hunt hollywood

After the ATT split in 1984, the federal government encouraged competition in the telecommunications industry. Therefore, there have been hundreds of large and small telecommunications companies in the United States over the years. In fact, America Online can be regarded as one of them. .

Therefore, there are not many legal obstacles to the acquisition of Bell Atlantic, and the key is capital.

The two acquisitions in Simon's plan, Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of MCA, and Westeros' acquisition of Bell Atlantic, respectively need to prepare US$70 billion and US$80 billion, and the total is US$150 billion.

However, after the Cersei Fund Management Company settles and returns at the end of the year, the funds that Simon can transfer back from overseas, excluding the 28% capital gains tax, are only about 60 billion US dollars.In other words, if Simon wants to complete these two acquisitions, he needs to raise at least another $90 billion in cash.

90 billion U.S. dollars, if it is all based on loans, according to the 10-year repayment cycle, the entire Westeros system needs to bear the debt principal and interest repayment amount of more than 10 billion U.S. dollars every year.In this day and age, even the giants in the top 10 companies in the world cannot guarantee that they can earn [-] billion US dollars every year.

With such a heavy debt burden, if you don't pay attention, the business empire that Simon has built over the years may fall apart.

Moreover, in terms of acquisition targets, Leon Black, who relied on Drexel Securities in the leveraged buyout industry in the 80s, also believes that Simon's choice to acquire a regional telecom operator is not a very good choice.

With the acquisition of MCA, Daenerys Entertainment can not only further consolidate its foundation in Hollywood, but also gain all-round complementarity in music, TV, theaters and theme parks.

The acquisition of Bell Atlantic is not only a completely unfamiliar industry for Simon, but after the acquisition of this company, the development space of Bell Atlantic is really limited.

You know, since the establishment of the Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1887, the telecommunications industry in the United States has experienced a century of development. In terms of telephone business, the Bell system has developed to the extreme.

During the most prosperous period of leveraged buyout in the 80s, no company targeted the seven small Bells that were spun off from AT&T, and this is roughly the reason.

Standard leveraged buyouts, after the merger is completed, will quickly reduce their own debts through split sales. However, regional telecom companies that have gone through the AT&T split in 1984 are trying their best to preserve market share and avoid being caught by countless small telecom companies. Corporations gobble up their turf.Once they are split and sold, the value of these telecommunications companies will plummet. Affected by telecommunications regulations, they will not be able to strengthen their economies of scale through continued expansion.

The goal of Simon's acquisition of Bell Atlantic is to operate, and it does not intend to adopt leveraged buyouts, so it is even more impossible to reduce debt through split sales.

Moreover, even if, as Simon imagined, the federal government may reopen the telecommunications industry in the next few years, allowing regional telecommunications companies to expand their market share through mergers and get involved in long-distance calls, cable TV and other fields other than short-distance calls, But it also takes time.

Prior to this, if Bell Atlantic could not absorb the huge debt in the acquisition process of Westeros, it would be difficult for the company to invest too much capital in other fields of expansion after the telecommunications regulations were liberalized, and it would be more likely to become a major player in other telecommunications giants. target of annexation.

Simon knew that the opinions of James Raybould, Leon Black and others were good advice, and he also knew that the planned acquisition of Bell Atlantic and the expansion after the completion of the acquisition were not as he had imagined. So simple.

The current seven Bells, after many years, only Verizon, the second largest telecommunications company in the United States, evolved from Bell Atlantic, and the other six regional telecommunications companies all disappeared in the wave of mergers around the new century.

However, behind the challenges there are also great opportunities.

You must know that in the 90s, not only the traditional telephone business and the cable TV business reopened to telecommunications companies, but also the rapid rise of mobile communications and the Internet in the telecommunications field. It is these newly emerging fields that will create Verizon. A giant in the comprehensive telecommunications industry with a market capitalization of hundreds of billions.

Discussions in the Westeros system about launching two acquisitions at the same time continued throughout the weekend.

In the new week, the discussion is still going on. The release of Forbes magazine's 400 richest people in the United States has attracted countless people's attention in an instant.

Chapter 366 One Rider Juechen (Revision)

The day before the release of the new issue of Forbes magazine on September 9, Simon obtained the list data of the 2 1990 richest people in the United States.

The next day was September 9rd, Monday. When the new issue of "Forbes" magazine was officially released, a large number of North American media that have been paying close attention to this year's Forbes rich list almost simultaneously published related reports. Obviously, these media also obtained the Relevant information.

210 billion dollars!

This is the figure of Simon's personal net worth announced on the Forbes magazine's 1990 400 Rich List in the United States.

No.1 without any suspense.

Moreover, Simon also became the first super rich man with a personal net worth of more than $400 billion on the 100 richest list in the United States. Sam Walton, who was originally expected to win this title, has distributed the shares of Wal-Mart to his children.

Besides Simon, the second runner-up on this year's list is still last year's list runner-up John Kruger, but his personal net worth has dropped directly to US$56 billion, which is a huge difference from Simon.

Further back.

No.3, Warren Buffett, $33 billion.

No.4, Ronald Perelman, $28.7 billion.

No.5, Henry Hillman, $26.5 billion.

Outside the top five, No.6 to No.9, tied with sisters Barbara Cox Anthony and Anne Cox Chambers and brothers Samuel Newhouse and Donald Newhouse, individual The net worth figures are both $26 billion.

From No.10 to No.17, there is also a long series of parallels, namely Sam Walton, who controls the Walton Group, and his four children, and Pulitzer, who controls the famous Hyatt Hotel Group. The two brothers of the Ke family, and the last Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the wealth of these eight rich people is 25 billion US dollars.

Affected by the economic recession triggered by the US debt crisis, the rankings on this year's list have changed greatly, and the assets of many rich people have shrunk sharply. The three of Luo directly fell out of the top ten on the list.

The economic recession has caused the wealth of the rich to shrink sharply. This should have been a very important focus of this year's list. However, when the new list was released, almost all media attention was focused on a certain name on the list. absorb.

Simon's personal net worth of $210 billion has more than tripled from last year's $60 billion.

However, after the detailed enumeration and analysis of Simon's personal assets by "Forbes" magazine, the personal net worth of 210 billion US dollars has caused much less controversy than last year.

Among the series of assets under Simon’s name, the one that has attracted the most attention this year should be the large amount of cash he has continuously earned in the Japanese financial market and crude oil futures market through Cersei Capital.

This cash asset, which was exposed at the beginning of the year, has reached 45 billion U.S. dollars. After the operation of the crude oil futures market in the first half of the year, "Forbes" magazine estimates that Simon's overseas cash assets should be around 80 billion U.S. dollars. That's more than Simon's combined personal net worth of $60 billion last year.

Subsequently, "Forbes" magazine gave Daenerys Entertainment's estimated assets of 80 billion to 100 billion US dollars.

According to "Forbes" magazine, in order to avoid the controversy caused by last year's valuation, "Forbes" invited multiple Wall Street financial and accounting teams to participate in the valuation, and finally came up with a valuation range of 80 billion to 100 billion US dollars .

Is Daenerys entertainment worth this much?

In response to this doubt, "Forbes" magazine gave Daenerys Entertainment's company financial report for the first half of 1990. It only had a net profit after tax of 5.73 million US dollars in two quarters, surpassing any of the Big Seven in Hollywood. .

Moreover, relying on the follow-up videotapes, TV, derivatives and other channel income of its super blockbuster films, as long as there are no serious project losses and losses in the next few years, Daenerys Entertainment is enough to maintain a full-year revenue in the next two to three years. The scale of net profit at the level of 10 billion US dollars.

Compared with Fortune magazine's list of the top 400 American companies in the first half of the year, in the previous fiscal year, among the companies with a net profit of 10 billion US dollars, Boeing, the company with the lowest market value, also had a recent market value of 156 billion US dollars. In addition, cleaning and Johnson & Johnson's two daily necessities giants with a net profit of US$10 billion also have a market value of US$218 billion and the other US$186 billion.

Therefore, in terms of profit scale, Daenerys Entertainment's valuation of US$80 billion to US$100 billion is definitely low.

At the same time, Daenerys Entertainment has three film labels with a large number of blockbuster projects, Daenerys TV Company, Blockbuster 35% stake, Blizzard Studios, EA Company 35% stake, potential gold mine level Marvel Entertainment and DC Movie Universe rights, etc., these real assets are enough to support the huge valuation of Daenerys Entertainment.

Obviously, it is only the cash held in Simon's personal name and the two assets of Daenerys Entertainment. After the addition, it is close to Simon's personal net worth figure given by "Forbes" magazine.

In addition, there are a large number of listed or unlisted company assets under the name of Westeros Corporation.

There are still 1987 stocks of listed technology companies purchased during the stock market crash in 19, and the total market value of related companies exceeds US$260 billion.

Among them, Microsoft and Intel, which are heavily held by Westeros, have a current market value of 63 billion US dollars and 76 billion US dollars respectively. Only 20% and 15% of the shares of these two companies have brought Simon a wealth of more than 25 billion US dollars. .

Other companies such as SUN, Oracle, AMD, Silicon Graphics, Adobe, Autodesk, etc., Westeros' shareholding value also reached 10 billion US dollars.

Combined, the 19 public tech companies have brought Simon a personal fortune of $35 billion.

In addition, the non-listed Cisco, AOL, Eaglet, etc., as well as overseas Nokia and non-technical Melisandre, even if only counting the shareholding part of Westeros, the total value of these assets Also between $15 billion and $20 billion.

Moreover, among the personal assets under Simon's name, there will be another Cersei Capital this year.

This large-scale private equity fund, which officially established its headquarters in New York at the beginning of this year, has only operated twice in a row in the Japanese financial market and the crude oil futures market, which is enough to make the industry look forward to it.No matter how conservative it is, the value will not be lower than $10 billion.

Finally, a large number of real estate and land assets under Simon's name must be counted, and the valuation also reached 5 million US dollars.

Add it all up, minus the less than $15 billion in liabilities of the entire Westeros system, and Simon's personal assets are roughly between $210 billion and $235 billion. What "Forbes" magazine takes is only the lowest value of this valuation range.

Still, even that conservative figure of $210 billion creates a series of unprecedented numbers.

Not only is the first super rich man in the United States with a personal net worth exceeding US$100 billion, Simon is also destined to surpass Japanese real estate tycoon Tsutsumi Yoshiaki in the 1990 Global Rich List released by "Forbes" and become the world's richest man. richest man.

The general public can only envy, admire, resent, question Simon's personal net worth figures on the "Forbes" list, or imagine what the $210 billion means and how much they can buy. "After the announcement of the list, they gave very direct feedback.

The stock prices of listed companies related to the Westeros system, whether they are technology stocks such as Microsoft and Intel, or other industries such as Blockbuster or EA, have seen a significant rise in the following week.

Back then, the 'Westeros combination' was frequently brought up again by the media.

Immediately afterwards, in order to take advantage of Simon's personal net worth on the "Forbes" list to hit a new high, Oracle hastily announced its financial report for the previous quarter on September 9.

1990年6月到8月的一个财务季度，甲骨文营收数字为2.07亿美元，亏损额达到3600万美元。

In the quarterly financial report, Oracle very frankly admitted that the aggressive expansion strategy and wrong sales techniques adopted in the past two years were the main reasons for this loss, and said that it would make substantial adjustments to the company. Several executives in charge of sales at Oracle will After resigning, a large-scale layoff of about 400 people will be carried out at the same time to reduce business operating costs.

Not only that, but in the personal letter to shareholders attached to the financial report, Larry Ellison confidently stated that everything in the company was under control, and specifically pointed out Westeros' previous increase in Oracle's holdings.

If it weren't for the increase in holdings of Westeros, the huge loss of US$3600 million in a single quarter, and the company's business strategy mistakes that Oracle finally admitted until now, it would definitely make countless angry shareholders want to put Larry Ellison Press and rub on the ground.

However, the fact is that after Oracle's quarterly financial report was released on Thursday, September 9, the company's stock price did not plummet as Wall Street analysts expected on Thursday and Friday. The single-day trading volume is 6% lower than before the release of the quarterly earnings report.

Obviously, many shareholders are no longer rushing to sell Oracle's stock, but began to wait and see.

Some Oracle shareholders who were able to connect with the Westeros system also tried their best to find out Simon's attitude towards Oracle.

On the following Saturday, Oracle issued another announcement. In addition to James Raybould, president of Westeros Corporation, Carol Bartz, president of Westeros Inc.'s Eaglet, will also join Oracle. Board of Directors.Westeros then formally issued a statement supporting Oracle's current chairman and CEO Larry Ellison to continue to manage the company. At the same time, Westeros will continue to hold Oracle's stock for a long time.

The official statement of Westeros temporarily calmed down those shareholders who had lost patience with the current management due to the 70% drop in Oracle stock in the past year. Even though some shareholders were still dissatisfied with Larry Ellison, they I also understand that under the combination of Westeros Corporation and Larry Ellison, it is unlikely that other shareholders want to replace the current management.

However, the voice of singing a different tune is not without.

The "Wall Street Journal" thinks that it is very stupid for Simon to continue to increase his holdings of Oracle shares and support the current management that has made serious business mistakes.If Westeros sold off its shares at the highest point of Oracle's stock price last year, Simon could get a return of more than 500% compared to his investment in recent years.

Moreover, even if you still want to insist on holding this company, you must replace the current management.

The Wall Street Journal also cited Apple as an example.

After driving away the founder Steve Jobs, who once brought huge losses to the company because of the unrealistic Macintosh project, Apple's revenue and profits have continued to grow in recent years, even though the recent federal stock market has been affected by the war. Because of the decline across the board, Apple's market value has exceeded 60 billion US dollars.

Simon can roughly understand that the purpose of this article is not so simple.

Rumors of Oracle's internal problems have not been a day or two. Many short sellers on Wall Street have recently taken advantage of Oracle's new quarterly earnings report to short the company's stock.

Now, because of Simon's strong support, Oracle's stock price did not fall sharply as expected after the release of the new quarterly financial report, and even rebounded to a certain extent. Those short sellers of Oracle's stock will naturally not be reconciled.

In addition to the matter of Oracle, since the release of "Forbes" magazine on September 9, various invitations have flooded to Simon, and the eyes of countless media have also refocused on Simon, and his every move has been prepared again. attention.

In order to prevent the planned two-line operation plan from leaking in advance, Simon had to temporarily fly from New York to Chicago, leaving behind a large number of journalists who were chasing and intercepting him. "Home Alone" has been completed, although it is possible to send the sample to Los Angeles, Simon still flew to Chicago to watch it in person, and hide quietly by the way.

After watching the sample of "Home Alone" and discussing some revisions with John Hughes, Simon once again threw off the reporters who heard the news and flew from the northern part of the United States to the southern state of New Mexico to visit the crew of "Terminator 2".

Although there are many chapters agreed in advance, after the official shooting of "Terminator 2", Cameron only stopped for a while at first, and these days he has sprouted solidly.

After checking the shooting progress of the film, Simon no longer had any expectations that Cameron could complete "Terminator 2" within the budget. Fortunately, he had just experienced the failure of "The Abyss". According to private estimates given by the filmmakers, the project should be completed within $7000 million.

Considering the box office potential of "Terminator 2", 7000 million US dollars, although it exceeded the budget by 2000 million US dollars, is actually within Simon's tolerance.After the visit of "Terminator 2", Simon simply went to the production team of "The Fugitive" in North Carolina on the east coast of the United States.

After such a big circle around the United States, he probably realized that the cost of tracking Simon Westeros was too high, and he finally calmed down.

On Saturday, September 9, Simon quietly returned to New York again.

Although Simon himself could not be traced, the news about him did not stop.

During this week, not only Oracle, but also about Simon's personal wealth and what he is doing and what he is going to do in the media. On the day he returned to New York, in addition to the change of Oracle's board of directors, the "Hollywood Reporter" on the West Coast also suddenly broke out. It is reported that Daenerys Entertainment is planning to acquire MCA.

Since it was Saturday, the impact of this news could not be directly reflected in the MCA stock price, but it was impossible not to face it.

Moreover, this week, there have been media controversies about Simon's $210 billion net worth.

In any case, a 22-year-old young man has far surpassed countless well-established wealthy families with just a few years of accumulation. Even in Western countries that are very open to private wealth, this matter is really shocking. .

Chapter 367 "Today Show" Interview (Revised)

James Raybould arrived at the NBC television headquarters in midtown Manhattan at seven o'clock in the morning.

Simon doesn't like to appear in front of the media, but he has to face many things.Today I will be participating in an interview on the NBC morning news show "Today Show" to answer some of the recent media discussions and controversies about the Westeros Corporation.

It took more than half an hour to reconfirm the content of the next interview with the assistant, media public relations and "Today Show" producer. At 7:40, James was guided by the staff to the entrance of the studio.

"210 billion US dollars, an amazing figure, this is the latest personal net worth of Simon Westero on the list of the 400 richest people in the United States launched by Forbes magazine this Monday. Compared with last year, the young The 22-year-old's net worth has increased by $150 billion in the past year, which equates to a net gain of $4100 million a day."

"What kind of magical power does Simon Westeros have, and how did he quickly accumulate such a huge personal wealth? Today, we have invited Mr. James Raybould, President of Westeros Corporation, to discuss the recent concerns of everyone. A lot of questions about the Westeros Corporation."

Deborah Nowell, the hostess of the "Today Show" program, finished her statement and got up to shake hands with James who entered the studio.

In front of the TVs of countless families on Sunday mornings.

After hearing Deborah Norwell's statement, the audience who thought Simon Westero would appear in person were disappointed, but not many people changed the channel.

After a cameo at Madonna's concert at the end of June, Simon resumed avoiding the public eye.

Recently, the media has been buzzing because of the new "Forbes" 400 Rich List in the United States. It is enough to satisfy the public's curiosity to have the spokesperson of Westeros appear in the media.

In the studio, after a few simple greetings, Deborah Norwell began to cut into the topic, saying: "Jim, first let me ask a question that everyone cares about the most. What is Simon doing these days?"

"It's mainly about movies. Daenerys Entertainment has been shooting many projects recently. Simon has been traveling around the Federation this week to visit the set."

"It sounds very busy," Deborah Norwell joked with a smile, and asked again: "So, when he learned that he was ranked on the "Forbes" list this year, what was his reaction?"

"Very happy, after all, this is a very remarkable thing."

"It's really amazing. From 1986 to the present, it took Simon only four years to create all of this. He is only 22 years old now. As the president of Westeros Corporation, Jim, you should know him very well. , why do you think he was able to create all this today, or is he really a psychic?"

The last tone of the hostess was a bit of a relaxed joke.

James also smiled and said: "Simon often jokes about being a psychic in his life, but he is not. He also said that he really hopes that he is a psychic, so that he can prove that the world There are ghosts. Once this happens, it means that death is not the end of everything, and we don’t need to fear death anymore.”

These words were actually mentioned by Jennifer while chatting with her daughter, and James was deeply impressed by this.

Deborah Nowell showed an expression of enlightenment, and said: "I never thought of this. Frankly speaking, I used to be afraid of both death and ghosts. Now, I don't seem to care that much."