After receiving Simon's conditions, the Hearst family fell silent again.
If it were before all this turmoil started, even if they lost their shares in ESPN and had to pay a huge compensation of US$370 million, the Hearst family would not be hurt.
But it's different now.
Due to the comprehensive ban on the Westeros system and the bombardment of lawsuits, the continuous abandonment of business partners, and the public outrage caused by the murder scandal, which led to large-scale unsubscriptions of its newspapers and magazines, the assets of the Hearst Group have been completely in a visible state recently. Speed depreciates rapidly.
Just like Simon's 100% control over Westeros Corporation, the Hearst family also firmly controls all shares of the Hearst Corporation, the ultimate parent company of the Hearst media empire, through personal shareholdings and family trusts. .
Although many of its newspapers, magazines and television assets have joint venture components, most of the losses in this incident still need to be borne by the Hearst family.
As the company's operating conditions deteriorated and its own cash flow dried up, external financing channels such as bank loans and bond issuance were cut off. The Hearst Group now wants to raise US$370 million and has no choice but to sell its assets.
However, not only has the Hearst Group's major newspapers and magazines and other assets themselves depreciated sharply recently, potential buyers will not let go of this opportunity to further lower prices. The Hearst family wants to cash out by selling assets, and the most they can do in the short term is to sell Half the price before the crisis, that is to say, if it wants to raise US$370 million in funds, Hearst Group needs to pay double the original price.
Considered a stake in ESPN, the Hearst family would have to pay US$1 billion just to solve the troubles in the Westeros system.
Even though many members of the Hearst family understand that the best option is to survive with a broken arm, it is difficult to convince themselves and other members of the family to endure such a one-time loss of 1 billion US dollars in flesh-cutting and bleeding, and would rather bleed themselves to death with a little blood loss.
Of course, Simon would not ignore it after making a condition.
Under the operation of the Westeros system, the media continues to criticize the Hearst Group with great intensity. Under the pressure of public opinion, the federal authorities have recently launched other investigations against the Hearst Group.
Because of William Hearst III's absconding in fear of crime, after Doris Fetcher's family also filed a lawsuit for a sky-high price of US$600 million, in order to prevent William Hearst III from transferring his assets, federal authorities also urgently filed a lawsuit against William Hearst III. The stocks, properties and other assets under his name were seized.
Not only Roger Halls, assistant to William III, who has been arrested and remains in custody because he failed to pay enough bail, but also other members of the Hearst family and some top executives of the Hearst Group were also arrested by the FBI's Doris Fitch. The murder task force was frequently summoned to cooperate with the investigation.
The growing publicity surrounding the murder continues to erode the credibility of the Hearst Corporation.
Simon did not let anyone disclose the surveillance of the entire process of Doris Fetcher's suicide by swallowing pills, because this would easily remind the public of refusing to save her life. However, of course, he would not ignore this kind of evidence that would completely make William Hearst III lose the chance to reverse the case. Instead, he had someone pass it on to the FBI task force through anonymous channels.
On the other hand, instigated by media public opinion, the trend of unsubscribing from newspapers and magazines owned by Hearst Group is also continuing.
Competitors of many newspapers and magazines under the Hearst Group will naturally not miss this opportunity. They have recently launched various marketing promotions and spared no effort to snatch user resources from the media under the Hearst Group. Apollo under Cersei Capital The management company has specially set up a support fund of about US$200 million for this purpose to provide financing for newspapers and magazines that compete with Hearst Group's media.
The decline of the U.S. print media industry is irresistible.
A few decades ago, the Hearst Group would have been able to survive the crisis and regain its lost market share through various means. Now, due to the overall shrinkage of U.S. print media users, this loss of users is basically irreversible.
The Hearst Group was slow to act. Under the influence of the Westeros system and other capital forces, many newspapers and magazines under the Hearst Group were unwilling to sit still and wait for death.
During this period, the joint venture shareholders of seven newspapers under the Hearst Group have made demands to buy back the newspaper shares held by the Hearst Group. They even claimed that the Hearst Group was involved in a scandal that affected the newspapers themselves and the work of their employees. , requiring the authorities to step in and proactively facilitate the transaction.
Of course, the prices offered by these joint venture shareholders are very low.
It can be said that under the pressure of the Westeros system, if the Hearst family cannot cut off its strength as soon as possible, this old media group will fall apart in up to a year due to the all-round deterioration of the company's operating conditions.
After the weekend, Simon and Janet flew to the East Coast together, but Veronica stayed in Los Angeles this week to assist Daenerys Entertainment management in conducting some audit work before the listing road show.
The Hearst family is in turmoil, and the Westeros system is definitely not easy during this period.
Not only do we need to deal with the public opinion storm caused by a series of revelations about the Hearst family, but the federal political and business circles are also increasingly vigilant and suppressive of the continued rise of the Westeros system.
In a series of lawsuits triggered in March against the "Cisco-AOL-Egret" Internet giants' monopoly trust accusations, only three cases have reached settlements, and the others have entered formal litigation procedures.
The Westeros system is rich and wealthy. If it were simply a lawsuit, it would be enough to cause the bankruptcy of many small businesses. However, the potential large-scale antitrust risks brought by these lawsuits are something that the Westeros system has to treat with caution. thing.
Therefore, we have to admit that the Rwandan racist massacre in April not only diverted the attention of the federal public from certain explosions and massacres, but also successfully covered up the various problems faced by the Westeros system to a large extent. kind of litigation.
The Westeros System has recently spared no effort in attacking the Hearst Group and wooing other established paper media forces, which has largely inhibited the North American media from adding fuel to the flames on the topic of the "Westeros System's monopoly on the Internet industry."
After the federal political circle came out to express their opinions on the Westeros system some time ago, although most of the targets are still in a state of rhetoric, Washington is no longer so easy to talk about the Westeros system in many aspects. At least, all the various bills previously promoted by the Westeros system have been put on hold.
On the other hand, Cersei Capital’s recent acquisition of the asset management unit of State Street Bank has also encountered obstacles in Congress.
The House Financial Services Committee raised questions about the transaction, asking Cersei Capital to explain how Black Rock Asset Management can 100% ensure the safety of investors' funds when it already controls more than $200 billion in funds.
If Cersei Capital cannot provide guarantees, Congress will block the merger from moving forward.
This kind of questioning is quite rogue in nature.
Because in the question letter, the House of Representatives did not define the 'fund security' it requested at all.
For various financial giants on Wall Street, ensuring the safety of investors' funds is the most basic requirement. The general guidelines are to proactively inform investors when making major investment actions, not to use funds for transactions outside the contract, not to conduct insider operations, etc.
If that's all, Cersei Capital can certainly guarantee it.
Although the overall asset size of Black Rock Asset Management is very large, the investment purposes of the funds from different clients in the dozens of sub-funds have all been clearly defined in the contracts, and many of the funds are even kept by Cersei Capital on their behalf. , the investment decision-making power still lies in the hands of investors.
However, after Cersei Capital responded to the House of Representatives' inquiry, the other party was still entangled.
After several trials, Janet roughly figured out that the members of the House of Representatives probably wanted Black Rock Asset Management to make a promise of only making profits and not losing money. This was what the other party called 'fund security'.
There is no business in this world where you can only make money but not lose money, and this is not the case on Wall Street.
In the final analysis, Washington is deliberately making things difficult and does not want the deal between Cersei Capital and State Street Bank to be completed.
Many large mergers take two to three years to get federal approval, which is very common in the United States. However, regarding this transaction, the Simons knew that delaying it for too long would only lead to changes.
Because unlike those physical companies, for Wall Street financial companies, investors not only value the profitability of these companies, but also pay great attention to factors such as corporate reputation, public opinion trends, and legal risks. A slightly larger disturbance may be This resulted in a large number of investors withdrawing their capital.
If it is delayed for too long, and State Street withdraws capital to ensure that its customers will not feel anxious, or if it realizes that it should not give up this part of the business so easily, then the merger may fall through at any time.
The couple arrived on the East Coast, Simon stayed in New York, and Janet headed straight for Washington.
And he has also made up his mind that if the mediation and communication with the House of Representatives is ineffective, Cersei Capital will not hesitate to litigate. After all, the House Financial Services Committee’s deliberate attempts to make things difficult are too obvious.
Connecticut, in an estate outside Greenwich.
It’s already Wednesday, May 25th.
Simon did not go to Manhattan in the morning, but met with Paul Spaihts, a political lobbyist who came from Wisconsin, in Greenwich Manor.
Paul Spaihts used to be the head of Verizon's political lobbying department and corporate-affiliated political action committee. After the Westeros system launched its sniper plan for this year's midterm elections some time ago, Paul Spaihts, who grew up in Wisconsin, Paige was sent to the local area to attack the re-election of Wisconsin's left-wing Democratic Congressional Senator Craig Ames, who has been targeting the Westeros system recently.
Now, Paul Spaihts has become the campaign manager for Craig Ames' opponent, moderate Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Robert Hotwell.
During this period, Paul Spaihts worked with his temporary employer to develop a detailed and clear campaign platform based on the specific conditions of Wisconsin in the absence of hot political issues in the 1994 midterm elections.
Paul Spaihts even went a step further and divided voters in Wisconsin very finely, formulating special campaign plans and slogans to target different groups of voters such as the middle class, veterans, minorities, etc.
In fact, this kind of refined operation is not without precedent in American political campaigns. However, most political campaigns, even presidential elections, need to face a very critical obstacle to achieve such refined operations, which is the problem of funding.
Money is the least of the problems for the Westeros system.
Although federal campaign laws are still very strict at this stage and there are many restrictions on political donations, as long as you are willing, it is not a problem to get around these obstacles.
For example, this time, a large number of voter surveys required by Paul Spaihts' control team were conducted in the name of local business surveys in Wisconsin by companies such as America Online and Ygritte in the Westeros system. This would allow Paul to Spaihts' team obtained valuable voter feedback data and was able to save the campaign team a large amount of money in disguise.
This model is not new in American political campaigns. Even if the matter is exposed and is subsequently investigated by the federal government, the result will only be a mess.
The fierce election campaign in the second half of the year has not yet begun. Paul Spaihts has directly or indirectly spent more than 5 million US dollars of the Westeros system in Wisconsin alone. This is equivalent to every participant this year. Average campaign fund size of congressional candidates.
However, Simon didn't care because he was very satisfied with the results of the lobbyist's work.
Paul Spaihts' idea of specifying special campaign plans for different groups of voters allowed Simon to see a feasible plan that could quickly spread the political influence of the Westeros system to the entire United States.
After all, the essence of political campaigning is to win votes. Use any means to get votes from a diverse group of voters, and you will be the winner.
In many political campaigns in the past, politicians often offended the lower class groups while courting the middle class; while gaining favor with veterans, they offended anti-war groups; and even when gaining votes from male voters, they offended a large number of women. voter.
The result is often like a fight between a bear and a stick.
Even if some candidates come up with the idea of targeted canvassing, they are often limited to factors such as campaign funds or the organizational capabilities of the campaign team and cannot achieve truly precise operations.
The Westeros system has enough capital, and it also has the political ambition to influence the trend of the entire federal political circle. Therefore, this refined operation plan, which is often too big and inappropriate for other politicians, is almost a reflection of the Westeros system. Made to measure.
In the study room of the villa, Simon and Paul Spaihts spent more than two hours discussing the matter in detail before turning the topic to the current sniper plan.
"In 1993, the average income of middle-class families in Wisconsin dropped by 2.7% compared to 1992, far exceeding the national average of 1%. The unemployment rate also reached 8.6%, exceeding the national average of 6.4%. Employment issues, This is the focus of our operations this year.”
Located in the Great Lakes Rust Belt region where heavy industry in the United States has declined, Wisconsin's economy has been in recession for a long time. The deterioration of the U.S. economic environment in recent years has made Wisconsin even worse.
Simon did not interrupt, but motioned for Paul Spaihts to continue.
"In fact, economic issues have also been a focus of local governments and members of both houses of Congress in Wisconsin over the years. Craig Ames also attaches great importance to this issue. However, affected by the economic recession in the entire country, Wisconsin's economic situation continues to Deterioration is an established fact, and as long as we operate properly, the public will not know about the efforts of politicians like Craig Ames, who will only see their states' economies continue to decline, unemployment rates continue to rise, and household incomes continue to rise. Reduce that, and then our candidates can ride on the momentum."
"At the same time, Craig Ames has pushed for increased aid for low-income families and minorities over the past few years and voted in favor of last year's federal fuel tax increase, which indirectly damaged The interests of the middle class, which make up the majority of Wisconsin's population, happen to be that the average income of middle class families has been decreasing in recent years, and their lives are not easy. Craig Ames is subsidizing it in a way that harms the interests of the middle class. The bottom class of society will cause him to lose further points in this election."
Simon heard what Paul Spaihts said and suddenly said: "According to your statement, it seems difficult for Craig Ames to be re-elected even without our support. So do you think I still need you?"
This sudden question is a bit sharp.
Paul Spaihts was just stunned for a moment, and then smiled: "Boss, these are the impressions I want to instill in Wisconsin voters. Judging from your performance, my strategy is very successful, so you need me." .”
Before the sniper plan was launched, the Westeros system had investigated Craig Ames.
As a skilled veteran politician, although his political views are on the left, Craig Ames can also be regarded as a practical person, so his local support rate in Wisconsin has always been very high.
The question just now was just a small test out of curiosity.
Also nodded, Simon said: "Paul, you can continue."
Paul Spaihts temporarily gave up his intention to think about his boss's small problem just now, and continued: "In addition, we have also dug up some dirty information about Craig Ames during this period, and we plan to release it at the appropriate time in the second half of the year. "
In this year's midterm elections, due to the lack of clear political issues, many campaigns have degenerated into a game of trying to find out who is the dirtier.
Paul Spaihts handed a document to Simon and said: "Craig Ames himself is relatively clean, with no gray income, no secret lover, and a very ordinary background. However, this politician wanted to Establish your own network. In the past few years, I have written college recommendation letters for many students in Wisconsin. As you know, boss, senator-level recommendation letters are very helpful even for admission to prestigious Ivy League schools. Ordinary letters from various states College is a direct admission ticket. Of course, there is no shortage of students with excellent academic performance in Craig Eames’ recommendation letters, but most of them are children of rich people, and that’s where the problem lies.”
Simon opened the folder and saw a copy of a recommendation letter recommending a student named Paul Skrtel to enter the University of Wisconsin.
Paul Spaihts waited for Simon to open the document and continued: "This Paul Skrtel is the son of a local food company owner in Wisconsin, because the Skrtel family is owned by Craig Ames. A major supporter, Craig Ames issued this letter of recommendation for Paul Skrtel two years ago, helping this young man get into the University of Wisconsin with an SAT score far below the admissions standards. Then, according to our According to the investigation, Skrtel was suspected of assaulting at least six female students at the University of Wisconsin in the past two years, and the matter was suppressed by the Skrtel family. What we need to do is to expose this matter and exaggerate Craig E "The unscrupulous rich men supported by Ames wantonly assaulted civilian girls on college campuses. This scandal will directly impact Craig Ames' base voter base."