Chương 996: Chapter 998: Parting Ways
[Chapter 998: Parting Ways]
"Your job is to meet my needs, and that's that," Eric snapped his fingers and gestured for the two women. "You can take a break; I can handle this myself."
Before they recognized each other, Caroline never showed such little emotions in front of Eric.
But with their newfound connection, the innocent Caroline directly regarded Eric as family. She no longer kept everything bottled up like she used to.
She had expressed her discontent in a small way, but hearing Eric's words left her at a loss for a retort.
Seeing the stack of folders she had deliberately piled up in front of Eric moments before, Caroline suddenly felt she had gone a bit too far. She shifted her toes in her little high heels on the carpet and lowered her voice, avoiding Eric's gaze, saying, "So, uh, Eric, do you want some coffee?"
Mayer, standing by, rolled her eyes at Caroline's comment.
"Come on, Carly, remember you were just sulking."
Eric couldn't help but smile, almost wanting to pinch Caroline's cheeks, but he refrained. Otherwise, she would probably chase him down for an apology. "Uh, just some bottled water will suffice."
Noticing the reactions of the two beside her, Caroline felt even more embarrassed and hung her head before escaping from the study.
As Eric watched Caroline flee, he suddenly remembered something. He called Mayer, who was about to leave too, signaling for her to sit down on the opposite sofa and asked, "How's the preparation on the Nokia R&D center project documents going that I asked you to compile?"
Mayer sat down on the sofa. "Last week, Carly and I got in touch with Nokia. However, they currently have 17 tech R&D centers globally with various projects totaling over a hundred. They said it would take about a week to organize the project documents, which should be ready around Thursday of this week."
Eric nodded, feeling a twinge of nostalgia.
Nokia, even without reaching its peak, already had 17 tech R&D centers. It was easy to imagine how formidable their technical prowess was during its glory days. For such a colossal industry giant to collapse so suddenly just a few years later could not merely be attributed to technical issues.
After a brief reflection, Eric looked at Mayer and asked, "Have you thought about what you want to do in the future?"
As soon as Eric asked that, an image of Melanie, who had just joined Firefly Electronics, immediately popped into Mayer's head.
This year, Firefly Electronics' focus was on overseas business. Melanie left Eric and was directly placed in a vice president position in the newly established overseas operations department, effectively achieving in one step what many needed ten years to reach in their careers.
Although Eric had suddenly transferred Mayer to his side, she had been puzzled. Still, she began to realize that the opportunities before her might not be too far behind Melanie's.
As she subtly played with the hem of her pencil skirt, Mayer's thoughts became clear. "Eric, I've recently started working on my graduate thesis in artificial intelligence, focusing on the new 'Google' search engine just launched by Yahoo. I think I'm better suited for technical development in this area in the future."
"I was planning to send you to Yahoo," Eric replied with a smile, "but many of their operations are already running smoothly. While technical development never stops, the basic roadmap has been laid out. Yahoo will primarily focus on expansion and even globalization in the future. If you went there, your opportunities would be somewhat limited. So, I want to send you to Nokia instead."
Surprised by Eric's sudden future planning discussion, Mayer had a hint of expectation and hesitation as she responded, "Eric, I... I hadn't thought about working in Finland."
"No, no," Eric shook his head. Seeing Caroline return with a glass of water, he paused to accept the cup and gestured for her to sit down too before continuing, "You will only need to work in the U.S. The location will likely be in Silicon Valley. I want you to combine the technological resources from Nokia, Yahoo, Qualcomm, and Firefly Electronics to develop a smartphone. You know what a smartphone is, right?"
"Yeah, during my year in the assistant office, I came across related materials but didn't delve too deeply."
Mayer nodded excitedly. Combining the technical strengths of several leading tech companies under Firefly's investment to develop a product would place that product in a crucial position in Eric's vision. Just think of the current Fireflyer player; if this product succeeded, her standing in the Firefly hierarchy would likely rival that of the top executives at Firefly Electronics.
"I'll gradually provide you with detailed information. Your first task is to familiarize yourself thoroughly with Nokia. The documents I've asked you to gather on Nokia's R&D center projects are for me to review. However, I also expect you to digest them, understanding them inside and out over time."
Mayer promised, "I will, Eric."
As they wrapped up the conversation, Eric was about to send the two women away when he sensed Mayer's excitement and added, "Oh, and there's one more thing. The development of the smartphone I have in mind won't just rely on Nokia; Firefly Electronics will simultaneously start this project. I haven't planned to put all our eggs in one basket. If you don't perform well in the future, the outcomes might not be significant. However, if you succeed, your advantages will be clear. Nokia already has a very powerful global mobile sales network, making it easier for your product to capture the market."
Mayer felt a bit disappointed but quickly reassured herself.
It was already rare for Eric to entrust such significant responsibilities to her. If he placed all his bets on her, that would have been abnormal.
...
After finishing the discussion, Eric turned his attention to the pile of documents before him and first concentrated on the box office information from the previous week.
The Day After Tomorrow continued its box office dominance. For a commercial blockbuster with a high premiere, a 42% drop in the next weekend's box office was still impressive.
The Mask of Zorro, despite favorable media reviews, only grossed around 18 million dollars over its opening weekend, doing nothing to threaten The Day After Tomorrow. Other films like The Truman Show, The Patriot, and Lethal Weapon 4 were far behind.
After skimming through the box office data, Eric set the table aside, skipping over essential documents such as the cast list from Sleepy Hollow, and opened a financing proposal from the group.
...
The Nasdaq index was nearing the 2000-point mark. According to Eric's plan, when the index reached 2000, the Clover Fund would completely halt buying tech stocks.
Over the past six months, the Clover Fund had withdrawn $2 billion for tech stock purchases. In three years, the total investment in Nasdaq stock reached $7 billion, exceeding his original plan by $1 billion.
In three years of withdrawing $7 billion to invest in stocks, even though the Firefly Group's financial capacity was much higher than other media companies in Hollywood, the ongoing costs of internal projects such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe launch, the Lord of the Rings trilogy production, the '4200' project, and the construction of the Firefly theme park began to strain the group's cash flow.
Despite investing $7 billion, the total value of all stocks held by the Clover Fund reached $16 billion, which meant the return rate exceeded 100%. Even selling just a portion of these stocks could alleviate the Firefly Group's cash flow issues almost immediately.
However, Eric planned not to do that. Instead, he opted for a common financing method many companies used when facing cash shortages: issuing bonds.
By the end of May, the management team had drafted a financing proposal, which was now nearly finalized.
Firefly would issue $2 billion in five-year corporate bonds in early July.
The group's corporate credit rating had reached the highest level of AAA, so the annual interest rate for this bond issuance was only 4.2%, which was a full 1.3 percentage points lower than when Firefly issued bonds to acquire the ABC Group.
Though this figure seemed insignificant, it would save Firefly $26 million in annual interest payments, totaling $130 million over five years.
Despite the low annual interest rate, the bonds were still in high demand. Documents in hand indicated that Morgan Stanley, responsible for the bond issuance, had already secured over 50% of the distribution share.
The reasons for this, aside from the security and profitability of Firefly's bonds, also included a significant interest from many investment institutions on Wall Street wanting to become Firefly's creditors.
As a private company, Wall Street capital's only opportunity to intervene with Firefly was to purchase its bonds.
This way, should Firefly encounter operational difficulties in the future, the creditors from Wall Street would have room to maneuver.
Of course, while Firefly's film business might not be as dazzling as before this year, Eric wouldn't easily give some individuals opportunities.
Even excluding the Clover Fund's stock holdings, the company's television business, theme parks, toys, and increasingly strong digital sphere were performing exceptionally well with stable profitability. Furthermore, after a brief slump, Firefly's film business would remain very robust starting next year.
...
The two Boeing 747-400s ordered by Eric would be equipped with communication systems, but the current Boeing 767 did not have such configurations.
After spending a few hours processing the documents in front of him, Eric still had some doubts but couldn't immediately discuss them over the phone with Los Angeles. He had to wait until he arrived in Helsinki.
Although the private jet flew from west to east, it was heading toward the polar circle, which was experiencing an extended day. After a brief night, daylight streamed through the windows again.
Eric, Caroline, and Mayer enjoyed a special "dinner" on the plane, rested for a few hours, and when they woke up again, the Boeing 767 had arrived over Helsinki, Finland.
...
Looking out the window, Eric noticed Helsinki's Vantaa Airport was prominently situated, taking up a sizable area in the northern part of the city.
At first, he felt a little puzzled, but soon realized that it wasn't that Vantaa Airport was too large; it was that Helsinki was too small.
Finland's area was not much different from California's, but California's total population was nearly 40 million, while Finland had fewer than 5 million. As the capital, Helsinki only had a little over 500,000 residents.
As the Boeing 767 flew directly over Helsinki, the city appeared even more spacious. Even in the city center, many areas were large expanses of forest land.
As Eric disembarked, Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila eagerly greeted him with a few other people. "Eric, welcome to Finland," Jorma warmly embraced Eric before introducing the Nokia executives who accompanied him in English.
Eric shook hands with each of them, and the one he was most familiar with was the current Nokia CFO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
Olli Kallasvuo was the next CEO candidate Jorma recommended to Eric. As for Jorma, he was set to remain on Nokia's board of directors after stepping down. However, he wouldn't hold any practical positions at Nokia anymore, as it was rumored he intended to run for President of Finland, but Eric wasn't entirely sure of the details.
In truth, if they wanted to keep him, Firefly still could have made arrangements to retain Jorma at Nokia. However, Eric didn't choose to go that route.
Accelerating the management transition at Nokia would benefit Firefly in quickly gaining control of the company. If Jorma continued to stay, his influence at Nokia would only deepen, making it increasingly challenging for Firefly to reclaim management rights.
Of course, although Jorma would leave office next year, both parties still managed an amicable parting.
Eric didn't want Jorma to remain as Nokia's CEO but would never deny the contributions Jorma made to Nokia over the years.
If it wasn't for Jorma discovering and vigorously promoting Nokia's leading GSM communication technology, this small company from a remote part of Northern Europe wouldn't have transformed into the international giant it had become in mobile communications.
*****
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