Chapter 117 Negotiation Progress

"Thank you, Your Highness the Duke, you won't need it this time..."

Seeing Wang Wanting's expression, Barron realized that there must be a story in it, but since the other party was not prepared to tell it, he did not continue to ask.

Before leaving Hangzhou, Barron also told Amber that when discussing financing with Alibaba, he could ask SoftBank if they had any ideas about selling Alibaba shares. They could buy them at the price of this financing. its shares.

Speaking of which, this time is also the most likely time to buy Alibaba shares from Sun Zhengyi. The reason has been mentioned before. Last year, Boss Ma wanted to make additional investment, but was rejected by SoftBank. Until 2004, in After their business improved, they successfully started the next round of financing.

And at that time, SoftBank invested in many projects in China at once, almost all of which were investments of 20 million US dollars. It can be said that because of the Internet winter, the situation of these investments at this time was not good. If one project can be profitable, it will go smoothly It is possible that Sun Zhengyi would agree to withdraw the investment.

In fact, Son Zhengyi's reputation as an investment "genius" was mostly touted after the rise of Alibaba - you know, the profits from investing in Alibaba accounted for 80% of SoftBank's total investment profits. It can be said that Ali's success is not only very important to Boss Ma, but also to Sun Zhengyi.

Otherwise, after the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, it is not certain whether he can rely on his popularity to obtain the US$50 billion in funds that the Middle East oil tycoons withdrew from the United States.

Next, Barron left for London. All matters regarding China had been dealt with, and Amber Sheehan could do the rest.

…

It can be said that this trip to China cost a lot of money - Boss Ma needs 20 million US dollars in funds, plus the purchase of shares in Penguin Company, it will cost nearly 53 million pounds.

If SoftBank agrees to sell its shares in Alibaba, it will be even more.

Fortunately, from the profit of more than 200 million pounds gained from shorting London copper, 100 million pounds was turned into long copper price.

By October, thanks to the anticipation of war and the expansion of demand for raw materials in the Chinese market, international copper prices rose again.

The price of copper in London has slowly risen to about 1,150 pounds per ton from less than 1,000 pounds before.

At that time, they used a relatively conservative 20% margin, which was almost five times the leverage.

In addition to the initial margin of 33 million pounds for shorting London copper, we continue to do long with a margin of 8%.

Adding up the two aspects, the profits obtained are enough to pay for China's investment this time.

Of course, he knows that the price of London copper will continue to rise in the future, so naturally he will not really liquidate all the positions invested in London copper, but will only liquidate a part of it to the extent that it is enough to pay for these funds, and that's it. .

Although according to the memory of his previous life, Barron currently holds shares in two future giants, Alibaba and Penguin. Even if he does nothing, he will be the richest man in the world after more than ten years.

But Barron's goal is naturally not limited to this. And then again, the most dangerous thing is to hold money to get through the bustling market without corresponding strength. In the game of future capital, how can the other party allow you? How about occupying such high-quality assets?

Even for Penguin and Alibaba, which are still weak at this time, if Barron's maintains its current situation and cannot provide them with sufficient resources, I am afraid they will be replaced by the introduction of new investors.

Therefore, next, Barron must continue to strengthen himself, which is the right way.

After returning to London, he and Bonnie "a little separation is better than a new marriage" and after some intense study... Then Barron returned to Chatsworth Manor.

Due to the need to film the TV series "Downton Abbey", although Chatsworth Manor has begun large-scale renovations at this time, it is currently mainly being carried out on the interior of some rooms.

The filming of this TV series, in addition to the overall exterior and gardens, actually only used less than a quarter of the room. Therefore, the renovation at this time included except for the room used for filming and the room where Barron and the others lived. started.

Inside the manor, Barron met Fergal Hayden, the manager of Summit Media, who happened to be discussing the filming of "Downton Abbey" with producer Julian.

"How long will it take for this TV series to be completed?"

After hearing Barron's question, Julian said to him:

"The current filming is going very smoothly, so we expect to finish filming the first season within two months, but we will continue filming the second season. It is expected that it will take about three and a half months to complete the first two seasons."

Well, it seems that "Downton Abbey" will not be broadcast this year. Summit Media and ITV have signed a contract with ITV for the broadcast time from 22:00 to 23:00 until the end of the year. At that time, they will conduct a new bidding for the broadcast time.

However, if the negotiations with ITV and OFCOM can progress and it is confirmed that they can obtain the rights to terrestrial digital television, Summit Media will give up the bidding for this broadcast time and focus on operating its own TV channels.

So after chatting with Julian, Barron called Summit Media’s manager Fegal alone into his study:

"Mr. Hayden, how are the negotiations with ITV Digital going?"

"The current negotiations on ITV Digital's three terrestrial digital television licenses have not made much progress. The main reason is that the BBC and OFCOM are unable to reach an agreement..."

The so-called OFCOM, the full name of Ofcom, is an agency responsible for the issuance of television program licenses and the management and review of television programs.

The current negotiations are mainly focused on OFCOM's requirements for the three terrestrial digital TV licenses owned by ITV Digital, including the operating methods of digital TV channels and the funds that need to be invested for this purpose.

As for the BBC, they still hope to invest as little as possible in terrestrial satellite television and hope to receive corresponding subsidies from the government.

In fact, as a public television station, the BBC itself can receive some subsidies from the government every year. These subsidies come from direct allocations from relevant government departments and the return of part of the funds they turn over.

But now if they take over the terrestrial digital TV license, they will need to spend a lot of extra money for promotion and construction. Although the BBC participated in the bidding for the license, it still does not want to pay too much extra cost.

These start with the original terrestrial digital TV plan in England.

To put it simply, at the end of 1997, Britain issued licenses for six digital terrestrial television multicast channels. These six multicast channels were named mux1, mux2, muxA, muxB, muxC, and mux D respectively.

Three of the six multicast channels (mux1, mux2, muxA) were allocated to existing analog terrestrial television operators at the time, and were mainly used for digital simulcast of existing analog channels of these television organizations and the development of new digital services.

This includes the BBC acquiring mux1, ITV and Channel 4 (Channel 4) acquiring mux2, and Channel 5 and S4C acquiring muxA.

Licenses for the other three multicast channels (muxB, mux C, mux D) are issued through auction.

At that time, Granada TV, Carlton TV and Sky TV jointly bid for these three licenses and established ON Digital - but BSkyB withdrew before the broadcast.

Because the UK is developing terrestrial digital TV because it hopes to compete with Sky TV, which has a dominant position in satellite TV, it will naturally not be allowed to join the terrestrial digital TV plan.

They are also afraid that their TV station will be too useless. When the time comes, it will no longer be able to compete with Sky TV, and then it will take advantage of it, which will be very embarrassing.

From obtaining the license to broadcasting, OFCOM gave ON Digital one year to prepare.

On November 15, 1998, ON Digital was officially launched. 18 channels were launched in one go during the first broadcast. This was the world's first digital terrestrial television service.

In 2000, ON Digital and SDN launched a pay-per-view service - ONrequest.

However, ON Digital's operations have never been very successful - from the day it started broadcasting, ONdigital has been burning money:

On the one hand, the competition from digital satellite TV is very fierce. Sky Digital, the digital satellite TV launched after BSkyB withdrew from ON Digital, has become a strong competitor of ON Digital.

Sky Digital's digital satellite TV provides free satellite reception equipment Digibox, which is pre-installed with about 200 channels, but the viewing fee is the same as ON Digital. The original viewing fee pricing of ON Digital is used to compete with Sky's 20 analog satellite channels. Competitive.

In this way, they are at a disadvantage in the competition for users!