Manhattan, inside a red brick apartment on Morton Street in Greenwich Village.
The time is Friday, June 24th.
It was breakfast time for the Spurt family. Grace Spurt and the family's nanny, Ms. Hannah, distributed breakfast to her husband and children before sitting down at the dining table.
Bill Spurter put down the "New York Times" in his hand, picked up the tableware, and listened to the two children excitedly discussing how to spend the weekend, but his expression became more worried.
It's summer vacation. In previous years, the couple would have been able to send the two little ones to some summer camps and sometimes use their annual leave to travel together. However, this year they had to cancel all plans.
Credit Suisse's integration and layoffs of First Boston have officially started. During this period, employees were called in for interviews and then left, and some departments were even cut off entirely. As a 43-year-old junior supervisor who has yet to make his mark, Bill Spurter knows very well that he may be called in for a talk within at most half a month.
Wall Street is a world of young people who are as energetic as wolves.
At his age, once he is laid off, it will be difficult to find the same type of job on Wall Street. What's even more helpless is that he has no other skills.
Maybe, you can drive a taxi.
It seems that the income of a New York taxi driver is still good. Although it will be very tiring and does not have much status, if it really reaches that point, he probably won't care about anything else. As a man who is somewhat macho in his bones, he cannot let his wife A person goes to earn money to support his family.
According to the family's past expenses, it seems that they can't afford it.
Grace Spurth promised her two children that they could go swimming at Long Island Beach on the weekend. She noticed the worried look on her husband's face, glanced at the copy of the New York Times placed next to her, and took the initiative to find a topic to ask. : "Bill, what's the news today?"
Bill Spurter heard his wife's voice and smiled reluctantly, but shook his head and did not respond as before.
I've been really exhausted lately.
In this round of layoffs and integration, some people will of course be eliminated, while others will get promotion opportunities. During these days, Bill Spurter has been working hard with the few resources and contacts he has, but unfortunately has achieved little success, which makes him feel more and more about the end he is about to face.
Although he didn't respond, when he heard his wife's question, Bill Spurter's mind was filled with a headline from the economic section of the New York Times: 'Daenerys Entertainment Group IPO was 37 times oversubscribed.'
It is actually common for many popular companies to receive oversubscriptions of more than ten times or even dozens of times during the IPO process.
The IPO of Daenerys Entertainment Group is very different.
The IPO price of this rapidly rising Hollywood entertainment giant was officially set at US$22.5, which is US$2.5 higher than the initially announced range of US$18 to US$20. Based on the issuance volume of 250 million new shares, the overall valuation of this IPO is US$53.1 billion, and the financing scale reaches US$5.625 billion.
Both the IPO valuation and the scale of financing have set new highs in Wall Street history.
Therefore, compared with those companies whose IPO financing scale is only tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, Daenerys Entertainment Group's investment this time involved 37 times oversubscription from more than 1,700 investment institutions around the world, which is definitely a pioneering work.
Oversubscription means that many investment institutions are unable to finally obtain the shares, which also means that the market has a strong desire to buy after the company is officially listed. You can imagine what a grand event it will be when Daenerys Entertainment is officially launched next Friday.
As the number one listed company in the United States by market value, IBM has been in jeopardy recently due to the hot pursuit of Cisco and AOL. Now, there is no need to wait for Cisco and AOL to overtake. Daenerys Entertainment is listed and is expected to easily overtake IBM. Sweep to second place.
Recently, various financial media and Wall Street analysts have been speculating whether Daenerys Entertainment will go one step further and become the first corporate giant in American history with a market value of more than 100 billion US dollars.
Based on Daenerys Entertainment's recently disclosed rough financial report data for the first half of 1994 and the strong upward momentum of continuous growth in all aspects of this comprehensive entertainment group, the market value has reached hundreds of billions of dollars, and the price-to-earnings ratio is only about 40 times. That's too much.
Therefore, this possibility is very high.
The lead underwriters of Daenerys Entertainment’s IPO are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. However, other investment banks can actually get a share of the pie through various other cooperations. As one of the old Wall Street investment banks, First Boston has also conducted Similar efforts.
It's a pity that it didn't work out due to various reasons.
The reason why the parent company Credit Suisse is determined to integrate First Boston and the inaction of First Boston management during the Daenerys Entertainment IPO process is actually a reason that cannot be ignored.
The Westeros system, which has rapidly emerged as a super behemoth in recent years, is now the target of all financial giants on Wall Street to win over.
Bill Spurter couldn't help but fantasize about how great it would be if he could get some business from this Daenerys Entertainment IPO, so that not only would he not leave this time, but he would definitely be able to go further.
Unfortunately, contacting Daenerys Entertainment is mainly the work of the investment banking department, and it is not their turn for the sales and trading department to intervene. What's more, even if they can intervene, this job will not fall on him.
Now, those losers have failed to win business, but have caused the entire company to be laid off.
Her husband had no interest in talking, so Grace could only turn her attention to her two children. Occasionally glancing at her husband with slightly frowning eyebrows, Grace decided that she would still have a frank talk with her husband this weekend.
With the resources she had recently acquired, Grace had several conversations with Elite President John Casablanca and actively requested that she should be promoted.
She would certainly not be foolish enough to reveal some young man's final plans to Casablanca.
Therefore, in the eyes of John Casablanca, she caught up with Simon Westeros's extremely thick thigh, which can obviously provide more assistance to the further development of Elite, and the request for promotion is very reasonable.
Not surprisingly, she will soon become the vice president of Elite's North American branch.
Although she is only one of the three vice presidents, and it is limited to the North American branch. Although there is only one more word 'vice' than John Casablanca's position, it is actually several levels different, but compared to the past, she has buried a lot of money. Take a big step and officially become the management of Elite.
The couple originally had similar income levels.
Now, even if her husband loses his job, with her next salary that will at least double, she will have no problem at least maintaining her current standard of living.
In fact, it was not that she had not considered helping her husband through the young man's channels. However, since the last time they met in Greenwich, there had been orders from there, but she had never been able to see him again.
Some of the thoughts that had arisen in her completely disappeared.
It was hard to say whether speaking out about something as trivial as her husband's job would be counterproductive to that young man.
Although they only got along for a very short time, although he always behaved very gently during the relationship, due to a woman's keen sixth sense, she could feel the indifference and alienation under this gentle appearance, the kind of indifference to the whole world. casual.
Thinking of this, Grace, who was sitting at the dining table, couldn't help but take a small deep breath.
The mysterious temperament of that little man, like a dark abyss, actually does not make women resist. On the contrary, this temperament makes it easy for women to step into it and then be trapped in that world, unable to climb out again. come out.
Suddenly, her son Ray's voice sounded at the dining table. The child asked if the family could go to the cinema to watch "The Dark Knight Rises" again tonight. Grace's thoughts were interrupted, so she woke up and realized that she had no other plans for the evening. She glanced at her husband again before nodding in agreement.
After breakfast, she sent her husband out first. Grace told the nanny that the family needed to buy some daily necessities, and then drove away from the apartment on Morton Street with their two children.
It's 8:20 in the morning.
I drove fifteen minutes to a private training center in Midtown, where my two children took French classes three days a week during the summer. This was to prepare the children for entering a better private high school in Manhattan. French has always been Considered the language of the upper class, French is a must-have if you want to enter some of the top private schools in Manhattan.
Campus students in Hollywood movies and TV shows are always 'carefree', falling in love, racing, taking drugs, fighting, partying, reveling... being wanton and frivolous, squandering their youth. This is indeed the life state of many American middle school students, but basically they are all It's a public high school.
Most of these people will enter the society in a "carefree" life and become the bottom class of American society. They are destined to be like ants all their lives, doing nothing and often becoming the most direct victims of the economic downturn in the United States.
The United States is a country run by elites.
If you are not born into the elite class and want to enter that circle, you are destined to give up that carefree life. Even so, many generations of climbing may not be accepted by a certain circle.
Grace still remembers when her two children were in kindergarten.
At that time, the couple wanted to send their children to a well-known private kindergarten with a long history in the Upper West Side. They originally thought they could do it by spending a little more money. As a result, the children had to undergo an interview before entering the kindergarten, and it was definitely not a symbolic interview. For this reason, she even took her daughter Rita, who was only 3 years old at the time, to attend preschool training, and then watched her daughter being manipulated like a small animal by the arrogant kindergarten interviewer.
As a result, I spent thousands of dollars in training fees and was still rejected after the interview.
Grace was unwilling to give in. A year later, her youngest son Ray tried to sprint again, but still failed.
At that time, the couple also considered whether they could get tickets by donating a sum of money to the kindergarten. They gritted their teeth and proposed a donation of US$100,000, but they were still rejected.
Then understand that this is the threshold.
A barrier between the upper class and ordinary elites in the United States.
The small Manhattan is just ten kilometers deep, with distinct divisions such as the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Midtown, and Lower Town.
Grace later learned that the main reason their children were rejected was that they were not residents of the Upper West Side. This condition did not mean that you could just rent a house in the Upper West Side. You also had to own fixed real estate. corresponding social status.
Otherwise, families with rich wealth and a certain degree of fame and status do not want their children to get along with some inexplicable children. So even if they wrote a check for a decidedly non-trivial $100,000, they would still be turned away.
Since then, the couple has actually been holding their breath.
However, as her husband's career has not improved over the years, it is impossible for her as a woman to achieve much in the modeling industry. Some of the injustices and ambitions she had in the past have faded away unknowingly, and in the end, some of them are left. It all depends on the two children.
After sending the two children to the training center and explaining things, Grace hurriedly drove to the Elite headquarters a few blocks away.
Although her application for promotion has not been approved, the number of personal assistants has increased to three during this period to assist her in handling the sudden increase in various matters.
During this period, many models who had heard about it, whether they were within Elite or clients of other companies, also hoped to be transferred to her name.
Grace was not greedy for more. She just accepted five or six picky ones. However, she cut off more than half of the original thirty-odd clients and directly gave up on those girls who had little potential and were destined to be a waste of her energy. In the past, these customers could bring her some income. Now, if she continues to hold them in her hands, the energy she puts in and the meager income will become very unequal.
During this process, many girls begged and begged to stay with her, but Grace did not relent.
Such is the way of the world.
After the adjustment, in addition to the three members of the Gralff family who had been quietly dismissed in her heart, Grace now has 21 models in her hands, and the overall quality has increased a lot.
Among them, a baby-faced girl named Tracy Gauff has been confirmed as the new Victoria's Secret Angel. The other two spots are still undecided. Grace also believes that this little man will not break his promise to her. After this period of careful selection, Grace will pass another list to the assistant in Westeros today.
This time I can at least confirm one more spot.
When she arrived at the company and was about to start her day's work, John Casablanca's assistant came over to call her.
Arriving at the president's office, John Casablanca was making a phone call behind his desk. Another model, Karen Mulder, was sitting in the reception area of the office.
Seeing Grace entering the door, Karen Mulder stood up in an obviously flattering manner.
Grace smiled and shook hands with Karen Mulder, nodded to Casablanca, and temporarily sat down on the sofa in the reception area, chatting casually with Karen Mulder in a low tone without any unfamiliarity.
Although not as good as Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista, the company's mainstays, Karen Mulder is also one of the supermodels that Elite has promoted since the 1980s. It's a pity that since the first Victoria's Secret show, this supermodel who was originally very powerful has been left behind. This was still the case in the second show last year.
Missing the strong exposure platform of Victoria's Secret, and with so many underachieving girls rising rapidly, Karen Mulder soon showed a tendency to die on the beach. The girl has lost three endorsements in the past two years. If There is no improvement this year, and it is estimated that the last two niche brand endorsements she has will leave her.
By then there will be no chance of turning around.
As for the reason for all this, it is now well known in the circle.
And simple and crude.
Simon Westeros doesn't like girls with thick lips.