Chapter 1572
Starting the Team
The next day, at the Liu family's villa in the capital.
Zhang Yuan prefers to call it "Lazy Sheep's Home".
"Oh, you've arrived already?"
Liu Xiaoli carried a large bag of food and drinks into the house and saw Zhang Yuan sitting on the sofa in the living room on the first floor, reading documents.
Hello, Aunt Liu.
"I just arrived too."
Where is Sisi?
"She's not up yet," he replied softly. "Let her sleep; it's uncomfortable to be woken up."
"Tsk." Liu Xiaoli frowned, handed the things to the housekeeper to put in the refrigerator, said goodbye to him, changed into slippers, and went upstairs.
After knocking twice on the bedroom door, he quietly pushed it open and went in.
Even mothers and daughters respect each other's privacy.
So, despite both having parents who divorced when they were young, Sisi and Stephen Chow have very different personalities; she clearly doesn't have an inferiority complex.
Although her parents divorced when she was around 10 years old, Liu Xiaoli took her away from home when she was just over one year old.
Fortunately, my mother was insightful and provided proper education, and the family was well-off, which spared me from most of the harm of being a single-parent family.
And because she had a comfortable material life from a young age, she didn't panic like other female celebrities who would worry about losing their popularity if they didn't work for three days.
She sleeps in late whenever she has nothing to do, and she's very calm about it.
The family environment is extremely important to a person's growth.
Some families with terrible parents are worse off than having no parents at all.
"Xixi, wake up," Liu Xiaoli called out as she stepped forward.
"Ugh..." Lazy Sheep on the bed twisted his body and then covered his face with his arm.
"Zhang Yuan is here, and you're still sleeping."
"You can't keep the guests waiting like that," Liu Xiaoli gently admonished her.
"He's here..." Lazy Sheep made a reluctant sound from his nose and casually said, "Then let him come up and sleep with me."
Liu Xiaoli: ...
A scene flashed through Aunt Liu's mind.
A large, fresh and tender Chinese cabbage, glistening with dew, was torn to pieces by a big, fat pig with two black heads.
"stand up!"
They grabbed his arm and pulled him up.
"Mom, you're here! I thought it was Auntie."
She was yawning, completely unaware of what she had just said.
A dozen minutes later, she skipped down the stairs with light, cheerful steps, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and trousers casual home clothes.
She was quite efficient at washing up, much faster than most girls.
“Next time you come, call her in advance to wake her up. It’s not right,” Liu Xiaoli complained again.
"It's okay, we don't need her to be involved in today's events, so I'm thinking of not bothering her."
Besides the mother and daughter, Mr. Chen was also there.
He specifically invited a few people and arranged to meet them at his home, rather than at a restaurant.
It's all to enhance intimacy.
It makes us look like we're one of our own.
I'm here today mainly to see Boss Chen.
Because the company wants to go public, it needs to find a stock underwriter.
Only institutions with financial licenses can act as underwriters, and there are only about a hundred such companies nationwide.
Setting aside a certain percentage of the company's equity as freely tradable shares for underwriters to sell on the stock market is a necessary step in the listing process.
Underwriters will operate using two basic models: agency sales and full-coverage.
Reselling is like sales, where you get a commission, taking a percentage of the profits from each share sold.
"All-inclusive" means taking over the entire operation. In most cases, financial institutions simply invest directly in the company, aligning their interests and creating a win-win situation for everyone.
Anyone who has seen Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street," starring Leonardo DiCaprio, will know.
The better the company, the more valuable it is, and the less the underwriter receives in dividends.
If it's a junk stock, a lousy company that's purely a scam to make money, then the dividends are extremely high, sometimes reaching 50% of the sales commission on Wall Street.
It's basically all based on deception.
Therefore, financial institutions are all skilled in falsifying accounts, creating false publicity, and luring people in to be exploited, among other "financial techniques."
The film industry in both mainland China and Taiwan isn't just doing well, it's doing exceptionally well!
It's so good that its valuation is severely undervalued.
Various organizations are vying to come, all wanting a piece of the pie.
But it is precisely at times like these that we must not let our guard down.
He didn't want to go the full-package route because he didn't want institutional investors to take a stake, as that would easily affect his say.
Therefore, we have to go through the consignment sales route.
Finding the right distributors is an art.
Anyone who has worked with listed companies knows that the quality of the underwriters can greatly affect the market value of the listed company.
If you're fast at one step, you'll be fast at every step; if you're slow at one step, you'll be slow at every step. Many companies are eager to find the company that boasts the most to do their work.
But Zhang Yuan disagreed; he wanted to find the most stable option.
After all, the ethical standards in the financial industry are even lower than those in the entertainment industry, and I'm not very familiar with it.
Even after contacting Mr. Gu from Youku and having him introduce a team of financial advisors, I was still not at ease.
That's why we have this game today.
Mr. Chen started out as a middleman, helping state-owned enterprises in Beijing list on the Hong Kong or US stock markets. He's very familiar with that kind of work.
With him helping out in the middle, there's an extra layer of insurance.
Mr. Chen was overjoyed when he heard about this!
This isn't just giving me money; I could easily rake in tens of millions.
He also understood that Zhang Yuan was only giving him this way to make money because of someone else's influence.
This is the guy who's yawning right now.
"Please help me find a suitable underwriting institution and give me some options, then I will make the final decision," Zhang Yuan said, chatting with him in detail.
"Can I buy some of your company's stock in advance?" Lazy Sheep asked after yawning.
“That’s called insider trading,” Zhang Yuan said, looking at her helplessly.
"Insider trading is illegal."
"Okay then." She wasn't too greedy; if she wasn't allowed to buy it, she wouldn't buy it.
"No problem, I'll contact them for you as soon as possible... Are you sure you can't buy it?" After agreeing, Mr. Chen asked again.
"I'm referring to equity transfers through formal channels."
Not to mention him, even Liu Xiaoli's eyes lit up.
"Everyone in the company is watching. We can't open a door now, or things will get chaotic."
“If Sisi were an artist in my company, I could include her in the share issuance plan.”
“But your situation…” Zhang Yuan didn’t say anything more.
You guys are unwilling to "sell yourselves," how am I supposed to explain this to the company?
Mr. Chen and Liu Xiaoli exchanged a glance, feeling a little regretful.
“Speaking of which, there’s something else I’d like you to help me with,” Zhang Yuan said.
Just like he said, only the company's artists can benefit from the company's IPO.
But now the brokerage firm is his personal business, so he still has to operate it.
"I want to transfer my agency, television production company, and performance company to my name."
"They are all temporarily incorporated into the cross-strait film industry landscape as wholly-owned enterprises."
"This will expand the company's business scope and increase its valuation."
"Oh!" Boss Chen nodded vigorously.
That's a good idea!
This transformed it from a single film production company into a diversified entertainment company, naturally resulting in a significantly different valuation.
When Huayi first went public, its market value was high because it had a large number of cooperative or holding subsidiaries, such as artist management, music, and TV drama studios.
Fiber optics is at a disadvantage in this regard, as its main business is new media and film. It once tried to acquire Huayou Century as a shell to expand its industrial boundaries, but failed.
In that case… Mr. Chen’s face showed a mixture of admiration and fear.
If it was originally worth 100 billion, this change will make it worth at least 200 billion.
The accounts will look much better; the wider the sources of income, the easier it is to do accounting.
This is incredible!
It seems he has a plan in place and is ready to soar to great heights.
“But joining is only temporary.” Zhang Yuan’s face darkened.
Why should I share the company I worked so hard to build with others?
So it was just to boost the company's stock price in the early stages of its IPO.
"We need to have a backup plan, so that we can split it off later."
"Then we'll need to create several layers of shells, or go for the overseas duty-free enclave route," Mr. Chen pondered. Despite his young age, he had a clear mind and a well-defined goal.
"That's good, thank you for your help." "Old Chen is reliable, you can rest assured." Liu Xiaoli said, trying to mediate.
She understood Zhang Yuan's purpose.
He used the celestial maiden to command the feudal lords.
By leveraging Sisi's connections to bind both sides together, they can ensure a united front and eliminate any worries.
The format is similar to "marriage alliance".
After all, his daughter had told him to go upstairs and sleep with her...
Without this relationship, who would dare to entrust their back to the other party?
Those who blindly trust contracts and professionals, completely ignoring personal relationships and interpersonal connections, are bound to suffer significant losses in the business world.
These kinds of people all believe in the contractual spirit described in Yilin magazine.
All I know is that I had to climb up the ranks from being an extra to get to where I am today.
But Lu Yang, thanks to his father's connections, was able to secure investment from China Film Group and CCTV for his very first commercial film, and he even managed to get my attention directly.
As it turns out, the spirit of contract is not as effective as a "letter of recommendation," and a cold, impersonal contract is not as useful as a warm, personal connection.
An additional layer of emotional connection makes it more reliable.
As they chatted and laughed, the Liu mother and daughter offered to buy him a cake to celebrate his success.
I wish him success in his IPO.
Outside this small space, the entire Chinese entertainment industry was far from quiet.
Because recently some people have "gotten into a fight".
Moreover, both sides in the battle are "experts".
These two masters are Zhao Wenzhuo and Zhen Zidan!
At first, no one paid attention to this public opinion. It was just a storm, a war of words, an artist's complaint, or a chaotic scene on set, until this public opinion became relevant to everyone.
to sum up.
The entire Chinese entertainment industry is in complete chaos.
However, the process was rather complicated.
It all started with a movie called "Special Identity".
Its original name was "Ultimate Decoding".
The root of the problem isn't these two individuals, but rather that someone wanted to replicate the formula of "Painted Skin."
How did Pang Hong manage to create the film "Painted Skin 1" back then?
Matching up both ends.
He told the investors, "I've found Donnie Yen to play the male lead."
He told Zhen Zidan, "Someone has invested tens of millions, you should come and act in this."
Then he said to the director and several lead actors, "I now have Donnie Yen and a budget of tens of millions!"
There was absolutely nothing there.
Purely playing the game of getting something for nothing.
This film, "Special Identity," is similar.
The director named Tan Bing still puts people in such a pretentious way, telling Donnie Yen that he had secured a budget of tens of millions.
Then, on the other end, they found Boss Lu's head.
Seeing how much money was spent on filming "The Warring States" for Jing Tian, it's like they're taking advantage of her.
The original plan with Da Tian Tian was for Chen Long to lead the project.
Later, after much discussion, they changed it to "Zhen Zidan".
Sure, Jing Tian doesn't have much of an opinion, and Donnie Yen can direct, act, and design action sequences.
The original script was designed to feature two dragons and one phoenix, with two kung fu masters fighting each other, which would make the action scenes more exciting.
After many twists and turns, they finally found Zhao Wen's desk.
He was also talking about two male leads, two strong characters facing off.
Brother Zhuo said, "Okay, let's go."
But requirements were also made.
The pay is negotiable, but I have to bring my family and nanny with me to the film set.
Because he recently had his second child, his son Zhao Zilong, is not yet one year old.
That's right, his name is Zhao Zilong, from the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
Brother Zhuo plans to have his son follow in his footsteps and will start learning martial arts at the age of 5.
But here comes the problem!
When the director spoke with Donnie Yen, he made it clear that he was the male lead in this film.
In order to bring Brother Zhuo over and to make the show more marketable and interesting, we told him it was a show with two strong leads.
Of course, back in the early days of "Painted Skin," Pang Hong also tricked Zhen Zidan in the same way, promising a single male lead, but the script was revised and he became the second male lead...
As a result, the two "experts" discovered after filming began that the script didn't match up!
AB script.
Having learned from his mistakes, Donnie Yen had already taken precautions. In any case, he controlled the script, the action choreography team, and even the director and screenwriter, which he had found himself.
The referees, witnesses, organizers, and co-organizers are all my people.
I don't care what script you have, I'll just follow my own.
Zhao Wenzhuo is a straightforward and stubborn person.
He's quite different from Wu Jing; he's a true martial artist with an artistic personality.
He absolutely refused to accept being suddenly demoted to a supporting male character.
Donnie Yen is no pushover either; she's known for being a domineering figure on set.
The team is all my people, what can you do about it?
Not only did he follow his own script, but he also deliberately changed the character of Brother Zhuo.
He went from being a master who was difficult to distinguish between good and evil to a complete villain, and a perverted and effeminate one at that.
You cast Ordo, the Nine Gates Admiral, in this role?
No way!
acting?
What a load of crap!
They had a complete falling out, and Brother Zhuo was willing to leave the production team even if it meant losing his money.
And they publicly denounced the matter in front of the media.
They say Donnie Yen is a domineering actor who arbitrarily changes the script and his own scenes.
In fact, everything described is true.
Then International Dan responded, saying that Brother Zhuo had quit the show and demanded that the production team cover the expenses of his team of nearly ten people, which the production team could not afford.
What International Dan said was mostly true, after all, he had two assistants, a wife, two children, and several nannies, making a total of seven or eight people.
The problem is that everyone told the truth and felt wronged, so no one was willing to admit defeat!
Therefore, when something happens, you still have to listen to the instructor.
The first thing to figure out is who is a friend and who is an enemy.
Two reckless men got into a fight, while the culprit, director Meimei, disappeared.
Zhao Wenzhuo even declared, "I want justice!"
I bought ten properties in Beijing, so I can eat even if I don't work. Today, I have to settle the score with you.
Accuse the other party of several major crimes.
In contrast to Zhuo Ge's recklessness, International Dan kept making sarcastic remarks and stated that he would sue the other party for defamation and spreading rumors.
Things are actually not too bad at this stage.
It's just a little incident on a film set, and two celebrities having a fight.
However, one sentence in Zhuo Ge's Weibo response became the trigger for the escalation of the matter.
He said Donnie Yen "colluded with people in the Hong Kong film and television industry to bully mainland actors."
This is another stark truth.
However, Zhang Yuan wanted to defend International Dan, saying that he wasn't targeting mainlanders; he treated everyone that way...
And then... things got really weird!
Mainland netizens were outraged and began to collectively attack Zhen Zidan for acting arrogantly.
And then... the Hong Kong entertainment industry actually united!
A bunch of people came out to speak up for International Dan.
First, there's Wang Jing, who has always disliked Zhao Wenzhuo, and whenever he's mentioned in an interview, it's always in a negative light.
"Everyone in the industry knows that's just how Zhuozhuo is. I stand with you and support Dandan!"
Wang Jing said this.
Next up is Du Wenze.
Kara Hui and Lai Man also stood up to speak for him.
Simon Yam and Sandra Ng followed up.
The boss, Huang Baiming, also joined the group very quickly.
Seeing the impressive display of strength, everyone sided with Zhen Zidan.
But in the eyes of mainland netizens, your behavior only confirms what Brother Zhuo said: "colluding with people in the Hong Kong film and television industry to bully mainland actors."
This is terrible; it's like adding fuel to the fire.
On the mainland side, initially, only Mao Ning and Sister Zhao, Liu Tao's creditor, publicly supported Zhao Wenzhuo.
Neither of them are top-tier celebrities, and the gap in their abilities is too large.
At this moment, the person who would trigger the ultimate qualitative change arrived.
The legendary "opener," the famous former Category III actress who transitioned to mainstream stardom, Ms. Shu Qi, makes her dazzling debut! (End of Chapter)