Chapter 677: To Be a Receiver?

There was no meeting in the hotel suite as expected, let alone a warm hug as soon as they met, Yang Cheng suddenly felt uncomfortable. Is this still the familiar Paris?

As soon as he got off the car, he was brought to the coffee shop inside the hotel by the waiter arranged by Paris. Not only Paris Hilton was waiting for him, but there were also several familiar people whose names he couldn't name for a while.

He went forward to say hello to Paris, and accepted the kiss-to-hug gift that she ordered so far, and then he had time to look at these people who stood up to greet him and looked extraordinary.

Realizing that today's meeting might not be easy, Yang Cheng secretly woke up.

Putting on a calm smile, he looked at Paris Hilton with obvious meaning in his eyes, "What are you doing?"

Paris Hilton didn't say it clearly, but just returned a look of "I'll know in a while", then put on a standard formulaic smile and introduced, "Everyone, I don't think I need to introduce Jason's name, right?"

One of them, a middle-aged man with black hair, black eyes and fair skin, said with a friendly smile, "Of course, no introduction is needed. Now in Manhattan, Jason is very famous."

Yang Cheng smiled back and waited for Paris's introduction, "Jason, this is the global real estate director of Blackstone Group and Mr. Jon Gray, chairman of the board of directors of Hilton Group."

Hey, he really is a big shot, Yang Cheng childishly exclaimed in his heart.

Of course, he was still unmoved on the surface, but his smile became more enthusiastic, and he offered his hand and said, "The great hero of the Hilton Group is finally honored to meet today."

Jon Gray's smile remained unabated, and he shook Yang Cheng with his big hand, "Jason is too much."

Who says foreigners can't be courteous? Isn't that just right to be humble.

Immediately afterwards, Paris turned to the person on Jon Gray's right, "Christopher Nassetta, Global President and CEO of Hilton Group."

Yang Cheng's pupils contracted violently. Before he could greet him, Paris gestured to the person on Gray's left, and finished the introduction in one breath, "This is Mr. Hamilton James, President of Blackstone Group."

Yang Cheng took a deep breath, good guy, he's a big shot, these guys are definitely going to make trouble when they get together.

Saying hello to the two of you one by one, the five people sat down around a round coffee table and signaled the waiter to serve Yang Cheng a cup of coffee. Paris Hilton, who was the introducer, began to throw bricks and stones, "Jason, I called you over this time, There is a business I want to discuss with you, Blackstone Group wants to sell a stake, accounting for about 25% of Hilton Group’s total share capital.”

After finishing speaking, Paris leaned close to Yang Cheng's ear and whispered, "They hope you can take it down."

After leaving such a sentence, she stopped talking, as if the scene just now had never happened, and sipped her coffee by herself.

Yang Cheng cursed inwardly, "Sao Lang Hoof, you have to give me some reason if you want the young master to be a successor, right?"

However, on the surface, he looked curiously and surprised at Hamilton James, the leader of the world's top consortia. To some extent, his level is slightly higher than that of Citibank CEO Mike Corbett One chip.

"Mr. James, if I remember correctly, the Blackstone Group has completed the most outstanding private equity operation case in history on the Hilton Group. Now is the time to reap the fruits. Why sell it?" Yang Cheng took Strong doubts were asked of Hamilton James.

However, Yang Cheng is not exaggerating. The leveraged buyout jointly completed by Blackstone and Hilton is enough to be called the most profitable transaction in history. It is also a typical case of successful private equity operations. In terms of restructuring debt and implementing good management, rather than blind cost cutting and layoffs, Blackstone has improved Hilton's performance more than many people realized.

And the few people in front of me are all witnesses and traders of this successful case. As early as 2006,

Blackstone Group began to "pursue" Hilton Group at the suggestion of Jon Gray, and internally named the transaction "Project Murphy (Murphy Plan)", which was named after comedian Eddie Murphy (Eddie Murphy) in 1984 Starring in the movie "(Beverly Hills Cop)", Hilton's headquarters was located in Beverly Hills at that time.

In June 2007, the Blackstone Group finally acquired Hilton with a record-setting leverage of US$26.7 billion, and quickly privatized and delisted it. Among them, the Blackstone Group, together with its real estate, private equity funds and some cooperative investors, contributed US$6.5 billion, while the rest More than US$20 billion was provided by a number of Wall Street investment banks, with a leverage ratio of 80%.

As the planner of the entire plan, the core of Jon Gray's plan is to poach Christopher Nassetta, believing that Nassetta is the key to bringing Hilton back to life.

At Hilton, Gray and Nassetta worked well at the beginning, but the good times didn’t last long. When the world financial crisis hit in 2008, the economy fell into recession due to the outbreak of the financial tsunami. Blackstone and its partners seemed to feel that the price they paid was too high , used too much debt, and picked the worst possible time to complete the deal.

Some partners, including the famous Lehman Brothers, are about to cease to exist. After the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the tourism industry declined severely, and Hilton’s performance also declined. Global sales fell by 20%, and cash flow fell by about 30%. For a moment, it seemed that Nassetta's hopes of reviving Hilton would never be realized.

To make matters worse, its competitor, Starwood Hotels & Resorts International, sued Hilton in the federal court, accusing Hilton's employees of stealing Starwood's successful "W Hotel Franchise Program". Yang Cheng, who was still studying at the time, was very impressed by this Profound, because Wall Street is about to turn upside down, Starwood said it was "obvious corporate espionage, theft of trade secrets, unfair competition and computer fraud", the US Department of Justice agreed and began to investigate Starwood's allegations.

However, with the support of Hamilton James, the two finally persevered. As the financial crisis gradually went away, and the "buyit, fixit, sellit" adopted by Jon Gray and Christopher Nassetta (buy, fix, Sell)” strategy has brought a new look to Hilton (this strategy has also been included in many business school textbooks as a classic teaching case).

With many years of rich management experience in the hotel industry, Christopher Nassetta implemented a series of innovation plans as soon as he took office, including relocating the headquarters from Beverly Hills, California to Virginia, replacing senior management personnel, and substantially reducing operating costs.

Blackstone Group also increased investment in Hilton and restructured its debts. In December 2013, Hilton went public in the United States, which became the largest IPO in the global hotel industry at that time. After the successful listing, Blackstone Group, Hilton's largest shareholder, also became The biggest winner, at this time, Hilton's market value has more than doubled.

After the reorganization and listing, the Blackstone Group boldly promoted Hilton's franchise strategy, which allowed Hilton to blossom hotels with the Hilton brand everywhere with very little investment.

Under Blackstone's stewardship, the number of hotel rooms in the Hilton system has nearly doubled to 900,000, with 350,000 more rooms in the pipeline, and Hilton has launched new brands to appeal to more age groups, different class of customers.

In addition, Hilton has also boosted its revenue through some lucrative real estate transactions. In 2014, Hilton transferred the ownership of its iconic hotel, the building where the Waldorf Astoria New York is located, to the State Z Anbang Insurance Group for $1.95 billion. Hilton is also trying to create more value for shareholders by spinning off the real estate unit it owns, a move that has directly boosted Hilton's stock price.

Not long after Hilton went public, Blackstone Group, which integrated and handled the hotel business well, also began to reduce its shareholding and recover investment costs.

Since 2014, the Blackstone Group has gradually cleared its holdings of Hilton stocks through multiple transactions, and each transaction represents a large amount of money.

Blackstone and its investors aren't the only ones benefiting from Hilton's turnaround. Christopher Nassetta has also received some $250 million worth of Hilton stock, although as CEO he may not be able to sell his shares for the time being.

Of course, this is the opinion of the outside world. Yang Cheng, who is in the center of an "era" at this time, can't see it that way. The Blackstone Group is ready to cash out and run away. What reason does Nassetta continue to keep the shares? Unless he can gain the trust of the new board of directors, he will continue to serve as the CEO of Hilton Group.

Quickly extracted the relevant information in his mind, and stared at Hamilton James intently, wanting to see what he could say.

However, Yang Cheng was disappointed. Hamilton James did not hide his real passion at all, and he spread his hands and said sincerely, "At that time, it was to make money, and the meaning of Blackstone Group's existence was to let our investors and shareholders keep investing We have benefited, we have reaped multiple profits from Hilton, and it is time to retire and hand it over to the next owner who is willing to hold it for a long time and is willing to work hard for Hilton."

Yang Cheng squinted his eyes. He really did not expect Hamilton James to dare to tell the truth, because facing him, a potential acquirer, it is normal for people to praise Hilton as a flower and describe a bright future. James But he did the opposite. He is worthy of being the captain of the Blackstone Group.

I praised Hamilton James in my heart, but sneered, "Based on Hilton's current stock price, 25% of the shares are worth more than 6 billion US dollars. Why do you think I am willing to pay such a high price for the acquisition? Become a puppet launched by the Blackstone Group?

You also said that the potential of the Hilton Group has almost been squeezed out by the Blackstone Group. If I want to rely on the dividends of the Hilton Group to recover my investment, I may have to wait until I retire. Do you think I have this patience?

Don't tell me about Hilton's brand value. This brand can never belong to anyone other than the Hilton family, including me and you Blackstone Group! "()

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