Simon rushed to San Francisco over the weekend to discuss with Jeff Bezos and other high-level executives of Igret about splitting the Chinese business, which went smoothly.
There is certainly no shortage of objections.
In a market with a population of 1.2 billion, the growth of Internet users is visible to the naked eye, and the Westeros system still has a very deep layout in China. At first glance, it sounds like giving up voluntarily, but no one can accept it immediately.
So Simon wasted a lot of time.
In fact, the main reason is that this withdrawal does not mean giving up completely, but converting the company independently controlled by Yigrit into a stock-holding remote control. Most of the interests are still retained. In addition, the software and service business is also preserved. This makes everyone The opposition was not that fierce. In addition, this can also be regarded as an exercise, a small exercise simulating the dismemberment of the entire Ygrit.
With the quiet recovery of the Internet industry, it has gradually been included in the agenda to take the initiative to split up Yigrit to prevent the company from becoming too big.
Simon initially considered a passive split.
It is to provoke an antitrust investigation by the federal authorities, and then be 'forced' to dismantle Igret under the pressure of Washington. To a certain extent, this can effectively ease the relationship between the Westeros system and the Washington authorities. potential confrontation.
As time goes by, initial thoughts inevitably change.
Human nature is greedy, which is determined by genes, and a government controlled by humans will inevitably push further.
If Washington puts pressure on the Westeros system and successfully 'pushes' Simon to be forced to split Ygritte, then the government team that made this performance will definitely gain considerable fame, and then attract more votes and win A higher support rate has many benefits.
Seeing that there are such benefits, and the Westeros system is so 'weak', who can guarantee that other politicians will not follow suit and pounce on it one after another
By then, it may not only be Ygritte who is entangled. Daenerys, Cersei Capital, Cisco, AOL and other giants of the Westeros system will also become targets. Who makes you 'weak'
Therefore, Simon decided to take the initiative to split Ygritte at the appropriate time.
In addition to discussing the divestment of the Chinese business, Simon also paid attention to the progress of merging Instagram this weekend.
In the past period of time, this has also been a high-profile merger in the new technology circle. Fortunately, during this period, Citigroup's acquisition of Travelers Group, a similarly large-scale merger, prevented Yigret's acquisition of Instagram from appearing. Stand out from the crowd.
After the project was made public, it inevitably triggered a lot of heated discussions, including some concerns about Yigret's alleged monopoly.
Everything went well in the end.
In the context of the recovery of new technologies, Yigrit, whose market value has once again exceeded the 500 billion mark, has eaten up the US$20 billion Instagram. In terms of size, it does not seem to be something that can change the industry structure. What's more, as we all know, Instagram is A member of the Westeros system, Ygritte has also been a shareholder and important partner of Instagram from the beginning.
One of the more concerning tidbits is that a group of women related to Simon successfully cashed out large sums of money and stocks.
After the Hearst Group failed miserably in challenging the Westeros system a few years ago, there were not many media outlets that dared to talk about Simon Westeros on a large scale. Therefore, this news was only spread on a small scale.
For the women here in the Bay Area, when Simon came this time, the news he received was that two big goblins were successfully pregnant.
Waist and leg essence.
On the other hand, girls C and D and little Jenny had no movement, and a certain former housekeeper who ran away last time was certainly no good.
Simon's attitude towards this remained the same. Anyway, he would not be a dad himself.
In addition, the women who failed were naturally dissatisfied. This weekend was another hard work, which greatly reduced Simon's interest in certain things. Afterwards, he immediately decided to take a truce for a week and stay away from women.
Simon plans to finalize the split and divestment within a month. The decision will be made here and the Chinese side will immediately start implementing it.
Simply put, the first step is to split.
Ygriet China will be split into several parts such as portal website, instant messaging, software services, and online payment, each of which will be managed by different teams. Except for the software service business, which will still retain the name YWS (China), several other teams will be changed. The name was changed to a more Chinese one.
Moreover, after the split, it does not mean that each team can only operate the corresponding business.
One of the more common ones is email.
Each team can obtain authorization for email technology, and then there is the portal. In addition to the team that takes over the directly affiliated Yigret (China) portal business, other split teams can also be involved in related businesses later.
This split and adjustment is expected to last for one month.
Then, it is to develop its own sustainable business, online games or e-commerce.
Simon initially thought of online games.
However, as soon as the news of this decision reached China, Beijing-based e-commerce team World Online immediately started lobbying, hoping to get some business.
Online games and e-commerce can be said to be China's two major revenue cores for the Internet industry. Simon had no reason to favor one over the other, so he agreed. Huanyu Online quickly locked a part of Yigret China's portal team and only took half of it to build its own Huanyu Online portal.
The other half, together with the Yigrit China portal, plans to establish another company.
Furthermore, in accordance with Simon's strategy of not putting all eggs in one basket, most of the spun-off teams will move out of Beijing and settle in cities such as Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Another point is that all these companies will first set up a parent company in Hong Kong, and then jump to the investment holding company of Igret registered in the Cayman Islands.
The Westeros System's seismic move compared to China's still-nascent Internet industry quickly attracted the attention of interested people, and the first one to react was the Chinese government. Because of Simon's optimistic view of China, the rate of foreign investment inflows into China has increased significantly in the past few years, which has greatly promoted China's economic development.
This time, Simon suddenly made a contraction action. It is difficult to say whether it will give some negative signals to some people.
After all, the financial crisis in Southeast Asia is still ongoing.
If these actions lead to a wave of foreign investment withdrawal in China, it will be a disaster.
Therefore, two days after the split plan was implemented on the other side of the ocean, a certain boss directly called Simon to test Simon's intentions in making these decisions.
The reason given by Simon was the 'localization strategy', and this time it was just a split and adjustment, breaking it into parts. In fact, Yigrit did not quit. The first step was just to plan to give out 10% to 20% of each team. % of the shares are held by the management, which is of course not given away for free. The management of each team raises their own funds and injects them into the company to achieve the purpose of bundling interests.
It is impossible for ordinary people to have too much money these days, so the Westeros system can help introduce them and use the corresponding equity as collateral for loans.
Simon suggested on the phone that China could take the initiative to ask the corresponding banks to launch support loans without forcing it. If China is unwilling to provide the money, the Westeros system will still be responsible.
The boss was very courageous. Not only did he agree immediately, but he also tested whether China's state-owned assets could directly invest in the company, not pursuing control, just pure investment.
Simon did not agree or refuse, but said that each team could transfer up to 20%. If the management took it all, there would be no need to discuss this time. If there is any remaining part, obviously, it won't be too much, maybe just single digits, China can take over.
There was no objection there.
In addition, in the face of inquiries, Simon did not hide his next step, planning to focus on e-commerce and online games.
Fortunately, there is an excuse for e-commerce.
When he heard about online games, Simon could almost feel the big boss on the other end of the phone frowning. After all, China had just introduced a ban on game consoles, and the nationwide crackdown on black game arcades was still going on. At this time, Simon wanted to do online business in China. The game business inevitably makes people wary.
Simon patiently explained that games, like movies and television, are world-class audio-visual entertainment methods and cannot be banned.
Compared with game arcades, online games are easily included in the regulatory system. As long as they are operated properly, they will not cause any social problems. The key is supervision. Simon promised on the spot that he would develop a minor protection system based on some Western supervision models. It is also suggested that China should strengthen publicity, focusing on parents’ supervision of teenagers’ addiction to games.
Simon has always been inclined towards teenagers being addicted to games. The main reason is that parents have poor supervision. Many of them even take the initiative to indulge and indulge. Once something goes wrong, they don't reflect on themselves at all and blame the game entirely.
This is also a hooliganism.
As for the large amount of tax revenue that online games can provide to the authorities compared to black game arcades, Simon did not mention it. Talking about money is too vulgar, but I can figure it out myself.
After China, North America also quickly noticed Ygritte's related actions.
The capital market reacted immediately. After the publication of a relevant report in the Wall Street Journal, the stock price of Igrit fell 3.7% that day. The Westeros system responded quickly and acted promptly at the public level. He explained that the reason is still the localization strategy. Yigret has not given up on the Chinese market and will still maintain a majority of the equity in the adjusted company. This adjustment is just to make itself more adaptable to the Chinese market.
In addition, it is inevitable that some people will try to trick the story and ask the top management of Yigrit whether this decision was made due to pressure from the Chinese government or something like that, blah blah blah.
Ygritte firmly denied it.
However, the argument has been spread, and Simon has no control over what others think.
If this causes some capital to start investing cautiously in China's Internet industry, it will give companies related to the Westeros system more room for development.
In addition to this action, there was another big event happening in this week in early May.
From May 5 to May 7, the latest EU summit was held in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. The three-day meeting completely finalized the decision to make the euro the legal currency of the EU and planned to officially issue it on January 1, 1999.
In addition, the UK insists on the independent status of the pound.
As a latecomer, Simon knew that the decision at this meeting was equivalent to a trigger for continued turmoil in Europe in the next few years.
Speaking of which, based on calculations in 1997, in the past year, the GDP of the United States was 8.6 trillion, and the GDP of the European Union was 7.7 trillion. Their share of global GDP was 27% and 24%, which can be said to be almost equal. Still on the premise that many European countries have not joined the EU, the EU currently has only 15 member states, and there are still 11 countries that have applied and are waiting to join.
If Europe can work together as a team, it can definitely easily compete with the United States.
The fact is that until many years later, Europe was still fragmented and each had its own agenda, which made it easy for the United States to navigate it.
In my previous life, I could always hear some people criticizing the Chinese people for liking to fight among themselves, blah blah blah, in order to gain some sense of superiority that comes from nowhere. In fact, the whole world is the same. This is human nature. Wherever there are people, there are rivers and lakes. It is determined by genes. .
This year’s summer vacation starts on May 8th.
This Friday, three new films were released in North American theaters. The first one is "Deadly Postcards", a new film produced by Paramount and co-produced by Fa Ge and Bai Ge Wu. Fa Ge stars and Bai Ge Wu only serves as the producer. Complete Butterfly Comes Out It's a new movie, but it's basically the same as the white pigeon Wu Gudan killer.
The film cost US$30 million and opened on 1,867 screens.
Because of the success of last year's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and Baige Wu's reputation as a producer, this movie has attracted quite a lot of attention.
The other is a black comedy called "Hot Girl", with a low cost of US$15 million and 1,021 opening screens. The film was produced by Fox and directed by Hollywood female director Des Meyer. This female director's small-budget independent film "Party Girl" three years ago achieved a very good reputation and considerable commercial returns, so this is the reason for this film. opportunity.
It's a pity that this romantic comedy that tried to turn to a commercial style was a bit of a flop. Film critics ridiculed it, criticizing Des Meyer for completely compromising on business. The comprehensive media score was only 3.3 points, and the future is foreseeable.
Finally, there is Spike Lee's new film "One Up," a basketball-themed film produced by MGM and costing $18 million. It stars NBA star Ray Allen's son Jesse Allen and stars Denzel Washington. Friendly plays the role of the male protagonist's father, and there are also a large number of NBA big-name guest stars such as Michael Jordan. The lineup is very strong. MGM has given 1576 opening screens, so it is obviously expected.
In general, the three new films are still just starting points.
Daenerys Entertainment's first major summer film "L.A. Confidential" will premiere next week. Although the production cost is only US$35 million, it has big names such as Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman participating. , the director is still Brian De Palma, this is the first hot spot of the summer season.