In the third week after its official listing, Daenerys Entertainment's market value successfully exceeded the US$120 billion mark on July 13, influenced by the phenomenal sales of "Forrest Gump".
Although the stock price rise has begun to slow down further, some Wall Street analysts who are extremely optimistic about the development momentum of Daenerys Entertainment have already issued the argument that the company's stock price will rise to a high of $65 within the next year. Based on the total share capital of Daenerys Entertainment Group, if the stock price reaches US$65, the market value will exceed US$150 billion.
Many industry media have recognized this.
Because even if the market value exceeds 150 billion US dollars, based on Daenerys Entertainment's recent profit expectations, it is only equivalent to a price-to-earnings ratio of 57 times.
If it is other corporate giants that have reached the ceiling of the industry, the price-to-earnings ratio of 57 times is obviously exaggerated, but it is not excessive for Daenerys Entertainment, which has repeatedly created business miracles.
Of course, there are also objections.
Bloomberg, a well-known financial information company on Wall Street, published a targeted commentary article, analyzing in detail the current situation of Daenerys Entertainment Group, which seems to be still thriving on the surface but has actually reached the peak of the industry.
Especially since the core film business of Daenerys Entertainment Group already accounts for half of Hollywood, even if it maintains its current strength and is lucky enough to break through the shackles of industry uncertainty and produce blockbuster movies, there is actually no big chance. upside potential.
Even on the contrary, as the engine for the diversified development of Daenerys Entertainment, any changes in the film business will inevitably cause the entire company to turn from prosperity to decline.
Therefore, although Daenerys Entertainment shows no signs of prosperity and decline in the short term, and the global film industry is also in a period of rapid growth, this entertainment company whose development momentum has reached its peak should have a reasonable price-to-earnings ratio of 20 to 30 times. between.
At this stage, the price-to-earnings ratio exceeds 45 times and the market value exceeds US$100 billion. There are serious bubble elements.
Bloomberg analysts believe that this phenomenon is entirely due to the market’s blind admiration for Simon Westeros’ personal wealth miracle. However, investment should not be blind, but needs to follow rationality.
Bloomberg's development is far from reaching the peak in Simon's memory, but its influence is no less than that of any financial media.
Therefore, when this article calling on investors to return to rationality was published on the morning of July 14, Daenerys Entertainment's stock price fell by more than 1% immediately after the opening, and then fluctuated downwards throughout the day.
On the surface, Bloomberg's article is just a matter of fact, but from many of the financial information company's recent news comments, anyone with a keen intuition can sense the hostility.
As for the reason, it lies with the AlphaBeta company established by Girl B.
After staying in Ohio for a day on Monday, Simon came to New York on Tuesday mainly to participate in the internal evaluation meeting of AlphaBeta's financial information software Alia.
Although AlphaBeta's short-term customer development goals are focused on the bottom traders of large financial companies and users of small and medium-sized financial companies, as the Westeros system continues to hear news of entering the financial information field, its development in recent years has been unique. Bloomberg clearly feels threatened.
In order to avoid disguised publicity for Alia, which will be released in October at the end of the year, Bloomberg has not made a public statement on this matter. However, Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg, has said in private more than once that Bloomberg will do whatever it takes to maintain its many patented business models and intellectual property rights.
The purpose of this statement is self-evident.
Since its establishment more than ten years ago, Bloomberg has certainly not experienced competition, but under Bloomberg’s innovative information terminal model, previous competitors have been vulnerable.
This time it was obviously different.
Anyone who pays a little attention to AlphaBeta can see Simon's emphasis on this start-up.
In order to support AlphaBeta, Simon personally selected the top financial analysis and software development talents from Cersei Capital and Ygrit, and has appeared in the Manhattan financial circle with B-girl more than once in the past six months. many social occasions.
As the software release approaches, a marketing team from Igret Software's sales department has quietly entered AlphaBeta. At the same time, three well-known Wall Street giants, Cersei Capital, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, have all signed formal software purchase contracts in recent days after quietly participating in the testing of Alia’s trial version some time ago.
There are millions of financial practitioners in the United States, and there are countless more around the world. However, at this stage, the installed base of Bloomberg terminals with an annual fee of up to US$15,000 can only exceed 20,000. Even Wall Street giants such as Cersei Capital, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs cannot equip all traders with expensive terminals. The Bloomberg Terminal has relatively simple functions but provides far more services than the old-fashioned stock ticker display. Alia financial information software is undoubtedly the best financial software suitable for large-scale deployment to ordinary employees.
The pricing determined by Alia is very clear, it is US$150 per month and US$1,500 per year.
Not to mention big Wall Street clients such as Cersei Capital, even ordinary individual investors who are slightly interested in the stock market can easily afford this expenditure. In comparison, the Bloomberg terminal with an annual fee of up to US$15,000 is out of reach for most grassroots financial practitioners who can only earn tens of thousands of US dollars a year.
At this stage, the number of Bloomberg terminals purchased by various Wall Street giants is generally only a few hundred. But this time, for Alia, the three companies signed a purchase contract for a total of 1,500 sets at one time. This was not just a large-scale move due to Simon's personal influence.
Such a starting point was enough to put Bloomberg in its infancy back then.
In the past six months, Simon has only provided limited suggestions for the development of Alia based on the fields he knows. More of it is financial and resource support. He can't see the quality of the software, but because of Simon's attention, Jenny also paid attention to it. Special said this software is great.
Moreover, judging from the fact that three companies including Cersei Capital directly signed purchase contracts after participating in internal trials, this software has already gained a considerable degree of recognition before it is officially launched.
This cooperation between the three companies certainly involves Simon's favor.
However, if it involves an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, if the software itself is not up to standard, Simon himself will not allow even Cersei Capital, his own company in the Westeros system, to purchase and use it.
The affirmation from Cersei Capital and three other companies directly erected a golden sign for Alia.
After the official listing, Alia's promotion will be more effective by relying solely on the three Wall Street star clients who have already reached cooperation as live advertisements.
In order to further promote Alia, B Girl has also developed a plan to provide free trial versions to some universities in the United States.
This is something.
In modern society, success for no reason no longer exists.
At that time, Bloomberg actually relied on Michael Bloomberg’s connections from working on Wall Street for many years to obtain a software development contract from Merrill Lynch in advance. When the contract was signed, the Bloomberg terminal was still in PPT mode and was not even tested. Version of the product is not available.
Subsequently, Merrill Lynch became a shareholder of Bloomberg and used its customer network on Wall Street to promote Bloomberg terminals, which largely contributed to the current success of Bloomberg.
Girl B does not have the connections to work on Wall Street for many years, but she has a bigger backer like the Westeros system.
Therefore, even if the product has not been officially launched, and even if it will not target the high-end customer base occupied by Bloomberg terminals for a long time in the future, this company still makes Bloomberg feel like a formidable enemy.
The Westeros system has proven its success in many fields over the years, and the Bloomberg terminal is far from being able to completely monopolize the market with its own data and information ecosystem many years later. A Bloomberg commentary called on the market to view the business miracle created by Simon rationally. However, Michael Bloomberg was obviously not calm at all about the arrival of Alia.
AlphaBeta's headquarters is located in Greenwich, Connecticut, mainly to save operating costs and avoid taxes.
After returning to Greenwich from work in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, Simon came specially to the AlphaBeta headquarters.
About the name change.
As the product enters the trial stage, both girls A and B feel that the name AlphaBeta is not as simple and easy to remember as Alia after all. It is still Simon's idea when he named the AlphaBeta product personally. A company and product that is easy to remember. , has many potential advantages.
New company names are also readily available.
Named directly after its product, Alia.
Simon actually understood the little thoughts of the two girls.
Once AlphaBeta changes her name to Alia, she will intentionally or unintentionally become the fifth 'woman' in the Westeros system after Daenerys, Melisandre, Ygritte and Cersei. This will undoubtedly further increase the market's interest in confidence in the software.
A name like Alia is quite common, and according to Western business habits, of course, it would not fail to be registered in advance.
Girl B quietly operated for a period of time in advance, and then purchased or registered the Alia trademark in major countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia. The total expenditure for this alone exceeded 2.3 million U.S. dollars, and this was still operated through a shell company. As a result, if purchased in the name of AlphaBeta, a subsidiary of the Westeros system, the price may directly increase ten times.
Even if there is no plan to change the name, since Alia software is to be launched, it is imperative to acquire trademarks worldwide, so this expense cannot be avoided.
Counting such an expense on the name, AlphaBeta has invested a total of more than 18 million U.S. dollars in the past six months. This is a total of 20 million U.S. dollars for girls A and B while girl B is trying to save costs as much as possible. The Vase Fund is also approaching depletion.
Simon paid special attention to this matter.
Compared with the Instagram founded by D girls, which only needs one to two million dollars to start up, a financial information company needs to hire top professionals, build a huge corporate database, and design complex stock bonds if it wants to develop products. Analytical models require external procurement of data and information, and so on.
18 million US dollars is already a considerable saving.
More than ten years ago, Bloomberg developed the first Bloomberg terminal, which took eight months and invested more than US$4 million. The US$4 million in the early 1980s is basically equivalent to US$10 million today.
Bloomberg has hardly encountered any too threatening opponents in so many years. One of the key reasons is that emerging startups usually cannot afford to compete with companies that require a large number of top talents and huge funds to launch products in the early stages of establishment, even if Even if you spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a formal product, it may not be recognized by Wall Street. When it comes to the security of large sums of money, no Wall Street financial firm would rush to use a startup's products.
As for long-established financial information companies such as Dow Jones or Reuters, which have been around for a century, they have already formed a fixed business model, which inevitably leads to the tendency of being too big to lose. The development of products such as Bloomberg Terminal often threatens their core business model, so it has always been Let Bloomberg grow.
Eventually, Bloomberg became the unshakable hegemon in the global financial information industry.
Now, Bloomberg has just over 20,000 customers, instead of the 300,000 that it has completely monopolized many years later. Bloomberg’s data and social ecosystem are not completely stable. This is the opportunity for the Westeros system.
Simon has his sights on the future potential market size of tens of billions of dollars in the financial information industry, and he has no shortage of funds and connections. If he unswervingly develops this field, he will naturally pose a strong threat to Bloomberg.
In a conference room at the AlphaBeta headquarters, I saw several sets of new company logo design plans quietly prepared by Girl B. After some discussion, everyone selected one of them, which basically finalized the change of AlphaBeta's name to Aaliyah.
"The orders from the three companies of Cersei Capital, including the natural increase in product income after Alia's official release, are enough for you to maintain a self-sufficient operation. Unless necessary, I will not give you more funds in the short term. Betsy, next you What we need to do is not to rush to expand the business, but to use the application feedback from the three major customers to continuously optimize and update the software, and wait patiently for at least a year before launching a larger-scale promotion."
The meeting ended at around six o'clock in the evening.
Simon said this to Girl B when he was about to leave.
The expansion of the Westeros system over the years has been nothing short of miraculous. However, Simon is not a person who is eager for quick success and quick success at heart. When it is time to take things steadily, he must be patient.
The 1,500 sets of software orders signed by Cersei Capital in advance, although privately given a 20% discount, the average annual fee for each set of software reached US$12,000, which can provide Aaliyah with an annual basic income of US$18 million. The income is equivalent to the Vase Fund’s investment in this company over the past half year.
If a financial information company wants to improve its various businesses, no amount of money invested can be considered 100% sufficient.
Just like Bloomberg, this long-established financial information company now has a team of more than 500 reporters worldwide. This alone is a huge expense. Girl B's company can only obtain financial information by cooperating with other media for the time being, which is obviously not a long-term solution. However, the creation of its own information team cannot be accomplished overnight.
At this stage, if we proceed steadily, the revenue of US$18 million, including the income from other customers after the software is released, is enough for the company to maintain a certain degree of expansion while being self-sufficient.
The equity structure of Aria Company, which is about to be renamed, is that Girl B holds 15%, Girl A owns 5%, and the other 10% is awarded to several core executives of the company. Westeros Company holds shares through the Vase Fund. is 70%.
As long as this company can remain self-sufficient in the future, the equity interests of Lady B and others will no longer be diluted.
The equity share of Lady B and others does not seem to be much. For a company that needs to invest a large amount of capital in its early stage, Simon's 30% equity share is generous enough. Based on Vase Fund’s investment in the past year, the total value of 30% of the equity is as high as US$6 million.
Moreover, this is only the original equity. As long as Aaliyah Company develops smoothly, these equity shares can make many people billionaires in the future.
Simon does not plan to inject any more capital into Aaliyah Company in the short term. In addition to wanting Girl B to settle down and avoid being impetuous, he also has good intentions of not diluting their equity share.
Many business owners always encourage their employees to transform into wolves, but they often selectively forget the fact that wolves want to eat meat. Giving your employees grazing and expecting them to help you fight like a pack of wolves is a hooliganism.
Narrow-minded and stupid.
Having lived two lives and seen too much of the world, Simon does not lack selfish instincts in his heart, but he often warns himself not to have such a narrow thinking pattern.