In the car rushing to the Cheong Wa Dae, Simon ignored Jiang Shanwu who opened his mouth slightly and glanced at him repeatedly while flipping through the "Forbes" magazine he got before leaving. He first opened a daily important matters briefing document and slowly turned through it. look.
First is a piece of news from North America.
As a follow-up to the Republican Party's disastrous defeat in the midterm elections on November 3, Republican leader and House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced his resignation on the morning of Sunday, November 8, local time, taking responsibility for the Republican Party's disastrous defeat in this year's midterm elections.
Newt Gingrich began his career in politics in the late 1960s. It has been 30 years since then, but he is only 55 years old. He was originally in the prime of life. Unfortunately, since he became the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1995, Gingrich has single-handedly promoted the budget conflict in 1995. From the government shutdown to the intense pursuit of the Clinton scandal over the past year.
In the past three years, from Clinton's easy re-election in 1996 to his crushing defeat in this year's midterm elections, the facts have only proven the serious mistakes of Gingrich's partisan strategy.
Compared with Clinton's focus on revitalizing the U.S. economy, the Republican Party has been criticized in recent years. It can be said that starting from 1992 when Bush sought re-election, the Republican Party has never put forward a complete political platform that can attract voters. Instead, it has Most of the time was spent attacking the new president, Bill Clinton, who suddenly rose to high office from a low-level redneck background.
It can be said that the failure of this midterm election has made the Republican Party fully realize its own problems and begin to correct its mistakes.
When Newt Gingrich resigned, the second piece of news was that with the acquiescence of the Republican Party, which had given up its scandal offensive, Clinton and Paula Jones quickly reached a settlement. The two parties also secretly signed a settlement agreement on the same day, November 8. It will be announced on Monday local time.
This is basically the same thing.
Of course, the impeachment of Clinton for alleged perjury during the scandal investigation will continue. Even if everyone knows that this impeachment is destined to fail, the Republican Party is still riding a tiger. After all, once you take the initiative to cancel the impeachment, it is equivalent to admitting your mistakes in turn, which will definitely affect the support rate of voters. Therefore, you must not admit this kind of mistake and can only bite the bullet and continue.
The brief lists these two things high on the list, certainly not to pursue Washington's flamboyance.
The political think tank team of the Westeros family has judged that as the Republican Party reverses its wrong strategy that has lasted for six years, the Westeros system will inevitably be affected.
Again, too conspicuous.
According to Chinese saying, this is called the rafter standing out, and the wind will destroy it.
"Give me a pen." After Simon finished reading the first thing, he considered it for a moment, stretched out his hand to the side, turned his head and noticed that Jiang Shanwu was looking for a pen in a hurry. He smiled and grabbed the girl's chin and pinched it: "What's wrong?"
Jiang Shanwu found a pencil that Simon usually used in his handbag and handed it over. He smiled and gestured to the Forbes magazine in front of him: "It's just, it's so shocking."
"Heh, let me take a look."
Simon took the magazine casually and put it on his lap under the original folder. After writing his comments, he turned to look at today's magazine.
The cover is a picture of Simon.
The handsome man with a stubble shows a bit of vicissitudes of life, obviously carefully selected, giving people a feeling that time has passed by. A certain young boy who made a blockbuster success back then has passed in the blink of an eye.
In addition, the black number '1.8T' on the cover also directly gives the answer that many people are paying most attention to in this issue, US$1.8 trillion, which is obviously Simon's latest personal net worth figure on the 1998 American 400 Rich List.
A rather general figure, it is still the strategy set in previous years.
It’s a general idea that’s easy to remember, but at the same time it doesn’t create too specific an impression.
Overall, US$1.8 trillion is only US$500 billion short of the peak of Simon's personal wealth of US$2.3 trillion when Nasdaq hit its highest point on March 24 last year, and almost the same time last October. In 1997, the 1997 list of the 400 richest Americans was US$1.3 trillion, and the increase was also 500 billion.
It is conceivable that with the current recovery momentum of the new technology industry, perhaps next year, or at most the year after next, it is only a matter of time before Simon's personal net worth exceeds US$2.3 trillion again.
In any case, US$1.8 trillion is already equivalent to 20% of the US GDP estimated at US$9 trillion in 1998. It is no longer comparable to the 1.5% of the all-powerful Rockefeller family. Even if a country's national wealth is equivalent to five times its GDP, Simon's $1.8 trillion is equivalent to 4% of the US's total national wealth of $45 trillion.
Even higher, 5%, in Simon's view, is already a lever enough to move everything.
Of course, for readers, even if they know the answer from the cover, the analysis topic on Simon's personal wealth is still not to be missed, and Simon also opened it. For the lofty US$1.8 trillion, the subsequent rankings are meaningless. After just a glance, Simon turned to special reports.
The 7-page article with pictures and text provides a very detailed analysis of the figure of US$1.8 trillion.
In fact, Simon also read the proofs in advance, and the seemingly rich and detailed feature article was also the result of repeated reviews by the Westeros family media public relations team, including the previous cover photo, and even psychologically considered the readers. sensory feedback.
It’s all about subtlety.
Simon Westeros's 1.8 trillion US dollars is nothing...it has nothing to do with him...it is what the other party deserves...comes from high technology rather than traditional exploitation...and so on.
In short, it is a huge public opinion guidance project.
For Simon, and for the entire Westeros family, all the way up to now, Simon is far from as relaxed as it seems, but he holds such a huge fortune and controls the largest business empire on the planet. Simon is always vigilant and cautious, walking on thin ice.
Let’s talk about the topic in front of us.
The first part is naturally the statistical source of wealth figures.
Just like the figure of '1.8 trillion U.S. dollars', it is of course impossible for Forbes to give too detailed a figure, but the figures given are also quite detailed and a table was specially prepared.
The most important thing is the market value of the core companies in the Westeros system as of November 6, which is the closing time last Friday, and Simon's shareholding ratio in these companies. The most important among them is the 11 companies with a market value exceeding 100 billion and Westeros Company directly holds more than 10% of the core giants.
According to market capitalization and shareholding rankings, they are:
First place: Igret, US$591.3 billion; holds 55.3% of shares.
Second place: Daenerys, US$463.5 billion, holding 77.6% of the shares.
Third place: Tinker Bayer, US$419.6 billion, holding 57.6%.
Fourth place: Cisco, US$3,866, holding 41.9%.
Fifth place: America Online, US$315.4 billion, holding 60.3%.
Sixth place: Microsoft, US$263.9 billion, holding 15.6% of the shares.
Seventh place: Nokia, US$236.5 billion, holding 65.5%.
Eighth place: Intel, US$212.7 billion, holding 15.3%.
Ninth place: Verizon, US$173.6 billion, holding 76.5%.
Tenth place: Pfizer, US$111.6 billion, holding 10.3%.
Eleventh place: SUN, US$109.3 billion, holding 14.6%.
It is clear from the list data that most of them are new technology Internet companies. In addition, in addition to Daenerys Entertainment of course, there is also an old American pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer, not to mention unexpectedly. Just the sum of the shareholding values of these 11 companies contributed to Simon's personal wealth reaching US$1,668.3 billion.
In addition to the eleven core companies with a market value of more than 100 billion and a shareholding of more than 10%, Cersei Capital, which controls the main financial business of the Westeros system, is still conservatively valued at US$50 billion by Forbes this year, and maintains The Stroe family still holds 100% of the shares.
In addition, Simon holds 49.3% of the shares of Melisandre, which has a market value of US$76.3 billion, and holds 21.5% of the database giant Oracle, which has a market value of US$53.6 billion. In recent years, its shareholding has continued to increase to 16.3%. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, which had a market capitalization of $69.2 billion last Friday, and more.
The combined value of these companies, and the personal wealth contributed to Simon, easily exceeds 100 billion US dollars.
Then there are companies that hold 5% to 10% of their shares and are more inclined to general investments. This list is even longer, General Electric’s 5.6%, Boeing’s 7.9%, Bank of New York Mellon’s 8.6%, and Wal-Mart’s 5.1 %etc.
This part of the shareholding is, on the one hand, Simon's optimistic investment, and on the other hand, it is also to obtain board seats of relevant companies through shareholding. For the large number of established giants in the United States who have basically become publicly held companies, with a shareholding of about 5%, they are basically among the top major shareholders and can influence the control of a company.
Moreover, the Westeros system actually has a two-pronged approach.
In addition to its stake in Westeros, Cersei Capital's Blackrock Asset Management, which currently has total assets under management of US$2.1 trillion and ranks first on Wall Street, also holds a large number of stocks in related companies, with the proportion generally around 5%. . Combining the two, as long as the company is not too sensitive, the Westeros system can basically gain a considerable say.
The main one, of course, is the board seat.
Holding board seats at a series of the largest companies in the United States is basically equivalent to having a strong influence in controlling the direction of the U.S. economy.
Not only that, a large number of board seats can also be used to seat stakeholders of the Westeros system. For example, in the just-concluded 1998 U.S. midterm elections, it was inevitable that some veteran legislators who had good relations with the Westeros system would unfortunately lose the election. Or take the initiative to retire. These people quickly moved into the private sector with generous salaries. Even if the board of directors seats cannot be changed for a while, just greeting them casually and giving them the title of consultant with an annual salary of hundreds of thousands of dollars is not a big deal for these corporate giants. Just a drizzle.
Simon is equivalent to giving away a favor without spending any money.
Although the relevant people have obtained benefits from publicly held companies, they also understand who gave them these. They can bring countless benefits to the Westeros system if they make a comeback in the future, or rely on the connections they have established over decades of political service. benefit.
What Simon has to do is to continue to weave such a big network until it is as unbreakable as possible.
In addition to the clearly visible corporate shareholdings, the special article in Forbes also mentioned that the Westeros system has a huge reserve of cash and short-term convertible equivalents.
The article still gives a general figure of US$100 billion.
After all, just this year's continuous reduction of holdings, Simon has once again recovered more than 10 billion US dollars in cash, and core companies such as Daenerys Entertainment, which has a record annual profit of more than 7.6 billion US dollars in the past fiscal year, also Contributed large amounts of cash to the entire Westeros system and the Westeros family.
Taking into account the accumulation in previous years, US$100 billion is also a quite conservative figure.
Of course Simon himself knows better. Not to mention the discretionary cash reserves held by various companies, it is just the accumulation of cash, gold, etc. on the books of Westeros companies and privately by the Westeros family, which currently exceeds 60 billion US dollars, this is the result of Simon's continuous spending in the past year after promoting the 3G plan.
Taking into account the cash and short-term convertible equivalent reserves of companies in the Westeros system such as Daenerys, Ygritte, Melisandre, etc., this number should be about 130 billion US dollars.
Moreover, it is still the result of Simon's efforts to spend money all over the world.
There is no way, just in response to the Matthew Effect, the Westeros system has developed to the present, and the result is that it has become increasingly easier to make money, because in addition to its own size, the related companies, channels and information they have are much better than Generally, companies and even individuals are absolutely crushing.
Then there is the overseas investment that has become more and more prominent in recent years.
Simon's investments in overseas markets such as China, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Russia, and Australia in recent years, although the current scale is not obvious, overall, still reach the level of tens of billions of dollars.
"Forbes" magazine did not give accurate figures in this regard, but only briefly mentioned companies like BHP Billiton.
After listing the holding companies, cash reserves and overseas layout, the land, real estate and other types of real estate under Simon's name that were paid attention to in the past are no longer relevant.
Therefore, after subtracting an equally general debt figure directly attributed to the Westeros family, "Forbes" gave an obviously conservative personal wealth figure of 1.8 trillion US dollars.
Of course, with the long-established authority of Forbes magazine, since it has given the figure of 1.8 trillion, no matter whether it is conservative or not accurate enough, it will only become a consensus among the major mainstream media and even the public. , this is the power of having the right to speak.
As for the influence of the Westeros system behind the superficial right to speak, it is not enough for outsiders to understand.
In fact, if I hadn’t understood that Forbes would definitely list it if it didn’t mention it, there would never have been such a seven-page special report.
After listing the specific sources of the $1.8 trillion figure, several sub-headings follow.
The first is the change in the investment landscape of the Westeros system in recent years.
Two areas were highlighted, the pharmaceutical field and overseas markets.
In the field of medicine, Pfizer is a typical representative. When the Westeros system began to enter the company in early 1996, Pfizer's market value was only about 27 billion U.S. dollars. As of last Friday, in less than three years, with these two After more than years of continuous mergers and acquisitions and the unexpected hot sales of Pfizer's new drug 'Viagra', and of course, there is also the overall upward bull market trend of the US economy. Pfizer's market value has recently reached 111.6 billion US dollars, and in less than three years, its stock price has more than tripled.
Pfizer is just a typical example.
A typical example of the overall rise in the pharmaceutical field and a successful investment in the Westeros system.
It was also said that Pfizer has continuously won 10.3% of the stock. Simon has invested less than 5 billion US dollars. In more than two years, it has more than doubled.
In addition, in addition to Gilead and other companies that are still growing quietly, Simon has also continued to buy American pharmaceutical giants such as Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Warner-Lambert in the past few years. The current shareholding ratio exceeds 5%, among which Warner-Lambert Even after the turmoil between the Westeros system and the Mellon family, the stock price has nearly quadrupled in more than two years, with the market value exceeding US$50 billion.
Then, comes the overseas market.