Rebirth of Xiangjiang - 1978

"The LA Times? Is this company for sale?"

After the failure to acquire Bloomberg, Lin Daoqiu asked people to start investigating which large North American media companies could be acquired.

At this time, the LA Times acquisition investigation was placed on Lin Daoqiu's desk.

As one of the three major newspapers in North America along with the "NY Times" and "WA Post", the "LA Times" does have a high reputation among the public. Its circulation is about 1.2 million copies on weekdays and about 1.4 million copies on Sundays.

It can be said that if Lin Daoqiu can buy the "LA Times", it will obviously be much better than buying Bloomberg.

After all, Bloomberg, a media company, specializes in finance and economics, and is more responsible for financial business. In fact, it does not help Lin Daoqiu much.

Unless he wants to follow the path of financial giants Soros and Rogers, buying Bloomberg will be of great help to Lin Daoqiu.

But if Lin Daoqiu does not intend to follow the path of a financial giant, then a newspaper like the "LA Times" is obviously more suitable for Lin Daoqiu.

"If Mr. Lin intends to enter the media industry, the "LA Times" is obviously more suitable for you than Bloomberg, but... it may not be easy to buy the "LA Times"..."

"Why? Is it going to cost a lot to buy this newspaper?"

Hearing Lin Daoqiu's question, Richardson nodded directly.

"The "LA Times" belongs to the Times-Mirror Company and is financially controlled by the Bank of America consortium. They are also closely related to the Morgan consortium. Therefore, if you want to control the entire "LA Times", you must deal with these people.

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Dealing with one such large consortium is already nerve-wracking, but now Richardson told Lin Daoqiu that if he wanted to buy the LA Times, he would have to convince three companies to agree, which was simply too difficult.

"Do you think I can convince them to sell the LA Times to me? I think the possibility is slim."

Lin Daoqiu did not want to waste his time on these impossible things. If he had to pay a huge price to buy the "LA Times", then Lin Daoqiu would not have done it from the beginning.

Richardson also feels that it will be very difficult to persuade these three companies to agree to sell the "LA Times", and their asking prices may not be much cheaper.

"According to my estimation, if you want to buy the LA Times, I estimate that it will take at least about US$2 billion to get them to give the nod."

For Lin Daoqiu, money is not a big problem. He can get the money, but the problem is to convince the three companies to sell the "LA Times" to him, which makes him feel a little daunting.

What he dislikes most is being in debt to others, and he doesn't like dealing with these complicated consortiums.

If it could be solved directly with money, Lin Daoqiu would consider buying the "LA Times", but if there are other persuading factors, his interest will drop sharply.

"Forget it, the LA Times deal is too troublesome. I feel like the gains outweigh the losses. I plan to find another way."

"Another way?"

Richardson looked at Lin Daoqiu with confusion. He couldn't think of any better way that Lin Daoqiu had thought of.

"Through acquisitions, mergers, and mergers, and then forming a large media company, although it takes a little time, it is far easier than directly acquiring a large media company."

In fact, Lin Daoqiu doesn't like to ask for help, and he doesn't like to owe others favors. Fortunately, he has enough funds on hand. If he uses the above methods, he can start it many times faster than others.

Richardson nodded. He also knew that Lin Daoqiu was a person who didn't like trouble. If he wanted to do this, then just follow his wishes.

After all, he is only responsible for providing ideas. Lin Daoqiu should find professional people to take charge of the new media company's operations and other companies. He only needs to manage MGM well.

After giving up Bloomberg and the LA Times, Lin Daoqiu turned his attention to starting from scratch.

But starting from scratch does not mean that he really wants to build a new company and then rely on this new company to gain strength.

Lin Daoqiu's idea is to acquire several small and medium-sized media and then merge them into one large media. As the company's reputation grows, its influence will gradually expand.

After thinking about this, Lin Daoqiu began to ask his subordinates to focus on the small and medium-sized media companies in North American metropolitan areas.

Soon, more than a dozen small and medium-sized newspapers and magazines came into Lin Daoqiu's field of vision.

Most of these newspapers and magazines have daily sales ranging from a few thousand to 50,000. They may be famous in local cities, but not many people know about them after leaving the local area.

But you must know that it is not easy for a newspaper or magazine to become famous. Without the financial support of a large consortium, it is impossible for them to get any exclusive news.

If there is no exclusive news and you can only follow other people's butt reports, then the sales of newspapers and magazines will naturally be impossible to increase.

So at this time, Lin Daoqiu used money tactics to acquire seven small and medium-sized newspapers and magazines one after another in less than a month, and then merged them together.

Because he was too lazy to think of a name, Lin Daoqiu directly split and merged the acquired newspapers and magazines and established a group called "Readers Times", which was also merged with Xiangjiang's "Readers Weekly"

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After the merger of Lin Daoqiu's "Reader's Times", the daily sales volume reached 70,000 copies, and the weekly sales volume reached 20,000 copies.

But compared with the sales of major newspapers such as the "LA Times", which can easily reach millions of copies, Lin Daoqiu's "Reader's Times" is still far behind, and it is difficult for others to judge it.

Especially in the early days of its establishment, Readers Times could basically only have sales in metropolitan areas. Once it left metropolitan areas, very few people would have heard of this newspaper.

But for Lin Daoqiu, this is just the beginning. After acquisitions, spin-offs and mergers, Lin Daoqiu has not yet begun to exert his efforts.

Because the first thing he needs to solve now is to lay the foundation of "Reader Times". After the foundation is laid, he can officially launch his efforts in the United States.

The editor-in-chief of "Reader Times" is the soul of this company and the most important manager of this media.

If the editor-in-chief is not selected, no matter how much money Lin Daoqiu spends, he may not be able to make any splash by then, so finding the editor-in-chief is a top priority for Lin Daoqiu.