conference, media from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong and Macau conducted large-scale and in-depth coverage of Golden Harvest’s change of ownership.

Not only that, some official media in the mainland also made some targeted comments on this.

"The most sensational news in the Chinese film industry in 2004 was the entry of the famous domestic director Liu Zhou into Golden Harvest.

For the first person to eat crabs, we always hope that he can only taste the delicious crab roe without getting his mouth cut by the sharp crab claws.

But the reality is not always so, so we have reason to believe that Liu Zhou's acquisition of Golden Harvest, and even his integration of the mainland and Hong Kong film markets, will inevitably involve a painful adjustment process.

But no matter what the final result is, its real significance lies in that when many people in the industry generally believe that Hong Kong films are declining and keep pointing fingers, someone finally takes real action. "
-
"China Youth Daily"

"Liu Zhou's successful acquisition of Golden Harvest and its delisting is a rare case of mainland capital acquiring a Hong Kong listed company.

This is a sign that mainland enterprises are growing and starting to go global, and it also provides a complete and highly feasible operational template for other mainland enterprises.

This will also be a landmark event for the mainland’s financial industry.”
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China Business News

“There are many co-productions now, which seem to be prosperous, but most of them are just at the capital level. Many Hong Kong films just invite mainland actors to play insignificant roles, and that’s considered a co-production.

The mainland and Hong Kong film industries have not truly entered each other's core, and have not truly achieved complementary advantages.

This time Liu Zhou took over Golden Harvest and participated in the operation, rather than entering with project capital. It is relatively easy to achieve results in integrating the advantages of the two places and promoting the development of Chinese films! "
-
Yangcheng Daily

Many people who left Golden Harvest were a little reluctant about the change of ownership, but they all knew that this was a good thing.

Because Golden Harvest hasn't made a movie for several years, now that the new investors have taken over, they will definitely invest money in movie production in the future, which is also a good thing for their old producers and team.

When interviewed by the media, Sammo Hung, Stanley Tong, Eric Tsang and others all expressed high hopes for Liu Zhou and hoped to be able to cooperate with him.

Cheng Long is a well-known big mouth. Regarding the change of ownership of Golden Harvest, he first congratulated Zou Wenhuai on his retirement, and then expressed his appreciation and admiration for Liu Zhou.

Finally, Cheng Long also revealed that he might collaborate with Liu Zhou on a new movie:

"Liu Zhou and I have very high requirements for the script. We won't start filming until the script is ready. When we announce the start of filming, everyone will be shocked!"

Of course, some people welcome Liu Zhou's acquisition of Golden Harvest, while others are very unhappy about it.

For example, Su Qi is a person who is full of contempt for the mainland and hostility towards Liu Zhou.

They have always been used to being high and mighty, looking down on the mainland in various ways, but they still go to the mainland to make a living with a licking face.

When Liu Zhou slapped Du Wenzhe several times in public at the premiere dinner of "Infernal Affairs", these people felt seriously offended.

So they kept attacking Liu Zhou in front of the media, but Liu Zhou thought they were just clowns and ignored them.

At this time, Liu Zhou acquired Jiahe, which made them even more dissatisfied and unable to accept it.

The mainland's unsophisticated people actually bought Hong Kong's Legendary Film Company. They all cried out in grief:
"This is a disgrace to Hong Kong films and the beginning of their decline!
Liu Zhou doesn't understand Hong Kong films at all. If we hand Golden Harvest over to him, the Hong Kong flavor will be gone. Hong Kong films will be doomed!"

But their lamentations can’t change anything. Now that Hong Kong filmmakers are barely making a living, who cares about that damn Hong Kong flavor!
Liu Zhou has no time to pay attention to the various comments from the outside world, whether they are praise, dissatisfaction, welcome, or attack.

After the official announcement of Golden Harvest’s delisting, Liu Zhou and Zhong Lifang were both very busy.

Not only do they have to deal with the media and acquaintances, but they also have to provide reporting documents to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the Securities and Futures Commission and other institutions, a bunch of trivial things.

By the time I finished all these things, it was already late November.

At this point, Liu Zhou could finally stop and breathe a sigh of relief.

Liu Zhou looked at Zhong Lifang who was also exhausted and couldn't help but smile:
"Take a day off tomorrow, and then go meet with the management of Golden Harvest the day after tomorrow."

"Okay, I've been really tired these past few days."

Fortunately, Zhong Lifang was there this time, otherwise the subsequent troubles of acquiring a listed company would drive him crazy. Even though she is now helping him deal with most of the things, Liu Zhou is still very tired.

"By the way, how much did we spend on acquiring Jiahe this time?"

Zhong Lifang was obviously aware of this. After pondering for a while, she reported the details to Liu Zhou.

This time, Zhoushan Capital acquired 1.5% of the shares from the stock market itself, with an average price of approximately HK$ per share.

Golden Harvest had a total of 320 million shares, 19% of which was 60.8 million shares, and this part cost a total of HK$91.2 million.

Then there are the shares left by Zou Wenhuai and other founders, which add up to 34%, or 108.8 million shares.

At that time, Liu Zhou also returned the favor by purchasing Zou Wenhuai's shares at a premium of 3%. So Liu Zhou purchased them at a price of Hong Kong dollars per share, and spent a total of million Hong Kong dollars on these shares.

There is also the 12% stake held by Li Chaoren, totaling 38.4 million shares.

The final negotiation result between Zhong Lifang and Li Chaoren was a premium of 3.3%, which means the purchase price was HK$ per share.

This part of the stock cost Zhoushan Capital a total of 126.7 million.

The remaining 2% of the shares were acquired by Zhoushan Capital through an invitational tender at HK$ per share.

As for the last few tenths of a percent of shares, which were acquired compulsorily, the price difference did not have much impact.

This 35% stake cost a total of 224 million.

So Liu Zhou took over Jiahe and acquired 100% of its shares, spending a total of 768.3 million.

Finally, various taxes must be paid, and the total cost will be around 800 million Hong Kong dollars.

At the beginning, Liu Zhou mobilized 120 million from the mainland and sold 5% of his Sohu shares, raising a total of nearly 1 billion Hong Kong dollars.

When Zhoushan Capital cleared out its Sohu shares, Zhang Chaoyang even called Liu Zhou.

When asked why he sold Sohu's stocks and only sold Sohu's stocks instead of the other two, he said a lot of things, including whether he was pessimistic about the company.

Zhang Chaoyang is no longer a small figure now, but a well-known new tycoon in China's business world.

So Liu Zhou could only explain patiently that it was because he needed funds and he held the fewest shares of Sohu, so he could recover the funds faster and cause less impact.

I can't just tell him directly that I really don't think Sohu is better than the other two companies, right?

Although Zhang Chaoyang didn't quite accept Liu Zhou's explanation, he didn't insist on it anymore.

In fact, Sohu's situation is very good now, and Zhang Chaoyang doesn't care much about whether Liu Zhou sells his shares.

What concerns him is that if you want to raise funds, you hold the stocks of the other two portals tightly and only sell Sohu's stocks.

Doesn't this clearly indicate that these three portals are least optimistic about Sohu?

What's wrong with Sohu?

Don’t I, Zhang Chaoyang, have any face?

However, Zhang Chaoyang did not hold a grudge. He quickly put the matter behind him and continued to enjoy his life with luxury cars and beautiful women.

"Mr. Zhong, use the remaining 200 million to buy Sina's shares."

"Okay, but if we invest all the money, we won't have much money left in our account. Jiahe's subsequent operations will require a lot of funds."

"Don't worry, I know this. Jiahe shouldn't make a big move. They've been sinking for two or three years. We need to slowly bring out Jiahe's strengths."

Next year, Liu Zhou’s main work will be on the merger of Zhou Shan Studio and Golden Harvest and the reorganization of Golden Harvest’s various businesses.

As for production, Liu Zhou also plans to make a movie under the name of Golden Harvest.

Didn’t those haters say that Hong Kong films would start to decline after he took over Golden Harvest, and that he didn’t understand Hong Kong films?
Then Liu Zhou will make a movie full of Hong Kong flavor for you!
Doing so can also calm people's hearts. The integration of Hong Kong films and mainland films cannot be accomplished overnight. It needs to be done slowly.

By the year after next, after we have thoroughly sorted out and gained control of Jiahe, it will be time to show our strength and take the initiative.

After a day's rest, Liu Zhou and Zhong Lifang came to the Golden Harvest headquarters in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon.

As an old film company in Hong Kong, Golden Harvest does not have its own headquarters building, but it does own two floors of property in an office building in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon.

When Zou Wenhuai was first involved in real estate, he considered building a Jiahe Building, but later he realized it was too expensive. Buying land required a huge sum of money, so he gave up the idea.

But he still gritted his teeth and spent a huge amount of money to buy two floors of a 22-story office building in a prosperous office building in Kowloon.

In fact, even though Golden Harvest is in such a state now, it still sells its products at such a high price. The main reason is that they are supported by the properties, cinemas and other visible things they own.

Soft power such as Golden Harvest's distribution network, production capabilities and various personal connections are not valued by general investment institutions and shareholders.

And these soft powers are exactly what Liu Zhou values ​​most.

Although the properties of those cinemas are not cheap, they can still be bought with money in the future.

However, things like distribution capabilities and various personal connections cannot be acquired by simply spending money.

Even if he could smash it, it would take a lot of time, and what Liu Zhou lacked was exactly time.

Jiahe is on the 16th and 17th floors. When Liu Zhou arrived, the company's top executives were already waiting for him at the company's entrance.

Liu Zhou didn't say much to them and asked them to come to the conference room directly.

He doesn't value these people; he values ​​Golden Harvest's assets.

(End of this chapter)