It happened to be in San Francisco.
It is a very old-fashioned job hunting scam. Scammers use the 58list platform to publish a series of advertisements for part-time typists, data entry clerks, etc., and then defraud cash from job seekers in the name of employment deposits, training fees, etc. In just one week since 58list was launched, six people in the Bay Area were deceived, and the cumulative amount of fraud reached US$23,000.
After the victim called the police, the local police in San Francisco quickly determined that this was a gang fraud case.
At the same time, the 58list team was notified immediately and banned accounts and posts suspected of fraud.
It stands to reason that the next step is naturally the investigation and detection of the case.
However, traditional paper media platforms were already eyeing the launch of 58list. After the fraud occurred, the San Francisco Chronicle, a subsidiary of the Hearst Group, quickly got the news and made a special report on its front page on August 18, aggressively attacking it. 58list service lacks security.
Immediately afterwards, on August 19, six victims of this fraud case launched a class action lawsuit against Yigrit Company, demanding various compensations totaling up to 3 million U.S. dollars, and requiring Yigrit Company to pay compensation. The 58list website is closed in a responsible manner to the public.
Many lawsuits in the United States are always accompanied by extremely exaggerated claim amounts, which are simply too high a price.
Of course, this time, many people understand that the key point is that the lawsuit requires Yigret to shut down 58list. The media had just exposed it, and a class action lawsuit followed immediately. There was not even any private contact beforehand. If there was no one behind it, no one would believe it.
Eaglet Company had already anticipated this situation during the preparation of 58list.
According to the website service process, users who use 58list must click to agree to the website's disclaimer terms in advance, and also receive clear anti-fraud reminders. More importantly, the 58list website does not charge any fees from the classified information advertisements posted by users, and naturally does not need to assume the responsibility of ensuring the accuracy of the information. Therefore, even if this case reaches the Federal Supreme Court, the possibility of Yigret losing the case is almost zero.
However, if 58list really gets rid of itself, it will definitely damage the corporate image of the entire Yigrit company in the minds of users.
Simon had no intention of doing this from the beginning.
The disclaimer and anti-fraud reminder only prevent 58list from falling into endless litigation entanglements. Now that the incident has occurred, Yigret must try its best to solve the problem and recover the user's losses. In doing so, it is actually protecting its own reputation and interests.
When he first formed the Westeros family's intelligence team, Simon had already determined that the team's official role was to deal with various hacker attacks, online fraud and other Internet crimes that Igrit Company might encounter.
Unknowingly, the Westeros family's intelligence team has exceeded 200 people. Under the advice of industry intelligence experts, it is distributed throughout North America, Europe and Australia in the form of a very professional spy network.
Weapons will rust if they are not used for a long time.
Therefore, this intelligence team has been very active under Janet's arrangement. In addition to the secret security and prevention work of the Westeros family, the Simons also intentionally or unintentionally selected various targets or arranged some tasks for the team to investigate or Even many of the goals and tasks have no clear purpose. This is just to ensure that the team does not get 'rusty'.
As for the expenses incurred during the process, money is not a problem for Simon.
As a result, over the past two years, several large cabinets were filled with surveillance and investigation files targeting various targets in the basement of Shell Villa. Some time ago, the maid next to the female assistant tried to sell out her employer's information. In fact, she was discovered from the beginning. Not to mention In the subsequent series of actions, in order to avoid the backlash of the abandoned son, until now, the maid named Doris Fitcher still has eyes on her side.
Simon rushed to San Francisco on August 19, the day the six victims launched a class action lawsuit, and personally deployed the investigation of the fraud case.
He doesn't trust Bay Area police.
Detectives in American crime dramas are always wise and sharp, but in fact, the inefficiency of American law enforcement agencies is almost universally known. Even for vicious cases such as kidnapping, murder, and arson, the average detection rate is only 60%, let alone fraud. Such 'little things'.
Moreover, some methods cannot be used by formal law enforcement agencies.
This is not a problem for the Westeros family's private intelligence team.
When Simon arrived in San Francisco, a team led by Martin Dinham in the intelligence team had been busy for three days and had basically grasped the direction of the case.
Based on the IP information of the posts involved in the fraud case, the intelligence team located an Internet cafe in Richmond, the northern part of the Bay Area. This was a project jointly initiated by Eagle, AOL and other companies. Now this cafe has more than 1,200 customers in North America. The chain of Internet cafes in this store is already owned by IBM and some private equity funds on Wall Street.
The surveillance system in the early 1990s was still very backward. However, the team successfully obtained surveillance video of a public area of a bank near the block where the Internet cafe was located.
At the same time, the official files related to this case also fell into the hands of Ygritte. although
Although a class-action lawsuit was launched, two of the six victims agreed to cooperate with the company's investigation after lobbying by Ygritte.
After an investigation of surveillance videos and personal identification of the victim, the suspected target was basically confirmed around 8 o'clock in the evening on August 19.
The whole thing seems very simple to say. Without enough strength, connections and skills, many of the links can only be completed by wishful thinking. In the final analysis, it is still a question of money. This is actually the reason for the low crime detection rate of the American police. If sufficient budget and manpower are given, there is no case in the world that cannot be solved.
After confirming the suspected target, the next step is to find the person.
Although the Bay Area has a population of more than 5 million, it is not difficult to find the target by using surveillance videos and victim descriptions to accurately describe the suspect's appearance, and at the same time locking the suspect's general area of activity.
Therefore, when ordinary people encounter fraud, especially well-established online fraud and phone fraud, it is not difficult to catch the criminals. However, the operators are not willing to cause trouble, the police are not willing to cause trouble, and the victims are not worried about it, so they often have no choice but to let it go.
Simon stayed at the Ygritte headquarters until around nine o'clock in the night before returning to the villa in the Woodside Mountains.
The female assistant hadn't rested yet, sitting quietly in the villa's living room reading a book. The TV was on, and only a small figure could be heard.
Simon handed the coat to Girl D, came to the sofa and sat down with Jennifer, kissed her on the cheek, and asked, "Is the little one naughty?"
"No, he must have fallen asleep." The female assistant put down the book, leaned closer to Simon, and asked, "How is it over there?"
"It's done, just need to find someone."
“What about the class action lawsuit and the media aspect?”
"These are things that Jeff and his friends have to deal with, and we're just waiting for the results."
After Simon said this, he leaned over and put his ear against the female assistant's belly and listened for a moment. There was no movement. Then he skillfully raised his fingers and tried to tap a few times. The female assistant smiled and opened the door: "It's not a watermelon. Don't touch it." The baby woke me up.”
After joking for a while, Simon looked at the time and said, "Do you want me to carry you to take a shower?"
Jennifer opened her arms towards Simon: "Okay."
Simon stood up, picked up the female assistant, and walked to the bedroom.
After taking a shower and changing into pajamas, Jennifer lay on her side next to Simon on the big bed in the bedroom. She was obviously a little sleepy, but still asked: "Do you want to wait for news from London?"
It’s August 19th here in Los Angeles, and it’s August 20th in London, eight hours ahead of the West Coast of the United States.
Nokia will be officially listed on the London Stock Exchange on the morning of August 20, local time.
The opening hours of the London Stock Exchange are from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm. Based on the 8-hour time difference, in the early morning in Los Angeles, the official pre-trading inquiry in London should start, and Nokia stock officially opens. At least it's one o'clock in the morning here in Los Angeles.
Simon had no intention of waiting like this. He shook his head and turned off the ceiling light in the bedroom, leaving only a light yellow wall lamp on the bedside. He picked up a copy of "Walden Pond" on the bedside and said, "Reading to you?"
"Um."
Simon leaned against the head of the bed and waited for the female assistant to find a comfortable position beside him, turned the pages of the book and started reading softly.
On the other side of the Atlantic, before seven o'clock in the morning, Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila and James Raybould, who came specially from New York, and others gathered in the hall of the Stock Exchange Headquarters in the City of London.
The difference between the London Stock Exchange and other major exchanges in the world is probably that it opens at 8 o'clock in the morning, which is at least one hour earlier than the mainstream opening time.
After more than half a year of preparation, Nokia's IPO valuation was finally determined to be 1.8 billion pounds. Based on the exchange rate that has not recovered from last year's pound crisis, it is equivalent to 2.7 billion U.S. dollars, which is about 35% higher than the valuation of 2 billion U.S. dollars at the beginning of the year. This is mainly Benefited from Nokia's strong growth in the first half of the year.
For the whole year of 1992, Nokia's revenue was equivalent to US$1.47 billion, and it sold 3.76 million mobile phones throughout the year.
In 1993, affected by favorable factors such as the rapid development of the European mobile communications industry, the acceleration of digital communications upgrading, and Nokia's re-entry into the North American market, Nokia's turnover reached US$1.13 billion in the first two quarters alone, equivalent to 1992 76% of revenue, while also achieving a net profit of US$129 million.
At the same time, the sales volume of Nokia mobile phone equipment has increased significantly, with shipments reaching 3.39 million units in six months, which is close to the entire year of 1992. It is expected that Nokia mobile phone shipments will reach 7 million units in 1993. Enterprises The annual revenue growth rate will also reach an astonishing 80% or more.
Therefore, the valuation of 1.8 billion pounds is still seriously underestimated by many analysts.
Based on Nokia's ultra-high growth rate and its revenue and profit in the first half of the year, even a valuation standard of 15 times earnings ratio will be very conservative.
However, the valuation of 1.8 billion pounds is actually only equivalent to a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.5 times.
Because of its undervalued market value and excellent corporate development prospects, Nokia's stock subscription scale has reached 12 times the issuance scale during the early road show stage. It is definitely the most popular new stock on the London Stock Exchange in recent years.
Many media believe that making Nokia the most active new stock on the London Stock Exchange is probably the reason why Westeros tolerates a low valuation of 10.5 times earnings.
The lower the issuance price, the more active trading will be after listing, which is more conducive to the future growth trend of the company's stock price.
Overall, this is a choice that looks to the future.
Nokia's development is very healthy and rapid, so the future of the company is indeed more important than the urgent need to raise more funds during the IPO stage. After all, neither Nokia itself nor the Westeros system, which continues to expand at a rapid pace, lacks funds.
In terms of equity, the total number of Nokia shares held by Westeros is 132 million shares. After the exchange of equity awards before listing and internal employee subscription, the total share capital was expanded to 137 million shares.
In this IPO, Nokia issued 28 million new shares.
After all calculations, after the IPO, Westeros' shareholding ratio in Nokia remains exactly at 80% of the original plan.
Based on a valuation of US$1.8 billion and Nokia's initial total share capital of US$132 million, the stock issuance price was determined at £13.63, raising funds of £381 million, equivalent to US$576 million.
At the end of August in London, the weather has turned cooler, but the hall of the Stock Exchange is hot.
At 8 o'clock, after the pre-opening speech and bell-ringing ceremony, the inquiry phase officially began, and everyone in the hall turned their attention to the electronic display board on the trading floor.
Fifteen minutes later, looking at a string of numbers that jumped directly to 15.25 to 15.55 on the electronic display board, the last trace of suspense completely disappeared.
At 9 o'clock, after four consecutive rounds of inquiries, Nokia's shares officially opened on the London Stock Exchange. Compared with the issue price of 13.63 pounds, the opening price of Nokia's shares reached 18.12 pounds, an increase of 33%.
If it is other new stocks, the whole-day increase of 33% on the first day of trading is actually very good.
However, for Nokia, the opening 33% increase is just the beginning.
Faced with continued buying demand, Nokia's stock price rose in the following hours.
In the exchange hall, whether it was the extremely excited Nokia executives or the media reporters from all sides, looking at the continuously rising share price of Nokia on the electronic display board, they even felt like they were witnessing a miracle.
When Simon got up on time at seven o'clock local time in San Francisco, he almost immediately received a transoceanic call from London.
James Raybould took the initiative to give up the microphone to Jorma Olia. The Nokia CEO was almost incoherent on the phone, but Simon also clearly heard an important point, 106%, and there was still one more day before the closing. Half an hour later, the rally still hadn't stopped.
Simon was very generous to Nokia's management or, most importantly, to Jorma Ollila.
After three years in charge of Nokia, out of a total of 5 million shares in rewards and subscriptions for the Nokia team, Jorma Ollila alone took 3 million shares, close to 2% of Nokia's total share capital, and it was a full stock award. Not low-priced internal subscriptions from many employees.
Depending on the situation, Jorma Ollila is expected to become a billionaire in just one day.
As usual, I ran in the Woodside Mountains, had breakfast with the female assistant, and listened to Girl A’s work schedule for today. This continued until 8:30. At 4:30 pm in London, the exchange officially closed, Jorma Ollila Called again, Nokia's stock price rose by 121% throughout the day, with the closing stock price reaching US$30.12. Nokia's market value therefore reached 4.969 billion pounds, equivalent to US$7.5 billion.
As Nokia's largest shareholder, the value of Westeros' shares has increased to US$6 billion.
In three years, a total of US$500 million was invested, and US$6 billion was recovered, with a return rate of 1,200%, which shocked everyone.
With the listing of Nokia, not only Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila directly became a billionaire, but also created a series of multi-millionaires and millionaires.
Although Nokia's price-to-earnings ratio reached 29 times at the close of the day, due to the market's pursuit of Westeros concept stocks and Nokia's own development prospects, major analytical institutions generally predict that Nokia's stock price still has a lot of room for growth. The price-to-earnings ratio is expected to reach around 50 times.
If this is true, there is no doubt that, following AOL, Cisco and other companies, the Westeros system will once again have a technology company with a market value of tens of billions of dollars.