New week.
It was Monday, October 6, and a group of people from the seafront estate in San Lucas, Baja California Sur, set off before 7:30 in the morning.
A weekend of fun and exhaustion.
Britney Spears, Vanessa Johnson and other girls didn't feel a little more energetic until they boarded Simon's Boeing 767. When they came over last Friday, they just took an ordinary Gulfstream V-type. This was the first time they entered the legendary Simon's Boeing.
However, curiosity could not resist the exhaustion. After the plane took off and basically circled the cabin, the girls ran to the cabin bedroom to catch up on their sleep.
Except for Simon, only the older three girls Amy Adams, Jessica Chastain and Lena Kane did not take a break. Lena officially informed Amy that she was about to quit her current job and become the agent for Jesse. Card thing.
Now that she has fallen in love with Simon, Lina can actually poach both women together without any consequences. However, she did not intend to do this. Taking care of two competing actresses who were expected to be on the front line at the same time, it was difficult to achieve equal treatment. Over time, discord would inevitably arise, so it was better to choose only one.
More importantly, of course, Lina now has more choices.
Not only Jessica Chastain and Paul Greengrass, but also "Blair Witch", which is about to be handed over to Paul Greengrass, was almost handed over to Lena in a package by Simon, which is enough for her to be busy for a long time Time, and develop a few more potential customers by the way.
Unlike the girls who ran to catch up on their sleep, Simon boarded the plane and immediately started busy work.
It's morning on the west coast of the United States, and it's already evening on the Asian side.
Simon sat down in the office in the front cabin of the Boeing 767, and the first news he got was that the Hong Kong stock market had plummeted.
In fact, after reaching the highest level of 16,000 points in early August, along with the Asian financial turmoil, the Hong Kong stock market has experienced two rounds of sharp declines and surges in the past two months, each cycle lasting about one month.
Among them, there was a sharp drop from the end of August to the beginning of September, from the highest point of more than 16,000 points to more than 12,000 points, a drop of nearly a quarter of the Hong Kong stock index. There was another trough from early September to early October, and the lowest point also entered the 13,000-point range, and finally returned to 15,000 points.
As of last Friday's close, the Hang Seng Index was 15,133 points.
Ordinary people, faced with these two rounds of ups and downs, would only think of them as normal stock market fluctuations during the financial crisis. Even most financial practitioners would find it difficult to see clearly the links. However, for some top players, the inside story is actually clear.
The two consecutive rounds of sharp declines and sharp rises are all international speculators hoarding chips to absorb stocks.
During this period, the governments of most countries in Asia have focused on currencies, and the same applies to Hong Kong. Seeing the collapse of currencies such as the Thai baht, Indonesian rupiah, and Malaysian ringgit, Hong Kong has begun to strictly guard against it. Increase short-term currency lending rates.
However, this time, the target of international speculators is not the Hong Kong dollar, but the Hong Kong stock market, which has more than doubled in value in the past two years and is extremely frothy. It can even be said that the Hong Kong authorities' strict guard against the Hong Kong dollar has resulted in a lack of cash in the market, which has largely caused the Hong Kong stock market to become more fragile.
Just today, unlike the previous two fluctuations, the real attack officially began.
Throughout the day on October 6, the Hong Kong stock market fell 2.3%, from 15,133 points at the opening to 14,776 points at the closing price. The 2.3% drop may not seem like much, but it was the largest single-day drop in the past 30 days.
And this is just the beginning.
Simon had a detailed understanding of the general situation of the Hong Kong stock market throughout the day on Monday, and had several consecutive phone calls with China and New York to discuss various matters.
Hong Kong Simon will definitely not touch it.
However, in North America, starting last month, the hedging team of Cersei Fund Management Company has begun to establish a large number of short positions in the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and even specific popular stocks.
You know, in the past history, the first circuit breaker in the U.S. stock market after the circuit breaker mechanism was established after the 1987 stock market crash was in October 1997. To be precise, it was October 27, 1997, when the Dow Jones index fell in a single day. More than 7%.
At this time and space, due to the premature collapse of the Nasdaq index in March, the first circuit breaker in the US stock market has occurred, but that was Nasdaq.
The Dow Jones virgin circuit breaker is still there.
Speaking of which, according to Soros's 'reflexive theory', market participants will in turn affect the market trend. It doesn't matter if they are small fish or shrimps. The bigger the players in the market, the greater the impact they will have on the market. And Weiss The Tello system is such a giant dragon, and the slightest movement can cause big winds and waves.
Therefore, not only the Nasdaq index, but also the Dow Jones index trend is also different from before because of the addition of a giant like Daenerys Entertainment.
In March this year, before the Nasdaq crashed, the Dow Jones index had reached a high of close to 8,000 points.
However, compared to the gloomy technology stock market, the Dow Jones Index only followed the Nasdaq's decline for three months before rebounding in the second half of the year. The Asian financial turmoil in recent months has stimulated the dollar's flight back, and the Dow Jones Index is different from the Nasdaq, which is still falling, has been rising more rapidly recently, and has returned to a high of over 7,000 points during this period.
However, under the wave of globalization, when the impact on related markets exceeds a certain limit, it will be difficult for other countries and regions to survive alone.
With the arrival of the second wave of the financial turmoil, U.S. stocks will also be hit this time.
Even if the previous meltdown level does not happen again, the downward trend can basically be judged. Of course, as a latecomer, Simon's judgment is far more accurate than others, even if the Westeros system begins to seriously affect the market.
Of course I won't let go of such an opportunity.
There is no room for maneuver in the Nasdaq market. With such an obvious decline, if no one follows up, it will be difficult for Cersei Capital to establish a short position. After all, the hedging market is a zero-sum game. It doesn’t mean you can establish a short position of 10 billion US dollars. Someone needs to bet on the same long position.
The Dow Jones and S&P 500, which have returned to their highs, are the hot spots for speculation recently.
While Simon can be more accurate in being bearish, many people are also bullish, believing that the U.S. dollar will continue to flow back, thereby pushing up the market.
Therefore, despite being asked by Simon to give up the fat piece of Hong Kong, neither Cersei Capital nor Soros's Quantum Fund are idle. As long as the local operation is done properly, the profits will not be much less than those in Hong Kong.
In the forward cabin study.
Just as Simon hung up the video call from a person in charge of Cersei Fund Management Company, Girl A's internal phone called, indicating that Soros was on the line.
Connect video communication again.
After greeting him, Simon learned that Soros had left New York and was currently in Hong Kong. He also said that he had just secretly met with a certain big boss in China during the day.
This surprised Simon.
Soros did not sell out, and then said: "Simon, after careful consideration in recent days, I have decided to accept your opinion."
Simon looked at the smiling old man on the computer video screen and smiled too: "Wise choice."
At the same time, I understood immediately.
Now that the decision has been made, and coupled with the secret meeting Soros just mentioned, it is obvious that this financial giant intends to follow Simon to bet on China without any reservation. If nothing unexpected happens, he will also turn around in the future. Target the international speculators in Hong Kong in order to directly obtain a big favor.
This was Simon's original plan, and Soros has now put aside Simon as the middleman.
Simon doesn't mind that either.
In any case, it was the result of his lobbying and mediation, and this kind of favor could not be ignored.
Soros was still smiling: "You may have guessed it. Yes, I will follow your original suggestion and choose to speak out publicly, including making substantial investments in China. This is why I contacted you suddenly. Simon, I am here. There is a good list that has been passed on to your assistant. After all, I am not familiar with China. It would be better if you could participate together. Oh, to be honest with you, this is also the suggestion given to me by the person I met today. He hopes I can catch you."
As Soros said, Girl A had already knocked on the door and came in. She gently put down a just-printed document and left again.
Simon opened it directly.
I glanced at the catalog and looked a little weird when I saw the first project.
Hangzhou Xiaoshan Airport.
Soros really has a soft spot for investing in China’s aviation sector.
In my memory, a certain large-scale domestic aviation consortium that Duoduo eventually went bankrupt was invested by Soros in its early days.
Keep aiming downward.
Suzhou-Hangzhou Expressway.
It's another big project, and it's an area that Simon doesn't really want to touch.
China is still in the development stage. However, Simon certainly knows that with the subsequent economic boom, especially in the Yangtze River Delta, the oil and water on the highways are too thick and there are too many knots.
Simon still remembers a joke.
A certain entrepreneur was borrowed by the local government and could not repay it due to the financial crisis. He simply built a high-speed toll station and said that the debt would be paid off in five years. As a result, all the debt was recovered within two years. Entrepreneurs are also wise. They instinctively feel that they cannot continue to take advantage of this, so they directly choose to dismantle the toll station to collect the arrears.
However, on the other hand, China's highways are crying and shouting for money.
There are so many things here that it’s hard to deal with them.
It wasn't until he saw the third project that Simon became slightly interested.
China Telecom.
This is obviously not the Hong Kong branch of China Telecom listed in Hong Kong and New York. To be precise, the Hong Kong branch is the predecessor of China Mobile. It is currently mainly engaged in mobile communications business. After the IPO last year, it is gradually divesting mobile communications assets in various provinces in the country. enter.
I glanced at the introduction attached to the catalogue. Financing is used for the construction of Internet broadband networks.
Many people don’t understand the origins of companies such as China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom. In fact, it is very simple. In the earliest days, except for the special China Railway Telecom, which belonged to the Ministry of Railways, all other telecommunications companies came from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. China Mobile was the first independent company. At the end of the decade, it was listed under the name of China Telecom (Hong Kong) Company and used financing to expand its mobile communications business.
Because it got its head start and took the first step, China Mobile has always been stronger than other companies in the field of mobile communications. Later, both China Telecom and China Unicom were separated from the postal and telecommunications network. During this period, there were also China Netcom, China Satcom, etc.
Then, there was a fierce battle among the heroes, and finally it came down to three families.
Now, depending on the situation, domestic telecom, mobile, China Unicom and other giants will be established earlier than before.
Although there are only three projects, even if he hasn’t seen the detailed introduction, Simon can roughly guess that the total is at the level of US$1 billion.
One billion U.S. dollars is really small money for Simon, but for Soros, even if he now holds more than 20 billion U.S. dollars in funds, he will definitely be very cautious. After all, the money is not his, and it will be ruined if he messes up. Drop the Quantum Fund’s sign.
After probably reading the catalog, Simon opened the text and did not ignore Soros who was still online. He continued: "George, in this case, what are you going to do about Russia?"
Soros said: "I have begun to withdraw funds from the Russian stock market and bond market, because recently capital forces, including South Korean funds that have a large share of investment in Russia, are withdrawing. It is inevitable that there will be some losses, but it should be in time, and the industrial side will There are some troubles that need to be dealt with slowly."
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Simon just nodded slightly.
In fact, if you are not eager for quick success and quick profit, the industries Soros invests in Russia, whether they are minerals, energy, or telecommunications, are quite high-quality assets. If you manage them patiently, you will definitely get good results.
However, in this regard, Simon does not need to confide in the old man.
If the other party insists on withdrawing from the sale, Simon has long considered that, for example, the assets of Russian Telecom Investment Co., Ltd. can be bought by him and slowly run.
Simon has the patience.
Of course, it’s really a fire sale, so it’s not Soros’s fault.
Generally speaking, Quantum Fund is an investment fund that pursues short-term interests. Even in the field of equity investment, it hopes to achieve results in three to five years and then cash out and exit.
Simon's side has been operating for ten years without any problems.
Seeing Simon's noncommittal, Soros smiled and asked: "Simon, do you mind if I participate in the Ukraine side? I mean, Rivne Oblast?"
"No problem," Simon said cheerfully: "But, George, frankly speaking, there is no room for speculation in Rivno. They are all relatively long-term industrial investments."
"As long as the reward is reasonable." Soros said this. Seeing Simon's eyes not leaving the documents in front of him, he continued: "In this case, Simon, let's stop here today. It's past midnight here in Hong Kong. I'm an old man. You are going to rest. After you finish reading the documents in your hand, give me a call tomorrow."
But Simon stopped the old man: "George, I almost forgot one thing. When are you going to take action in Hong Kong?"
"This issue is somewhat sensitive."
Simon just smiled and looked at the other person.
Soros was deadlocked for a moment, then laughed and gave a number: "10,000 points."
Simon nodded.
After saying goodbye, the other party hung up the line first.
10,000 points is naturally when the Hang Seng Index falls to around 10,000 points.
This is also expected.
If Soros immediately jumps out and goes against the mainstream hot money, it will only delay the collapse of the Hang Seng Index, but will not help the general trend, just like Simon would not support the 7,000 points of the Nasdaq.
When the Hang Seng Index falls back to 10,000 points, it is already a reasonable position relative to the entire Hong Kong stock market, which is backed by the mainland. At this time, Soros came forward again to express his bullish attitude, and even reached many cooperations with mainland China based on Hong Kong, which achieved the best results.
As for when the Hang Seng Index will fall back to 10,000 points, it is not far away, probably by the end of this month.
Obviously, the three projects in Simon’s hands also need to finalize various details before the end of the month.
Simon spent more than ten minutes reading the information in his hand.
Three projects.
Hangzhou's Xiaoshan Airport has been planned since 1993 and is expected to break ground at the end of the year. It will be temporarily used to raise as much foreign capital as possible to ease financial pressure. After all, China's various domestic industries are now short of money, and they don't have much confidence in the aviation field.
The total investment of the project is 2 billion yuan, and it is planned to sell 35% of the shares and raise 700 million yuan.
The reason why Soros was chosen was probably Simon's original idea. The old man had a soft spot for the aviation industry.
However, compared to an aviation consortium that ended in bankruptcy, Hangzhou Xiaoshan Airport, which ranks among the top in domestic throughput in China, is obviously a high-quality project.
Then there is.
The Suzhou-Hangzhou Expressway, to be precise, should be the Sujia-Hangzhou Expressway, passing through Jiaxing on the way, with a total length of about 100 kilometers, and a planned investment of 4 billion yuan.
Compared with Xiaoshan Airport, which is about to start construction, this project is still just a plan.
The notes in the materials are very detailed.
The main reason is that there is no money. Various aspects have been proposed for more than ten years, but nothing has been achieved.
This project hopes to fully introduce foreign investment.
at last.
Another round of financing from China Telecom, planned to be US$2 billion, the largest amount among the three projects.
However, seriously speaking, US$2 billion is not even a drop in the bucket for broadband network construction.
Just take AOL, even if the Internet bubble has burst and investment in all aspects has tightened, it is expected that this year will only be used for investment in domestic infrastructure in the United States, which is expected to be 2 billion U.S. dollars. If overseas markets are included, this number will exceed 3 billion U.S. dollars. .
Moreover, since the basic network needs to be continuously upgraded and maintained, this scale of investment will continue.
Simon was originally only interested in the last project. Thinking of what Soros said just now, and looking at the first two projects, it was either Suzhou or Hangzhou, and he couldn't help but laugh.
It's unlikely to be a coincidence.
Let's just put it aside for now, I'm going to China this weekend to spend the full moon of some little guy in Hangzhou, and we'll talk about it then.
Then I handled some other work, and at around nine o'clock, the Boeing 767 landed at Los Angeles International Airport.
The girls got off the plane and went their separate ways, with Simon heading straight to Malibu Studios.
At 10 o'clock, Daenerys's weekly high-level meeting will be attended by executives from Los Angeles.
After the meeting, Simon called the heads of the three studios to talk about some projects.
Mainly about the sentence 'all' yesterday afternoon.
Of course Simon didn't just talk about it casually to trick the girls into making himself comfortable, he had some thoughts that he had in mind.
Next, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera will successively debut under Daenerys Records. In addition to their music career, since Daenerys has their backing, they can also expand into movies.
And there just happened to be the right project.
The former "High School Musical" series.
Simon had tagged the project last year when he was considering a teen film project, but is only now bringing it forward.
Unlike the East, which accepts incompetence, musicals have always had a very broad market in the West.
In the original time and space, Disney launched the first "High School Musical" in 2006. It was originally just a low-cost TV movie broadcast on the Disney Channel. I had no expectations. Unexpectedly, it unexpectedly caused a trend, which not only broke the Disney The channel's ratings record, and the film's soundtrack also sold well around the world.
Starring Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale also became the biggest teen stars.
Disney then struck while the iron was hot and launched the second part to achieve greater success. So in response to public expectations, the third part was sent to theaters. In the end, with a production cost of 11 million US dollars, the global revenue was 250 million US dollars.
Now, Simon has made this project ahead of schedule, with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera replacing Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale in the original version, and the leading actor Simon also Directly finalized, Justin Timberlake, who has also been cultivated by Daenerys Entertainment Records.
Speaking of which, the former "High School Musical" has a close relationship with Britney and others.
This project was originally a script called "Grease 3", which was the "Grease" that made John Travolta famous in one fell swoop. The script was completed in the late 1990s, and the protagonist was set to be Travolta. The three leading actors invited by Tower's Children happened to be Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and John Travolta was also considered to join in as a guest star.
The project was shelved for various reasons until a few years later when Disney stripped the sequel to "Grease" and made it into a TV movie.
A huge success.
Now, not only does it mean 'advance' copying, but it also means 'returning the thing to its original owner'.
Although it was destined to be a small film with an investment of only about 10 million, because of the subject matter, The High School was too literary and The New World was too bloody, Simon still chose to place it under the Daenerys label as the core.
I told Daenerys Pictures President Tom Pollack about this and sent him away first. Then I talked with Ella Deutschman of Highgate Pictures about "Elizabeth" and other projects. Simon finally stayed. New World Pictures' Danny Morris continues to talk about what's next for teen movies.
The summer release of "American Pie" has been released some time ago, with a box office of US$113 million in North America and continuing overseas. Judging from the current data, it will probably be between US$140 million and US$150 million, with a total global box office of US$250 million. above. With this successful foundation, the sequel to the project has been approved, but there must be no rush. "American Pie 2" will be at least two years away, so a new main title needs to be developed.