hollywood entertainment mogul

After sitting in the bar for more than 20 minutes, Kyle Larson and Lauren Tynes arrived one after another. The three of them had arranged to discuss work at the bar.

Kyle Larson is the president of Sagittarius Capital Investment, mainly responsible for project investment and management of shares in his name.

At the beginning of the year, the three of them discussed buying stocks in Cisco, Microsoft, Disney, Oracle, and several other companies.

After half a year of operation, the money in the account was turned into stocks of many companies, leaving only more than 10 million, which was left for several Sagittarius investment managers to make short-term investments.

Of the more than 260 million U.S. dollars, 114 million was used to acquire Cisco stock. Sagittarius Capital currently holds 12.7% of Cisco's total equity and is the largest shareholder after Sequoia Capital and the Berkshire Foundation.

This is the most Cisco shares he can currently obtain. If he continues to buy Cisco shares, he will be opposed by Sequoia Capital and the Berkshire Foundation. The cost will be too high and not cost-effective.

Of the remaining 150 million U.S. dollars, 62 million was purchased for Microsoft, accounting for approximately 0.32% of Microsoft's equity, and 75 million was purchased for Disney stock, accounting for approximately 0.7%;

The last 11 million was used to buy shares of Oracle Technology Company. Oracle is currently the third largest software company in the world, with a market capitalization of US$12.5 billion and US$9.5 per share. With 11 million, you can only get more than one million shares, which is of very little weight.

Duca looked at the various documents and information in his hand. There were more than a hundred pages, and it would take at least a week to read them. However, Lauren said that this was only less than one thousandth of the total amount of all the information. When he finished reading it, there would be more. He thought about it.

Just a big head.

However, with these stocks, in seven or eight years, he will have a chance to break into the top ten in the world on the Forbes list, but there is still a gap between him and Gates and Buffett, who are number one, and he still needs more efforts.

"Lauren, Kyle, how much do you know about Pixar Animation Studios? It's the animation studio founded by Steve Jobs after leaving Apple."

Duca asked.

"I don't know much."

Lauren looked at Kyle.

Kyle Larson touched his forehead, thought for a moment and said,

“I don’t know much, but when I was buying Disney stock, I saw some information related to Pixar.

In 1991, Disney invested more than 10 million in Pixar Studio and asked them to produce a feature-length animated film, but the progress was not very smooth. I need to do some research before I can answer you about the current situation."

Duca nodded. He had done some research before coming to Pixar Studio and knew more than Kyle.

[To be honest, I have been using Yeguo to read and catch up on books recently. I can switch sources and read aloud with many sounds. www. Android and Apple are available.]

Pixar Animation Studios was originally the computer animation department of Industrial Light and Magic under director George Lucas.

In 1985, Jobs lost an internal power struggle at Apple and was ousted as Apple's CEO. He also left Apple.

Afterwards, he spent $10 million to buy Pixar Studios, the animation department of Industrial Light and Magic, from Lucas.

At first, Jobs wanted to use Pixar Studios as a base to design and produce computers and use this method to make a comeback.

Unfortunately, the price of the computers he designed was too high, costing as much as 15,000 US dollars per unit, which was much higher than the laptop computers on the market and did not have many advantages in terms of performance.

The revenge plan failed and he lost 40 to 50 million.

By 1987, Pixar was about to go bankrupt.

With the persuasion of John Lasseter and others, Jobs reluctantly accepted the opinions of several people and let Pixar Animation Studio return to its original business, restart animation, and study computer animation technology, and the results were pretty good.

In 1989, Pixar's animated short "Tin Soldier" won the 63rd Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

At the same time, Pixar Animation Studio also accepts advertisements and produces animated commercials for Connor Juice, Volkswagen, California Lottery, etc., as well as animated logos for many companies.

Although the studio's animations have won awards and they can make some money from advertising, the profit is very small. Jobs needs to continue investing every year to keep the company running.

By 1991, Jobs was almost out of money and no longer wanted to invest in Pixar. He was planning to sell Pixar to Disney and Lucasfilm, but because the price could not be negotiated, he did not sell it.

In 1991, Disney invested 15 million in Pixar, asking Pixar to produce a full-length animated film based on "Tin Soldiers", which is also "Toy Story".

However, due to technical problems, Pixar has not produced a work after three years. Without works, it cannot achieve profitability, and its operating conditions are getting worse and worse.

Duca didn't know much about Pixar, he only knew that Pixar had produced many famous animated films such as "Toy Story", "Cars", "A Bug's Life", "Finding Nemo", "Up" and so on.

At present, these animations have not been released yet. What would happen if LV Pictures could acquire Pixar Animation Studio? Even if the acquisition is not possible, it would be a good investment to acquire some shares.

"Duka, do you have any ideas for Pixar Animation Studios?"

Lauren asked.

"Yes, animated films have always been profitable, and Pixar's animations are also very beautiful. If LV Pictures wants to develop in an all-round way, it needs to try more.

Kyle, please arrange for someone to investigate Pixar Studio to see if there is any possibility of acquisition."

Duca said.

"Okay, I will make arrangements later."

Kyle Larson nodded and said.

The three of them finished chatting about work, got up and left the bar.

Two days later, Kyle Larson sent news that Pixar had a financing plan. The reason was simple: Jobs had no money. After leaving Apple, Jobs only received 70 million in severance pay.

He got Pixar Studio in 1986 and wanted to use the studio as a base to research new personal computers, but he lost 20 to 30 million.

For the next six years, Pixar never produced a profitable product, so it continued to lose money. Jobs had to spend five to six million every year to maintain Pixar's normal operations and animation technology research and development.

In 1991, Pixar received investment from Disney and prepared to produce a feature-length animated film "Toy Story", all produced using computer technology.

It's just that the software technology at this stage is not high, and if you want to use computers to produce animations, you will face many technical problems. Pixar needs to study computer animation technology while producing animations.

Progress is slow and research is extremely expensive.

In less than a year, all the 15 million production funds invested by Disney were wiped out.

After watching some of the content they produced, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of Disney's animation department, was very dissatisfied and refused to continue spending money on them for research.

The capital chain was broken, and Jobs had no money. He had to find companies such as General Motors, Microsoft, and Disney to attract investment, but no one was very interested in a company that did not make money.

At this time, people from Sagittarius Capital came to the door and expressed their desire to invest.

Jobs was delighted and talked to Kyle Larson in person.

In the first negotiation, both parties broke up on bad terms.

Jobs valued Pixar Studios at $220 million.

Wall Street and Sagittarius value Pixar at around US$120 million. Apart from a few technology patents and an unfinished cartoon, the entire studio has nothing of value.

The two sides had huge differences in valuation, and Jobs was a very irritable person. He felt that Kyle had underestimated the value of Pixar. He was very dissatisfied, and finally the negotiation broke down.

Duca thought for a while and decided to talk to Jobs in person at the Kapok Bar.

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