Chapter 139 My wife buys a bag and I buy a bag company
Gu Kun's reaction and vision left Liang Jinsong happy and surprised, which can only be said to be a 50-50 split.
Half of him was gratified, because he saw that Gu Kun was not the kind of lunatic who "was a young man who was so arrogant that he didn't know who he was after having tens of billions of dollars." After all, Gu Kun still had some skills, and he knew that the high-voltage red line in the luxury industry was there.
No one dares to create their own brand.
No matter how well a self-created brand is created, it is possible to call it a fashion brand, but it cannot be called a luxury product.
The upper limit of fashion brands, which is the level of ZARA, H&M, and MUJI in later generations, has no room for greater imagination.
However, the other half of Liang Jinsong's surprise was that Gu Kun actually looked down upon the popular Xiangjiang brands at the moment. He looked down on none of them and did not bother to invest in or acquire shares.
You must know that whether it is Xiangjiang Crocodile or Erbor Emperor Chow Tai Fook, in the eyes of mainland tourists in 1998, they are still the most popular brands and are symbols of pretentiousness for successful people.
"Are you betting that mainlanders will become extremely rich in just a few years and no longer look down on Xiangjiang brands? Don't you think these brands can show your identity when you wear them?" When Liang Jinsong asked back, his surprise was palpable.
Who in Hong Kong in 1998 would have thought that in just ten or eight years, mainlanders would no longer be proud to wear Hong Kong brand, at least people in first- and second-tier cities would no longer be proud to wear Hong Kong brand. (Some third- and fourth-tier and
In the rural market, the Hong Kong license can maintain status for ten more years. Of course, there is no discrimination here, it is just an objective statement of the consumption structure)
Seeing that Gu Kun was very determined, Liang Jinsong spread his hands and said: "If you don't like this, then you can only consider acquiring French or Italian brands, but I don't think those international first-tier brands will be willing to be acquired by yellow people's capital. I am not
To say they are discriminatory is because the French have a strong sense of cultural superiority."
Gu Kun seemed more confident than Liang Jinsong: "How do you know if you don't try? The situation is changing. If we go back five years, do you dare to say that French brands like Givenchy and Lanzi will consider selling SHEN? But now
, one has been sold, and the other is under negotiation, so in the final analysis, it is still a question of money. The price Arnault offered when acquiring Givenchy was far higher than the valuation of those brands before 1995."
The two examples cited by Gu Kun can be said to be the two major representatives of the merger and acquisition wave in the luxury industry in the 1990s, and they can also be regarded as trendsetters.
The buying trend began in 1995 when Arnault bought Givenchy. The second important benchmark is the acquisition of Lanzi by Richemont Group, which is currently under negotiation.
(Note: Considering that my books are all read by men, I don’t know much about luxury industry groups. Let me say a few words. The three largest luxury groups in the world are recognized by later generations, namely Arnault’s LVMH, and the second one is Richemont.
Group, the third place is Kering. These three major groups
The order in which people enter the buy-buy mode is also directly proportional to their strength. LVMH entered the financial expansion M&A mode in 1995, Richemont only started it in 1997-98, and Kering was the slowest to respond. It was only in the early 21st century that it started crazy mergers and acquisitions.
So it is also the weakest.
However, in the field of clothing and bags, LVMH and Kering are mainly competing. The second-placed Richemont is relatively out of the fray, because Richemont focuses on jewelry and watches. If it is a female channel, this paragraph probably does not need to be written at all. Female channel
All readers of Little Sling must be familiar with these buying and selling knowledge)
Liang Jinsong subconsciously reminded: "Givenchy is a French person buying a French person. There is no foreign intervention and it will not damage the cultural self-esteem of the French."
Gu Kun shrugged: "But Lanzi is a Swiss who buys a Frenchman."
Although the Lanzi brand is not well-known in China, it has a long history. It was founded in 1876. In other words, Richemont Group’s acquisition style is based on its long history. From its direct lineage
Starting from the watch brand Constantin in 1755, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Count Lange have a lot of products from the 19th century.
The famous jewelry brand Cartier is also owned by the Richemont Group and has been a 150-year-old brand since the 1850s. However, in 1998, Cartier had not been poisoned by Richemont and was completely independent from the financial market.
Liang Jinsong saw that Gu Kun was so analytical, and realized that Gu Kun was definitely serious.
"Okay, although I want to say that the psychological gap between being bought by the Swiss and being bought by the yellow race is different for the French. However, if you insist on buying it, the worst we can do is put on a few more layers of skin.
For example, go to Switzerland or Monaco or the Netherlands and Belgium, and set up a shell company. You will be the major shareholder, but you will not be the legal representative. The legal representative will find a white person to show up as a puppet. After a wave of operations like this, you will have secondary shareholding control.
Some of the first-tier French and Italian brands can be considered.”
Gu Kun finally smiled: "Just figure it out, I'm not in a hurry."
Liang Jinsong rubbed the bridge of his nose: "Give me a few more days to sort out the oblique holdings held by Xiangjiang Investment Bank and see if I can replace them with some big names that can be arbitraged."
"I'm waiting for your news."
…
In the next few days, Liang Jinsong worked overtime and finally sorted out a very complicated piece of cross-shareholding information.
As we all know, many financial institutions such as investment banks will purchase many high-quality assets in the international market as daily operating investments after raising money.
In other words, they may be small shareholders of N high-quality companies. They may buy everything from Heinz ketchup to Coca-Cola to IBM. Under such a situation, Xiangjiang investment banks and financial institutions hold scattered shares of European and American companies.
Very normal.
Now Gu Kun wants to completely dump the stocks of these financial institutions in the circulation market. With his size, he can certainly let the heads of investment banks sit down with him to discuss replacements one by one.
After all, if the replacement is successful, Gu Kun will be able to withdraw less funds from the Hong Kong stock market and lose less book wealth.
For those financial institutions, with less money being withdrawn, the stock price will be easier to stabilize, and both parties are willing to see this situation.
After completing his homework, Liang Jinsong reported to Gu Kun: "The financial institutions that we want to liquidate, including HSBC and Standard Chartered, currently hold a total of the following French and Italian luxury goods company shares:
Gu Kun listened, with a look of disgust on his face like he was shooing away flies: "Cross out those Dunhill cloth dog brands, don't read them out, they will contaminate my ears. I'm looking after someone for a day, cloth dog"
Dog’s so-called luxury brand must be a piece of shit in the Chinese media industry. I am confident that I will use my right to speak to set the pace. Therefore, I don’t need to consider buying those shares.”
Liang Jinsong quickly apologized: "I'm sorry, we have been colonized for a long time and have not changed for a while, so I will cross it out immediately. However, even for these remaining brands, if you want to exchange shares, you still have to choose them. At present, we are here
The market value of the shares is definitely not enough for replacement, and we take the initiative to offer replacement, and we have to pay a more or less premium——
After all, many luxury goods companies here are not listed companies, and their shares do not have a recognized circulation price. Some of them were financial institutions that used to do convertible bonds and other financings, but they were unable to meet customers' corporate bonds when they matured.
Only after execution can you get the shares."
Of course, the financial institutions where Gu Kun bought stocks all had tradable shares and could be freely traded on the secondary market.
However, few of the top luxury brands in the late 1990s were listed on the financial market.
For example, Giorgio Armani mentioned by Liang Jinsong is the most typical family operation, to be precise, it is a founder's operation. As the founder and chief designer, Giorgio Armani himself is very repulsive to financial operations and does not like to have any shareholders interfere with his decisions and decisions.
Design style, product rhythm, so we are determined not to put it on the market, and we are determined not to let others dictate. It is almost still a small manual workshop-style management style.
But Giorgio Armani also had some equity outflows, mainly because in certain years when the capital chain was tight, it borrowed convertible bonds collateralized by the company's equity. In the end, if it could not be repaid, it was attached to a financial institution and converted into
The debt of stocks cannot be shaken off after the company recovers.
Therefore, if you want to buy shares of this kind of company, in addition to directly negotiating the acquisition with the boss himself, you can only rely on the debt-for-equity swaps in the financial market. The share of such sources is not large, and many of them are only a few percent.
It can be regarded as a starting point for entering the market and a focus.
As for Gucci and Cartier, they do not exclude equity transactions. Although they are not fully circulated in the secondary market, there are many external shareholders. When Arnault, the capital of the luxury world in the future, wanted to acquire Gucci, he would use it from other non-tradable small shareholders.
In my hands, I secretly bought 14% of Gucci’s shares and then launched a surprise bid. Unfortunately, Gucci contacted Kering Group to dilute the shares and successfully resisted.
“How much money do we have left in the Hong Kong financial stocks we currently have on hand that we haven’t drawn out yet?”
"There are about more than 3 billion US dollars, which is enough for you to choose more than half of the replaceable shares in this table. If you want the rest, you will have to dig into your pocket to add more money."
"No, let me circle the area first." Gu Kun waved his hand simply.
When testing the waters for the first time, the investment should not be too large.
Even if Gu Kun knew which brands would become more and more popular in later generations and which brands would decline, he still couldn't bet on them.
What if he becomes the majority shareholder, causing the management to become lazy and let go of the business, causing morale to plummet?
There are some logics that you still need to understand thoroughly.
Liang Jinsong also felt that this should be the case, and he had to remind Gu Kun: "Mr. Gu, I have always had a question, how much do you personally know about these luxury brands? Do you like their products? You should not make the final decision in person
Want to experience their products and cultural symbols immersively?”
Gu Kun touched his nose and had to admit: "It makes sense. I really didn't care about luxury goods before. I should stand from the perspective of a consumer and ask more women around me."
Maybe I should take my wives out to buy a bag.
The wife is responsible for buying the bags, and he is responsible for buying the company where the wife bought the bags.