Chapter 983 400 Billion
Simon did not ask to keep a low profile, so that afternoon, the news that the Victoria's Secret show was about to be suspended quickly spread, and it was initially regarded as fake news. However, when some well-informed people got the exact reply from the people on the scene in the morning, the media immediately exploded. the pot.
The first is that the major online portal platforms directly push the news to the headlines.
After all, there has been no official announcement, and some press releases have been deviated, thinking that this year's Victoria's Secret show, which has been continuously reported before, will be suspended. Even if it is quickly clarified, too many people still find it unbelievable. .
This is a super show known as the "Super Bowl of Fashion" once it has an average of tens of millions of viewers.
Even if we don't mention the high market gains that this big show has brought to the Victoria's Secret brand in recent years, even the big show itself, which has averaged tens of millions of videotape sales in the past few years, also means hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. actual benefit.
Give up so suddenly?
Simon Westeros isn't crazy, is he?
Starting Saturday afternoon, not only all the executives related to the Victoria's Secret brand and even the LTD group, but even Simon received a series of calls to inquire about the news, and attended the Daenerys Entertainment East Coast management party in the evening, Robert Iger and others He also looked suspiciously suspicious of whether Simon had been under too much pressure recently and had mental problems.
The next day, the wider traditional media began to join the discussion, and the situation became more lively.
Cersei Capital's Apollo Management Company, the largest shareholder of Victoria's Secret parent company LTD Group, is the first to bear the brunt.
At the beginning, the Apollo Management Company team acquired the LTD Group with an all-cash value of 2.45 billion US dollars. According to the usual operation methods of private equity, they basically held it for about 5 years, and then re-listed and cashed out the position. The LTD group merger case was completed in 1992, and next year will be the fifth year.
Therefore, the LTD group has also been quietly planning to re-list.
Simon suddenly announced that Victoria's Secret will be stopped after this year. Even if it is suspended, it will inevitably have an impact on the listing of the LTD group next year. After all, this fashion show will drive the LTD group too obviously.
Facing the eager inquiry of Leon Black, the head of Apollo Management Company, Simon also explained patiently.
It was Simon's idea to stop the Victoria's Secret show at the right time. He didn't want Victoria's Secret to rely too much on this show, and he didn't want the entire LTD group to have the light of the Victoria's Secret brand. Completely cover up. In recent years, the fast fashion brand Express under the LTD group has developed equally rapidly, but it has been completely overshadowed by the brilliance of Victoria's Secret.
All in all, Simon hopes that the company can calm down, rethink its product and marketing strategies, and take the next step of expansion with a more rational mind.
Mainly overseas expansion.
Before that, because the Victoria's Secret show was so eye-catching, everyone was almost indulging in the bubbles brought by the show, ignoring many of the company's own problems, just like the former Victoria's Secret, when a big The show was suspended, all the accumulated problems broke out, and the entire company almost went to a stranger.
Moreover, even without this big show, with the rapid growth of LTD in recent years, coupled with the hot state of the US stock market at this time, the market value of the IPO next year is expected to reach the level of 10 billion US dollars.
From the original $2.45 billion to $10 billion, in five years, the average annual return exceeds 60%, which is already very worthy of investors. As a successful project invested by Apollo Management Company, of course, it will not be fully cashed out at one time, and there is still considerable room for growth in the future, which can continue to bring returns.
At the same time, announcing the suspension this year, rather than announcing the suspension after the IPO next year, has also avoided many potential lawsuits.
After all, the influence of this big show is indeed too great. If it is announced to suspend the operation after the re-listing next year, it will inevitably impact the stock price, and even trigger a class action lawsuit by shareholders against the malicious manipulation of the Westeros system to suppress the stock price. Now, LTD is still privatized status, there is no such problem.
From his own standpoint, Leon Black actually couldn't agree with Simon's statement, but he couldn't refute it either.
Simon's idea is entirely for the long-term development of the LTD Group. As a private equity, it is often necessary to obtain more benefits in the shortest possible time. It can be said that there are obvious potential conflicts of interest.
However, Simon is the big boss behind all this after all.
The boss has the final say.
Secondly, the model circle is simply mourning.
Just like the shocked reaction of the big goblins who first heard the news, they lost the most powerful exposure platform for the Victoria's Secret show. How can you take shortcuts to become famous in the future? !
Unfortunately, as the bottom of the food chain in the big circle, these goblins, big and small, have no right to speak.
Even, if Simon is not the biggest BOSS at the top of the pyramid of the entire Westeros system, but is only the high-level Victoria's Secret who made the decision, a certain group of cool goblins may have been in trouble. In the original time and space, Victoria's Secret The show has been peaceful for 20 years. The big show just stopped, and the goblins immediately rebelled.
Joint letter.
Sue for harassment.
Expose and report all kinds of discrimination against Wei Mi.
Coupled with the sluggish performance of Victoria's Secret itself, under the impact of public opinion, this veteran company was further pushed into the abyss.
Anyway, what does that say.
Um……
It was forced anyway.
In any case, now that a decision has been made, West
Meng has no intention of making a higher decision by himself.
After spending the weekend in New York, Simon departed for London on Sunday afternoon.
The trip to Europe is expected to last a week.
The main agenda here is for the investment promotion of the continuous issuance of bonds by the Westeros system in the second half of the year. Several investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, who are responsible for bond issuance, hope that Simon can attend in person.
Simon arrived in London on Monday, local time. On the same day, on July 15, Igret officially released its financial report for the first half of 1996.
Since Igreat’s total revenue has exceeded 10 billion US dollars, the performance growth rate of this Internet giant has been slowing down. After all, the volume is here, and it is not realistic to continuously double the growth as it did at the beginning. In 1995, Igreat's annual revenue growth rate was 78% year-on-year. This year, the industry generally believes that Igreat's annual revenue growth will be reduced to about 50%.
Facts have proved that due to the madness of the new technology industry, the market obviously still underestimates the performance growth of Igret.
In the first half of 1996, Igreat's total revenue in the two quarters reached 13.91 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 61% compared with the first two quarters of last year, significantly exceeding the industry's expectations of about 50%.
Not only that, because the gross profit of many businesses of Igreat is very high, and the entire new technology industry is burning money almost uncontrollably, even if more income is used to develop business, Igreat's first half of the year The net profit rate still exceeded 10%, and finally reached 11.9%, and the net profit was an astonishing 1.655 billion US dollars.
The half-year revenue was 13.91 billion US dollars and the net profit was 1.655 billion US dollars. Speaking of which, this is almost the revenue volume that many Internet giants in Simon's memory can achieve after 10 years. Not to mention that in 1996 in the original time and space, most Internet companies had not even formed a sustainable business model.
However, this performance is real.
The general environment of the Internet industry in the United States has been in place as early as the 1970s and 1980s. Simon, with his forward-looking vision, not only fully promoted the development of the Internet industry with the power of the entire Westeros system at least five years in advance, but also A series of mature business models were launched directly.
In addition, Igret also owns the Internet infrastructure software and other businesses with monopoly advantages, which is equivalent to the kind of toll bridge that Warren Buffett sees without competitors and can freely set prices.
Internet basic tools, software, web portals, search engines, cloud computing, e-commerce, software stores, game malls and other businesses are still in the relatively early stage of development, but at this time Igret is almost equal to the later A collection of major Internet giants.
All in all, compared to many new technology companies that are just "storytelling" at this time, Igret has left all potential competitors far away.
To put it in a more clichéd phrase, Igret's current enemy is only himself.
Moreover, according to Simon's potential plan, the company will inevitably be split in the future. Once split, it will be a super industry earthquake that is far more vigorous than the original AT-T being dismembered. After all, the original AT-T, Even if it is a super industry giant, the market value at the time of splitting is less than 100 billion.
Igret is destined to be a supergiant with a trillion-dollar market value.
In any case, on the day of July 15, Igreit's revenue and net profit data exceeded expectations, which directly drove the company's stock price to rise sharply again.
On the trading day on Monday alone, Igreit's share price rose by 3.6% in a single day, and the increase of more than 3% seems to be insignificant for other companies, but don't forget, this is already close to 400 billion before. Igret in dollar size.
With a stock price increase of 3.6%, the market value of this emerging Internet company Big Mac broke through the US$400 billion mark in one fell swoop. At the close of the afternoon, the market value of Igreit had reached US$410.3 billion.
In just one day, the total value of the shares held by all Igret shareholders was worth $14.7 billion because of the 3.6% increase.
Compared with Igreit's $400 billion volume, the market value growth of $14.7 billion seems to be insignificant, but the $14.7 billion is still more than the market value of more than 90% of the companies in the U.S. stock market at this time. It can only be said that the market value of Igret is too high, so high that it is numbing.
Just like later, the five major technology giants in the US stock market, FAANG, are often worth hundreds of billions of trillions of dollars, but there are actually too many companies hovering in the range of ten billion dollars. For the five technology giants, they can only look up.
Igreit led the way. On the same Monday, Cisco, AOL, Microsoft, Intel, Tinkerbell, Oracle and other companies all saw their stock prices rise. In fact, it is also because the recent period of intensive release of financial reports in the middle of the year, and even some analysts believe that the end of July, the Nasdaq index may rush to 5,000 points.
5000 points, this is the peak reached in Simon's memory around 2000.
If it really breaks through in July, it may really lead to the unsustainable burst of the new technology bubble before the US election in November.
In practice this is not the case.
Igret’s performance has really exceeded expectations, there is no doubt about it, but some people are happy, some people are worried, Igret’s outstanding performance does not mean that the performance of other new technology companies is also dazzling. .
The same July, in addition to Cisco's growth due to global demand for network equipment
In addition to continuing to increase and continue to increase significantly, the next three technology giants in the Westeros system, AOL, because the Internet penetration rate in the United States continues to increase and even becomes saturated, at least in the local area, the performance growth has obviously begun to slow down.
As a result, AOL's mid-year earnings report was lower than expected.
In addition, although the entire new technology industry is still crazy, the popularity of its own business areas is significantly higher than that of other operator areas. In fact, it means that the saturation level is higher and the growth potential is reduced. AOL is still issuing bonds in the overall situation. And to carry out large-scale infrastructure expansion, which seems to have some blind tendencies.
At this stage, the entire new technology industry is almost blind, but this does not mean that everyone cannot see the excessive investment tendency of AOL.
As a result, AOL's stock price has fluctuated up and down recently.
In the eyes of investors, AOL urgently needs to develop new businesses and increase overseas expansion.
In fact, the direction is very clear.
The "Telecommunication Act" of the Clinton administration has touched the business barriers between the telecommunications industries. AOL should take advantage of the trend to develop fixed-line telephone, cable TV and other businesses, and at the same time further break through its previous business areas, especially to develop overseas business.
However, although there are occasional rumors, AOL's actual action on this seems to be a bit slow.
So it is inevitable to be urged by the capital market.
The most direct response is also the stock price.
America Online has been at the bottom of the Westeros system's three tech giants in market value, and has grown even further in recent months.
On the same day on July 15th, after Igret’s market value of 410.3 billion US dollars, Cisco’s market value also rushed to the next 375.6 billion US dollars, while AOL’s market value was only 269.7 billion US dollars. Gretel and Cisco opened a gap of hundreds of billions of dollars.
In addition to the three giants, in the same new technology field, Tinkerbell can be said to have come from behind.
With the great success of the iRec series of digital video camera products released this year, Tinkerbell has three flagship products, namely iPlayer, iCam and iRec, and the annual sales of the three products have exceeded 10 million levels, and because of the Internet rapid growth, and continues to increase.
As a result, when the IPO was listed, Tinkber, which broke through the 100 billion level, as of the close on July 15, the market value has reached a high of 226.3 billion US dollars.
Another $200 billion corporate giant.
Coupled with Daenerys Entertainment in the traditional media entertainment field, the closing market value of the day was $353.7 billion.
Suddenly, people are paying attention to one thing again. What is Simon Westeros worth now?