Asian Television.
Inside the chairman's office, Lin Baicheng was reviewing a document. Several other files were stacked beside him.
The task he had assigned to Huang Xizhao earlier—collecting actor profiles from the three major television stations—had already been completed. The documents in his hands and on the desk were all actor profiles.
Each profile included the actor's photo, a brief introduction, as well as the works they had participated in and the roles they had played.
Because the file contained information on many actors, it would take quite a while to review. So after delivering the materials, Lin Baicheng told Huang Xizhao to go handle other work and wait until he finished.
Lin Baicheng recognized some of the currently popular stars of this era, but there were many he did not know. He simply skimmed past anyone he didn't recognize, regardless of how popular they were at the moment—those weren't the people he planned to recruit.
Poaching already-popular stars wasn't the most cost-effective move anyway. The most profitable approach was to recruit actors who hadn't yet become famous and then promote them. It required little cost but yielded high returns once they became popular. And because he knew which actors would become stars in his past life, successfully promoting them in this life would be far easier.
Of course, poaching established stars also had its benefits—not only would it strengthen his own station, but it would weaken the other two stations. A gain on one side and a loss on the other would widen the gap significantly.
Whenever he saw a familiar-looking actor, Lin Baicheng would stop and examine their profile carefully. Once he confirmed that he recognized the actor, he would checkmark the file, listing them as a target for recruitment.
"This is Cheng Siu-chow. No need to even look—definitely try to poach him."
When he saw a star he remembered vividly, he didn't even bother reading the profile. Since he already knew them well, he directly marked them down as a must-poach target.
As he continued reviewing one by one, he saw many actors who were currently popular and would continue to be popular in the future—such as Cheng Siu-chow, Wong Ming-chuen, Shen Dianxia, Chiang Dai-wai, Angie Chiu, Michelle Yim, and so on. Anyone he recognized received a checkmark.
Although the three television stations employed many actors including extras, Lin Baicheng only skimmed casually, stopping rarely, so he moved quickly. By that afternoon, he had reviewed them all.
Among the profiles, he also came across several future superstars—people who would dominate the industry in the coming decades, such as Chow Yun-fat and Leslie Cheung.
For future superstar-level actors like Chow Yun-fat, Lin Baicheng marked them with special priority—these were high-value targets. As long as the cost wasn't outrageous, they should absolutely be poached.
As for Leslie Cheung, he actually got lucky. Leslie had only joined Asia Television last year, back when it was still known as Rediffusion. Now he was already part of ATV.
After finishing the review, Lin Baicheng called Huang Xizhao in.
"Manager Huang, I've gone through all the profiles. I'm choosing based on first impression—any actor I find pleasing to the eye can be poached. Anyone whose file is checkmarked is a candidate we want."
"Among them, those marked with a triangle are top-priority targets. We can accept higher poaching costs for them. And if they're already part of our station, then they must be given focused training."
"Understood, Mr. Lin," Huang Xizhao replied. Then he added, "But Mr. Lin—our station can only produce so many dramas. If we poach too many actors, there will be a portion with no roles to play. That's a waste of resources for us, and harmful to the actors as well. After all, they rely on youth to eat."
"You don't need to worry about that."
Although Lin Baicheng hadn't considered this issue before, he already had a solution in mind. He said:
"I intend to establish a record company and a film company. For now, the record company will be managed by the TV station. The station can host singing competitions and sign talented newcomers to the record label. As for the film company—that will be for film production. Any actor who wants to move into the film industry will have opportunities. This will help distribute talent across more projects."
"Mr. Lin, only TVB and Golden Harvest have cinema chains in Hong Kong right now. If we make a good film and want it shown in theaters, we must go through them. It's not that no other cinemas exist—but the remaining ones are few in number and poorly located. If a movie wants to make money, it has to go through Golden Harvest or TVB."
Though Huang Xizhao worked mainly in television, film and television were connected. He naturally understood the general situation in the film industry.
"Don't worry about that. If we don't have a cinema chain, we can build one. As long as we have money, that's not a problem."
Lin Baicheng smiled. He had long planned this. And the cinema chain he wanted to build wasn't the old-style Hong Kong theaters—it would be modeled after American multiplex theaters, which required more land and money but offered more seating and multiple screening rooms, allowing more films to be shown simultaneously.
From the Hutchison Whampoa acquisition, after purchasing 38% of the shares, Lin Baicheng still had a little over 1.2 billion HKD left. He planned to buy another 11.9%, raising his holdings to 49.9%. That would require another 300 million HKD or so. After this, he would still have over 800 million HKD available.
If no other major expenses came up, he planned to take that 800 million HKD to the United States to go long on gold futures.
He had no choice—when he calculated his debts, he realized he owed an enormous amount.
A $100 million loan from Goldman Sachs.
330 million HKD in loans from Standard Chartered Bank.
A total of $250 million in loans from Mitsubishi Bank.
1 billion HKD in loans from HSBC.
(Not even counting the earlier 2.5 million HKD loan for acquiring the arcade factory—that was basically pocket change now.)
Adding everything together, converted to HKD, his total debt was around 2.8 billion HKD, with an average annual interest rate of about 8.5%—nearly 240 million HKD in interest every year.
If Lin Baicheng couldn't earn at least this amount yearly, he'd be heading straight for bankruptcy.
Although Galaxy Games generated enormous profits, he didn't want most of that money being eaten up by interest payments. So he intended to use borrowed money to make more money—at the very least enough to cover all the interest.
If he put another $200 million USD into long gold futures at 5× leverage—bringing the total leveraged position to $1.5 billion—then as long as gold rose more than 15%, he would earn back all interest payments for the next three years.
And Lin Baicheng was very confident—so long as he held onto the long futures position without getting liquidated by excessive leverage, a 15% rise was nothing. Even a 150% gain wasn't the highest possible profit.