Chapter 1756 Buy in Person!

Just like in any disaster, life still has to go on. American companies have had a hard time in recent months, but it is not without bright spots.

For example, Airbnb, the airbnb company, has been the brightest star in the past month or so!

The airbnb website, which officially opened in early March, quickly won the favor of countless people with the most novel "person-to-person" short-term rental tourism market concept from the very beginning.

After all, most Europeans and Americans do not have much money, and their burden is not lighter than that of Chinese people. It is only because most of their countries have good welfare measures that they have no worries, so they dare to spend all their salaries. Even loan consumption is the most normal thing.

For example, foreigners are keen to use credit card loans to travel. If you change to China, even the youngest and most fashionable people, most of them will never accept such a thing. It can even be exaggerated to say that it is basically ten thousand people. 1 in 10 people can do that.

Although it is very common in foreign countries to swipe credit cards and talk about things after playing, but when they go out to play, if they can save a little, they will try to save as much as possible.

After all, it is one thing to borrow money to consume in advance, but borrowing money always has to be repaid.

Under such circumstances, airbnb, an intermediary service that provides short-term rental of personal housing, board and lodging, has naturally received a lot of praise.

Everyone knows that those hotels have to pay business tax, hire personnel, advertise, etc. These are a lot of value-added expenses.

However, personal houses do not have this kind of trouble at all, and the price is easier to negotiate, and the location of the scenic spot you want to go can be more convenient. We had a good chat, and it's okay for the host to invite you to dinner.

Moreover, the quality of Western developed countries is generally good, and security issues are guaranteed. And Xiao Qi, after combining some problems that occurred in the previous airbnb, has a very complete system for credit screening and qualification verification, although this has caused delays in the opening time. But as soon as I tried it, I felt that the effect was very good, and it was easily accepted by everyone.

Comparing this way, the price is at least half cheaper, the convenience it brings is immeasurable, and the safety is also guaranteed. Many young people defected to airbnb immediately.

In this life, the two electronic companies with the best user experience effects are Apple and Fairy Company, and they are no longer the only one of Apple in the previous life.

Xiao Qi puts the user experience that he attaches the most importance to. All of them have been transplanted into other companies of their own, and airbnb is of course no exception.

In addition to its own functions that are very pleasing, the experience of all users on the airbnb website is also very good: the website login and browsing are very fast, the page is very friendly, the information is rich but not complicated, and the interactive information is very fast and accurate. The payment system is very convenient, and the customer service is very quick to deal with problems... etc., which are completely comparable to the services of super first-class hotels in the world.

Coupled with Xiao Qi's various promotions that started half a month in advance, after preparing hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising expenses. The popularity of airbnb has become very high.

Of course, such a large-scale publicity, various preparations, etc. all cost a lot of money. Xiao Qi has already used up more than half of the 1 billion US dollars he invested in and out.

Because of this, airbnb has gained a high degree of attention and popularity since its inception.

After more than a month, the number of registered users of airbnb exceeded 4 million. There are more than 800,000 pieces of personal housing rental information, and more than 300,000 successful records. Considering that the region is currently limited to North America and Western Europe, this number is quite astonishing.

Merrill Lynch on Wall Street has given airbnb a valuation of US$5 billion and believes that if it develops at this rate. Then airbnb will definitely build the world's largest online personal short-term rental network, and it may surpass the Hilton Hotel Chain Group in the future and become the largest giant in the hotel industry.

Although Merrill Lynch has had a hard time recently due to many subprime debt problems, it is in the entire industry. Their professionalism is still trustworthy.

It's not just Merrill Lynch that is exaggerating, there are many investment banks and funds that hope to get a share of airbnb, but due to Xiao Qi's "Oriental miserliness" and his great reputation, they didn't go to Airbnb. Come, just reach out through other channels to see if there is an opportunity.

To say that Xiao Qi is stingy does not refer to his conduct, but because Wall Street believes that Xiao Qi is not interested in sharing wealth and building a big company together.

Almost all Xiao Qi's companies are controlled by him absolutely, and he has never thought of going public at all, so people on Wall Street naturally have no way to make a lot of money in the listing.

The same is true for airbnb. According to the published data, Xiao Qi owns Mingxiang Holdings and Qicai Investment, each of which holds 45% of the shares of airbnb. The remaining 7% is owned by the management and the founding team, and 3% is owned by Hoffman holds.

With such a huge disparity in proportion, even if you want to buy it, you can only find a way in Xiao Qi's hands.

Others were just thinking about whether to buy shares and how much to buy, but the CEO of a giant company went to Rongcheng in person to ask to see Xiao Qi.

Stephen Schwarzman, executive president of Blackstone Group, is also the most trusted student, partner and friend of Peter Peterson, chairman of Blackstone Group.

Compared with his 82-year-old teacher Peterson, the 61-year-old Schwartzman is still very young and vigorous, so he usually does this kind of overseas travel.

But as long as it is something that Schwarzman personally does, it will not be simple.

It was only after Swartzman arrived in Rongcheng that he passed his old friend Larry Ellison, the chairman of Oracle, and asked Xiao Qi for a meeting.

Ellison is Xiao Qi's friend, the one with a good relationship. He often calls and doesn't say anything. Where Ellison goes on vacation, there must be a gift for Xiao Qi - he is a friend he thinks highly of , has always been generous and forthright, not far from Branson in the UK.

So Xiao Qi wanted to give Ellison this face.

Arriving at the high-level meeting room of the Hilton Hotel across the old bus road, Schwartzman shook hands with Xiao Qi and sat on both sides with a big smile.

Rongcheng is Xiao Qi's home game, but the Hilton Hotel is Schwartzman's home game.

In July last year, Blackstone Group invested 26 billion US dollars to acquire Hilton Hotel Group, and joined forces with its previous hotel industry to form a new hotel group, thus becoming the largest Blackstone Hotel Group in the world. More than 40 billion US dollars.

Xiao Qi thought that Schwartzman came here for the acquisition, but he didn't expect him to talk about something else.

"Mr. Xiao, our Blackstone Group is willing to form a deep alliance with you." After a few pleasantries, Schwartzman said, "Do you think that with 50% of Airbnb's shares in our hotel group, we will own 10% of Blackstone Hotel in total? How about the replacement ratio for the group's shares?"

Xiao Qi pondered for a while, but didn't speak.

Based on the Blackstone Hotel Group's market value of 40 billion, Airbnb's stock price is estimated at 8 billion US dollars, which is a 60% increase from Merrill Lynch's valuation of 5 billion US dollars!

In the future, although airbnb will continue to develop and its value will continue to rise, but the Blackstone Hotel Group will continue to make money and its market value will continue to rise.

If a share swap does take place, it would be a good investment for both parties, at least for now.

Xiao Qi's plan for airbnb is about 10-15 billion US dollars. If it goes public, it may be a little more, but the listing is not in Xiao Qi's consideration.

However, with a valuation of 10-15 billion US dollars, it will take two or three years to develop. Now that he has made a move to get 8 billion US dollars, Xiao Qi must be taking advantage.

But think about it, although the Blackstone Group paid 10% of the shares of the Blackstone Hotel Group, they have become a real giant online and offline by integrating airbnb, the largest online short-term rental personal accommodation platform now and in the future , It will definitely be of great help to the development of the next 20 to 30 years.

In comparison, in the long run, Blackstone Group is more cost-effective.

"I'm not very interested in the traditional hotel industry." After a while, Xiao Qi gave his answer: "Besides, I have always had an idea to see how far airbnb can go. Look online And the offline tourism and hotel market, who will be more brilliant in the future. So if Mr. Schwartzman wants to talk about share replacement, we might as well wait ten years before we talk about it.”

Swarzman sighed, recalling the failure of his previous acquisition, Schwarzman thought that Xiao Qi was really just like the legend, he was stubborn to the extreme.

However, from this, Schwartzman also heard Xiao Qi's ambition. He actually wanted to compete with the centuries-old hotel industry by relying on a short-term accommodation website.

Although Schwarzman is very optimistic about airbnb, he only regards it as a supplement to the traditional hotel industry, not the kind of partner who can sit on an equal footing.

Then we just have to wait and see to see who has the better vision!

The president of the Blackstone Group, who has always been unfavorable, made a decision with a little regret.