Hollywood Hunter

The female assistant is the second person to know Simon’s plan to acquire Bell Atlantic. The first one is naturally Janet.

Simon plans to rush to New York after ending San Francisco's itinerary, and formally discuss with senior executives of Westeros and Cersei Capital the feasibility of simultaneously launching the MCA acquisition and the Bell Atlantic acquisition.

This trip to San Francisco is mainly for the sake of Igreat and AOL.

Igrid’s problem is simple, the company has no money.

After Carol Bartz and Jeff Bezos jointly took charge of Igret, Simon's recent work has been quite satisfactory.

Igrete continues to consolidate the company’s patent barriers in the field of World Wide Web technology through continuous investment in technology research and development. The software sales business quickly opened up the situation with Carol Bartz’s many years of work experience in the industry, and the number of portal users continued to increase. It also successfully opened up the Internet advertising business, and so on.

However, these all mean a large amount of capital consumption.

Simon is well aware of the hundreds of core patents of the World Wide Web technology that Igrid has mastered. Igrid has developed a complete set of graphical interface browser software, server software, web design software, etc. based on the web technology. Application tools are software products with very solid business prospects. Therefore, Simon plans to invest an additional US$50 million this time to continue the development and promotion of the World Wide Web Technology Station.

At the beginning of the establishment of Eaglet, the total share capital was 10 million shares, of which Westeros invested 9 million shares with an investment of 10 million US dollars, and Tim Berners Lee held another 1 million shares.In the last $20 million capital injection, the total share capital of Igret doubled, and the number of shares held by Tim Berners-Lee has not changed. It is still 1 million shares, but the shareholding ratio has been reduced to 5%.

This time, Simon did not let the professional asset appraisal team intervene and personally finalized the valuation of Igret's company at $50 million.For a start-up technology company that has not yet formed a stable revenue, this number is a bit high, but Simon believes that Igrid is worth this number.

On the other hand, Simon still has no intention of squeezing Tim Berners-Lee's shareholding. He has always been very fond of the founder of the World Wide Web.Therefore, as he did last time, Li was provided with a plan to maintain his shareholding ratio through loans.

However, Tim Berners Lee also did not accept this time, he was very satisfied with his shareholding and his current work.

Although Simon plans to give a portion of Igret’s equity awards to company executives and employees at the right time, he will not just give the equity to someone.

As a result, the total share capital of Eaglet was doubled again to 40 million shares, Westeros’ shareholding in Eaglet increased to 97.5%, and Tim Berners-Lee’s The share ratio was reduced to 2.5%, and the number of shares held was still 1 million shares.

As for AOL, it is mainly the negotiation of Steve Case’s exclusive agreement.

Although Simon plans to purchase a telecommunications company in advance, AOL's development pace will not be adjusted in the short term.As long as it can sign exclusive agreements with three regional telecom operators, Bell Atlantic, NYNEX and Bell Pacific, AOL's development in the next few years will do more with less.

Of course, the biggest problem with this matter is funding.

AOL shareholders, unlike Tim Berners-Lee, proposed that after the agreement was negotiated, they would temporarily obtain funds to use the loan channel to pay out the first year of the three companies.

The three companies still insist on paying the exclusive fee based on the total number of users, but there is still much room for negotiation on the specific amount. Eventually, as the female assistant predicted at the last breakfast, the exclusive fee will be reduced to about $1 per household.By that time, the initial payment of 20 million was completely within the AOL credit limit.

Simon also took a brief look at the operation of the 100 Internet cafes under AOL this time.

Within one month of opening, with the excellent promotion in the early stage and public curiosity about this brand-new leisure and entertainment venue, AOL’s 1 million Internet cafes had a total revenue of US$2.06 million in the first month. The turnover exceeds US$20,000.

Regardless of the initial investment, excluding store rent, employee compensation and power grid expenses, it was only this month that AOL’s Internet cafe chain generated a gross profit of $530,000.

If such a business situation continues, AOL will be able to recover the initial investment in about two years.

Because of the exemplary role of these 100 Internet cafes, some people have already started to contact AOL in hopes of opening franchise chain stores.

Moreover, in the previous month, the number of users who got customized coupons to access the Internet through AOL’s Internet cafe channels reached more than 2,600, which is equivalent to 5% of AOL’s Internet users in the same period. This is what Simon attaches the most importance to. .

Simon's original suggestion to open an Internet cafe was to guide people to become familiar with and access the Internet.

In just the first month, it brought in more than 2,600 new users, and this conversion rate far exceeded the initial expectations of the AOL team.It is conceivable that with the continuous improvement of the content of the IE browser and the further increase of the service functions that the Igrid portal can provide, there will definitely be more people tending to access the Internet in their own homes.

Now that this goal has been achieved and will continue, AOL does not intend to hold this'Bar' subsidiary in its hands.

After two years, I still have a long time.

Palo Alto AOL headquarters.

At the end of the discussion meeting on the progress of negotiations on the exclusive agreement of the three telecom operators, Simon and Steve Case stayed alone in the conference room. Steve Case talked about Bar.

"We have contacted several private equity funds on Wall Street, and three of them have an interest in Bar. The 50% stake held by AOL, the highest one gave a $10 million offer, I think in the end should be able to talk about 15 million US dollars. If cashed out in advance, we will settle most of the first year of the exclusive agreement with the three companies of Bell Atlantic."

Since he didn't plan to make money with these 100 Internet cafes from the beginning, Simon is actually not against cashing out.

However, just one month after opening, I was in a hurry to sell.

Whether it is 10 million or 15 million US dollars, it is just a quote for the 50% equity of the existing 100 Internet cafes.If you operate patiently for a year or two and develop Bar into a larger chain operation system, the value of this company will definitely increase significantly.

After Simon Steve Case finished, Simon asked, "What about IBM?"

"IBM intends to continue to hold its own shares, but they are not against us selling their holdings. After our launch, the IBM team can instead take over Bar's management rights."

A behemoth such as IBM with a recent market value of more than $50 billion will not care about a small start-up company such as Bar. To be precise, the last time it participated was only the venture capital department of IBM.Every Big Mac has a similar department.

Compared with AOL, which urgently needs funds, IBM's investment team understands that Bar still has a lot of room for appreciation, so naturally there is no need to choose to cash out too eagerly.

Simon understands why Steve Case has lost patience in this matter. The AOL team is very worried that he will continue to spend money to dilute the shareholding ratio of other shareholders. After considering it for a moment, he did not insist, saying: "Since you feel suitable , Then sell it. However, we must ensure that Bar and AOL cooperate in user promotion."

Steve Keyes nodded at Simon’s mouth and said, “I understand that this matter was actually in the negotiation conditions for the contact with the private equity funds. By the way, Simon, if Cersei Capital While interested in Bar, $13 million will do."

AOL has only invested 3.5 million US dollars in the Internet cafe project, even if it is sold with 13 million US dollars, it can get a return of nearly 300%.

Simon shook his head. He had already discussed this with Janet.

Cersei Capital is a very important layout of Simon on Wall Street. Unless necessary, he does not intend to let Cersei Capital intersect with too many businesses under Westeros, so that conflicts of interest are prone to cause disputes. Small and cheap, there is no need to account for it.

"This matter Cersei Capital will not participate," Simon said after refusing: "Tell me another thing, you should know that I have made a lot of money overseas in the past two years."

Steve Keyes sighed in relief when he saw Simon refuse, and $2 million was nothing to Simon, but AOL now does need to account for every point of expenditure.

After listening to Simon's turn, Steve Case nodded and waited for him to continue.

Simon continued: "The Kuwait War has caused the federal stock market to continue to fall. It is now a good time to expand. My recent thinking is that I intend to acquire a regional telecommunications company. The initial goal is to be one of the three AOL is negotiating."

The surprised expression on Steve Case's face calmed down after a while and smiled: "Simon, I thought you would use that money to buy a big Hollywood studio. The foundation of Daenerys Entertainment is not The seven major studios are so entrenched."

Simon knows that this is probably the idea of ​​many people, and laughs: "A lot of things are still uncertain. This time I just say hello to you. I will go to New York tomorrow and I will officially discuss this with James. In addition, Even the acquisition of a regional telecommunications company, the entire process will take about a year, so AOL is doing business as usual, all you have to do is talk about that exclusive agreement before the end of September as much as possible. Also, remember Confidential."

Steve Case nodded solemnly, but couldn't help but figure out which company Simon was targeting.

Although Simon is based on the West Coast, Case thinks it should not be Bell Pacific.

The name Bell Pacific sounds more atmospheric than Bell Atlantic and NYNEX. In fact, it is the smallest of the three companies. It should also be the smallest of the seven small bells. Its business scope is limited to California and Nevada.

NYNEX contains the abbreviations of New York State and New England. Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and other states in the northeastern United States are very small, and are called New England for historical reasons.

The business scope of NYNEX, one of the seven small bells, is also in these two regions, and it shares the Boston-Washington metropolitan area with Bell Atlantic.

Because the states of Pennsylvania and Virginia, where Bell Atlantic is located, are both continents in terms of area and population, they are slightly better than NYNEX.

Steve Case believes that with Simon's appetite, the acquisition target can only be the two companies on the west coast, NYNEX and Bell Atlantic.And it is more likely to be the latter.

However, since Simon did not disclose more to him, and Steve Case did not find out, any of the three potential target companies are behemoths for AOL.Billions of dollars in acquisitions are not something he can participate in.

Of course, if Simon's goal really can be a headlight, Steve Case can also imagine how much help this will bring to AOL.During this time, he racked his brains trying to sign an exclusive agreement with the three companies, in order to gain access to his telecommunications network.

The huge buyouts are not just for an empty monopoly agreement.

As long as the plan is reached, the three companies will open network access to AOL. AOL does not need to invest huge amounts of money to lay out its own network lines. It only needs to complete the construction of backbone cables and servers, connect to the three company networks, and then If a modem is installed in the telephone user's home covered by the network, the user's access to the Internet can be achieved very conveniently.

After finishing things on the AOL side, Simon also went to Cisco headquarters.

Westeros has completed an increase in its shareholding in Cisco, which holds 57.5% of its absolute holdings.

Because the recent U.S. stock market has continued to fall due to the impact of the Kuwait War, Cisco’s original IPO plan has slowed down. Simon did not allow the Cisco team to completely stop preparations for the IPO. After all, no one knows better than him that the economic downturn will probably continue time.

It was Thursday.

Get up early in the morning, run in the morning at Woodside Mountain as usual, and plan to fly to New York after breakfast.Because of Simon’s schedule, Janet remained there, planning to spend the weekend on the East Coast together.

Traveling through the cool mountain road, passing a Sancha junction, a middle-aged man also wearing sportswear came from the other side.

Simon glanced at each other and greeted with a smile: "Early, Larry."

Larry Ellison knew from Simon’s smile that the young man had seen him deliberately appearing here, but fortunately his skin was thick enough, and a shaggy fur face showed nothing strange, but was very enthusiastic. Responded, saying: "Early, Simon."

Seeing the two bodyguards behind Simon seeing the two met, they slowed down further.

The two jogged side by side for tens of meters, and Larry Ellison took the initiative to say: "Simon, Westeros has recently increased its shareholding in Oracle to 15%. Do you want to buy it?"

Simon said: "Oracle's recent stock price is so cheap. If you can buy more, you must sell it. I am very optimistic about this company."

Larry Ellison wondered if Simon was laughing at him.

Oracle's stock price has been really low in recent months. Compared with the single stock price of up to $28 last year, it has recently slipped to about $8, a 70% drop.The market value has also dropped from the highest of 3.6 billion US dollars to the current 1 billion US dollars, which is unbearable.

Because of the continued decline in stock prices, many shareholders have been selling Oracle stocks during this time.

Then, when Westeros last declared its shareholding, its shareholding in Oracle increased to 15% against the trend, and it increased by 4% in the past month.

If you buy it like this, Larry Ellison's control of Oracle is in jeopardy.

Genius remembers the site address for one second:.Reading URL for mobile version: