Daenerys Entertainment emerged as the biggest winner at this year's Oscars, but Simon only stayed at the Melisandre party for an hour before quietly slipping away.
It's akin to a Nobel Prize-winning scientist finding it hard to get excited about a small ribbon won in kindergarten.
Over the years, from Sundance to Cannes to the Oscars, Simon has accumulated enough accolades in the film industry. More importantly, given Simon's current wealth and power, the Oscars hardly stir his interest anymore.
The next day, the media was abuzz as usual.
However, this time there was little controversy over the awards won by Daenerys Entertainment.
Among the five films nominated for Best Picture, the original timeline's winner, "Unforgiven," as an old-fashioned Western, didn't have as strong a competitive edge as one might imagine. The other three were more of a backdrop. Thus, with Daenerys Entertainment's powerful PR campaign, "Scent of a Woman" easily took home the Best Picture Oscar.
Al Pacino's Best Actor award was well-deserved.
This Hollywood star, who rose to prominence in the 1970s, had received six Oscar nominations by the time of "Scent of a Woman." When Pacino's win was announced at the ceremony, the entire audience stood up to congratulate the great actor.
Other awards also passed without much stir.
The media even expressed regret that Daenerys Entertainment's other two films, "Howards End" and "The Crying Game," only won a few minor awards.
Of course, even if the Oscars no longer moved Simon much, the series of awards brought tangible honor and benefits to Daenerys Entertainment.
After the Oscars, time quickly moved into April.
In Europe, Melisandre Corporation's acquisition of Christie's auction house was officially revealed.
British media reacted with resistance, arguing that Christie's, a company symbolizing the UK's historical status in art collection, shouldn't be sold to foreign investors. Some outspoken media figures even petitioned the British government to block the deal.
However, in the face of capital, media sentiment often proves weak.
Moreover, the British public reacted with a kind of detached curiosity, as multimillion-dollar art transactions seemed distant from their daily lives.
After last year's pound crisis, the UK economy had slumped, leading many investors to favor cashing out Christie's shares to increase their liquidity.
As a result, the deal quickly passed the shareholders' vote.
While Melisandre Corporation smoothly acquired Christie's, across the Atlantic, Eaglet Corporation's financing plans weren't going as smoothly.
In essence, if the goal were simply to raise funds, investors like Joseph Lewis, who were willing to buy 10% of Eaglet's stock without much negotiation, were plentiful.
However, the purpose behind this round of financing wasn't so straightforward.
With Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs both expressing clear investment intentions, Eaglet proposed that each firm acquire a 5% stake. This proposal alone sparked dissatisfaction from the two Wall Street giants.
The 10% stake in Eaglet was priced at $1.5 billion, a massive sum that general investors couldn't afford. Yet, for the Wall Street behemoths, even if swallowing the entire sum at once would be tough, they could easily muster $1.5 billion through their vast capital networks.
Everyone understood that, given Eaglet's growth trajectory, 10% of its shares at $1.5 billion was a bargain.
Buying this stock now, with the anticipation of Eaglet's IPO, promised at least a double return, given the market's current enthusiasm for tech stocks.
Companies like Cisco and AOL were prime examples.
Investors would profit from this deal, and the banks themselves would benefit from commissions and strengthen ties with their partners—a win-win.
Now, sharing the 10% stake reduced the room for maneuver significantly.
However, despite several rounds of negotiations, the Westeros system showed no signs of yielding, and neither investment bank was willing to back down.
Additionally, there were other disagreements during the negotiations.
Firstly, Eaglet planned to implement a dual-class share structure in this financing round. The 10% of shares up for sale were A-class shares, which carried only one-tenth the voting power of ordinary shares. Even after acquiring these shares, the two banks would only hold 1% of Eaglet's voting power and wouldn't get any seats on the board.
In other words, despite investing $1.5 billion, the banks would have no say in Eaglet's affairs.
This was intolerable for the traditionally assertive Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Regarding the dual-class share structure, Simon wouldn't budge. However, during negotiations, he agreed that post-IPO, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley would each get a board seat.
For now, since Eaglet was still a privately-held company, it didn't have a board of directors.
After several negotiations, both parties reluctantly agreed on this point.
Next came the issue of the $1.5 billion itself.
Eaglet's initial proposal was to allocate $500 million of the funds to Eaglet's account for its development, while the remaining $1 billion would go to the Westeros Company, considered the proceeds from the sale of the 10% stake.
After all, treating this equity transfer as Westeros selling 10% of Eaglet's stock wasn't entirely inappropriate.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, of course, disagreed.
While $500 million was a substantial amount, for Eaglet, which was rapidly expanding, it could be spent in just a year.
If funds ran low, another round of financing would be necessary.
At that point, whether through equity or debt financing, the costs would be shared by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, who were now Eaglet's shareholders.
For the investment banks, the ideal solution was for the entire $1.5 billion to go into Eaglet's coffers.
However, they could also understand Westeros's desire to take a share of the funds.
$1.5 billion is a significant sum.
Even for the banks themselves, they likely wouldn't want to spend it all on Eaglet.
In reality, Goldman and Morgan were mistaken this time.
Simon didn't intend to take a direct cut of the massive sum. The allocation proposal was merely a bargaining chip.
The principle was simple.
If he agreed to all of Goldman and Morgan's terms from the start, they would only continue to push for more.
For Simon, the Westeros system wasn't short on cash.
That's one point.
Another is that taking the $1 billion as sale proceeds would mean paying capital gains tax.
At the current federal rate, $1 billion would require a $280 million contribution to the IRS.
Simon had no intention of being that generous a taxpayer.
Back when he voluntarily repatriated the massive profits from the Japanese financial markets and paid substantial capital gains tax, it was more of a trade-off.
The Westeros system's $2.3 billion one-time tax contribution helped secure approval for the MCA and Bell Atlantic acquisitions. Without this tax lever, Simon wouldn't have been able to acquire these corporate giants so quickly.
This time, with no such exchanges needed, Simon intended to minimize his tax liability.
If additional funds were required, Simon now preferred bank loans.
The higher up one climbs in the world's financial hierarchy, the more they realize that spending others' money to advance their own goals is key to long-term success.
In fact, $1.5 billion is more than enough for Eaglet.
Eaglet already has substantial revenue streams to fuel its growth. Although the new tech wave is surging, Simon doesn't plan to ramp up Eaglet's spending. On the contrary, following this round of financing, he intends to tighten Eaglet's financial oversight to avoid wasteful spending.
As it stands, $1.5 billion could last Eaglet three to five years.
Given Eaglet's planned IPO in 1995, its financial reserves would be even more robust by then.
Having too much money without spending it quickly can also be problematic.
Fortunately, Eaglet already has its own venture capital division. Simon's plan is that after this financing, while continuing its development, Eaglet will significantly increase its external investments, positioning itself as a major venture capital player in Silicon Valley.
Malibu, Daenerys Studios.
The date is April 6th, a Tuesday.
Simon spent two hours in the Pixar team on the second floor of the studio in the morning, mainly watching footage from "The Lion King." This is Pixar's second 3D animated film, which is over 80% complete. However, due to the intricate animation production process, the final cut won't be ready until August.
The film's release is scheduled for the end of the year, so August isn't too late.
At noon, Simon returned to Dume Point with his assistant for lunch.
After lunch, his assistant stayed behind with Janet, as the two women planned to go shopping together.
Simon returned to the studio, where his A-girl took over from Jennifer.
"Boss, here's a memorandum from Washington about Vice President Gore's meeting this morning with telecom executives."
The extensive Information Superhighway plan certainly isn't settled with just one bill. It requires substantial actions from the federal government.
Simon was already aware that today's meeting with Vice President Gore and telecom company leaders was to discuss increasing their investment in internet infrastructure.
Executives from Westeros's Verizon Communications and America Online attended the meeting.
Of the $400 billion over 20 years projected for the Information Superhighway, the direct contribution from federal funds is relatively small. This year, federal funding for the project is only $650 million.
Most of the investment will come from private capital, guided by federal information industry policies.
Twenty years and $400 billion seem enormous, but if profitable, the capital flowing into this industry will far exceed that amount.
In Simon's memory, during the peak of the internet bubble before 2000, hundreds of billions of
dollars were invested in new tech in a single year, not counting the even larger sums speculating on tech stocks.
This time, companies like Cisco, AOL, and Eaglet have already proven the potential of the internet industry. Even without federal guidance, telecom giants would ramp up their tech investments.
Today's meeting, Simon's primary concern, was the tax incentives for the new tech sector.
Flipping through the memorandum, Simon asked about another matter: "How are the negotiations in New York?"
Alison shook her head, "No new updates yet."
No news meant no progress.
Simon wasn't worried.
This transaction was a classic seller's market. If Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley refused to compromise, Simon had other options.
At worst, he could sell the 10% stake entirely to one of them.
Or choose another investment bank.
With Eaglet's rising prominence, trouble had also increased recently.
A recent report indicated that Eaglet was facing 11 simultaneous lawsuits over copyright, patents, and monopolistic practices.
The largest one came from Hearst Corporation, involving a comprehensive infringement lawsuit claiming Eaglet used Hearst's news and images without permission, seeking $100 million in damages.
Traditional media clearly felt the threat of internet media and started to counteract instinctively.
In this infringement case, most of the content was uploaded by users themselves, and there were signs of deliberate manipulation.
However, Eaglet had prepared for such scenarios.
Although the Internet Safe Harbor Act is still under lobbying, Eaglet's user terms already include provisions for copyright holders to contact Eaglet for content removal.
But Hearst didn't do that; instead, they collected evidence and launched a lawsuit.
Simultaneously, many of Hearst's newspapers pushed for stronger internet copyright protections from the federal government.
Historically, Hearst once instigated the Spanish-American War almost single-handedly, showcasing its influence over federal opinion.
However, this time, neither Eaglet nor the federal government would let Hearst dictate terms.
After countering the lawsuit and using the vast Westeros media resources to retaliate, Eaglet quickly provided evidence of its proactive approach to handling infringement, demonstrating its commitment to copyright protection. Given the enormous volume of internet content, pre-screening everything is impossible. If required, the internet industry couldn't continue to grow.
Eaglet's legal team also pointed out that Hearst hadn't contacted them to address the infringement but had jumped straight to what was essentially extortion.
Despite Hearst's control over much of the traditional media, it found itself on the defensive.
Moreover, the White House didn't side with Hearst this time.
Bill Clinton was eager to leverage the internet boom to revitalize the US economy. Even though Hearst was aligned with the Democrats, the administration wouldn't allow them to disrupt the plan.
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