From controlling Giorgio Armani to promoting Giorgio Armani into the high-end men's luxury brand with the best comprehensive brand benefits in terms of sales volume and reputation in the Chinese-speaking cultural circle up to that time, this was Gu Kun's long-established plan to make Giorgio Armani one of the most valuable brands in the world.
cornerstone of.
Since it is "a bone worth a thousand pieces of gold," it also means another meaning: horse bones were never the "great sages" that kings really wanted when they were looking for virtuous people. They could only be a transitional thing at best.
Just like King Yan Zhao "started with Wei first", it was destined that Guo Wei was only used to show his reputation as a "courteous and virtuous corporal". The real big fish to be caught was Le Yi.
Since Zhuge Liang is more interested in Guan and Yue, he naturally needs a similar introduction before he appears - so Xu Shu is to Zhuge just like Guo Wei is to Le Yi.
From the day he took control of Armani, Gu Kun thought that one day he would have to further control Gucci, or even more, to complete his territory.
He never hesitated to brag about this idea to his women every time he was in a sage state.
Including Saranova, the women with higher academic qualifications around him didn't understand it very well at first, thinking that Gucci was quite expensive.
Once, when she was feeling tender afterwards, Saranova asked with the intention of asking for advice: "Armani's market value is less than 2 billion US dollars, and Gucci is at least 7 to 8 billion US dollars, but looking at sales and gross profit margin, it seems that they are not that different."
Is it really worth setting up such a big deal for Gucci?"
At that time, Gu Kun replied: "You can't look at the current numbers, you have to look at history. Bernard Arnault's experience has told the remaining top peers in the world that the luxury industry after the 1990s will follow
Times were different in the past.
The disintegration of Lucia, the blessing of the Internet, and the intensification of globalization. These three factors will make the luxury industry become "more and more scarce in history", while "the future growth space of independent designer brands has not been significantly improved."
Gucci is a historical brand in the 1920s, and Giorgio Armani is just a contemporary designer brand in 1975. However, this designer is currently a relatively big name, so the current moment is more intense. But this is just Giorgio Armani himself.
Brought by his blessing, one day he dies or retires, Giorgio Armani will experience a wave of shrinking stamina.
You don’t even have to wait for Armani to die. As long as the two most famous high-end customers in the world who insist on buying Armani, Bill the Great and Bill the Richest, either retire or are no longer the richest men, Armani’s brand value will fall.
Therefore, discerning luxury group giants know how to pay for historical premiums as decisively as they do when paying for unique antiques and artworks at Sotheby's auction house."
In the next 20 years, the potential for price increases and premiums for antique artworks with unique attributes will also be astonishing. As a reborn person, Gu Kun can see this all too clearly.
The logic of these price increases is the same as that of "luxury brands with a long history". They are all beneficiaries of the triple benefits of Lucia's disintegration, intensified globalization, and the blessing of the Internet.
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I won’t go into details about the business logic and reasons. Anyway, future history will prove it sooner or later.
But some people may be surprised: Gu Kun has settled the matter and is waiting for his prestige in the global luxury brand industry to increase until companies such as Gucci come to offer their services.
So why is the timing so coincidental? Gu Kun has just reached this level of strength, and Gucci just needs him as a white knight to save it? No novel would dare to write it like this!
But the truth is, the timing was not coincidental.
It’s not like “Gu Kun was just getting ready, and Gucci came to beg the white knight to come in.”
But Gucci has been fighting a bloody battle with lvmh for a long time, and is in a strategic defensive state, trying to maintain the situation. Now, Gu Kun's strength has finally met the scale, and they are coming.
Historically, the initial spark of the Gucci War began as early as the first quarter of 1999, when Bernard Arnault, the boss of the world's largest luxury giant lvmh, secretly launched a sniper attack on the acquisition of Gucci's tradable shares.
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Gucci is different from Armani. After all, this is an old company with a history of 70 or 80 years, so it is not a company controlled by a founder team and exclusive of the financial world.
Not to mention that the old Mr. Gucci himself has died a long time ago, and even his grandson has retired now, so Gucci has long been listed on the Dutch stock exchange, and part of its shares are tradable shares, which anyone can buy anonymously.
Bernard Arnault spent several months slowly raising funds that exceeded the Dutch Securities Exchange Commission's licensing threshold, that is, after "purchasing more than 15% of Gucci's total shares."
It was announced in the second quarter of 1999, and then it further raised funds, sucking away most of the circulating shares, and the shareholding ratio reached 30% - when all this was done, it was about 1999
The middle of the year, that is, 18 months ago.
Then, Bernard Arnault made a decision at that time, announcing a privatization offer price that was 30% higher than the Amsterdam Stock Exchange at that time, and acquiring the equity of all small shareholders of Gucci indiscriminately. His plan was to go further
Expand the shareholding ratio from 30% to more than 50%, so that you can complete the control of Gucci, and then make drastic changes to the company.
During last summer vacation, for this plan, Arnott spent 1.5 billion euros to buy the rest, giving him a 20% difference before reaching 51% of the shares. However, Arnott miscalculated at that time——
Arnott's original intention was a purely hostile takeover. The main difference between malicious and good intentions in financial takeovers is whether there is friendly negotiation with the original company's management team.
For example, if Arnault had a good discussion with Gucci CEO De Soret, appeased him, and confirmed that he would retain Gucci's original senior management and original industrial line layout after the acquisition, it would be considered a good-faith acquisition.
The advantage of a good-faith acquisition is that it costs less, because after you convince the senior management to be of the same mind as you, they will help you convince other small shareholders that it will be beneficial to everyone to bring you into the market, and the small shareholders will not
Too greedy in selling stock prices——
As mentioned before, Arnott offered a premium of 30% higher than the current price on the Amsterdam Exchange for the 20% of the shares between 30% and 51% to indiscriminately privatize it. The reason for the price increase
This 30% was because he didn't want to deal with the CEO or discuss with the original senior management, so he directly chose a more expensive price and spent money to buy loyalty.
However, since he paid a high premium, it means that Arnott actually only wanted to control 51% of the equity at that time, and did not want more. The reason is easy to understand: the shares taken during this special period, each
One share will give you 30% more money than in peacetime, so why should I get it right in one step?
First, use an extra 30% higher unit price to increase a small amount of holdings. Increase the holdings just enough to gain control of the company. Then first eliminate dissidents, deploy cronies, and clean up the company from top to bottom. Once you have done this, you can finally use it without using an extra 30% higher price.
Wouldn't it be nice to get the remaining 49% of the shares at an ordinary low price?
Arnott's calculation was very good, but unfortunately, during the summer vacation last year, he encountered de Sole's desperate counterattack - De Sore did not want to sit back and wait for the opponent to get 51% and then slowly clean it up, so
He decisively chose to "ask all management to respond to Arnott's privatization offer and require Arnott to buy all the company's shares at a price that he said was 30% higher than the market price."
In other words, Arnott only wanted to buy 20% of the company at a price of 1.3 times, but Sorey forced him to buy 70% of the company at a price of 1.3 times.
Arnott didn't have that much money at the time, and he didn't expect that the other party would respond to the offer. In addition, Arnott's legal advisor didn't know much about Dutch securities regulatory laws, so Arnott backed down and said, "I just want to
I bought 20% of the company’s equity at a high premium, and I don’t want to buy more for the time being.”
This legal stance was seized upon by Sorey, who filed a complaint with the Dutch securities regulatory agency, requesting that Arnault's stock buying behavior be characterized as a "hostile takeover", and then triggering the "allowing Gucci to issue new shares" in accordance with the Dutch securities regulatory law.
, dilute the shares of all existing shareholders and fight against hostile takeovers."
(Note: When determining whether an acquisition is a hostile acquisition, the Dutch securities law considers that the requirement of "whether consultation with the original senior management" is difficult to obtain evidence, so it also sets up some other relatively objective evaluation criteria.
Dutch law believes that when you issue a privatization offer, if "no matter how many people sell it, you take all of it as promised", then it is deemed that you are not malicious. If you only selectively perform part of the equity,
If you perform your contract and stop until your shareholding exceeds the holding line, it can be determined that you are malicious.)
This matter was probably the most expensive legal price that Arnott, later to be the world's richest man, ever paid "because he did not pay attention to spending money to hire the most professional lawyer."
Although onlookers may find it unbelievable: the world's largest luxury goods giant, the legal counsel around him does not know the clause "according to Dutch securities law, after triggering a 'hostile takeover determination', the malicious party can issue new shares to dilute it"?
But history is so ironic. Perhaps it was because this was the first time in Arnott's life that he had done this. He just saved money on legal fees and did not plan to plug this hole in advance. As a result, he failed to acquire what he later became.
Gucci, his lifelong enemy.
From then on, Arnott never scrimped to save money on legal fees for acquisition cases, nor did he look down on the laws of foreign stock exchanges.
"If I had known that saving a few dollars in legal fees and not hiring a sufficiently professional Dutch lawyer would lead to my failure to acquire Gucci, I would not have frowned even if I had to spend another billion euros to hire a lawyer."
This is what Arnott later said in his autobiography.
But no matter what, the only original sin in his life of skimping on legal fees has been committed. This cannot be changed, and history has no ifs.
De Sore seized his advantage and applied for the right to issue additional directional new shares on the Dutch Stock Exchange in accordance with the law to fight against hostile takeovers. As long as someone subscribes to these directional new shares, Arnott's hostile takeover will be blocked by this white knight.
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In the original history, François Pinault, the boss of Kering Group, became this white knight.
Unfortunately, in this life, Francois Pinault's position seems to be replaced by Gu Kun.