Chapter 974: 332, Box Office Myth_2

When Donnie first acquired Breton Bank and founded Venus Bank, Walker considered placing the Astor Family’s funds in Breton Bank. However, considering the internal interest ties within the Astor Family at the time, Donnie still instructed Walker to resolve this issue in advance.

Subsequently, Old Rockefeller found Donnie and, through buying and selling the Astor Family’s shares in Citibank, helped Walker identify and deal with the internal parasites in the Astor Company.

Now, the Astor Family has completed a business separation with Citibank and formally handed over all their financial affairs to Venus Bank and Breton Bank.

At this moment, the phone on Donnie’s desk rang. It was George Olympia calling.

“Boss, it’s up, the company’s stock price is up!”

George Olympia happily reported the situation from the NYSE to Donnie.

Trident Shipyard released 30 million shares, priced at 25 cents each, which have now risen to 27 cents per share!

This means Trident Shipyard’s market value has now reached 27 million US Dollars!

Don’t think this market value is low; in fact, this valuation is already quite good for a company on the NYSE.

After all, there are quite a few companies on the NYSE with market values of several million US Dollars!

Hearing this news, Donnie was also very happy. Although he knew the valuation was slightly inflated, it didn’t matter.

“Very good. Keep monitoring over there, and notify me immediately if there are any sudden changes!”

After hanging up, Donnie relayed the news to Walker: “…It seems this matter won’t become an issue for us now!”

Walker nodded with a smile and said, “Yes, but it’s still tough for Trident Shipyard to increase its market value further in the future!”

Donnie replied with a chuckle, “No problem. We need the current market value. Let’s talk about the future when it comes.”

Even though Donnie and Walker shared a very close relationship, Donnie did not disclose the true reason for listing Trident Shipyard.

Today, Wall Street was evidently preoccupied with the listing of Trident Shipyard.

This caused many to overlook another matter, namely the release of a film causing a huge sensation across the United States, starring Griffith and Jessica Dole!

The well-promoted film attracted countless viewers on its premiere today, much to the astonishment of cinema owners who had been closely monitoring the situation after learning about the attendance rate.

As for others keeping an eye on the film, such as the Hollywood film studios, they still have no way to determine the box office sales.

Originally, these people believed, like prior films, that it would take a week to know the first week’s box office record… The production company could find out the day’s box office score through their connections with the cinemas and their own calculations.

However, the entertainment section of the “Atlantic City Post” astonishingly announced the first-day box office figures for the film the next day!

1.25 million US Dollars!

This box office figure shocked quite a few people. Although they anticipated the movie’s pre-release promotions would bring more audiences to the cinemas, no one expected such high earnings!

Since today was Saturday, Wall Street experienced a brief respite… This was not exactly a weekend, but the NYSE only works five days a week, from Monday to Friday.

Although Trident Shipyard’s listing was extensively covered in the financial sections of various newspapers today, many ordinary Americans were more curious about the movie’s first-day box office performance.

This box office figure was known by some on Wall Street, who, apart from expressing their admiration for the profitability of companies under Venus Bank, did not think much of it.

Donnie sat in his office, first listening to George Olympia’s report.

“Yesterday, Trident Shipyard officially went public, and the stock instantly broke the 25 cents mark upon listing, reaching 27 cents per share, even hitting 30 cents per share at one point before dipping, with a closing price of 28 cents per share!”

This level of stock price increase left Donnie very satisfied. It was mentioned earlier that companies like shipyards, in a certain sense, cannot be compared with the stock prices of financial, light industry, tech, and other companies. Their stock prices are relatively stable, with limited swings, and rarely experience major rises or severe drops.

Stability is precisely what these kinds of stocks represent!

Donnie lightly tapped on the desk, calculating the current situation: Trident Shipyard has a total of 100 million shares, with Venus Bank holding 90 million shares pre-IPO, and Germany’s Quanter holding 10 million shares.

Based on the agreed percentages, Venus Bank released 27 million shares, while Quanter released 3 million shares!

This means that yesterday alone, Trident Shipyard raised 8.1 million US Dollars.

Donnie thought for a moment and said, “As we previously discussed, deposit this fund into Venus Bank’s exclusive account!”

Naturally, this capital would be part of what Donnie needed to jointly acquire a part of the Kuhn, Loeb & Co. consortium with Rockefeller, Morgan, and Mellon. Donnie had already informed the Quanter Family by letter that the funds were for expanding Trident Shipyard, but he did not disclose his actual acquisition partners.