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After the introduction of the company's situation, Wang Yaocheng fell into long thinking.
President Mo Yuxuan drank a sip of champagne with a dry mouth. In his view, the Swire Group was an unshakable behemoth, with tentacles covering all aspects of Hong Kong Island and deep roots.
If you want to cause substantial harm to it, you should be able to gather all the power of its companies, but if you want to uproot the Swire Group, you may not be able to do it.
Wang Yaocheng has never said anything about Netscape's "Escape" plan. It is a strategic consideration in corporate development. He does not need to explain it to his subordinates.
Even if you are an old minister who has conquered the world together, after all, people's hearts are separated from each other, so you still have to be careful.
President Mo Yuxuan never imagined that his boss would give up Netscape, a company he founded. This is a thriving high-tech company that is very popular on the Nasdaq market. Its total market value is as high as 14.1 billion US dollars, which is far higher than that of traditional industries.
, this is not a small company of horses, cats and dogs.
Although Microsoft has seized the controlling stake, Red Hat is the second largest shareholder and can still exert huge influence on Netscape. How could it give up so easily?
Netscape is a leader in the field of high-tech companies, second only to Microsoft in market value, a leader in Silicon Valley Internet companies, and has a strong influence in the industry.
If you compare it horizontally, you can clearly see how astonishing Netscape's total market value of US$14.1 billion is.
Since the victory of the Gulf War in 1992, as the global stock market has gradually heated up, the high-tech network wave sweeping the world has driven a large amount of capital into this blue ocean.
Wall Street capital is rushing to pursue high-tech Internet companies, and a large amount of capital investment has caused high-tech companies to bloom everywhere in Silicon Valley. More than 3,000 high-tech startups appear every year, and there are countless high-tech startups in the United States.
This is an outlet where capital is blowing fiercely. Investors are in a frenzy, and the market is also one-sided and optimistic about the market outlook.
In 1993, General Motors was the most valuable company in the world, with a market value of US$89.4 billion.
p&g ranks tenth, with a market value of US$38.9 billion.
Chip industry giant Intel did not make the top ten, with a market capitalization of US$33 billion and on the eve of explosive growth.
The famous blue giant IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) continued to suffer losses from 1990 to 1993. No one in the market was optimistic about this company. Its market value was only US$30 billion, falling out of the top ten companies, behind Microsoft.
.
At the end of 1993, the four major banks including Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and **** were in similar situations. None had a market value of more than 10 billion U.S. dollars, and they were all between 3 billion and 7 billion U.S. dollars.
Among them, Citibank's market value in 1993 was US$5.6 billion, which was only one-third of Netscape's.
thus
It can be clearly seen that in the eyes of Wall Street investors, working in traditional industries and working in high-tech network industries are two worlds of ice and fire, with completely different treatment.
After a while
After carefully studying the situation of the Swire Group, Wang Yaocheng suddenly smiled, tapped his slender fingers on the desk, and expressed his thoughts;
"Brother Yuxuan, we don't need to catch all the Swire Group in one go. That's unrealistic.
The core should be selected and eradicated with thunderous means. The clue to solving the mystery lies in the ownership structure.
You see;
Hong Kong's Swire Group holds a 34% stake in Swire Pacific, which holds a 40% stake in Cathay Pacific Airways and a 32.8% stake in HAECO. Cathay Pacific holds a 27.4% stake in HAECO.
Excluding the real estate business, Swire Pacific and Cathay Pacific Airways are the two core assets, and the shareholding ratio of the Hong Kong Swire Group is not high, which gives us an opportunity to take advantage of it.
Once these two core assets are taken away, the Hong Kong Swire Group will be an empty shell. It will collapse without a fight. There is no need to deal with it carefully. It is like a castle built on the beach, which will fall down with a gentle push.
The core key to this is that HSBC holds 30% of Cathay Pacific Airways and is the company's second largest shareholder.
If you want to obtain a controlling stake in Cathay Pacific, in addition to collecting 17.5% of the scattered chips in the market, the key lies in the 30% equity of Cathay Pacific held by HSBC. If you can get it, this will be the key to success.
At the same time, it is necessary to obtain the full support of CITIC Group and form an alliance to advance and retreat together.
Once we obtain a controlling stake in Cathay Pacific, we can inject capital to dilute the Swire Group's equity and firmly control Cathay Pacific and HAECO.
After all, Cathay Pacific is the second largest shareholder of HAECO, with a 27.4% stake, which is only 5.4% less than Swire Holdings, which is easy to collect in the market."
President Mo Yuxuan thought about it carefully and believed that the plan was feasible; "If we attack Cathay Pacific and HAECO at the same time, the amount of funds required will be quite large. I'm afraid the company's financial pressure will be too great."
"Hey, you first make a capital plan, divide it into three options abc according to the different investment plans, and comprehensively consider different situations. When Du Bo leads the investment team to arrive tonight, we will study the action plan in detail. We can
It takes four months to half a year to slowly collect chips and gain momentum. I can still afford to wait for this time."
"Okay, boss, I'll go back and make plans now."
"There's no need to be too anxious. We'll discuss it tomorrow and go back and have a good rest today."
"knew."
President Mo Yuxuan smiled bitterly and hurriedly said goodbye.
How can such a large investment plan be accomplished overnight? We will have a meeting tomorrow to discuss it, and tonight will be a sleepless night. We must consider all aspects of the matter and make it as safe as possible.
No substantive plan could be produced at the meeting. As the president, he had obviously neglected his duties. After returning home, he would summon his subordinates to work hard all night to come up with three plans abc for the boss to choose from.
Just take a good rest and don't think about it, it's not possible these days.
Silicon Valley, USA
Fengsha Road, the new headquarters of Red Hat and the headquarters of Fengwangjing Company
The large-scale new headquarters of Red Hat has a unique shape and has become a landmark building in Silicon Valley. While demonstrating its strong strength, it is also full of the beauty of post-modern architectural design style with smooth lines. It is very eye-catching and has become the cover picture of many financial magazines.
now
Mr. Stephen Ballmer, the new chairman with a serious face, stood in his office and looked at the unique new headquarters, especially the huge Red Hat logo, which was particularly dazzling.
His heart was filled with helplessness. He glanced at the messy pile of documents on his desk and felt very headache.
After a year of hard planning and a huge price of billions of dollars, I finally obtained a controlling stake in Netscape and took over this leading company in the high-tech field of Silicon Valley.
Mr. Stephen Ballmer's mentality at the moment is complicated and difficult to understand, full of bitterness.
After taking over the company, I conducted a careful inventory of the company's assets through a professional auditing company, and found out that Netscape was a company that looked glamorous on the outside but riddled with holes on the inside. It was already in bad shape.
Professional audit report shows;
Netscape's total fundraising capital is as high as 740.4 million U.S. dollars, plus the profit of more than 90 million U.S. dollars in the first to third fiscal quarters. Now there is only more than 47 million dollars left in the account. Except for the profit of more than 45 million U.S. dollars in the third fiscal quarter, the original huge fundraising funds are almost
All was used up, leaving only $2.1 million in the account.
If we move slower, the profit of more than 45 million US dollars in the third fiscal quarter will not be saved, and everything will be lost.
Upon hearing the news, Chairman Stephen Ballmer's first thought was;
watt?
Are you kidding me?
This means that the entire Netscape company is an empty shell. Apart from controlling the Navigator web browser software patent pool, there are basically no valuable assets left.
Oh, right.
The property rights of Red Hat's new headquarters building belong to Netscape and are currently leased by Red Hat.
To this end, Netscape paid a transfer consideration of US$332 million and assumed huge subsequent decoration and equipment purchase costs, totaling up to US$473 million. This part is all reflected in the fixed assets statement.
This is a related-party transaction between the parent company and its subsidiary. Although the price is four times higher than the market price, Microsoft can bear it with gritted teeth.
After all, it is a normal sales contract. Even if the value is inflated, and the two companies are colluding with each other, one is willing to fight and the other is willing to suffer. There is no fault in it from any angle.
You said the price is expensive, but I'm still unwilling to sell it. There's no way this lawsuit will go to the federal court.
What crushed Stephen Ballmer the most was that according to the provisions of the lease contract signed by both parties;
The property owner, Netscape, leased the new headquarters building to Red Hat for thirty years.
The lease fee for the first ten years was US$12 million, which was paid in one lump sum on the day the contract was signed. The rent increased at a rate of 3% in the subsequent 20 years. The entire 30-year lease contract was worth US$48 million, and liquidated damages were calculated at ten times the contract value.
What is this concept?
In Silicon Valley, this price is half that of renting a large warehouse. It is so cheap that if you violate the lease contract, you will have to pay ten times the total contract value of 48 million U.S. dollars, up to 480 million U.S. dollars, which is like giving it away for free and adding extra money.
The annual rental fee for a high-end property valued at US$473 million is only US$1.2 million, which is not even enough to pay the interest.
This is an obvious transfer of profits. Netscape spent a huge amount of money to buy the high-end properties of its parent company, and then leased them to the parent company for use. Instead, he, the big boss, stayed in four dilapidated small buildings to work.
This silent frustration is simply driving people crazy.
After consulting a professional team of lawyers, Stephen Ballmer found that the problem was back to square one;
Even if you go to court to litigate, the focus will still be on whether the entire transaction process is illegal, whether it is suspected of bribery, or whether it is suspected of improper transactions, rather than whether the transaction price is artificially high or too low.
As long as the procedures are legal, you will 100% lose in this kind of lawsuit.
My parent company, Red Hat, has nurtured me, and I am willing to give back as much as I love.
This kind of bizarre transaction price is not uncommon in the shopping mall. When a company is acquired for $1, it does not mean that the company is only worth $1, but it is the result of a mutual choice by both parties.
Can you say it's illegal?
As long as the transaction procedures are legal, no one can complain about it, it's perfectly normal.
The most devastating thing is;
Among Netscape's more than 260 employees, 70% are newcomers who have just graduated within three years, and Chinese Americans account for more than half of them, reaching a very high proportion of 68%.
All experienced developers were transferred to Yahoo, computer chip development companies, Linux operating system research laboratories and other departments. Netscape became a training platform for these Chinese researchers and shouldered high development costs.
It doesn’t stop there;
Netscape invested US$3 million in Marvel's latest film "Blade". According to the contract, the Netscape logo must appear in the film for no less than three minutes and no less than ten seconds of close-ups.
Netscape invested US$3 million in Marvel's latest film "Austin Powers." According to the contract, the Netscape logo must appear in the film for no less than three minutes and no less than ten seconds of close-ups.
Netscape sponsored the Playboy brand's global poverty alleviation campaign with US$10 million, committed to creating harmonious development of mankind, working hard to eradicate poverty, and creating a responsible corporate social image.
Netscape sponsored US$200,000 to the San Francisco homeless shelter to support healthy social development and public welfare activities.
Netscape sponsored the local police department with US$600,000 to support the police's efforts to improve social security and strive to create a safe social environment.
Netscape sponsored ethnic minority groups with US$1.2 million to repair activity venues, build outdoor basketball courts, baseball fields, and build re-education centers. It is committed to bridging the gap between ethnic minorities and the mainstream of society, promoting the idea of a great United States, and serving society
Make due contributions to progress.
…
The green US dollars flowed out in a "swishing" manner, and the rats in Netscape's bank account had to cry.
All good people were left to Wang Yaocheng, and his social prestige was steadily increasing. He was highly regarded in the local community and was especially widely respected by ethnic minorities. He was considered an outstanding representative of realizing the American dream, at the expense of Netscape's heavy bleeding.
Netscape's core assets that really require heavy investment are enterprise-level service stations that need to handle tens of millions of visits. They all rely on rental equipment, and their own investment is very rare, which is far from meeting actual needs.
Navigator Browser has a dangerous website detection and blocking function. Users need to click to access the enterprise's main website. In addition to email and daily traffic, the enterprise-level service station requires an amazing amount of memory and the computing power requirements are also very high.
In the new year of 1994, a new round of lease price negotiations will begin.
The current quotation of communication companies has increased at an alarming rate. The current quotation is a 50% increase from the previous year. This is a quotation with an annual lease fee of up to 20 million US dollars, which will eat up all of Netscape's new profits.
Which one should go and which one should follow is a big issue that Chairman Stephen Ballmer needs to solve urgently.
As a senior person in the industry, he knew that the quotations offered by communication companies were reasonable. In 1993, memory prices skyrocketed, causing communication companies' costs to rise sharply. The corresponding increase in leasing prices was what the question meant.
Netscape itself did not grasp its core competitiveness, and all the funds raised were wasted, leaving only a mess full of holes for latecomers to clean up.
This is a besieged city. People inside want to get out, and people outside want to get in.
I was so happy that Microsoft took over the deal, but now I am dumbfounded.
Who is the real winner?
The matter has come to this, and it is useless to say anything more.
Chairman Stephen Ballmer let out a long sigh, sat down at the office desk with numb scalp, and started a day of heavy work. This mess still needs to be cleaned up.
The sins you have committed must be swallowed with tears.
Mr. Stephen Ballmer knows;
From the perspective of Microsoft's interests, Netscape, a big leaky ship, must maintain its appearance at all costs and must not disappoint the capital market.
According to Netscape's third fiscal quarter report, the web browser market share is as high as 77%, which has basically reached the bottleneck of development. You cannot ask for 100% share of the entire world market. That is unrealistic.
There are still a large number of infringing software on the market, and the market share of 77% is already the limit. The surge in profitability in the fourth fiscal quarter should have slowed down.
For the next market step, we can only focus on the 30% synchronized growth of the personal computer market in 1994. The performance will increase accordingly, but the performance increase will not be as high as in 1993.
If we take into account the huge increase in equipment rental costs, how to make up for the black hole in performance? This is a headache.
From this perspective, my work is very heavy and my responsibilities are especially huge.