Chapter 468 372 Buy Buy Buy
Chapter 468 372. Buy, buy, buy
…
1998 was a year of great changes.
It can even be described as erratic.
The first is the financial crisis that occurred in Southeast Asia last year, which triggered a major earthquake.
Last year, on July 2, 1997, the Asian financial crisis swept through Thailand.
Soon, the storm spread to Malaysia, Singapore, Neon and Bangzi countries, China and other places.
The currencies of countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, and other countries have depreciated sharply, which has also caused sharp declines in most major stock markets in Asia;
It has impacted foreign trade companies in various Asian countries, resulting in the collapse of many large Asian companies, unemployment of workers, and social and economic depression.
It broke the rapid economic development in Asia.
The economies of some of Asia's major economic powers have begun to slump, and the political situation in some countries has also begun to be chaotic.
Thailand, Indonesia and Indonesia are the countries most affected by the financial crisis.
Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Xiangjiang, China were also affected, while mainland China and Taiwan, China were barely affected.
This major crisis event is called the Asian financial crisis.
The Japanese yen also began to depreciate, from 1 US dollar to 96 yen last year, falling all the way, and by the end of January this year, it had fallen below the 110-point mark.
If this momentum continues, it will soon break through 120 points.
…
Troubled people will only get trapped in crises, but wise people have already seen opportunities in crises.
Especially for time travelers like Qing Zhiyuan, all crises that occur on this timeline will contain valuable business opportunities and can even change the future.
Qing Zhiyuan doesn’t have much memory of the Asian financial crisis because he was still a little kid back then. The only things that he remembers are:
The first thing is that many big short sellers in history have taken advantage of the situation. Especially after seeing the Asian financial crisis spread to Xiangjiang, China, countless international buyers have stepped aside and want to harvest the financial market of Xiangjiang, China.
To this end, Xiangjiang has introduced a series of policies, and the invisible hand is also providing support to Xiangjiang, starting a battle to defend the Xiangjiang stock market.
Many local residents even sold off their collections of gold jewelry and other items just to protect Xiangjiang.
In the end, the power of the great powers and the concerted efforts of the people repelled these foreign wolves. Many international speculators not only failed to eat meat in this battle of Xiangjiang, but also lost many of their teeth.
However, even if the tooth is broken, it can only be swallowed, so after that, the international speculators left the market sadly, and China Xiangjiang won a complete victory.
Qing Zhiyuan is quite impressed. The second thing is that after the devaluation of the yen, it seems that it has never recovered and has never regained 100 points. It will almost be stabilized at around 130 in the future.
Therefore, the top priority now is to spend the money on hand quickly while the depreciation of the yen is not that serious.
Fortunately, pokeni and Yuehe are actually not very pure local Neon companies. They are companies with subsidiaries and other assets in the Oumi region. Foreign income actually accounts for a high proportion of pokeni's income, even more than that of Neon local companies. The income is even higher.
These are all due to the globalization and internationalization route of P Club's games.
Therefore, compared to some companies that rely heavily on the local market and have relatively small foreign exchange reserves, pokeni is relatively less nervous.
Moreover, in addition to currency depreciation, the main impact of the Asian financial crisis is on the real industry. On the contrary, gaming companies like pokeni are the least affected.
However, even in the least affected industry, Qing Zhiyuan still has a sense of crisis. Pokeni still has money on hand. Taking advantage of the time when the depreciation of money is not so serious, it is the best way to convert the money into assets with potential. important.
In other words, the main task Qing Zhiyuan set for the company in the first half of this year is-
Buy buy buy!
…
Apart from the Asian financial crisis, which is the most eye-catching event, if you look back to the Neon game industry, you will actually find that this year has been a year of great changes.
First of all, Rentendo’s annual revenue last year, 1997, was as high as 4.3 billion U.S. dollars, equivalent to more than 480 billion yen in revenue, ranking second in the neon game industry.
The first place is naturally the well-deserved Sony.
Sony's total global revenue is US$11.2 billion, of which revenue from games exceeds US$5 billion, making it the bulk of the company's revenue.
And the third one is a rising star in the gaming industry——
pokeni.
Although pokeni is not a listed company and does not have to disclose its financial reports, according to calculations and statistics from some professional companies, P's total revenue last year was about 2.8 to 3 billion U.S. dollars. It can be said to be the fastest growing game company. ,none of them.
From a purely numerical perspective, pokeni seems to be far behind Rentendo and Sony.
However, if you analyze their numerical composition, you will find a terrible fact——
In terms of game sales alone, pokeni is now firmly in the top spot in Neon and even the world.
In addition to game sales, a large part of Rentendo's revenue comes from platform royalties, which is a 30% commission system. In other words, even if Rentendo does not develop new games, it can earn a considerable amount of revenue just by selling various games on the SFC, FC and N64 console platforms.
The same is true for Sony's $5 billion in revenue.
Since the PS was released in 1994, the global sales volume has exceeded 100 million copies. The revenue of the game console alone has reached a terrifying tens of billions of dollars. In addition, the games sold on it have at least hundreds of millions of copies a year. If it has not become the No. 1 game company in terms of revenue, it would be too unreasonable.
In addition, the two companies have other industries, so it is normal that the total revenue of all of them is higher than that of Pokeni.
However, in terms of game sales alone, the total number of games sold by Rentendo last year was 25 million sets, of which the Mario series accounted for a large proportion, followed by Dragon Quest, Zelda and Kirby...
And what was the total number of games sold by Pokeni last year?
More than 49 million copies, almost more than double that of Nintendo.
Among them, the Pokémon series alone provided more than 30 million copies of sales, and the other games combined are not as good as one Pokémon.
In fact, Pokémon has surpassed Nintendo in game sales.
However, since Paradox has never been listed and has not disclosed its income, the outside world's perception of this is not so clear and agile.
But this matter is an open secret in the industry.
Everyone knows that Pokémon's games sell very well, and I am afraid that they have already surpassed Nintendo, but the specific number is really unknown, and we can only estimate it based on market performance.
However, even the estimated number has exceeded the cognition of many people.
"What?! Pokeni sold nearly 50 million copies of the game last year?! Is it that scary?"
"This is just a market estimate, and no one knows the exact number.
But think about it, it seems quite reasonable.
Just Pokémon Sun and Moon, these two games have almost exceeded 10 million copies each since their release, right?
In addition to the later release of Pokémon Light/Dark...
There are also Demon Hunter 2 and Frontier.
Although the sales of these games in Japan don't seem to be very high, especially Frontier has never been sold in Japan, it can't resist the enthusiasm of Western players.
In addition to the sales of other games developed by Pokeni in the past, if the sales volume contributed is only 50 million copies, it seems a bit low.
I feel that according to Pokeni Keni's own financial statistics should show higher numbers than what we see. "
"How terrible! When did Paradox become so scary? Why do I think this company is still quite new?"
"From the time of its establishment, Pokeni is indeed a child, but its growth rate is fast enough, and it has suddenly transformed into a behemoth."
"It's mainly because Pokeni's games are too good, especially with such a big IP as Pokémon, it's hard not to make money."
"Ah, it's really abominable, it's too enviable, right?"
...
Game sales revenue is only part of it. Among Pokeni's other income structures, the sales of peripheral products account for the majority, and even the peripheral income is not less than the game income.
In addition to the contract signed by Pokeni and Sony to jointly develop PS, Paradox can actually enjoy a certain share of PS royalties, but the share ratio is relatively small.
After adding these revenues, according to the total financial report of Paradox last year obtained by Qing Zhiyuan, they had a total revenue of nearly 3.1 billion US dollars, which is still a lot less than the 4.3 billion US dollars of Rentoku.
However, people know the warmth and coldness of drinking water.
Although Pokeni's revenue is quite high, after deducting the company's expenses, there is actually not much left.
First, a tax is deducted, and then the remaining part is mainly used to fill the company's operating and product marketing expenses.
The main reason is that Paradox's expenses are indeed large enough.
The salaries, bonuses, and dividends of employees are part of it, and the company rents houses, water and electricity, plus the R&D costs of each game itself, the cost of CD printing, and the operating costs of subsidiaries, the publicity costs when the game is put on the shelves...
The usual advertising costs, as well as Pokeni's external investment...
Add up all the above and it's almost the same.
Especially the subsidiary, P-NET has not only not made a profit so far, but has also continued to lose money, and the amount of losses is also exaggerated.
Portal websites, official websites of various games, forums, RTT servers, networks, technology research and development... These are all very expensive things.
And the bigger the user base, the more money it burns.
So when Qing Zhiyuan saw the financial report compiled by the company's financial department after the New Year, his brows furrowed.
The figures for both income and expenditure are exaggerated.
After careful calculation, Pokeni now has about $2 billion in cash.
More than half of it is foreign exchange reserves, and part of it is the yen that is depreciating, which means that the cash on Paradox's hands will continue to shrink in a few months.
Spending it is the top priority.
…
Just when Qing Zhiyuan felt quite a headache, he received a call from the other side of the Atlantic.
The call was from Walter Forbes, the president of Cendant.
The first sentence he said was: "Mr. Qing, regarding your intention to acquire CUC Software under our company last year, if you have not changed your mind and intention to acquire it, I would like to invite you to discuss the relevant matters."
Yes, CUC Software is what Qing Zhiyuan wanted to buy in July last year.
To be precise, what he really wanted was just a small Blizzard under this huge industry.
"And the price can be negotiated."
The other party added another sentence.
Eh? !
Qing Zhiyuan was stunned for a moment, and his eyes rolled.
Good guy, how come he suddenly wanted to sell Cendant Software so sincerely after only a few months?
There must be something wrong when things are out of the ordinary. On the one hand, Qing Zhiyuan agreed with the other party on a specific negotiation time, and on the other hand, he began to send people to investigate the inside information of their sale of Cendant Software.
...
After an investigation, Qing Zhiyuan learned that:
It turned out that in October last year, CUC and HFS "merged on equal terms" to create a new company Cendant.
In other words, Blizzard now has a new grandfather.
HFS was originally a tool for private equity companies to acquire hotel franchises.
It has been for buying since its birth.
After buying a circle in the hotel market, it expanded to real estate, and finally hit it off with CUC, "merging on equal terms".
After the merger, Cendant established Cendant Software, a consumer software business unit.
It consists of Sierra, D&A (including Blizzard), Knowledge Adventure and Gryphon Software.
At this time, the old friend familiar to everyone appeared. The US FTC believed that this merger worth US$8.7 billion would create a monopoly in the global timeshare exchange service market, and thus required the divestiture of this part of the assets.
In January of this year, CUC's financials collapsed.
One of the world's largest financial scandals in the 1990s broke out.
CUC was exposed to a large number of accounting irregularities. In the three years before the merger, CUC fraudulently overstated its revenue by more than $500 million.
This caused Cendant's stock price to plummet from $39 to $9, causing shareholders to lose about $14 billion.
Cendant/CUC was eventually required to pay shareholders more than $2.85 billion in class action settlements.
CUC executives were sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and several senior executives were sentenced to up to 12 years in prison and required to pay billions of dollars in compensation.
After the disaster, Cendant began selling various business units to reduce debt and repair the losses caused by the accounting scandal.
…
Although Forbes denied knowledge of any accounting irregularities and erroneous practices, the investigation committee believes that Forbes and Hilton are responsible for the events at CUC.
First, as chairman and president, Forbes and Hilton have the responsibility to create an environment where employees at all levels know that falsifying financial statements is intolerable.
In fact, it can be seen from employee interviews, memos and work plans that many senior accounting and financial personnel participated in accounting violations.
Although the staff of the business department saw that these behaviors were problematic, they took a tacit attitude, which shows that CUC lacks a good environment to ensure the compliance of financial statements.
Second, even if they were unaware of the violations, senior management failed to conduct appropriate on-site control and detect the existence of violations.
Third, Forbes and Shelton, as the company's top management, have the responsibility to understand the source and true level of CUC's profits.
Even if they were unaware of the violations, the amount of CUC's inflated profits found in the restatement of the financial statements shows that they did not fully understand the source and level of the company's profits.
In other words, although Walter Forbes was not sentenced to prison, he had to bear important responsibilities.
In order to pay off debts and raise enough money to pay shareholders, Cendant is now forced to quickly sell some of the company's departments.
No wonder...
Qing Zhiyuan was also shocked after hearing the news.
This incident happened too suddenly, right?
Or Americans know how to play, and they are really bold.
...
However...
Qing Zhiyuan did not meet with Walter Forbes first, but met with several founders of Blizzard in private.
Through the mouth of Old Mac, Qing Zhiyuan once again confirmed the authenticity of the news.
These guys were obviously a little panicked.
It is also interesting to say that since the first sale of the company to D&A, the fate of Blizzard is no longer in its own hands, but has been packaged and sold again and again as an accessory.
If it is acquired by another company this time, then the new company will be the grandfather of Blizzard's grandfather.
The feeling that their fate has never been in their own hands made several people feel uncomfortable.
"Rather than being sold to a strange and unfamiliar buyer, we would rather join Pokeni." Mike said to Qing Zhiyuan.
At least Qing Zhiyuan is a person who understands games, and after they acquired Vulture, they did not intervene too much. They not only provided money, technology and channels, but also helped the game subsidiary to get on track.
Such a parent company is actually very rare.
It is precisely because of this that Mike and others hope that Qing Zhiyuan can make some efforts.
"Please, please ask Pokeni to acquire Blizzard."
...
After making sufficient preparations, the negotiations between Qing Zhiyuan and Cendant became much smoother.
On the one hand, the company's financial collapse caused a huge crisis, and it was impossible to make up for it on the books, so Cendant's board of directors was eager to sell related assets.
On the other hand, Qing Zhiyuan had communicated with Blizzard and others before, and they had reached a certain cooperation intention.
More importantly, Qing Zhiyuan has a strong willingness to buy, and Pokeni can really afford it.
Compared with the Blizzard of the past, the current Blizzard lacks Diablo, which means a large part of its revenue is missing. Currently, the only game it can show off is Warcraft. StarCraft didn't make much money last year.
In addition, the development cycle of Blizzard's people is slow.
For the company, they may not be good assets, and may even be negative assets, dragging down the company.
So the Cendant board of directors basically didn't think much and directly let Qing Zhiyuan buy Blizzard for $100 million.
……
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There is another chapter in the evening
About CUC, this chapter is about real events that happened in history. It was because of the financial scandal that Cendant sold the relevant departments at a low price.
In real history, after CUC went bankrupt, Cendant Software sold it to French publisher Havas for $800 million and could add up to $200 million based on its performance.
Later, Cendant Software was renamed Havas Interactive.
Blizzard was sold as a package to pay off debts during this crisis.
That is to say, Havas bought Cendant Software, which included Blizzard, Sierra, and a large number of game manufacturing and publishing companies, for $1 billion.
Later...
In 1998, Havas, which was originally a news agency, was acquired by Vivendi.
In 2001, Havas Interactive was renamed Vivendi Global Interactive Publishing.
After Vivendi acquired Havas, it carried out crazy layoffs. Many people from Sierra and Blizzard were laid off during this period.
In 2003, Vivendi reorganized it into Vivendi Games, which became a direct department of the group.