It was morning when Sophia Fache drove into the Dume Point estate with her son and daughter.
The car stopped in front of the Shell Villa. As Sophia got out, she happened to see the ABCD girls carrying boxes of baby supplies out of the villa and loading them into a pickup truck.
Janet was also there. When she saw Sophia arrive, she came over to greet her warmly and then affectionately said hello to little Daniel and Gemma.
After chatting for a bit, Sophia gestured toward the busy ABCD girls and asked, "What's all this about?"
Jennifer patted her small belly. "I bought a lot of things for the little one yesterday, but I realized it was still too early, so we decided to donate them. Otherwise they would just go to waste."
Sophia immediately understood after Janet's explanation.
Still, when she glanced again at the entire truckload of items and remembered Janet's habit of never buying cheap goods, she could not help having the same thought Simon had the previous afternoon.
They chatted as they walked into the villa together.
Noticing that Daniel and Gemma seemed very interested in the Shell Villa, Janet offered to take the two little ones on a tour. She instructed the A-girl to take Sophia up to the second-floor study, where Simon was waiting.
Following Allison to the second floor and stopping in front of a door, Sophia signaled that the A-girl could leave, then knocked.
When she heard the response, she pushed the door open and walked in.
Simon was not behind the desk. Instead he was leaning back in the single armchair by the window, flipping through a book with his feet casually propped on the ottoman. A glass of juice and some snacks sat on the side table beside him. He looked perfectly relaxed.
The spring sunlight was just right.
Bright rays poured through the glass window into the study, giving the room a feeling that made slacking off seem perfectly acceptable.
Sophia greeted Simon and closed the door behind her. As she turned, she noticed a toy truck on the study floor.
She picked up the toy truck, walked over to Simon, held it up with a smile, and asked, "Is this also prepared for your little treasure?"
"Of course not. This is my toy."
As Simon spoke, he pulled out a remote and fiddled with it. The toy truck in Sophia's hands immediately started buzzing.
She set the toy truck on the floor and watched the little thing clatter away. Instead of going to the other sofa, Sophia sat directly on the armrest of Simon's single armchair and asked, "What are you reading?"
Simon showed her the cover. "Pregnancy handbook."
Sophia took the book, flipped through it, and said, "You're already looking forward to being a dad?"
"More nervous than anything. It's my first time."
"I really envy the two of you."
Sophia suddenly said this, placed the book on the side table, and subtly shifted closer to Simon.
The woman was wearing a beige knitted straight-cut long dress today, much more casual than her usual OL style. The perfume she wore was also a very light and warm scent that perfectly matched the bright, sunny atmosphere.
Simon noticed Sophia's small movement but only smiled and praised, "You look very beautiful today."
Sophia knew the time and occasion were not quite right. Since the man did not take the initiative, she did not hint any further. She casually brushed the hair from her forehead as if sweeping away some faint ripples in her heart, then turned to business. "Have you looked over the Van Cleef & Arpels materials?"
Simon nodded. "I have. It's a very good company."
Van Cleef & Arpels was a French luxury brand with nearly a century of history, mainly dealing in jewelry and high-end watches. As a brand favored by many royals, nobles, and celebrities, it stood alongside Tiffany and Cartier.
It was also Melisandre Company's next acquisition target.
In the year just past, Gucci, controlled by Melisandre, could definitely be called the luxury brand with the highest exposure.
From The Gucci Mark onward, many of Daenerys Entertainment's 1990 releases, including the blockbuster Pretty Woman and Ghost, had featured Gucci products in varying degrees.
Gucci's brand events at major film festivals and extensive traditional advertising had greatly boosted its influence. Combined with Sophia's strict control over Gucci product and service quality, the brand's revenue in 1990 had achieved explosive 73 percent growth, reaching 670 million dollars for the full year.
By comparison, Gucci's direct competitor, the core Dior brand under LVMH, had grown only 17 percent in the same period, with 1990 revenue reaching 1.09 billion dollars.
Two years earlier Sophia had proposed the ambitious goal of Gucci surpassing Dior in 1991. Although it still seemed aggressive, as long as both brands maintained their growth pace from the past two years, Gucci's revenue would at least cross the one-billion-dollar mark this year and reach the same level as Dior.
Judging from Gucci's performance in the more than two months of 1991 so far, the company could easily ensure a 50 percent revenue growth rate for the year and hit the billion-dollar target without difficulty.
Because of her careful cultivation of the Gucci brand, over the past two years Melisandre had only added one subsidiary, the Latour winery, which still belonged to Simon's private collection category.
Gucci already possessed very deep brand heritage. The near-bankruptcy situation in previous years had mostly resulted from internal family conflicts.
Now that Gucci had fully recovered and the heritage accumulated over more than half a century was being released again, Melisandre could appropriately begin outward expansion. However, Sophia still avoided acquiring luxury brands that overlapped with Gucci's fields and instead chose Van Cleef & Arpels, which specialized in jewelry and watches.
According to the materials Sophia had collected in advance, Van Cleef & Arpels' 1990 revenue was 176 million dollars, with profits of 19 million dollars.
After several rounds of negotiation between Melisandre and the Arpels family and the Italian Fingen company that held shares in Van Cleef & Arpels, both sides had preliminarily valued the company at 230 million dollars. The shareholders were willing to transfer 60 percent of the equity for 138 million dollars in cash while giving up control of Van Cleef & Arpels.
Simon was actually very optimistic about this deal.
He and Sophia had privately discussed Melisandre's development plan many times and had ultimately settled on the "carrier battle group" expansion model for the company.
A carrier battle group typically consisted of one to three core aircraft carriers plus a large number of cruisers, destroyers, frigates, supply ships, and submarines.
Similarly, the future Melisandre should also be built around two or three core brands plus a large number of smaller secondary luxury brands. The few core luxury brands should account for more than 50 percent of the entire luxury group's revenue.
The remaining subsidiary brands would share the other 50 percent, with each subsidiary brand's revenue roughly one-tenth the size of a core brand.
This structure would ensure that core brands like Gucci maintained sufficient visibility and competitiveness while also guaranteeing the luxury group had backup brands with growth potential. On the other hand, continuously acquiring a large number of subsidiary luxury brands would prevent new competitors capable of challenging the core brands from appearing on the market. It was actually a form of suppression strategy.
The Van Cleef & Arpels they were about to acquire would serve as Melisandre's second "carrier" seed.
It could even be called the seed for a second "carrier battle group."
Because Van Cleef & Arpels did not have too much direct competition with Gucci.
Going forward, Melisandre could develop two separate "carrier battle groups" centered on Gucci and Van Cleef & Arpels, one focused on handbags and apparel, the other on jewelry and watches.
As for acquiring subsidiary luxury brands, that could proceed slowly throughout the 1990s.
The current major luxury giants, LVMH and Richemont, were still focused on operating their core brands and had not yet begun large-scale expansion.
LVMH's flagship brands were Dior and LV, while Richemont's core brand was Cartier.
The two "carrier battle groups" Melisandre planned would directly compete with LVMH in handbags and apparel and with Richemont in jewelry and watches.
As for the Kering group in the original timeline, which had acquired Gucci and stood alongside LVMH and Richemont as one of the three major luxury giants, it was still operating its retail chain business at the moment. With Melisandre already having Gucci in its pocket and eyeing the entire luxury industry, Kering was destined to have a hard time following its original development path.
Sophia had come to Los Angeles this weekend not just to visit Simon.
Next Monday was the new Academy Awards ceremony, and Gucci would as usual hold its own brand party after the Oscars.
Thanks to Daenerys Entertainment's connections and influence in Hollywood, after two years of development this party had already gained momentum to replace the original timeline's Vanity Fair party as the fixed gathering after the Oscars.
After casually chatting with Simon about various trivial matters in the study and having lunch together, Sophia headed back to the city to busy herself with preparations for the themed party.
Janet claimed she wanted to get a head start on familiarizing herself with looking after children. The two little ones had always liked Aunt Janet very much, so they stayed at the estate until Sunday afternoon when they had to return to the East Coast for school the next day. Only then did Janet send the two little ones back to New York on the family's Boeing 767.
After the warm weekend, time arrived at March 25.
The Easter box-office window thcat had opened on March 22 saw Madonna's concert documentary Truth or Dare open on 733 screens and take in 4.93 million dollars over its first three-day weekend, with the full first week expected to reach around 7 million dollars.
Judging from the film's popularity and word of mouth, Truth or Dare would have no problem reaching a floor of 20 million dollars domestically. Although it could not compare to the original Gucci Mark's more than 60 million dollars, it still far exceeded other music documentaries of the same type and counted as a solid success.
However, Truth or Dare ranked only third in box office for the first weekend of the Easter window.
First place went to Warner Bros.' Steven Seagal action film Marked for Death, which earned 10.52 million dollars over three days.
The strong-legged Wayne's World ranked second, adding another 5.71 million dollars in three days.
From its February 8 opening until now, Wayne's World had accumulated 87.18 million dollars domestically and its trend remained robust, steadily marching toward the 100-million-dollar mark.
Fourth and fifth places went to Fox's crime drama Class Action starring Gene Hackman and Universal's crime comedy The Hard Way starring Michael J. Fox.
Strictly speaking, Daenerys Entertainment actually occupied three of the top five positions in the first weekend of the Easter window.
Of course, Simon actually did not want too many people to notice this.
Daenerys Studios.
Simon put down the box-office report from the just-passed weekend and looked at Nancy Brill as she walked into his office.
After the MCA acquisition, the petite woman would now control all of Daenerys Entertainment's non-film and television businesses except for the theme parks. This included records, theater chains, publishing, games, consumer products, video rental chains, and more. Her authority would rank only below Simon and Amy, even stronger than the two current presidents, Robert Rehme who oversaw distribution and Robert Iger who handled television.
During this round of compensation and position adjustments, Nancy had also been promoted to the third president of Daenerys Entertainment Group, alongside Rehme and Iger.
Come to think of it, Daenerys Entertainment's management structure was different from other studios.
Comparing it to Disney, for example, Simon's position as chairman was closer to Michael Eisner's role as Disney's chairman and CEO, setting the overall direction for Daenerys Entertainment.
Although Amy was Daenerys Entertainment's CEO, her authority was more similar to Michael Eisner's deputy Frank Wells.
The three presidents of Daenerys Entertainment were closer to the heads of major business divisions at other studios.
Of course, Hollywood's power structures had never followed a fixed model, and since Daenerys Entertainment was not yet public, it could choose any management structure it deemed suitable.
However, in preparation for the planned IPO, Simon would also make appropriate adjustments to Daenerys Entertainment's management structure going forward.
Nancy sat down across from Simon. What they discussed was Daenerys Entertainment's game business.
Over the past year, Daenerys Entertainment's wholly owned Blizzard studio and its 35 percent stake in EA had both developed very well.
Blizzard's two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games, the fighting version in the first half of the year and the action-adventure sequel in the second half, were both expected to sell more than two million units overall.
The PC real-time strategy game Dune, which EA had developed under Simon's guidance, had sold over 1.1 million copies since its September release last year. The company's flagship sports games and other role-playing titles had also performed well over the past year.
At the same time, EA had used its continuously rising stock price to acquire several game studios with good brands and had begun an expansion path similar to the original timeline.
What Simon and Nancy were discussing today was mainly EA's plan to develop online games.
This was also part of the effort to enrich internet content resources as quickly as possible.
Over the past few months, the growth rate of internet users had far exceeded Simon's initial expectations.
Outside the Ygritte portal, more and more content websites had begun joining the web camp. However, this still had not reached a level that satisfied Simon.
At the current stage, although developing large-scale role-playing online games capable of supporting tens of thousands of simultaneous players was not yet realistic, turning already established games like Dune into turn-based online battle platforms was highly feasible.
Moreover, the online payment system Ypay that Ygritte had been developing was perfectly positioned to solve the payment issues network games would face.