I am Hollywood

[Chapter 1104: Lion's Share]

On the other end of the phone, Paul Roland was speaking rapidly about something, causing Eric's brow to furrow gradually.

When Paul Roland finished, Eric turned to the Caroline, who stood not far away, and asked, "Carly, Estonia is right next to Finland, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Caroline nodded, replying, "Helsinki is just across the sea from Estonia's capital, Tallinn. It's less than a hundred kilometers apart."

"Help me get a hold of Olli Kallasvuo," Eric instructed, then turned his attention back to his phone, saying to Paul, "You won't make it to Europe in time, so I'll have someone there take care of things. You stay in New York and coordinate things here."

At the end of last year, Jorma Ollila officially left Nokia.

Upon Jorma Ollila's recommendation, former Nokia Chief Financial Officer Olli Kallasvuo took over his position, becoming the new Chairman and CEO of Nokia.

Caroline was puzzled as to why Eric suddenly wanted to contact Olli Kallasvuo, but she quickly picked up a cordless phone from the secretary's office and skillfully dialed a number. Moments later, the call connected. After a brief conversation, Caroline came over and handed the cordless phone to Eric.

...

Edgar Bronfman didn't expect Eric to take half an hour just to make one call. As time passed, he even started to wonder if the other party was intentionally keeping him waiting.

His growing dissatisfaction accumulated, and just when Edgar Bronfman was contemplating whether to leave, Eric finally pushed open the office door and walked in.

"Sorry, Ed," Eric said, still holding a phone as he approached. "I ran into a really troublesome issue that made you wait."

Edgar Bronfman forced a smile and tried to appear curious.

Eric, however, offered no explanation. "Anyway, let's continue our earlier discussion. Ed, to be frank, Seagram investing in Firefly Electronics is definitely not a good idea. You know very well that Firefly Electronics does not lack funds, so for a long time to come, this company has no plans for an IPO or dividend distribution. Moreover, the industry generally values Firefly Electronics at around $30 billion, and I believe you cannot accept investing at this valuation."

"Alright, Eric," Edgar Bronfman stifled his frustration. "Then, Firefly should show some sincerity if they want Universal Records to join the digital music store, but up until now, I haven't seen any sincerity from you."

"Ed, you should understand that as long as Universal Records joins Yahoo Music Store, both Yahoo and Firefly Electronics, or even the whole Firefly Group, will allocate as many resources as possible to promote Universal's music content. This advantages us in ways other record companies can't match. Of course, we also have our own record business, but as everyone knows, Firefly Records is quite small and hardly makes a dent in the bigger picture," Eric paused for a moment before adding, "However, I will certainly show my sincerity. The revenue split between Yahoo Music Store and record companies is 70-30, and that cannot be changed. But if Universal agrees to cooperate, Firefly Electronics can return a certain percentage of sales revenue back to Universal Records through marketing subsidies over the coming years."

In reality, as long as he could convince Universal Records to open up its content, Eric would be willing to return all music sales revenue to them over the next few years, even if it meant losing some margin in the process.

Compared to the gigantic profits from hardware sales, the revenue share from the digital music store was something Firefly could afford to let go.

Of course, Yahoo Music Store was part of Yahoo Network's operations. Since Yahoo was already public, Eric could only use Firefly Electronics to subsidize record companies for the sake of financial reporting and stock prices.

Edgar Bronfman fell silent for a moment. From Eric's tone, he could roughly gauge how substantial these so-called subsidies might be.

Yet, thinking of the recent media analysis of Firefly Electronics' revenue data, Edgar Bronfman still felt resentful. Among the five major record companies, Universal was the largest, but its annual revenue was only around $5 billion, with profits hovering around the $500 million mark.

However, media analyses indicated that Firefly Electronics, which had only launched its products two years prior, already had annual profits equivalent to twice that of Universal Records. How could this not stir envy throughout the entire record industry? Indeed, many believed that the money Firefly was earning was essentially the profit lost by the record industry during the overall decline of recent years.

If possible, Edgar Bronfman would have preferred not to partner with Eric Williams at all.

It's just that the current situation for the Seagram Group wasn't looking good.

In the past few years, as Seagram fully transitioned into the media industry, it had made several acquisitions, including MCA, PolyGram, and the cable network, which resulted in an overall debt of $12 billion for the company. Moreover, since Edgar Bronfman had focused most resources on the record business to build the world's largest record group, while he had achieved his goal, the sudden downturn in the record industry had put the Seagram Group's operations in jeopardy.

Last year, while Michael Eisner's Universal Pictures posted solid profits, Seagram Group still faced a loss of over $1.3 billion for the fiscal year 1998 due to the struggles in its record business.

With the integration of PolyGram with Universal not going smoothly in the coming years, if the overall record industry did not reverse its fortunes, the Seagram Group might continue to incur losses. The Bronfman family controlling Seagram even began to consider selling the company while shifting blame toward Edgar Bronfman.

Edgar Bronfman certainly didn't want that to happen. Although he had a tendency to be stubborn, he wasn't someone lacking in capability.

After discussing it with Universal Records CEO Doug Morris, they both agreed that collaborating with the Firefly system was very necessary and could potentially become the key to reversing the current situation for Seagram Group.

"Eric, this isn't enough," Edgar said after pondering for a moment, shaking his head. "If Yahoo Music Store wants Universal Records' content, Firefly must offer more."

Eric instinctively placed his left hand on the bandage on his right arm. He had developed this habit unconsciously lately, but his expression remained calm. "So, what does Seagram want?"

"A zero-interest loan," Edgar bit down on his lip, recalling media reports about Firefly's abundant cash reserves. He temporarily changed his previous figure, boldly stating, "Three billion dollars."

Due to uncontrolled expansion and massive losses, the Seagram Group's financial chain was perilously stretched. Not to mention that the $12 billion debt incurred an annual interest payment of around $600 million.

Even though the overall economic landscape in North America was thriving, the Seagram Group found itself in a very difficult position to secure financing from external sources.

"Three billion dollars? That's impossible," Eric shook his head while rubbing the bandage on his sleeve. "I can offer you a maximum of $500 million, and it must be repaid within three years."

It was unclear whether Edgar Bronfman sensed the ease in Eric's tone, but he suddenly became resolute.

Eric, however, wouldn't budge easily.

Firefly undoubtedly had funds, but $3 billion was a massive amount.

Since they were willing to temporarily forego all digital music sales revenue, Eric certainly wouldn't be overly concerned with the interest from parting with $3 billion. But such a sizeable sum raised his worries that if the Seagram Group fell into deeper trouble, they might not be able to repay.

To put it starkly, if the Seagram Group went bankrupt, Eric had no interest in the assets of its record business. As for Universal Pictures, $3 billion was simply unmanageable, and no other creditors would easily relinquish such a prime asset to Firefly.

After over an hour of negotiating various details, the meeting ultimately reached no agreement.

However, although they hadn't settled on the loan, Edgar Bronfman agreed to allow Universal Records to begin preliminary discussions with Yahoo and Firefly Electronics on their departure.

After seeing Edgar Bronfman off, it was nearly noon. With no call from Europe yet, Eric was about to reach out himself when his phone rang again.

...

The nine-day Paris Fashion Week was drawing to a close.

Thanks to the arrangements made by some guy, Carmen Kass had been shining brightly at this year's fashion week. But, just as she was gearing up for the final shows over the next two days, she unexpectedly received a call from her sister back home.

Their mother had been kidnapped.

Upon hearing this news, Carmen was stunned.

Kidnapping.

How could such a thing be linked to her?

She knew Eastern Europe was chaotic due to poverty.

In the years following the tumult, she had heard countless stories about kidnappings, extortion, and even assassinations -- stories about Estonian gangs in Finland being beaten back by Russian mafia. Yet, she had always thought that such things were far removed from her ordinary life.

And then, suddenly, it happened to her.

It felt like the sky was falling down.

Her mother had divorced her father when she was very young, raising them three siblings alone with great difficulty. She remembered how her mother worked late nights and would sneak in and hold her when she thought Carmen was asleep, but she was actually awake -- small child, small mind, not knowing what to say, so she just pretended to sleep.

The kidnappers were demanding a ransom of 10 million Estonian kroons, which didn't amount to much -- about $600,000. Yet, despite having signed a contract with Victoria's Secret, she didn't have that kind of money at all.

For some reason, the first thought that crossed her mind was of the man whom she had bitten hard.

And then she came back to her senses and hurriedly called Paul Roland. He quickly replied, asking her to provide the contact information of her siblings and told her to wait patiently and not to do anything rash.

How could she bear to wait? She only wanted to get back and rescue her mother as soon as possible, so she frantically borrowed money from familiar and unfamiliar people around her.

However, though many models under WM had decent incomes, none of them had much cash on hand. She didn't dare explain why she needed to borrow money and ultimately only managed to gather a little over PS200,000 before hastily boarding a flight to Tallinn.

No matter what, she needed to get back quickly.

However, while leaving London was fine, upon arriving at Tallinn airport, she made a careless mistake and forgot to declare her cash, leading to her being detained.

She had already become something of a celebrity in Estonia, and the customs officer didn't make things too difficult for her. They merely wanted her to explain the source of the cash. How could she dare to explain? Although she had never been involved in a kidnapping case, she knew well enough that such matters needed to be kept discreet; she couldn't cause a fuss, or else...

Seeing her disheveled state only made the customs officials more suspicious, and they dared not let her leave easily; instead, they had to report to higher-ups and wait for instructions from above.

So there she was, trapped in the airport holding room like a stubborn and dazed little beast.

Inside, she hoped that someone would come to help her.

If that happened, she would rather have him bite her back.

She ended up thinking of that guy once more.

She would never admit that she was a girl who lacked a sense of security deep down, but at that moment, she realized that this man somehow gave her an enormous sense of security that she had never experienced before.

*****

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