I am Hollywood

Chapter 505: Chapter 506: Breaking It Down



[Chapter 506: Breaking It Down]

Eric stepped off the plane and was just about to leave the airport with a few associates when he noticed Elisabeth, dressed in a khaki trench coat, waving at him while pulling a simple suitcase behind her. She quickly made her way over.

After the Murdoch family moved their business center to the United States, they settled in New York. During the holidays, Elisabeth returned to New York to spend time with her family. Eric hadn't expected to run into her at the airport while she was heading back to Los Angeles.

Eric had his bodyguard help Elisabeth with her luggage before asking, "You're back so soon; why not stay in New York a bit longer?"

"Staying in New York isn't all that fun. I spend all my time attending parties, and it gets boring. I'd rather come back to work," Elisabeth replied, glancing at Eric. "Speaking of which, I've been hearing quite a bit about Firefly Investments lately. What exactly are you doing?" "I'm planning to conceal my assets by breaking them down into smaller pieces, making it harder for people to guess just how much I have," Eric responded candidly, knowing that even if he didn't admit it, those with an interest would probably figure it out.

For now, he couldn't exactly hide Firefly Films, but the entertainment industry had plenty of room for maneuvering. Furthermore, since Firefly Films wasn't publicly traded, it wouldn't be easy for anyone to uncover its financials. However, some assets that Firefly Investments held were openly visible, like Cisco. Anyone paying a bit of attention could quickly find out that Firefly Investments was the largest shareholder of Cisco.

At present, Cisco was valued at just over two billion dollars -- not too eye-catching. However, Cisco's development hadn't strayed from its historical path, with the current CEO, John Chambers -- who was crucial to Cisco's success in the original timeline -- already confirmed as his successor. If Cisco's market valuation eventually ballooned into the hundreds of billions, Firefly Investments' portion would become quite significant. Moreover, Eric had investments beyond just Cisco. Following the Forbes list incident, he had to start planning for the future.

After discussions with Chris, Firefly Investments began its strategy by first handling its shares in Cisco.

Firefly Investments injected funds into a select few private non-listed funds before conducting a reverse buyback of some of its Cisco shares. Using this method, Firefly Investments quickly distributed its Cisco shares into those funds. However, due to well- structured agreements, Firefly Investments' control over Cisco remained unchanged, with no alterations in the representative board members.

This kind of indirect shareholding was quite common in North America. Even industry giants like General Electric, ExxonMobil, and Bell Telephone Company had their shareholder lists filled with various well-known and lesser-known funds, trusts, and capital management companies, with the true owners of these shares usually unknown.

Not just with Cisco, but Firefly Investments planned to approach its investments in IE, Yahoo, and Hotmail in the same indirect fashion through trusts and other means.

Upon hearing Eric's answer, Elisabeth couldn't help but laugh. "Compared to Firefly Films, what does your stake in Cisco even amount to? Why not find a way to conceal your involvement with Firefly Films too?"

Eric shrugged. "That's a too big of a goal; it's going to take time."

"I don't know why you're going through all this trouble, as if you're afraid someone will steal your things."

Saying that, the pair made their way outside, where Elisabeth waved her hand at her driver, signaling him to leave, and got into Eric's car.

Eric got in from the other side and continued the previous discussion. "I'm not worried about others stealing from me, but I do want to be considerate of fragile sentiments. I wouldn't want anyone to see how much money I've got and be provoked, leading to some unfortunate event."

Elisabeth clearly took Eric's comments lightly, playfully punching him on the shoulder with her small fist and teasing, "You egotist."

Eric just chuckled and didn't dodge her harmless little jab. "I'm headed back to the Liberty City Manor; are you coming with me?"

Elisabeth blinked a few times, as if suddenly remembering. "Oh right, I forgot about that. Hey, Carter, turn around and take me back to Beverly Hills first."

Carter Moen glanced at Eric through the rearview mirror. As a bodyguard who had been with Eric for a while, he knew well about Eric and Elisabeth's relationship.

"Just keep driving to Malibu," Eric waved his hand at Carter and turned to Elisabeth. "I remember Julia took her little one back to her parents' place. Your place hasn't been cleaned in ages, so you might as well stay with me tonight."

Hearing Eric's direct invitation, Elisabeth's cheeks slightly flushed. She forced a casual "Hmm" in response, turned her head, and pretended to admire the view outside the window.

...

Wrapped in a thick bathrobe, Elisabeth finally remembered her suitcase was still carelessly left at the villa entrance. Embarrassed, she chided herself for being so hasty a few hours earlier.

She had landed at four in the afternoon, done some things, and taken a short nap, and now it was past nine in the evening. Feeling hungry, she hesitated before heading downstairs.

The small living room was lit, and upon entering, she found Eric casually lounging on the sofa, a black laptop resting on an elegant aluminum frame in front of him. He continually tapped at the keys, making soft clicking sounds.

"Hey, I made some late-night snacks for you," Eric said, nodding toward the food on the glass table when he spotted Elisabeth walking in. "I called you to come upstairs, but you were already in the shower."n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"What are you working on?" Elisabeth asked, not in a rush to eat. She leaned over the back of the sofa to peek at Eric's laptop screen.

"The script for Interview with the Vampire. Recently, the box office and critical reception for Bram Stoker's Dracula has been pretty good. The production team also finalized a deal with David Geffen for the collaboration. We're aiming for a release by the end of the year. How's your Buffy the Vampire Slayer coming along?"

"If it weren't for this, I would have returned at the beginning of the month," Elisabeth replied. "I auditioned for the female lead in New York, following your suggestion. We plan to choose girls with dance backgrounds -- this will shorten training time and make action scenes easier to film. We're hoping to have the pilot ready before May."

"Have you selected anyone?" Eric casually queried, typing a note into the script document.

"Yeah, we picked a few girls. They'll be coming to Los Angeles in a few days to have final auditions with the local candidates," Elisabeth said, glancing at the laptop for a moment before shifting to sit across from Eric, placing the food tray on her lap.

Eric nodded, continuing to type.

"Hey, will you come to the final auditions? There are going to be some really beautiful girls," Elisabeth asked after a brief pause.

Eric chuckled, "Let's skip that step. You know my preference -- just send me the final selections, and I'll take it from there."

Elisabeth lightly scoffed, tossing a piece of bread crumb at Eric in mock annoyance.

"Hey, I almost forgot! What brought you to the airport today?"

"I thought you had such a mischievous mind that you'd neglect that question," Eric teased.

He adeptly caught the crumb that flew his way and took a bite before answering. "I went to San Francisco. Pixar's new animation is nearly done, so I went to check the reel and discuss the Super Bowl teaser with John and the team."

"Is this for the sequel to Toy Story?" Elisabeth asked curiously, recalling that Firefly had always termed its upcoming Pixar animations as 'untitled new Pixar animation.' She hadn't really paid attention until now, realizing the new 3D animation was almost finished. "No, the new animation is tentatively titled A Bug's Life, telling the story of an ant family in an oasis fighting against the oppression of grasshoppers," Eric succinctly explained. Elisabeth looked at Eric and waited a few seconds before asking, "Is that it? Nothing more?"

"If I told you everything now, it would ruin the surprise. You can catch it in theaters when it

releases."

"I'm not going -- those are for kids," Elisabeth pouted.

...

After finishing their late-night snacks, Elisabeth tidied up the dishes in the kitchen and returned to the small living room. Despite it being ten at night, she didn't bother with pajamas after her afternoon nap. She seized the remote control from the glass table and joined Eric on the sofa, hugging a cushion to her chest as she randomly selected a late-night

talk show.

After watching the host's witty commentary on recent events for a while, Elisabeth turned to Eric. "Hey, Eric, is Firefly planning to develop its own TV network next?"

"Did your old man guess it?" Eric asked, turning to her.

Elisabeth nodded.

"Media conglomerate integration has become an inevitable trend. Firefly's reach in the film

sector has already hit its limit. Next, we're definitely expanding towards becoming a comprehensive media group -- this will include not just a TV network, but also ventures into music and publishing," Eric explained, smiling. "But rest assured, Firefly won't get into print media, so there won't be competition with News Corp on that front."

With the rise of the internet, the decline of print media was becoming inevitable. Eric recalled that even the most famous newspapers in the U.S. encountered bankruptcy crises after entering the new century. He had no intention of wasting time in a declining industry.

"Don't think I don't know what you're up to. I heard that the site you set up last year, Yahoo, has recently been in talks with several print media groups. The editor of the New York Post even mentioned it to my dad. You're definitely planning to launch an online news site."

Eric paused his typing and turned to Elisabeth, curiously asking, "What did your dad think

about it?"

Elisabeth smugly hummed a tune, not answering him, her expression saying she wouldn't spill to avoid hurting his feelings.

Eric shrugged, realizing Murdoch was probably not optimistic about that idea's future.

Having spent most of his life in media, Murdoch could easily tell that a proper foundation for large-scale online news development didn't exist in the current internet landscape. The existing online user base was mostly concentrated among college students and professionals, with ordinary people not at that level yet. However, he certainly couldn't predict how

explosive the growth of internet users would be over the coming years.

"Hey, Liz, if one day I fought with your old man, who would you support?" Elisabeth shot him a scathing look. "I'd definitely side with my dad. How dare you fight an old

man in his sixties? That's just disgraceful."

"Uh, I meant in a business sense?"

"Then you two can duke it out however you please," Elisabeth leisurely reclined on the sofa,

hugging the cushion while making her point. Given the current scales of Firefly and News Corp, some give-and-take would be expected over periods, but unless there was a significant industry upheaval, there was little chance of a mutual destruction scenario. Even now, amidst competitive relations, 20th Century Fox and Firefly coexisted without issues and even maintained some collaborations. The other major film companies in Hollywood faced similar

situations.

Eric chuckled but said no more. He spent nearly another hour finishing the script of Interview

with the Vampire, closed his laptop, and lightly patted the smooth leg of the girl resting on his lap. "Are you tired?"

With no response, Eric turned to look, seeing that Elisabeth had already fallen asleep with her

eyes closed.

...

As the new award season approached, it didn't seem to have much connection with Firefly Films. Most of the movies Firefly released last year were commercial hits. Even at the Golden Globes, which had a strong operational focus, the company could only manage a few nominations, with no real contenders for awards. Moreover, given the company's astonishing 27% market share at the box office last year, Firefly's lack of notable awards became a target for media to cast scorn, displaying a sense of sour grapes.

Eric began his day reading several related articles in the morning newspapers, though he

didn't pay much attention to them. He always believed that film awards were just icing on the

cake, while Elisabeth took the opportunity to tease Eric about it.

*****

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