Chapter 153 The upgraded version of Qianjin City Bone
No matter how much Gu Kun wants to take risks, he has to consider the mood of his new superficial partner.
So he peacefully spent the entire Christmas holiday, and then the entire New Year's Day holiday, until Westerners generally restarted work after the New Year.
The calendar quietly turned to 1999.
Gu Kun himself and his fiancée have been staying in a castle in the Alps of Bavaria, skiing and playing golf every day. When he got tired of exercise, he soaked in a hot spring on the spot for as long as he wanted.
On days when the wind is not strong, you can go to the deck of a yacht and bask in the winter sunshine, which is a unique experience. This kind of feeling of basking in the warm ocean without having to put on sunscreen or being afraid of the heat is really good for people from the south.
It was so enjoyable.
(The current King of Thailand seems to have taken his 20 concubines to the Bavarian Alps to escape the world in this way, away from the hustle and bustle and epidemics. It can be seen that people in Southeast Asian countries are used to seeing tropical scenery and seas, and it is very difficult to find a mountain snow lake to change their taste.
There is style.
Before I wrote this whole plot, it was a day or two before the news about the King of Thailand came out. I was the first. It can be seen that I am very foresighted and have a very good understanding of the extravagant ways of Southeast Asian nobles. If you don’t believe it, you can go back and read the chapter release.
time and online news time. In addition, I would also like to thank several Malaysian book friends for providing detailed materials on local customs and customs)
After half of January, white people in Europe started working one after another, and Gu Kun asked Sophia to contact people from Kering Group as planned.
The words and reasons for contact were all ready-made, and they had all been explained to Sophia before.
It's nothing more than "acting in front of people at Richemont as if they are trying to replace Kering's model, and acting in front of people in Kering as if they are trying to replace Richemont's model." No matter which side you are in front of, you must try to be as indifferent as humans and animals.
Harmful, let the other party feel that you are relatively not his immediate competitor.
The idea is very simple, the key is to win in the details, and whether you can come up with insightful understanding when selling your character.
Sophia, who was well prepared, did a pretty good job. It only took two weeks of matchmaking and negotiation to reach an agreement on the relevant equity swap intention.
During the process, Gu Kun personally attended several social events, mainly eating, drinking and having fun with François-Henri Pinault, the big boss of the Kering Group, and exchanging social and business chats.
Gu Kun didn't know Francois Pinault very well at first, and only had some descriptions and information on paper. So Gu Kun subconsciously regarded him as the same character template as John Rupert.
After drinking together several times and playing with women several times, Gu Kun figured out some differences.
François Pinault's family is considered a native of France and has a natural love for the luxury goods industry. Even the boss himself is a bit of an artist.
At this point, perhaps the biggest giant in the field that Gu Kun has never met, Bernard Arnault of lvmh, is also like this. Arnault is also the kind of Frenchman who is very artistic and pursuing.
Therefore, these people will rarely consider giving in to the business circle they enter and love. They will not shrink back just because they "focus on making women's clothing/women's bags" and are no longer able to compete for the world's number one position in this segment.
, move to other subdivisions, in order to "better to be a chicken's mouth than a cow's queen", they will persist in doing it, earn a little less, and the business center will not give in at all.
This is completely different from the Afrikaners at Richemont. The Afrikaners have very clear goals and no sense of honor. They are very utilitarian when they enter the market. It is obvious that the Afrikaans have established a leading advantage in certain industries.
They just stopped playing and changed tracks without any psychological burden.
After gaining a better understanding of his opponents in the circle, Gu Kun had a more solid plan for the follow-up and adjusted his diplomatic strategy in a timely manner so that he could maintain his image of being harmless to humans and animals for a longer period of time.
So far, Gu Kun's "Lanfang Culture" has completely entered the circle of the world's top luxury goods giants and become one of them.
It only relied on spending money, relying on equity swaps of 2 to 3 billion US dollars, and the gimmick of royal status as an "ancient Southeast Asian kingdom" to successfully enter the market.
After the equity swap with the Kering Group's sub-brands, the number of French and Italian luxury brands that Gu Kun holds equity in hand has further reduced by two, from 8 companies to 6, and the shareholding ratio in each company
will rise further.
Of course, in this process, Kering Group also got what they wanted. In the past two years, Kering has been planning to take action against Boucheron and Balenciaga, and Gu Kun originally exchanged money with the Hong Kong stock market.
He happened to have some shares in these two companies, so he completely cleared out the shares of these two companies and exchanged them with Kering for Gucci/Armani/Cartier of equal value.
In Giorgio Armani, Gu Kun’s shareholding ratio is close to 40%, and in Gucci it also reaches 19%.
In addition, he also obtained a 14% stake in Cartier, a jewelry giant. The total value of Cartier's stake alone is close to US$1 billion. As a consideration, Gu Kun's stake in the Oceania jewelry brand Tiffany,
It was a complete sell-off.
Obviously, Gu Kun still plans to enter the international first-line jewelry brand in the future, but he did not show this ambition when negotiating with Richemont before. Because Richemont is a jewelry industry tycoon and is the world's number one in the jewelry field, even higher than LVMH.
Much stronger. If Gu Kun showed his intention to enter the jewelry industry in front of people at Richemont, it would definitely arouse the other party's vigilance and hostility. Only when negotiating with a group like Kering that does not pay attention to the jewelry industry, such duplicity is suitable.
As for why he favored Cartier and Tiffany, Gu Kun actually didn’t think too much about it. Both of these brands can be built up in the future and become a big company. But Gu Kun doesn’t like Brittany dogs and Ocean dogs.
As for the brand, Tiffany is a brand from Oceania, so Gu Kun would definitely prefer Tiffany over Cartier, which is more established in Italy.
…
The reason why Gu Kun's layout is so urgent is that historically, the period from 1998 to 1999 was also the peak time for mergers and acquisitions of top luxury brands - Kering and Richemont were both acquired by lvmh
Arnault, inspired by the acquisition of Givenchy in 1995, began to gradually start imitating it coldly.
After lvmh successfully acquired Givenchy, it will also sum up its experience and lessons and copy this model to expand rapidly. Therefore, these few years have also been a period of high incidence for Arnault to frequently play the role of "the barbarian at the door".
A small number of mergers and acquisitions by Kering and Richemont were not even initiated by them, but they were invited by the independent management layers of those small brands threatened by Arnott, and they appeared as saviors.
.
This situation is a bit like the origin of the Changping War between Qin and Zhao during the Warring States Period - the Qin State attacked South Korea, occupied a large amount of South Korean territory, and cut off the remaining South Korean territory from the middle, resulting in South Korea's Shangdang County (now Coal Boss Province)
It became an enclave.
However, because the Koreans were at war with the Qin State, Shangdang County was unwilling to surrender to the Qin State on the other side of the Yellow River to the west. Instead, it would rather surrender to the Zhao State on the other side of the Taihang Mountains to the east. This later led to the Qin State launching the Changping War.
War and attack Zhao. If we don’t consider the subsequent battles, Zhao’s territory was actually gained in vain at the beginning.
Gu Kun is in a hurry to enter the market now, also in order to better secure his position and play himself as "Arnott's biggest enemy" as soon as possible, so that those independent brands that "the world has been suffering for a long time" will be threatened by Arnott Capital.
, was the first to regard Gu Kun as Zhao Guo, and was inclined to introduce Gu Kun into the house.
Now that the preparation work is finally completed, Gu Kun can directly select a brand company and conduct the "Qianjinshigu" transaction.
…
The Lunar New Year in 1999 was relatively late, halfway through February, so Gu Kun still had time to spend some time on vacation in Europe.
One day at the end of January, Gu Kun, who had already bought out all the shares of Giorgio Armani from Kering and Richemont, and owned nearly 40% of Armani's shares, finally came up with a plan and invited Giorgio Armani himself to his Alps ski resort in a high profile.
Guest at Lake Castle.
Giorgio Armani is already 65 years old, but he still firmly controls the company as the founder and has no plans to retire.
In the late 1990s, the market value of his company was still very low compared to later times, mainly because the Matthew Effect brought about by Internet media had not yet fully emerged. But the company's brand, especially its position in the field of men's clothing, was indeed
Very stylish,
Because in the late 1990s, two of the most powerful men in the world liked to wear Armani clothes - Bill, the commander-in-chief of Oceania, and Bill, the richest man in the world, Microsoft Bill.
Most men in the world have no sense of aesthetics. When a man buys clothes, he looks at brands that look good. The key is to look at what men with more money and status than him wear. Then he should also wear something so that he does not appear to be inferior to others.
.
Giorgio Armani has always disliked bosses dictating, but due to historical reasons, the company has always lost some equity. In previous years, he could only try to disperse these equity shares as much as possible to prevent anyone from becoming a major shareholder that could threaten the company's business decisions.
But unexpectedly, the newly entered catfish muddied the waters, and all the outflow equity circulating in the hands of those Hong Kong luxury investors, Kering and Richemont were concentrated back into the hands of Gu Kun alone.
Gu Kun has so many shares that it is impossible for Giorgio Armani not to negotiate with him.
Saturday, January 30, 1999.
Giorgio Armani came to Snow Lake Castle in Bavaria and brought some small gifts against his will.
"Mr. Armani, I'm glad that you can appreciate me. I always respect artists, and I don't want to interfere with the design and management decisions of an artist-type business owner. Please rest assured that I will not override you just because I have more money than you."
above you."
Gu Kun was very considerate and showed great respect for the elderly when they met.
Even Zhu Youran was very generous and said politely: "Mr. Armani, you are the same age as my father. He is also 65 years old this year. We invite you here just to talk about cooperation in marketing. If you are willing to show sincerity,
We will promote your brand as one of the most popular men's luxury brands in the Asian market."
One must be added. After all, after this example of a wealthy man is established, Gu Kun will still attack Gucci. If he doesn't add one, it will be troublesome for him to compete for favor.