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Simon had read the materials of "Happy City" in advance. "Happy City" was directed by Roland Joffe, who was nominated for Oscar for Best Director twice. During the filming of this film in India, it was obstructed by the authorities more than once. bumpy.However, compared to Roland Joffe's previous two Oscar-nominated "Fighting the City" and "Floating Life", "Happy City" has a mediocre reputation among film critics.

Warner Bros. Pictures has only arranged 811 opening screens for this movie.

Simon was in Australia, and the relevant data of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2" was transmitted to him in the first time.

After the film was released, North American media generally gave this sequel a relatively positive evaluation even though it had a public relations component, with a comprehensive score of 7.1. The film review article of "Variety Show" magazine also spared no effort to praise "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2" for its breakthrough in the plot mode.

As the most watched and most publicized movie in the Easter schedule, the opening box office of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2" also met expectations.

In the three days of the first weekend, 2976 screens, and finally earned 2613 million US dollars.

Although it failed to achieve an average of more than 2613 in the three days, the box office of [-] million U.S. dollars in the first three days of its opening was enough for all other films in the same period to look up to.

"Happy City", which started drawing on the same day, had a budget of US$2700 million, which is almost the same as the US$2 million budget of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3000", but the box office in the first weekend was only US$339 million in three days.

The Simons arrived in Melbourne on April 4 and did not return until April 17.

In addition to watching the little guy, the Johnston family also agreed on another matter during this trip to Melbourne, which was the wedding of David Johnston and Leslie Wickett.

Reluctantly, but at the insistence of his son, Raymond Johnston finally let go.

The wedding of the two is finally confirmed in November at the end of the year, and the location is naturally in Melbourne.

Back in the United States, the box office of the first week of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2" is also officially released.

Over seven days, the hit animated adaptation ended up grossing $3738 million.

It's off to a stellar start, earning $3216 million more than the first film's $500 million opening weekend.

For Simon, this data also broke the box office drop of the sequel, which the original Space-Time New Line and Paramount failed to break through.

Therefore, although with the passing of Easter, Daenerys Entertainment’s distribution department predicts that the film’s box office drop may reach 4% in the next week based on the box office on April 24, which is far less than the 40% drop in the second week of the first film. There is still nothing dissatisfied with this.

With an opening of US$3738 million, even with a 40% drop in the next week, the total box office in North America is still expected to exceed the US$1 million mark.

Compared with a $3000 million production budget and a $1500 million publicity investment, Daenerys Entertainment can only start to make a profit at the North American box office.

The word-of-mouth and box office in North America have met expectations, and the box office in overseas markets will definitely rise.

However, after Easter, what attracted the most attention was the Apollo Management Company under Cersei Capital, which successfully won the parent company of Victoria’s Secret with an offer of US$24.5 billion in the competition with KKR and Blackstone. LTD.

Since February, the acquisition case that has been entangled for more than two months has finally been settled.

In the final game, KKR's offer was $25.5 million higher than Cersei Capital's acquisition team, reaching $[-] billion.

However, compared to the one-time full payment of Cersei Capital, KKR has provided a three-year cash plus bond combination payment model.Moreover, in terms of corporate management rights, KKR’s requirements are more stringent than those of Cersei Capital. It not only disagrees with the request of LTD founder Leslie Wexner’s family to retain part of the shares, but also requires the other party to immediately withdraw after the acquisition. resign.

After Blackstone tried to cooperate with KKR and Cersei Capital to no avail, it also made a private offer for LTD.

According to the news that was later revealed, the total offer price for this plan was only 24 billion US dollars, so it was naturally eliminated.

In the end, the LTD board of directors voted and finally decided to accept Cersei Capital's proposal.

Chapter 482 Spider-Man (Repair)

Different from the common leveraged buyouts in the 80s, Cersei Capital bought LTD, and did not intend to split it up and sell it in a short period of time to cash out quickly, but tended to carry out a secondary listing after long-term operation.

Therefore, in terms of funds, it is impossible for Cersei Capital to adopt the short-term high interest rate lending and junk bond financing models common in the 80s.

In order to raise the funds needed for the acquisition of LTD, Cersei Capital was already preparing to issue a new fund dedicated to this acquisition before the official acquisition started.

The acquisition deal was completed, and Cersei Capital has basically completed the fundraising work of this fund.

Although the acquisition of more than US$20 billion is far from being able to compare with the Reynolds Nabisco acquisition with a total transaction value of US$330 billion, in the context that the United States has not completely recovered from the aftermath of the bond market crash a few years ago, this This acquisition is already the largest private equity acquisition in the past two years.

In order to give investors confidence and to consider the investment of the Westeros system itself, after the transaction was concluded, Westeros announced that it would purchase 10% of the shares of LTD at the agreed price, minus the Wexner family For the remaining 10% of the shares, what Cersei Capital actually bought was only 80% of the shares of LTD, and the amount of capital to be paid was 19.6 billion US dollars.

The direct involvement of Westeros made the investors who had previously signed the intention subscription agreement quickly fulfill their own fund subscription shares, thus ensuring the smooth completion of the acquisition.

The specific acquisition process will take two months to complete, but Simon quickly got in touch with LTD company founder Leslie Wexner.

Leslie Wexner's fortune is typical of the industry.

It started with a fashion store at first, and then continued to increase the chain scale in the following 20 years, and finally achieved the LTD company with a total of thousands of chain stores.

The Victoria's Secret that Simon is most concerned about is actually the lingerie chain that Leslie Wexner bought from another businessman in 1982.

Because it is not the root of starting a business, although Victoria’s Secret has developed very rapidly in recent years, when it comes to LTD later, everyone will only think of Victoria’s Secret, but in fact, Leslie Wexner is still at this time. Sub-brands such as fashion and sports fashion are the core of the business.

Therefore, compared to the proportion of a Victoria’s Secret brand that accounted for more than 60% of the parent company’s sales, Victoria’s Secret’s sales share of LTD company in 1991 was only a little over 20%.

Economic downturn, over-expansion, abandonment of the original "Limited Brands (Limited Brands)" business strategy and unrestrained pursuit of more fields eventually caused LTD to fall into business difficulties after the collapse of the US bond market.

Speaking of which, the founder of LTD, Leslie Wexner, is a very radical businessman, which is actually very similar to the impression Simon gave to the outside world.

The Westeros system has risen rapidly like a miracle in just six years, and Simon's various bold and adventurous moves in the process cannot even be described as simply radical.

However, Simon, who has been a man for two lives, has always been very clear about what he is doing.

Many of Westeros' layouts seem unreasonable to outsiders, such as the crazy investment in Igret in the past two years. For Simon, it is just to seize the opportunity in advance of some industries that are destined to explode.

Leslie Wexner couldn't have had Simon's prophetic advantage.

In the past 20 years, the continuous expansion of LTD is more of a natural move of a businessman who is brave enough to take risks.

The fashion field has long been a highly competitive Red Sea market.

The continuous over-expansion of LTD has also fallen into the unavoidable homogenization problem of many fashion companies: after all, it is difficult for the fashion industry to play too many new tricks.

The homogenization of clothing products is serious, the scale of enterprises is too bloated, and the relative cost increases, which inevitably leads to the decline of brand competitiveness.

In recent years, the sales of LTD's women's fashion and sports fashion have continued to decline along with the sluggish economic situation. The only one that has risen against the trend is Victoria's Secret, which focuses on underwear.

Simon privately wondered if this was the legendary 'lipstick effect'.

However, from the 90s, the original Spacetime LTD company turned more attention to the operation of Victoria's Secret, and returned to the "limited brand" business strategy focusing on core brands, which was probably inspired by the market performance of Victoria's Secret in the early 90s.

LTD is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.

Ohio is located in the northeastern part of the United States, bordering Pennsylvania to the east and the Great Lakes to the north. Unlike the winding and mountainous western states and counties, Ohio is located in the endless eastern plains.As the capital of Ohio, Columbus is located right in the middle of this plain.

Shortly after returning from Australia, Simon and Janet accepted Leslie Wexner's invitation to visit Columbus, Ohio.

Of course, there are other reasons as well.

Simon's 'butterfly effect' on the world became more and more obvious, but it didn't change what happened.

For example, the Los Angeles riots at the end of April 1992.

The cause of the incident was that in March 1991, Rodney King, a black youth, was violently treated by the Los Angeles police for resisting arrest while racing in a drunken rack.As a result, the major TV stations, accustomed to 'creating topics', edited out Rodney King's various arrest behaviors in the first half of the video, leaving only the scene of Rodney King being beaten on the TV.

On April 4, the Los Angeles District Court acquitted the four police officers involved based on the complete record of the incident, which aroused dissatisfaction among the black community and led to large-scale riots.

Although the riots in memory only occurred in south-central Los Angeles, who knows if there will be any unusual changes this time.

As soon as the incident happened, Simon quietly left Los Angeles and joined Janet who came from New York in Columbus.

For customary reasons, a 50-acre farm-style manor has already been purchased in Columbus in advance.

Unlike Los Angeles and some other big cities along the coast that have had riots one after another, Columbus, which is located in the central plains, appears very calm.

This is actually not without reason. Located in the conservative Northeast of the United States, the proportion of people of color in Ohio is much lower than that of the states on the east and west coasts. The proportion of whites in this era is still above 90%.

Simon didn't feel much about the riots, and it wasn't the first time something like this had happened in this country.

At his farm estate in the northern suburbs of Columbus, Leslie Wexner had no intention of talking about this sensitive incident.

For politicians, no matter which side they lean towards in this matter, it is wrong. Therefore, President Bush did not come forward to make peace until two days after the riots, and made a few words of appeal.It's an election year, and the candidates are surprisingly quiet about the riots.

It's all votes!

Both Simon and Leslie Wexner were public figures, and even without the scruples of professional politicians, they would be wrong if they said too much.

Although it is clear that a country's extreme political correctness is often the result of this constant silent concession, Simon has no intention of trying to change anything.

A certain deep-rooted pessimism in his bones made him more accustomed to watching too many things with a cold eye.

We can't talk too much about politics, of course we still talk about business.

Today is May 5st, and before you know it, it is late spring and early summer.

Strolling on the bustling farm path, ignoring the disturbances of the outside world, the mood becomes very comfortable unconsciously.

Over the past few days in Columbus, Simon has been discussing LTD's next steps with Leslie Wexner non-stop.

The plight of LTD in recent years has proved that the company must make changes.

In the original time and space, LTD abandoned many peripheral brands to focus on the operation of Victoria's Secret, which is the result of this change.

However, combining the information in memory, Simon discovered that LTD can actually make another attempt.

Now that it has proved to be very successful, of course the promotion of the Victoria’s Secret brand through the sexy marketing method of the Victoria’s Secret show must be retained, but for the business of LTD’s women’s fashion and sports fashion, Simon also proposed to Leslie Wexner Another concept of 'fast fashion' that has been gradually taking shape in recent years but has not grown stronger.

Many years later, the most famous cheap fashion brands in the world, Zara, H; M and GAP, all adopt the mode of operation of 'fast fashion'.

To put it simply, fast fashion is to quickly promote the fashion trends shown in major fashion weeks in a relatively cheap consumer field in a very short period of time.

First-class design, second-rate brand, third-rate price, this is a very vivid summary of fast fashion brands.

To put it bluntly, the so-called fast fashion is actually a quick imitation of the fashion trends of the top luxury brands.

In Simon's memory, the Zara brand in Spain will be sued every three days for plagiarizing its design, and the annual infringement fee will reach tens of millions of dollars.However, this company has never meant to 'reform', and is still tirelessly dispatching its large-scale designer team to major fashion shows.

Compared with the huge profits, the annual infringement fees of tens of millions of euros are really not worth mentioning.

Amancio Ortega, the boss of Zara, once used this world-class fast fashion brand to squeeze out Warren Buffett, and ranked among the top three ranks of the world's richest people with tens of billions of dollars.

Whether it is Zara in Spain, H;M in Sweden or GAP in the United States, the three major fashion giants have been established many years later. However, the three companies are still a long way from their peak period. LTD already has a deep foundation in the fashion field, and it is not too late to transform in the fast fashion field before the rise of the three giants.

The affordable fashion chain has developed to a certain extent, and the further breakthrough of the brand has been a problem that has troubled Leslie Wexner for a long time.

Different from luxury brands, cheap fashion is too easy to be homogenized. The biggest problem is that it is difficult to maintain its distinctive brand characteristics for a long time. This kind of problem cannot be solved by large-scale marketing alone.

The concept of 'fast fashion' proposed by Simon in recent days has given Leslie Wexner a sense of enlightenment.

Since it is impossible to maintain a fashion brand characteristic that is enough to attract consumers for a long time, then do the opposite and always pursue the latest and fastest fashion trends.

As for the moral hazards that may be involved in plagiarism and imitation, for a businessman who has been in the mall for decades, there is no psychological burden at all.

After several days of discussion, Leslie Wexner also accepted Simon's suggestion.

In the next step, while focusing on promoting the Victoria's Secret brand, LTD plans to integrate its fashion business and build a fast fashion brand by using the brand foundation of LTD's earliest establishment called 'Express'.

In addition, LTD will also sell part of its non-core business, which is certainly not the kind of sale after leveraged buyout in the 80s.

The funds obtained from the asset sale will be used to develop the two major brands of 'VS' and 'Express'.

"Simon, regarding the idea of ​​the lingerie fashion show you mentioned yesterday, I seriously thought about it last night. It's a very good idea. However, according to your idea, invite the top models in the fashion industry. For TV, the budget is a bit too high, maybe we can start off a little easier."

"I've also considered the budget issue," Simon smiled, and said, "Les, how about this, this big show is co-produced by Daenerys Entertainment and LTD, and the two parties each share 50% of the budget. Neris Entertainment is responsible for the distribution of channels such as TV platforms and video tapes."

Strolling among the green farm roads, the scenery is pleasant, but the people are not drunk.

Leslie Wexner was calculating quickly.

Simon knew both LTD and Leslie Wexner. Similarly, after the intersection between the two parties, Leslie Wexner also studied the young man's career very carefully.

Daenerys Entertainment can sell a Gucci brand documentary with tens of millions of dollars at the box office, make Madonna's concert documentary a box office hit, and make an Antarctic landscape documentary a dark horse at the box office. Then, this underwear fashion Show, it's hard to say if it will have the same value.

Thinking of this, Leslie Wexner quickly asked: "Simon, we share the budget, so the profits should also be shared, right?"

Simon glanced at the middle-aged man in his 50s beside him, and said, "Less, LTD can get a big promotion of the Victoria's Secret brand with only half of the budget. Isn't that enough?"

"But we are responsible for half the budget after all."

Leslie Wexner hesitated, but in the end he still didn't agree that LTD could bear the entire production budget.

According to the vision of the young man beside him, such a big show cannot be won without tens of millions of dollars.

It is really risky to invest tens of millions of dollars for a fashion brand catwalk.

And, it seems, it's not just about money.

This matter definitely needs Simon's personal planning, including inviting those top supermodels, it would be difficult to make it work without Simon's presence.

Although Victoria's Secret has very good performance and popularity, it is only a cheap underwear brand after all.

For many supermodels, catwalking for such a brand is a bit of a shame.

If you still get together with other supermodels, it will be even more worthless.

However, it would probably be easier to accept if it was a catwalk project planned for Simon Westeros.

Leslie Wexner is still aware of the two "waist masters" and "leg masters" who suddenly emerged in the fashion circle last year.