After the Department of Justice officially approved Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of MCA, the merger process that the two companies were already advancing began to accelerate.
Daenerys Entertainment continuously announced various news regarding corporate finance and personnel in the following week, which was overwhelming, leading few people to realize the true implications behind these announcements.
At the press conference held on the day the acquisition was approved, Daenerys Entertainment CEO Amy Pascal announced that the equity transfer from Daenerys Entertainment to MCA shareholders would be completely finalized before the end of February.
At the same time, all funds used by Daenerys Entertainment to acquire MCA would be obtained through loans.
The next day, Daenerys Entertainment announced that it would simultaneously collaborate with Hollywood's legendary director Steven Spielberg on two projects: the dinosaur sci-fi film 'Jurassic Park' and 'Schindler's List', which tells the story of the Jewish people during the Second World War Holocaust.
Although Daenerys Entertainment is not a listed company, the announcement of this collaboration made the industry more optimistic about the new Daenerys Entertainment Group, which suddenly bore an additional massive debt of $7 billion. This was not only due to the cooperation between Daenerys Entertainment and Steven Spielberg but also the other implications represented by the 'Schindler's List' project.
Subsequently, Daenerys Entertainment CEO Amy Pascal, whose contract was set to expire in March this year, announced her renewal.
The contract terms for this powerful Hollywood woman, who helped Simon Westeros build the Daenerys Entertainment Group in just a few years, became the focus of intense media scrutiny, leading to all sorts of speculation.
After much discussion and commotion, the Entertainment News section of the Ygritte Portal website finally revealed the answer.
Amy Pascal's new contract has a term of three years, with her base annual salary increased to $750,000, and the profit-sharing clauses remaining consistent with the 1987 agreement.
Belonging to the Westeros System, news from the Ygritte Portal is essentially equivalent to an official corporate announcement.
However, interpretations surrounding this contract did not cease.
Most media outlets originally predicted that Amy Pascal's contract term would likely be the standard five-year contract typical for Hollywood executives, similar to the agreements held by the heads of major Hollywood studios, such as Michael Eisner, Peter Guber, and Sherry Lansing.
Therefore, the three-year term appeared highly intriguing.
Industry media did not view this as a sign that Amy Pascal might be leaving Daenerys Entertainment. Otherwise, Westeros would never have given this female executive a generous compensation contract equivalent to the one four years ago; 5% of the company's net profit and the same amount of equity incentives, despite Daenerys Entertainment having expanded countless times in size.
It must be noted that the profit-sharing ratio for the heads of various studios in the industry is usually only 2%.
Even if Daenerys Entertainment faces significant debt pressure and shrinking profits in the coming years, a compensation contract equivalent to 10% of the company's net profit combined is definitely a massive investment.
So, let's look back at Pascal's contract term.
Three years, this most likely signifies another milestone.
As is well known, executive contracts must be renegotiated before a company's IPO.
Daenerys Entertainment has just merged with MCA, and launching an IPO plan in the short term would be unwise; three years for integration seems just right.
At the same time, several deep cooperation agreements between Daenerys Entertainment and Matsushita appeared in the media, allowing the outside world to finally learn why Matsushita decisively withdrew from the bidding for MCA.
Amidst the series of news highlights, negative reports were naturally unavoidable.
Before the acquisition was approved by the Department of Justice, Daenerys Entertainment had barely reached 3,000 employees. While the two companies had comparable revenue scales in the last fiscal year, MCA had over 12,000 employees globally.
The reason Westeros Company chose not to implement layoffs after acquiring Bell Atlantic was primarily because the rapid expansion of the Telecommunications Industry in mobile communication and internet sectors could naturally absorb Bell Atlantic's excess human resources.
Furthermore, because he was not overly familiar with the Telecommunications Industry, and Bell Atlantic did not need to reduce expenses through layoffs to solve debt issues, Simon ultimately chose to maintain the status quo.
MCA, however, was different.
Because there was significant overlap in functional departments between Daenerys Entertainment and MCA, and MCA, under the management of the long-since-stagnant Lew Wasserman, inevitably suffered from the severe redundancy issues common in large corporations.
Therefore, layoffs were unavoidable.
'The Hollywood Reporter' immediately revealed Daenerys Entertainment's plan for a massive layoff of up to 3,000 people in the new company after the merger was completed.
Employment has always been a focal point of concern in American Society.
For politicians, the employment rate is a measure of their performance. For companies, safeguarding employment is a reflection of their corporate image and social responsibility.
Suddenly, with 3,000 people potentially losing their jobs, all of Hollywood became agitated.
The Three Major Unions, which had previously been forced to abandon their efforts to block Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of MCA, immediately stepped forward to condemn the potential layoff actions. Media in North America and various Labor Protection Organizations in California also began closely monitoring the situation.
The situation escalated to the point where the new Governor of California, who had just taken office at the beginning of the year, and several Members of Congress from California expressed concern about the matter.
Facing public pressure, after a brief silence of a few days, Daenerys Entertainment quickly issued a clarification, stating that there was no layoff plan involving as many as 3,000 people.
However, due to the substantial duplication of jobs resulting from the merger of the two companies, Daenerys Entertainment had to make choices, but guaranteed that the scale of layoffs would be strictly limited to under 1,000 people.
At the same time, Daenerys Entertainment also promised to create at least 1,000 new jobs within the next three years through its own business expansion.
Reducing the number of layoffs from the rumoured 3,000 to 1,000, while still attracting criticism, was significantly more acceptable to the outside world.
While the merger continued to advance, the February Valentine's Day Movie Season in North America quietly began.
Last year's Valentine's Day Movie Season saw a dark horse hit like 'Pretty Woman', and this year, films distributed by Daenerys Entertainment also received extra media attention.
However, compared to 'Pretty Woman', the film Daenerys Entertainment released this Valentine's Day was far more unconventional, titled 'Waynes World'.
Furthermore, the most watched film in North American theatres was still currently 'Home Alone' from last year's Christmas Season.
As of February 7th, the week before the Valentine's Day Movie Season, 'Home Alone', in its seventh week of release, brought in another $12.93 million in box office revenue. After seven weeks in theatres, this phenomenal children's comedy had accumulated $191.59 million in total box office.
On February 8th, the Valentine's Day Movie Season began. 'Waynes World', produced and distributed by New World Pictures under Daenerys Entertainment, opened on 1,739 screens. Also debuting concurrently were the high-budget fantasy adventure film 'The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter', directed by George Miller and produced by Warner Bros., and the romance film 'L.A. Story'.
The fantasy adventure film 'The NeverEnding Story', adapted from a Famous German Children's Book, had a massive budget of $26 million for its first instalment in 1984. Although the North American box office was not overly successful at the time, earning just over $20 million, it recouped about $100 million globally due to its excellent special effects.
For this instalment, 'The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter', Warner invited George Miller to direct and invested another substantial budget of $35 million, making it the most favourable contender for the box office champion of this Valentine's Day Movie Season.
However, the box office performance of the films during this Valentine's Day Movie Season surprised many.
From February 8th to February 14th, the first week of the Valentine's Day Movie Season, the film that topped the weekly box office chart was neither George Miller's 'The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter' nor the perfectly thematic 'L.A. Story', but instead the unconventional, nonsensical, and vulgar comedy 'Waynes World'.
In its opening week, this vulgar comedy, starring 'Saturday Night Live' TV star Mike Myers and lacking a cohesive plot, surprisingly earned $21.7 million in seven days.
Even with Daenerys Entertainment's consistently excellent promotional efforts, and many critics giving positive reviews like "fresh and interesting" after its release, no one expected this alternative comedy film, which seemed to lack conventional selling points, to surpass $20 million in its opening week.
Internally at Daenerys Entertainment, although many knew the project was personally selected by Simon, even Danny Morris, the President of New World Pictures who personally oversaw the production of 'Waynes World', believed before the film's release that reaching $50 million in North American box office would be a miracle. Several project managers even set up a small wager over this.
Naturally, Danny Morris became the loser, but he lost happily.
The surprising $21.7 million box office in the first week, combined with positive media reviews and good buzz, meant that 'Waynes World' had strong potential for a successful long-term box office run.
$50 million domestic box office might just be the floor.
However, because the film's content involved too many jokes that only Americans could understand, the Distribution Team did not have high expectations for its overseas box office.
After 'Waynes World', the film ranked second on the weekly box office chart was not one of the two new releases, but still the perpetually popular 'Home Alone'.
In its eighth week of release, 'Home Alone' lost the weekly box office champion spot for the first time, yet its drop in revenue remained a very respectable 21%, adding another $10.22 million.
At the same time, the film's total North American domestic box office officially broke the $200 million mark, reaching $201.81 million.
Based on 'Home Alone's phenomenal box office momentum, the film's total screen life typically reaches around 25 weeks.
It is not difficult to predict that after eight weeks of release, 'Home Alone' could remain in North American theatres for about another four months.
Although 'Home Alone's weekly box office will more than likely fall below $10 million starting next week, its subsequent four-month run will include popular seasons like Easter, which is also suitable for a family-friendly atmosphere. It will not be difficult for the film to accumulate another $80 million in box office, potentially reaching the $280 million North American box office level seen in the Original Timeline.
With a production budget of $18 million, and $280 million box office revenue just in North America, the insane rate of return made all of Hollywood green with envy.
Due to this series of recent events, coupled with the approaching date, Simon, who had been trying to reduce his personal exposure, inevitably became the focus of media attention once again.
February 22nd 1991.
Simon Westeros's 23rd birthday.
Although the media frequently sensationalized the possibility that the Westeros System's debt, reaching tens of billions of dollars, might bankrupt Westeros's personal fortune, the truth was that one month after the outbreak of the Gulf War, the US Stock Market quickly rebounded, shedding the shadow of war due to the successive victories of the Multinational Forces, who were leading the conflict.
In just one month, the Dow Jones index rose by 23% compared to pre-war levels, and the S&P 500 index also achieved a final rebound of 25%.
Looking back now….
Simon Westeros's decisive and rapid completion of the acquisitions of Bell Atlantic and MCA right before the war broke out can only be described as a stroke of genius.
If both acquisitions had been delayed until after the war started, based solely on the standard market increases, Westeros would have found it impossible to acquire these two companies at the original prices.
After all, Westeros Company's initial bid for Bell Atlantic included a premium of only about 30% over the stock price before the offer. Although the premium for the MCA acquisition was slightly higher, this was because MCA's stock price had been severely dragged down by the continuous sluggishness of the US economy for over a year prior.
It should be noted that two years ago, when CAA President Michael Ovitz sounded out MCA on behalf of Sony, Lew Wasserman's asking price was as high as $8 billion.
As for Bell Atlantic, Daenerys Entertainment secured a huge bargain. If the deal had been postponed until after the war, Simon might have had to pay an extra $2 billion for Bell Atlantic.
Now, the sheer intrinsic value of these two companies, rebounding naturally with the overall US economy, has brought Simon substantial potential profits.
If necessary, Simon could easily alleviate the debt pressure facing the Westeros System by selling off portions of the stock in these two companies.
Moreover, Simon does not actually need to do this.
After more than a month of financial auditing, Daenerys Entertainment's 1990 annual financial report was finally released.
Throughout the entire 1990 fiscal year, thanks to substantial revenues from film, television, gaming, consumer products, and Soundtrack Recordings, Daenerys Entertainment's net profit for the whole year ultimately reached $1.12 billion, exceeding the initial expectation of around $1 billion by about $100 million.
Although most of Daenerys Entertainment's profits last year were quickly withdrawn for other investments within the Westeros System, moving forward, based on the continued revenue streams from a series of successful films released in previous years, Daenerys Entertainment's earnings in 1991, even when calculated before the merger with MCA, could easily still reach the 1990 level.
Therefore, the profits contributed by Daenerys Entertainment alone are sufficient to cover the maturing debts of the entire Westeros System.
With the continued rebound of the US Stock Market and the expiration of the three-year non-reduction pledge for the initial batch of tech stocks, Westeros Company could, if needed, cash out massive amounts of funds from the tech stock market at any time.
Moreover, the two corporate giants acquired, Bell Atlantic and MCA, can themselves continuously generate massive cash flow and profits.
Since debt at the level of $10 billion poses no threat to the Westeros System, it is easy to see that Simon Westeros's personal fortune will likely continue to increase, rather than shrink, with the recovery of the overall US economy.