Riyu's Back File 2011

"Since I saw Miyazaki-san's plan, I was very anxious, and I couldn't wait to fly over." Kazuo Hirai deserves to be a marketing one, at least he is very good at his mouth.Not only is it possible to win the favor of others in appearance, but also has its own unique charm in talking and doing things.

"Where, where, let's go up first and find a place to have a good chat." Miyazaki Cangsuke reached out his right hand and gestured to the elevator backwards, leading everyone to a private room in the clubhouse, preparing to start the closed-door meeting.

Miyazaki Sosuke invited Kazuo Hirai and Kenichiro Yoshida to come because of his new business plan.He intends to join forces with Sony, and for this purpose, he also specifically asked for the voting rights of the Sony Group shares held by the Goldman Sachs Group.

As a large consortium with business all over the world, the Sony Group is mostly held by large financial institutions or commercial banks.Looking carefully at the list of the top ten shareholders of Sony Group, all are financial investment companies such as Goldman Sachs and Motorola, or large commercial banks such as Bank of America.

As for whether these financial companies use their own funds to invest and hold, or to help clients manage their assets, outsiders are not sure.Even financial reports do not disclose the components of these investment portfolios in detail.

Therefore, using financial groups to invest in this way can well conceal one's investment direction.This is also the reason why many large companies and individuals often invest through financial companies in order to conceal their investment trends.

As a top financial investment company in the industry, Goldman Sachs Group holds a lot of shares in Sony Group, both for client asset management and some investment holdings, accounting for about 10% of Sony Group’s total shares. .

And Aosuke Miyazaki also privately acquired a part, and finally allowed him to influence more than a certain level of shares, not only for investment needs, but also to better influence the internal affairs of the Sony Group in order to make decisions that favor him.

The reason why Miyazaki Sosuke looked for Sony Group to cooperate was because, on the one hand, he took a fancy to Sony Group's development experience in the Internet field and its huge customer base.

On the other hand, it is because, in 2011, Sony is really on the verge of a dead end and is a faltering old man, so he can occupy more active positions in cooperation.The latter is the reason why he chose to cooperate with Sony Group.

Throughout 2011, focusing on the Sony Group, it was condensed into one sentence, "Is Sony bankrupt?"

Since 2005, the Sony Group’s board of directors voted to appoint Howard Stringer as the first foreign CEO of Sony Group to take over the job of Nobuyuki Idei, in order to save the huge deficit caused by the previous CEO Nobuyuki Idei, Sony Group has entered a self-saving Development period.

During Howard Stringer's tenure as CEO, the Sony Group had both successful and failed projects.

For example, the computer entertainment department where Kazuo Hirai was the leader, has been doing very well since the release of PS2 in the 1990s, and the computer entertainment department has also achieved long-lost profits since 2009.

However, in the process of Sony’s revival, there have been various twists and turns, especially the impact of the 2009 US financial crisis. Under the influence of the global economic recession and exchange rate issues, the market value of Sony Group plummeted, which directly caused Sony to breathe hard. , "Jumped" from one financial quagmire to another.

In addition, the house leak happened to rain overnight. In 2011, the Sony Group had not yet eased from the financial crisis. The March earthquake directly caused Sony, which had just completed its business restructuring, to suffer a severe setback.The tsunami caused by the earthquake washed away 120,000 PS3 game consoles from the Sony Group and had to close 6 factories in this area.

So starting in March, Sony Group’s financial report directly exploded and spiraled into the sky, with an estimated annual loss of 450 billion yuan, and Sony’s market value plummeted from 50 billion US dollars when Howard Stringer accepted it in 2005 to 17 billion. Dollar.

That's why we have the sentence we said earlier, which is also the description of Sony on the Internet in 2011, "Is Sony bankrupt??"

Taking advantage of the severe setback of the Sony Group and the urgent need to reverse the opportunity, Miyazaki Sosuke came up with a business cooperation plan, which he had prepared for a long time-the creation of instant messaging software.

If in the second decade of the 21st century, there are any projects worthy of Miyazaki's investment, the instant messaging field can definitely rank among the top three.

But when Miyazaki Sosuke was preparing to enter this field, he discovered that similar competitors had already appeared, that is, Line, which formed a monopoly in East Asia in the past, had been established in Tokyo.

After the earthquake in March, people found that traditional emails and short messages could no longer meet the needs of people in the disaster area to rebuild communications and contact their relatives.

Therefore, under this background, the subsidiary of South Korean Internet Group NHN specially developed an instant messaging software Line to meet the supplementary communication system destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami.

Like WeChat, Line’s initial selling point was free communication. Two months after its launch, Line’s customers had accumulated more than 4 million users due to the impact of the disaster and free gimmicks.

When Miyazaki Sosuke prepared to enter the instant messaging field in September, he discovered that the management of NHN paid more attention to this Line group than before. The rapid growth of the user base made them a little bloated. At this time, they can invest in equity. The benefits brought can not satisfy his appetite.

So in order to occupy enough market share in the blue ocean of instant messaging, he finally signed a framework with Sony Group after two weeks of planning and preparation. It was precisely when he returned to the company last night to deal with documents in this regard.

The reason why Kazuo Hirai came to meet with Miyazaki Sosuke is because Miyazaki Sosuke has promoted Sony's board of directors at the early October meeting to vote to remove the current CEO Howard Stringer.With his support, Kazuo Hirai passed multiple votes as the next CEO of Sony Group.

This decision will be announced soon, and Kazuo Hirai will officially take over as the head of the Sony Group’s broken aircraft carrier from January next year, and the internal handover has already begun.

Kenichiro Yoshida next to him is the "ruling team" chosen by Kazuo Hirai. After Kazuo Hirai takes over as CEO, Kenichiro Yoshida will serve as the CFO of Sony Group, which is also the chief financial officer.It can be said that he is the chief staff member that Kazuo Hirai chose for himself.

### Chapter 15 and the boss together to drink ###

Some people will say that such an important position as the CEO of the Sony Group can be removed so easily.

But for Miyazaki Sosuke, it was really that easy.

The reason is very simple, because Howard Stringer, the CEO, can no longer lead Sony's revival.Especially after this year's earthquake, the share price of Sony Group plummeted, which made shareholders strongly disagree with Howard Stringer.

If it weren’t for Wall Street’s concern that the new CEO might not be as good as Howard Stringer, who they are familiar with, leading the Sony Group to move forward, perhaps as early as six months ago, even during the financial crisis, Howard Stringer had been replaced. .

Howard Stringer is a former CBS reporter. He also led the revitalization of Sony’s music and film business. He has led the release of "Spider-Man" and "007 Casino Royale" successively, combined Sony Pictures and MGM merge.

Compared with other senior executives of Sony Group, at least Howard Stringer, an American, is also the first foreign CEO of Sony Group, which can make Wall Street shareholders more familiar and trustworthy.They didn't want to choose another Nobuyuki Idei.

But the appearance of Miyazaki Sosuke dispelled the doubts of the financial groups on Wall Street.Miyazaki has used his previous performance to prove that he has outstanding ability and performance in company management and investment.

So he not only succeeded in persuading several financial groups that hold a large number of shares, but Kazuo Hirai also agreed to become the next CEO of the group with his support.

For example, Xiaomo and Bank of America promised Miyazaki Sosuke that they would form a concerted action with Goldman Sachs. The three companies alone occupy more than 40% of the board of directors.

This group of major shareholders, rather than trusting Kazuo Hirai to be an excellent CEO, they trust Aosuke Miyazaki, who has never failed so far.In their opinion, Miyazaki Cangsuke and Goldman Sachs will not put their investment in the hands of a person who is worried.

Therefore, under the promotion of Miyazaki Sosuke, Kazuo Hirai will be the next head of Sony Group, and Sony Group also reached a tripartite joint venture with Alpha and Goldman Sachs this week to establish a new Internet instant messaging company with the name It's called Wechat.

This new company is dominated by Alpha Investments, with a capital injection of more than US$30 million, occupying 51% of the shares. Sony Group is a strategic partner, occupying 29% of the shares of the new company, responsible for the company’s daily management and operation, and owns Priority to buy the shares held by Goldman Sachs Group.

Goldman Sachs is just a pure equity investment, occupying 20% ​​of the shares. This is also one of the costs of the Goldman Sachs Group supporting Miyazaki Sosuke to start Sony’s management.

For the company Wechat, the three parties have spent a lot of energy and enthusiasm, especially Sony Group. In Miyazaki Sosuke’s plan, the market prospects in the instant messaging field are depicted as blooming on a stone. Kazuo Hirai believes that this will be the key to Sony's revival.

Therefore, he and Kenichiro Yoshida came to Miyazaki Sosuke with such enthusiasm to discuss the development strategy of the new company.

At this time, Miyazaki Sosuke didn't rush and Helai Kazuo began to discuss, but glanced at the time on the watch.

"Hirai-san, don't worry, I also invited a guest, and it's almost time to arrive." Miyazaki Sosuke said to Kazuo Hirai with a smile.

"Oh, who else did Miyazaki-san invite?" Kazuo Hirai was very interested in Miyazaki Sosuke's proposal, because in the previous month, he contacted Miyazaki Sosuke and found that the other party was not an unreliable one. people.

On the contrary, Miyazaki Sosuke has an old-fashioned and cautious attitude that is not commensurate with his age, not only in the board of directors, but even the confidential work before the meeting is well arranged.The process of killing CEO Howard Stringer and pushing him to the top can be described as one go.

It can be said that after the previous events, he now has some almost fanatical trust in Miyazaki Aosuke.

"Wait for him to come in later, Hirai-san, you will know." Miyazaki Sosuke took out his mobile phone and saw the message sent by Hill, saying that Naoki Kitagawa had arrived in the lobby downstairs and said with a satisfied smile.

Miyazaki Aosuke got up and walked to the wine rack in the private room to remove the bottle of Romani Conti and the four goblets that he had saved before. He returned to the sofa and placed them one by one, and then gently took them. Remove the corks and pour half a glass of red wine into the four goblets.

After that, after Miyazaki Sosuke made a "please" gesture, Kazuo Hirai and Kenichiro Yoshida said you were welcome, and started to taste the red wine.

Ever since Miyazaki moved to the mansion in Minato Ward, he has been accustomed to discussing things in the clubhouse downstairs. He also booked a private box in the clubhouse and kept a lot of wine on the wine rack. Wine in order to taste.

Kazuo Hirai and Kenichiro Yoshida didn’t wait long. While tasting red wine with Miyazaki Sosuke, they chatted about the story of Romani Kandi. Within a few minutes, they heard two rapid knocks on the door of the box. sound.

"Enter!" Miyazaki Cangsuke leaned on the chair of the sofa, with his legs cocked, holding the goblet in his right hand while shaking and sniffing, and placing his left hand on the back of the sofa, looking wanton.After hearing the knock on the door, he responded loudly.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry." Hill opened the door of the box and walked in, followed by a middle-aged man who led in.

"Kitakawa-san, we can wait for you for a long time." Miyazaki Cangsuke saw Kitagawa Naoki behind Hill and said with a smile.

"I'm very sorry for keeping everyone waiting." Naoki Kitagawa followed Hill into the door and saw Miyazaki Aosuke sitting on the sofa with a grinning wine glass, but in a blink of an eye he found that he was sitting next to him. Two people familiar with each other put their hands together and apologized before sitting down.

Kazuo Hirai and Kenichiro Yoshikawa didn't expect that it was Naoki Kitagawa, the leader of Sony's music business in Japan. Although they didn't know what Miyazaki Sosuke invited him to come, they all smiled and welcomed them.