Before Christmas, on December 20, when the Golden Globe nominations were also announced, Pfizer's acquisition of Warner-Lambert, which had been secretly negotiated for more than a month, was officially finalized.
The two parties reached an agreement that Pfizer would acquire the pharmaceutical giant for $97 billion and assume all of Warner-Lambert's debt.
Including Pfizer's market capitalization of $165.5 billion at the closing date on the day of the agreement, the total value of the deal reached $262.5 billion, which just exceeded the $257 billion Exxon acquired Mobil last year. If the merger can be completed, there is no doubt that It will become the largest merger and acquisition in history.
At the same time, the new Pfizer will also become the world's largest pharmaceutical giant.
Both parties deliberately chose the time before Christmas to announce the news, as well as the upcoming millennium, which was intentional. However, the announcement of the news still caused widespread heated discussion in the media, with attitudes clearly divided into two groups, those in favor and against.
In fact, everything seems to have two sides: pros and cons.
However, this time, it was mainly because of the deliberate guidance of the Westeros system that such results were achieved. Otherwise, for such a super merger, there would definitely be many opponents, and it might even lead to the abortion of the merger.
Furthermore, through the same careful operation of public opinion, the Westeros system has basically extricated itself from it. Even Apollo Management, a subsidiary of Cersei Capital, which is responsible for threading the needle, has no significant presence in this merger and acquisition case. High, mainly due to the emergence of management from both Pfizer and Warner-Lambert.
It's not without twists and turns.
The Mellon family, which was once the largest shareholder of Warner Lambert, tried to bring the matter to light in the U.S. Congress, and successfully lobbied a House member who had always been on good terms with the Mellon family. The proposals have been drawn up, and the news came here , followed by the sharp fall in the stock price of Alcoa, which the Mellon family still controlled for the time being. Along with the financial scandal of a Mellon family spokesperson director in Alcoa, the IRS also began to get involved, investigating the possibility of Alcoa. tax evasion issues involved.
IRS, in this case, how could it not show up
In addition, the insider trading evidence of a Mellon family member who quietly recruited Warner Lambert some time ago because he obtained the inside information in advance was also directly sent to the Mellon family, and Warner Lambert also An executive who tipped him off.
As long as the matter is proven true and the person involved goes to jail, the Mellon family will also be discredited because of that member's illegal transactions.
Simon got this handle very early and was waiting for this day.
Coupled with the pressure on the member of Congress and some exchanges of interests, attempts to prevent Pfizer's antitrust proposal against Warner Lambert ultimately came to nothing.
Simon didn't intend to pursue him fiercely. It wouldn't be good if he jumped over the wall in a hurry.
In general, the whole thing is the result of the Westeros system gradually becoming more familiar with the operating rules of the American political and economic system.
In business, if you want to cause trouble for me, I can catch you. If you don't compromise, both sides will lose.
Politics is nothing more than compromise and exchange. Except for a very small minority who completely ignore personal interests and really want to serve the voters, of course, they are rare. Moreover, once they enter the political circle, most of them will gradually assimilate. A minority, even if they are not kicked out of the circle, will definitely end up marginalized. Others, in the final analysis, must first safeguard their own political interests. If you can give enough conditions to help politicians secure something, you are a god.
God's priorities are certainly higher than those of the elect.
Of course, the premise is that you have enough strength to play with the rules. If you don't have enough strength, you will still become a joke.
New York.
Westeros Corporate Headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.
After the lively Christmas, it’s a new week, Tuesday, December 28th.
Simon and his wife came here together today to attend a year-end meeting of the Westeros Company. In addition to James Raybould, who is in charge of the Westeros Company, there are also the three giants of Cersei Capital.
The main content of this meeting is also related to a series of investments next year.
First of all, there are several merger projects that are being promoted.
Pfizer's acquisition of Warner Lambert will basically not cause any big surprises. Moreover, although it is a complete stock exchange acquisition, during the transaction process, Apollo Management will still acquire one through cash purchase. After the completion of the transaction, Westeros Company, Apollo Management Company and Blackrock Asset Management Company will hold a total share of about 15% of the new company's shares. Tello Corporation holds 8%, Apollo holds about 2%, and Blackrock Asset Management holds 5%.
For a publicly held company with dispersed ownership, 15% of the shares, coupled with control of management, is basically equivalent to making Pfizer its own.
In addition, there is Scoop's acquisition of Qualcomm, and negotiations quietly started in the middle of this month.
There won't be any big surprises either.
As for next year, the main thing will be the large amount of assets obtained from this year's stock exchange plan.
December is about to pass, and the last few replacement projects have been finalized recently. Throughout 1999, the Westeros system achieved a total replacement scale of US$237 billion, of which non-cash assets such as stocks, minerals, and real estate were approximately US$172 billion, and cash and gold equivalents of $65 billion.
Of the total assets of 237 billion U.S. dollars, the largest amount came from Asia, eventually reaching 53 billion U.S. dollars, of which nearly 30 billion came from the same country in Asia, Indonesia. Furthermore, this part of Asia has the highest proportion of cash, reaching US$21 billion, and the most diverse other assets.
Among them, only the real estate and land that Simon is more interested in are in Asia. There are only 21 buildings with more than 30 floors in Asian cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Manila, etc., including office apartments and apartments. , and there are as many as 7 plantations, mainly in South Asia, with a total area of 27,000 hectares, and the planting types include rice, sugar cane, rubber, coffee, etc.
In short, it is enough for Simon to easily open a copy of South Asia Landlord.
Moreover, most of these assets are fire sales, with an average discount of about 60% to 70%, and many are directly cut in half. Therefore, US$53 billion is just a book value. If the full value is calculated, even if it includes a small fluctuation of 21 billion The total value of US dollars in cash is probably US$70 billion.
A big reason why some people abandon these assets is a complete loss of security, but this is not a problem for Simon.
Successfully becoming the owner of these assets, if anyone dares to have any thoughts that they shouldn't have, unlike the original owner who could only let the mermaid be eaten, Simon can not only easily manipulate the US government to issue sanctions, but even bring an aircraft carrier battle group over to exert pressure. not a problem. If you play undercover, that's even better. Your own gangs and private armies, or even a deeper intelligence network, are enough to play some people to the point of death.
The content discussed at this meeting was to classify this asset into different categories and establish a dedicated asset management team.
What can be completely controlled must of course be completely controlled by one's own hands.
Those that cannot be completely controlled are mainly some small-scale share-exchange companies, and special management teams must be dispatched. The next main operational goal is to penetrate. In the original agreement, the Westeros system had no control over some small-scale share-exchange companies. Corporate control does not show much intention, provided that the other party cannot point fingers at the company that has obtained the shares.
However, now that the stocks are in hand, what to do is another matter.
Of course, Simon will not let the people below him interfere with the specific company management. If he can join the board of directors or install management, it will be justifiable. If it cannot be justified, then use some less justified methods. First, make friends and infiltrate some board members or corporate executives, and proceed step by step.
As the same saying goes, what you can control in your own hands belongs to you, and is an asset that can be transformed into social power.
If not, it's just money.
What Simon is pursuing now is not just simple asset appreciation. After all, there are hundreds of billions more on the books. If the power does not increase accordingly, it will be meaningless, and he may even become a fat sheep.
As for whether doing so will cause a backlash
meeting.
However, we have planned to suspend it next year anyway, and Simon has always believed that human nature is forgetful.
Human beings never remember lessons.
The second place is the United States, with 39 billion US dollars.
After all, the United States has the deepest foundation. However, relatively speaking, the assets of US$39 billion, which ranks second in total, are also the most dispersed. There are only six replacement projects exceeding US$1 billion in scale, and most of them are in the hundreds of millions or tens of millions. Transactions involving tens of millions or even millions of dollars, and obviously for tax avoidance reasons, this part has the lowest cash ratio, less than 6 billion US dollars, and most of them are share exchange operations that can be tax deducted.
There is nothing to say about this asset. It is basically just an asset, mainly coming from many public funds. It is obviously a swap operation after seeing technology stocks take off again.
Of course, after sorting it out, there is definitely still room for maneuver.
The goal here is to conduct in-depth research and review and select some companies for further operations. The first goal is not from a value-added perspective, but from a political perspective.
For example, are any of the companies among them an important financial sponsor of a certain member of Congress in a certain constituency? Or, which company is a labor-intensive enterprise that controls many workers with voting rights. If this company is still in some swings A swing city in a swing county in a state is even more valuable.
In short, when the Westeros system needs, such as Washington, to shut up a congressman who wants to stir up trouble, or to step down a congressman who is unwilling to shut up, this side needs to have enough leverage.
If you don't shut up, you could lose the biggest donor in your district.
If you don't step down, hundreds or thousands of workers in your constituency may lose their jobs, so even if they understand that you are fighting for their interests, they will still have to ask you to step down.
This is how it is played.
Outside the United States, the third part comes from the Middle East, $32 billion.
After all, he is too rich.
Moreover, if anyone thinks that the princes in the Middle East only know how to seduce the eagle and walk the bird, they have underestimated the other party. The various oil-producing countries there still attach great importance to diversified investments for the future. However, investors in the Middle East are often very It is difficult to gain too much say in the investment objects, and it will appear that there is no sense of existence.
Of course, the Westeros system will not give any say. Even if it gives up stocks with a total value of more than 32 billion US dollars, if someone feels that they can have a say here, then no problem, you can sell them as you like.
So it's just a transaction.
The Westeros system has little appeal to the Middle East, and there is no hope of getting anything extra from it.
In fact, this can be seen from the transaction content.
In addition to about US$8 billion in cash, most of the assets in this exchange were stocks of many large companies outside the Middle East. As for the oil fields in the Middle East, some people want to sell them, but they are not interested here. After all, it is impossible to get oil fields that are too big and too high-quality. It is not troublesome to do it in a small way.
As for the rest, there is nothing else in the Middle East.
Simon is not interested in sand, and it is not river sand.
The fourth part comes from Europe, Western Europe to be precise, similar to the Middle East, about US$31 billion.
Western Europe is certainly rich, so $13 billion is in cash.
Furthermore, a very important reason is that Simon is not very interested in most companies in Western Europe. After all, the trend of relocation of industries in Europe is no less than that of North America, which means the gradual decline of most physical industries. If we cannot gain further control over these companies, we will have no choice but to decline along with them.
Therefore, in terms of Europe, it is similar to the United States, or similar to the Middle East.
Because Simon does not have strong political appeals to Western European countries for the time being, he will not pursue operations similar to those in the United States. Of course, it’s not that it’s not happening, it’s just that I’m not in a hurry, and I’m going to do it step by step.
Regarding the future of Western Europe, Simon actually has a certain degree of Cisco.
The best outcome is that in the next fifty years, Western Europe can be reduced to the same situation as Latin America, and together with the current Eastern European brothers and sisters, they will completely lose their vitality.
According to some information in memory, this possibility is actually very high.
Just to put it bluntly, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the entire Eastern Europe was actually equivalent to China's reform and opening up. China's opening up later proved that, apart from itself, the United States benefited the most.
And Eastern Europe was supposed to be an opportunity for Western Europe. If Western European countries can successfully take advantage of this and activate the Eastern European economy through large-scale investment, or even, more boldly, truly accept Russia into the European system, then the entire Europe will not only have further development momentum for at least thirty years, but also directly It has a military system powerful enough to compete with the United States.
However, the reality is that, not to mention further absorbing Russia, Western European countries have not achieved even a second-class goal.
This lack of success can even be said to have doomed Europe's future.
As for why Europe could barely keep up with the pace of the United States and China and did not fall behind rapidly in the two decades after the millennium, it was ultimately thanks to Eastern Europe.
A large number of cheap labor from Eastern Europe, without consuming the high social welfare of Western Europe, has made up for the shortage of labor in low-end industries in Western European countries. Not only that, Eastern Europe, like China, is not only a dumping market for Western Europe's high value-added products. It also contributed a large number of cheap goods to Western Europe.
This delayed the decline of Western Europe for another twenty years.
Then, as Eastern Europe began to develop to some extent, the dividends of cheap population and goods in Eastern Europe gradually passed away, and China no longer allowed the Western world to take what it wanted. The entire society was already indolent in Western Europe, and wanted to continue... But it tried, attracting the same Cheap Middle Eastern refugees, but the subsequent results will undoubtedly be disastrous, so there will be no more
In fact, twenty years later, the entire world was basically facing a certain problem.
The solution is actually very simple. Humanity can work together to create another fundamental scientific and technological revolution to achieve controllable nuclear fusion and realize large-scale application of solar energy that can satisfy the entire society. To put it bluntly, it is a fundamental improvement in productivity. .
As long as this is achieved, human society will no longer have to worry about the shortage of energy and materials, and can realize the automation of production to the greatest extent, and mankind will enter a new era.
The 3G plan of the Westeros system has exactly this goal.
As for the original timeline, Simon believes that mankind will probably experience another unforgettable catastrophe. If it is lucky enough not to self-destruct due to nuclear war, it will probably make up its mind to go further.
However, this is actually not what humans are good at.
Just like countless reincarnations of history, human beings are still better at self-destruction. No matter which continent or race, if there is a vigorous war, enough people will die, and the remaining resources will naturally be enough. Used by people below.
How nice.