The negotiation team was hired with the help of my third uncle Zhang Yuannan, and formal negotiations with Coca-Cola soon began.
I heard that some people wanted to invest. Instead of diluting their shares, several shareholders of Coca-Cola were clamoring to sell all their shares. The most active one among them was Frank Robinson Jr., the son of a veteran Coca-Cola figure.
When Robinson was young, he was a bad painter who worked part-time as an accountant in a friend's drugstore. The owner of that drugstore was none other than John Bomberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola. The name and trademark of Coca-Cola also came from Robinson, a bad painter.
hand.
After two pharmacists adjusted the formula of Coca-Cola, it became more and more in line with public tastes, and the elder Robinson became a powerful figure in the Coca-Cola Company in the 1910s.
But the old Robinson didn't know how to run a business at all, and was gradually ousted by the Ganttado family and seized power. At that time, he was discouraged and had long had the idea of selling his shares. As a result, two treacherous sons of the Ganttudo family rebelled, and Coca-Cola was sold to the Woodruff family.
After the acquisition and listing, the old Robinson became a millionaire inexplicably.
In these years, Robinson Sr. did not care about business affairs at all, and only enjoyed the company's dividends in peace. By 1940, Robinson Jr., who inherited the shares, was already old, and his sons were also arguing about dividing the family property. Robinson just wanted to sell his shares.
Enjoy your old age with your shares here.
Before Zhou Hexuan's negotiation team could reach a conclusion, Robinson Jr. came to him privately and was willing to sell his shares alone. But this guy was completely crazy. After many sales, he only had 3.2% of Coca-Cola's shares left.
The shares actually dared to be priced at US$20 million, which was directly one-third higher than the market price.
Then, the two villains of the Gantt family also contacted Zhou Hexuan privately and were willing to sell their 8.7% and 6.5% stakes for US$60 million and US$50 million respectively.
Everyone regarded Zhou Hexuan as an easy target who was willing to take over.
Acquisitions at a premium are normal, but Coca-Cola's shares are already artificially high, and a premium of one-third or more would be excessive.
Zhou Hexuan conveniently revealed the conditions proposed by the three shareholders in private to Woodruff. Woodruff was extremely angry and paralyzed by this. The shareholders were doing private transactions behind the back of the board of directors. Did they take him as the helmsman seriously?
inside?
Well, Woodruff's asking price was higher, and he offered to sell it at a 50% premium on the grounds that Coca-Cola's performance had been rising.
Woodruff's confidence in Coca-Cola stems from a mistake he once made.
When the economic crisis was about to break out, Woodruff also felt the danger, so he decided to cash in. He announced a stock split when the stock price was at its highest point, and then sold 6,600 shares of Coca-Cola. After a series of operations, Coca-Cola's stock price plummeted 60%.
But it bucked the trend and rebounded during the Great Recession.
Even during the Great Depression, Coca-Cola's stock price could rise. What is there in the world that I can't do? From then on, Woodruff became arrogant and domineering.
The two sides talked for half a month, but made no progress at all. Zhou Hexuan finally got serious. He compiled the dark materials he spent on Coca-Cola and the situation of Coca-Cola in Europe into a report, and threatened to send it to the Wall Street Journal.
》As a gift.
The black material didn't matter. There were too many lice and Woodruff was already numb.
Coca-Cola has a lot of dark stuff. It was first sold as a headache potion, and later it was claimed to have aphrodisiac properties. In the 1920s, it even teamed up with the Mafia and sold it at high prices in Mafia stores.
Most of the Mafia's shops were just fronts. The real way to make money was gambling. Almost every shop had a casino in the basement. At that time, Coca-Cola contained the drug ingredient cocaine, as well as caffeine and other stimulant ingredients. Gamblers could gamble for several consecutive times after drinking it.
For days and nights, the mafia regarded Coca-Cola as the magic water for making money.
In the past, Coca-Cola not only contained cocaine, but also alcohol, and was once visited by prohibition officials. By the 1930s, the government's control over beverages became more and more stringent, and public opinion against Coca-Cola arose from Europe to the United States. Coca-Cola had to develop
The new formula removes cocaine and alcohol, and lowers the caffeine content. Even so, many people are still strongly resisting it.
One of the important reasons for the anti-Coca-Cola group is that Coca-Cola can bring sexual excitement and is not suitable for children. This is pure nonsense. It was all made by Coca-Cola itself. Who told them to promote Coca-Cola as an aphrodisiac in the past.
Zhou Hexuan added new content to the black material he gave. He paid some medical experts to prove that Coca-Cola affects calcium absorption and can easily lead to osteoporosis. Drinking it by pregnant women can have serious effects on the fetus.
Of course the content is true, but the experimental data and results are fabricated. Anyone who doubts it can do the experiment themselves.
The most cruel thing is to announce the situation of Coca-Cola in Germany. If investors know that Coca-Cola’s factories in Germany are completely destroyed, and that the occupied territories in Germany are also completely destroyed, then Coca-Cola’s stock price will definitely plummet.
Under the threat of black materials, Woodruff finally relented slightly, but still failed to meet Zhou Hexuan's expectations.
As the two parties continued to negotiate, Robinson suddenly sold 10,000 shares, perhaps fearing that Zhou Hexuan would expose negative news, or perhaps because he was short of money, causing Coca-Cola's stock price to drop by $4.
Woodruff was furious, but he had no choice but to continue negotiations with Zhou Hexuan's team due to the disunity of the shareholders.
They had been talking about it until just before the Lunar New Year, the two sides finally reached an agreement.
First, Robinson sold all the remaining shares to Zhou Hexuan. Then Woodruff and other shareholders announced a stock split, and Zhou Hexuan injected capital to take over. In the meantime, Wall Street traders were invited to suppress and increase a series of operations. The major shareholders joined forces to
Shareholders reaped a wave of gains.
Anyway, no one suffered losses, except small investors.
Zhou Hexuan invested US$60 million from beginning to end and obtained 11.5% of Coca-Cola's equity, becoming the company's second largest shareholder. He also made a lot of money while harvesting shareholders.
It stands to reason that Zhou Hexuan cannot afford so much money. What he relies on is that Durex has finally gone public.
Just a few days after New Year's Day, Durex was listed on the market under the control of the doctor's consortium. Zhou Hexuan's shares accounted for only 17.4% (part of which was cashed out), but his net worth has increased more than eight times, and is still rising.
, Sure enough, you can make money faster by playing with capital than by doing business.
For a hands-off shop like Zhou Hexuan, whether it is Durex or Coca-Cola, it is a golden job to receive dividends. When the United States intervenes in the war, the British pharmaceutical companies will definitely go public. Anyway, they will have no worries about food and drink for the rest of their lives.