Chapter 158 Jiahe's Deep Assets

Taking over a new company is never easy.

When a company changes ownership, old employees, especially senior executives, will be the most nervous.

So the first thing Liu Zhou did for these senior executives of Jiahe was to calm people's hearts.

When meeting with these senior executives, Liu Zhou made it clear that there would not be major personnel changes in Jiahe and everyone could work with peace of mind.

Finally, Liu Zhou also retained Golden Harvest’s general manager Zou Chongyan.

The two had had a lot of contact before, and because of Zou Wenhuai, they had a good relationship with each other.

But two days ago, Zou Chongyan told Liu Zhou that she was going to resign and asked Liu Zhou to find a suitable candidate to replace her as soon as possible.

Liu Zhou had never discussed this matter with her in detail before, but today he had time to see what she thought.

"Boss Zou, can you tell me why you want to resign and leave?"

"Boss Liu, actually I was forced to be the general manager by my father, and I am not interested in the film and television industry.

Now that Jiahe is in your hands, I can leave and do what I like."

However, Liu Zhou was a little bit skeptical of what Zou Chongyan said.

She started working at Golden Harvest in the late 1980s, and it has been fifteen years now.

Although she was not as capable as her father, she worked diligently and later became the general manager, but she still managed to make ends meet.

The decline of Golden Harvest was caused by many factors and cannot be reversed by one or two people.

Although Zou Chongyan was not good at pioneering, he was good at maintaining the status quo.

Now that Liu Zhou has just taken over Golden Harvest, he needs the assistance of her, a veteran employee who has worked at Golden Harvest for more than ten years.

Whether it is to appease people's hearts or to assist him in taking over Jiahe, Zou Chongyan can play a very good role.

"Boss Zou, you have worked at Jiahe for more than ten years. I don't believe you have no feelings for this company. The company is in a turbulent period now, and we need you as the general manager to take charge even more."

Seeing that she was still a little hesitant, Liu Zhou roughly understood her concerns and continued:

“Mr. Zou, I was able to acquire Jiahe so smoothly. Mr. Zou helped me a lot.

And I'm not an intolerant person. I won't kick you out because I'm concerned about your influence in the company.

For me, the acquisition of Golden Harvest is just the beginning, not the end. I think, since you still have feelings for Golden Harvest, we can work together to regain the former glory of Golden Harvest."

Hearing Liu Zhou's sincere words, Zou Chongyan was also a little moved.

The real reason she left was that she was worried that she would be an eyesore. Generally, when a company is acquired, the top management, especially the general manager, will almost always be fired to avoid interfering with the control of the new company.

Therefore, Zou Chongyan felt that it would be more honorable to resign on his own initiative rather than being fired.

But I didn't expect that Liu Zhou actually really wanted to keep me.

She definitely has feelings for Jiahe, so if Liu Zhou doesn't reject her, she certainly doesn't want to leave.

"Boss Liu, since you said so, I take back what I said before. But if you think I am not suitable for this position, you can tell me directly. I will not stay here."

Liu Zhou smiled when he heard this and said:
"As long as you don't leave Jiahe, you may be able to move up to a higher position in the future."

"I dare not think of a higher position, I just hope I can live up to Mr. Liu's trust and I will be satisfied."

"Since President Zou is not leaving, you must continue to perform your duties as the general manager of the company. I now have two things for you to do."

"What two things?"

“The first thing I need you to do is to help me calm people down. I don’t want the company to be in turmoil during the handover.
The second thing is that I need you to show me Jiahe’s company information. I need to have a comprehensive understanding of Jiahe’s situation.”

"Okay, Mr. Liu."

"If it's ok, Mr. Zou, please go and prepare first. I'm short on time and may not be able to stay in Hong Kong for too long."

After a while, Zou Chongyan walked into Liu Zhou's office with a pile of information.

Liu Zhou's office previously belonged to Zou Wenhuai. After a simple tidying up, it was given to Liu Zhou for use.

After Zou Chongyan left, Liu Zhou spent the whole day in the office looking at documents.

It was not until nine o'clock in the evening that Liu Zhou put down the last document and then he couldn't help but let out a long sigh of relief.

Golden Harvest is indeed a large and prominent company that was once in operation. Although it seems to be in a slump now, a lean camel is still bigger than a horse, and it still has valuable assets under its umbrella.

The first point is Golden Harvest’s cinema assets, which is also Golden Harvest’s greatest value at present.

In Hong Kong, Golden Harvest also wholly owns twelve cinemas, all located in the prosperous areas of Hong Kong.

Due to the decline of the Hong Kong film industry, the number of cinemas in Hong Kong has dropped from nearly 200 at its peak in the early 1990s to less than 80 now.

Although Golden Harvest has only twelve cinemas, it occupies nearly 30% of the market share.

In the 70 years since the establishment of Golden Harvest Cinema Chain in , there has been no change in the dominance, and the most that has happened is the increase or decrease in the number of cinemas.

Therefore, many Hong Kong citizens are more accustomed to watching movies at Golden Harvest Cinemas. Although Golden Harvest has not produced any movies in the past two years, Golden Harvest Cinemas is still the largest screening organization in Hong Kong.

In addition, Golden Harvest is the largest shareholder of Warner Village Cinemas Taiwan, which owns 8 cinemas with a total of 79 theaters, accounting for about 35% of the market share.

Warner Village Cinemas was formed through the merger of Warner, Golden Harvest and a local cinema company in Taiwan.

At that time, Golden Harvest acquired 45% of the shares of the merged company by virtue of its cinema chain in Taiwan.

After introducing Warner's management system, Warner Village Cinemas has become Taiwan's largest cinema chain after ten years of development.

In addition, Golden Harvest owns 9 cinemas in Singapore, accounting for 5% of the market share in Singapore. These cinemas are wholly owned by Golden Harvest.

At the same time, Golden Harvest has a joint venture cinema chain with local companies in Malaya, owning 10 cinemas and is also a leading player in the Malaysian film market.

Golden Harvest also has several cinemas in some Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, but it did not set up a separate cinema chain. Instead, it was incorporated into local cinema companies.

Despite this, Golden Harvest maintains close ties with cinema companies in these regions.

So when it comes to distribution capabilities in Southeast Asia, no company in Hong Kong or the Mainland can compare with Golden Harvest.

In addition to cinema assets, what Liu Zhou values ​​most is Golden Harvest's distribution capabilities.

In addition to Southeast Asia, Golden Harvest has distribution capabilities in South Korea, Japan, and the United States.

Especially one book. So far, among the top ten Chinese-language movies at the box office, except for Jet Li's "Shaolin Temple", the other nine are either from Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan.

The films of these two people are all produced by Golden Harvest, which has very close cooperative relationships with Toho, Shochiku Films and Nikkatsu.

These three companies are three of the five largest film and television culture giants in Japan.

In the United States, Golden Harvest and Warner also have very close cooperation. Starting from Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" to the later "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and Jackie Chan's movies, almost all of them are cooperation with Warner or Warner's New Line.

However, the United States is relatively xenophobic, and it is difficult for Golden Harvest to distribute Chinese-language films throughout the United States. At most, they are distributed in theaters in Chinese communities.

In addition, Golden Harvest also owns Hong Kong's most advanced post-production equipment, the largest developing and copying company, and even a special effects studio.

Part of Jiahe's income in recent years has come from renting out these equipment.

These post-production equipment may seem insignificant, but the investment is not small. A considerable number of companies in Hong Kong do not have post-production capabilities and need to rent equipment from large manufacturers.

This has completely made up for Liu Zhou's shortcomings. From now on, Liu Zhou will no longer have to rent equipment from China Film Group for post-production of his films.

The last piece is a large number of costumes and props left over from Golden Harvest over the past 30 years.

Many of these things can be reused with just a few minor modifications.

As for talented people, there may not be many, especially in the production department, almost all of them have run away.

The people in other departments are still complete, but most of them have lost their spirit and the drive to forge ahead.

In the future, Liu Zhou will slowly replace these people.

Golden Harvest actually has something very valuable, which is its huge film library.

Hong Kong's film companies do not pay much attention to their film libraries because of their limited revenue channels.

Companies like New One City and Shaw Brothers sold their film libraries to Warner for only 10 or 20 million.

Because Golden Harvest was doing relatively well, it had kept its film library.

But in 2002, when Golden Harvest was in its most difficult time, Zou Wenhuai had to mortgage his film library to Warner.

Warner originally wanted to acquire it, but Zou Wenhuai, who had more contact with the United States, was cautious and only mortgaged it for the time being. If the money could not be repaid within the three-year repayment period, it would be sold to Warner.

The repayment date is next year. Liu Zhou, who is aware of the importance of copyright in the future, will certainly not let Golden Harvest's huge film library be lost.

Liu Zhou even considered whether he could buy back the film libraries of Shaw Brothers and New One City from Warner.

However, given the extreme emphasis on copyright in Europe and the United States, this should be difficult.

Hollywood film companies are able to make full use of their film libraries, and decades-old films can still continue to generate revenue.

A very important part of the value of the Big Seven Hollywood studios is their film library.

In addition to these Jiahe assets, the information that Zou Chongyan brought over also included information on other aspects of Jiahe Company.

For the time being, Golden Harvest is still relatively stable.

The company's operations can be maintained through revenue from theaters, distribution and leasing of post-production equipment.

It's just that these profits are long-term and cannot create as much momentum as the profits from making movies. In addition, the number of Hong Kong productions continues to decrease and Golden Harvest itself has stopped producing.

So it seems that Golden Harvest is having a hard time, but in fact, Golden Harvest is doing quite well. At least it is not making losses all the time. It’s just that such good days will only last for a few more years.

After reading the information about Jiahe, Liu Zhou was not prepared to start a war right away.

He needs to think carefully about how to adjust the entire company's structure and also prepare to invite some people to join.

(End of this chapter)