Hollywood Hunter

Unlike the common leveraged buyouts in the 1980s, Cersei Capital bought LTD, and did not intend to split and sell it in a short period of time to quickly cash out, but instead preferred to go public for a second time after long-term operations.

Therefore, to date, Cersei Capital cannot adopt the short-term high-interest rate borrowing and junk bond financing models common in the 1980s.

In order to obtain the funds required for the acquisition of LTD, Cersei Capital was already preparing to issue a fund dedicated to this acquisition before the formal acquisition operation began.

After the transaction was officially concluded, Cersei Capital has basically completed the fund raising work of this fund.

The acquisition of more than 2 billion US dollars is far from comparable to the Reynolds Nabisco acquisition with a total transaction value of 33 billion US dollars, but in the background that the US has not completely walked out of the aftermath of the bond market collapse a few years ago, this The acquisition is already the largest private equity acquisition in the past two years.

In order to give investors confidence and due to investment considerations in the Westeros system itself, Westeros announced soon after the deal was concluded that it would purchase 10% of the shares of the LTD company at the agreed price, minus the Wexner family The other 10% of the shares held by Cersei Capital actually bought only 80% of the shares of LTD, which required a payment of 1.96 billion US dollars.

The joining of Westeros made investors who had just signed the intention subscription agreement quickly fulfill their own fund subscription share, thus ensuring the successful completion of this acquisition.

The specific acquisition process will take another two months to complete, but Simon quickly contacted Leslie Wexner, the founder of the LTD.

Leslie Wexner’s fortune history is very typical in this industry.

An initial fashion store started, and the chain continued to increase in size over the next two decades, and finally became the current LTD.

Among them, Simon's most concerned about Victoria's secret is actually the underwear chain brand that Leslie Wexner bought from another businessman in 1982.

Because it is not the foundation of starting a business. Although Victoria’s secrets have developed very rapidly in these years, and later when referring to LTD, everyone will only think of Wei Mi, but in fact, Leslie Wexner still uses women under LTD at this time. Sub-brands such as fashion and sports fashion are the core of management.

Therefore, compared to a later Wei Mi brand accounted for more than 60% of the parent company's sales, at this time, Wei Mi, in 1991, accounted for only 20% of LTD's sales share.

The economic downturn, over-expansion, and abandonment of the original'Limited Brands' business strategy have unrestricted pursuit of more areas, which ultimately caused LTD to fall into operating difficulties after the collapse of the US bond market.

Speaking of which, the founder of LTD, Leslie Wexner, is a very aggressive businessman. This is very similar to Simon’s impression on the outside world.

The Westeros system quickly rose like a miracle in just six years. Simon’s generous adventures in this process could not even be described as simply radical.

However, Simon, who was a man of both lives, has always been very clear about what he is doing.

Many of Westero's layouts that are unreasonable to outsiders, such as the crazy investment in Igreat in the past two years, for Simon, just took advantage of some industries that are destined to explode in advance.

Leslie Wexner obviously does not have such an advantage as Simon. The continuous expansion of LTD in the past two decades is more a natural move of a businessman who is brave enough to take risks.

The fashion industry has long been a highly competitive Red Sea market.

The continued expansion of LTD has inevitably plunged into the homogenization problem that many fashion companies cannot avoid: the fashion industry is hard to play with too many tricks after all.

The homogenization of apparel products is serious, the scale of the enterprise is too bloated, and the relative cost increases, which inevitably leads to a decline in brand competitiveness.

Therefore, sales of women's clothing brands and sports fashion brands under LTD have declined significantly in recent years due to the economic downturn in the United States.

The only thing going up against the trend is Victoria's secret, which focuses on underwear.

Simon is also privately curious whether this is the legendary'lipstick effect'.

However, the original time sky LTD company began to turn more attention to the operation of Wei Mi in the 1990s, and returned to the "limited brand" business strategy focusing on core brands, probably also inspired by the market performance of Wei Mi in the early 1990s.

LTD is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.

Ohio is located in the northeast of the United States, bordering Pennsylvania to the east and the Great Lakes to the north. Unlike the winding and mountainous western states, Ohio is located in the endless eastern plains.As the capital of Ohio, Columbus is located right in the middle of this plain.

After returning from Australia, Simon and Janet quickly accepted Leslie Wexner's invitation and came to Columbus, Ohio as a guest.

Of course, there are other reasons.

Simon's "butterfly effect" on this world is becoming more and more obvious, but it has not changed things.

For example, the Los Angeles Riot at the end of April 1992.

The cause of the incident was that in March 1991, the black youth Rodney King was beaten by Los Angeles police officers due to the arrest of drunk driving and other behaviors. After the incident was filmed by passersby and sold to TV stations, as a result, he was used to major topics The TV station edited the first half of the tape, leaving only the picture of Rodney King being beaten.

On April 28, the Los Angeles District Court ruled that the four police officers involved were acquitted on the basis of the complete record of the incident, which led to the dissatisfaction of the black community and a large-scale riot.

Although the riots in memory only happened in south central Los Angeles, who knows whether there will be any abnormal changes this time.

The first time things happened, Simon quietly left Los Angeles, and joined Janet from New York to join in Columbus.

For habitual reasons, a 50-acre farm-style manor has been purchased in advance in Columbus.

Unlike Los Angeles and other large cities along the coast, Columbus, located in the Central Plains, is very calm.This is actually very easy to understand. Located in the conservative northeastern United States, the proportion of colored people in Ohio is much lower than that in the east and west coast states, and the proportion of white people is still above 90%.

Simon did not feel much about this riot, and this is not the first time this kind of thing has happened in this country.

In the farm estate in the northern suburbs of Columbus, Leslie Wexner did not mean to talk about this sensitive incident.

For politicians, this matter is wrong no matter which side it is on. Therefore, President Bush only came forward two days after the riots and muddy, a few words of painless appeal.In the year of the general election, all the candidates were surprisingly silent about the riots, and they all voted.

Simon and Leslie Wexner are both public figures, and even if they don't have the scruples of politicians, they will only make more mistakes if they talk more.

Although it is clear that a country is moving towards some kind of extreme political correctness, it is often the result of this continuous silent concession, and Simon does not mean to change anything at all.

For this world, he has always positioned himself as a passerby.

Politics cannot be talked about, of course business is still talked about.

Today is May 1, and it is already the end of spring and the beginning of summer.

Strolling on the farm road full of business, regardless of the outside disturbance, the mood is very unconsciously unconscious.

In the past few days in Columbus, Simon has been uninterrupted Leslie Wexner discuss the next development of LTD.

The plight of LTD in recent years has proved that this company must make changes.

In the original time and space, LTD abandoned many surrounding brands to focus on the operation of Wei Mi, which is the result of this change.

However, combined with the information in memory, Simon found that LTD can actually make another attempt.

Now that it has proved to be very successful, the promotion of the Victoria's Secret brand through the sexy marketing of Victoria's Secret Angels must of course be retained, but for the women's fashion and sports fashion businesses of LTD, Simon also proposed to Leslie Wexner Another kind of'fast fashion' concept that is gradually taking shape in recent years but has not yet developed.

Many years later, the most famous cheap fashion brands in the world, Zara, H&M and GAP, adopted the'fast fashion' mode of operation.

To put it simply, fast fashion is a model that quickly promotes the fashion trends exhibited by major fashion weeks in the relatively cheap consumer field in a very short period of time.

First-class design, second-rate brand, third-rate price, this is a very vivid summary of fast fashion brands.

Frankly speaking, the so-called fast fashion is actually a rapid plagiarism imitation of the fashion trends of the top luxury brands.

In Simon's memory, the Zara brand has to pay tens of millions of euros in infringement fees every year for copying the design of top luxury brands, and it will be prosecuted once every three days.However, this company has never changed the meaning of its business strategy. Compared with the huge profits, the infringement costs of tens of millions of euros per year are indeed worthless.

Zara's boss, Spanish businessman Amancio Ortega, once used this world-class fashion brand to squeeze out Warren Buffett and rank among the top three in the global rich list with tens of billions of dollars.

Whether it is Zara in Spain, H&M in Sweden or GAP in the United States, the three major fashion giants have been established many years later. However, the three companies still have a long way to go from their peak.LTD already has a deep foundation in the fashion field. At this time, it is not too late to lay out in advance before the three major giants rise completely.

Affordable fashion chains have developed to a certain extent, and the brand's further breakthrough has been a problem that has troubled Leslie Wexner for a long time.

Unlike luxury brands, affordable fashion is too easy to homogenize, making it difficult to make your own brand and characteristics.

The concept of'fast fashion' proposed by Simon in recent days has made Leslie Wexner feel a sudden and cheerful feeling.

As for the business moral hazard that may be involved in plagiarism and imitation, there is no psychological burden for a businessman who has been in the mall for decades.

After a few days of discussion, Leslie Wexner also accepted Simon’s suggestion.

In the next step, while focusing on promoting the Victoria's Secret brand, LTD also plans to integrate its fashion business, using the brand foundation named'Express', which was first established by LTD, to create a fast fashion brand.

In addition, LTD will also sell some non-core businesses. This sale is certainly not the kind of sale after the leveraged acquisition in the 1980s. The funds obtained from the sale of assets will all be used to develop the two brands of'VS' and'Express'.

"Simon, I thought about the idea of ​​the underwear fashion show you mentioned yesterday. It was a great idea. However, according to your idea, invite the top fashion models in the fashion industry. For TV broadcasts, the budget is too high, maybe we can start with a little simpler."

"I have considered the budget issue," Simon smiled and said, "Rise, it's better to do this. This big show is jointly produced by Daenerys Entertainment and LTD. The two parties each share 50% of the budget. Dan Neris Entertainment is responsible for the distribution of channels such as TV platforms and videotapes."

Wandering among the green farm roads, the scenery is pleasant, but people are not drunk.

Leslie Wexner quickly calculated.

Simon knew about LTD and Leslie Wexner, and similarly, Wexner also studied the young man's history more carefully.

Daenerys Entertainment can sell a Gucci brand documentary at the box office of tens of millions of dollars, and can make Madonna's concert documentary box office sell out. Then, it is difficult to say whether this fashion show will have the same value.

"So, Simon, we share the budget, should profits be shared?"

Simon looked at the middle-aged man in his 50s and said, "Rice, LTD can only get half of the budget to get a large promotion of the Wei Mi brand. Isn't that enough?"

"However, after all, we have undertaken half of the budget."

Leslie Wexner hesitated, and in the end, LTD could not bear all the production budget.

Because, according to the vision of the young man beside him, such a big show can't be obtained without millions of dollars of funds.

Investing tens of millions of dollars at once for a fashion brand catwalk is really a bit risky.

Moreover, this also requires Simon personally responsible for planning, and even, even those who invite the top supermodels, also need Simon Westero network.

Although Victoria's secret performance is very good, it is only a low-priced underwear brand after all.

For many supermodels, catwalks for such a brand are somewhat worthwhile.If you are still with other supermodels, it will be a bit cheaper.However, if it is a catwalk project for Simon Westero, it will probably be more acceptable.

Leslie Wexner still knows the two'waist essence' and'leg ​​essence' that the fashion circle suddenly rose last year.

Westeros created two supermodels in just one ticket.