Simon did not ask for a low profile, so in the afternoon of that day, the news that the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was about to be canceled spread quickly. It was naturally regarded as fake news at first. Then, when some well-informed people got definite replies from people present in the morning, The media immediately went crazy.
First, the major online portal platforms directly pushed the news to the headlines.
After all, there was no official announcement, and some press releases were erroneous. It was thought that this year’s fifth Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which had been rumored before, would be suspended. Even if it was quickly clarified, too many people still found it unbelievable. .
This is a super show with an average viewership of tens of millions of people and is known as the 'Super Bowl of Fashion'!
Not to mention the huge market gains that this show has brought to the Victoria's Secret brand in recent years, even the show itself has averaged tens of millions of video tape sales in the past few years, which means hundreds of millions of dollars in actual benefits. .
If the event was stopped suddenly, Simon Westeros wouldn't be crazy, right
Starting from Saturday afternoon, not only all the executives related to the Victoria's Secret brand and even the LTD Group, but also Simon received a series of calls inquiring about information. In the evening, he attended the East Coast management party of Daenerys Entertainment, Robert Egger and others. He also looked suspicious as to whether Simon had been under too much stress recently and had mental problems.
The next day, a wider range of traditional media began to join the discussion, and the situation became more lively.
As the largest shareholder of Victoria's Secret parent company LTD Group, Apollo Management, a subsidiary of Cersei Capital, is the first to bear the brunt.
When the Apollo Management team acquired LTD Group for US$2.45 billion in all cash, according to the usual operating methods of private equity, they basically held the company for about 5 years, relisted it, and cashed out. The merger and acquisition of LTD Group was completed in 1992, exactly five years next year.
Therefore, LTD Group is actually already quietly planning to re-list.
Simon suddenly announced that Victoria's Secret will stop hosting after this year. Even the so-called suspension will inevitably have an impact on the LTD Group's re-listing next year. After all, the impact of this fashion show on the LTD Group is too obvious.
Faced with the eager inquiries from Leon Black, the head of Apollo Management Company, Simon patiently explained.
Stopping the Victoria's Secret show at the right time was Simon's idea when the show first started. He didn't want Victoria's Secret to be too dependent on this show, and he didn't want the entire LTD Group to be overshadowed by the Victoria's Secret brand. Completely cover up, in recent years, Express, a fast fashion brand under the LTD Group, has developed equally rapidly, but it has lost all the style set off by Victoria's Secret.
All in all, Simon hopes that the company can calm down, rethink its product operations and advertising and marketing strategies, and proceed with its next expansion with a more rational mindset.
Mainly overseas expansion.
Before this, because the Victoria's Secret show was so eye-catching, almost everyone was immersed in the glory brought by this show, ignoring the many problems that the company itself had. Just like the former Victoria's Secret, When the show stopped, all the accumulated problems exploded, and the entire company soon almost came to an end.
On the other hand, even without this big show, given LTD's rapid growth in recent years, coupled with the current boom in the US stock market, the market value of another IPO next year is expected to reach tens of billions of dollars.
From the initial US$2.45 billion to US$10 billion, the average annual return rate exceeded 60% in five years, which is very worthy of investors. As a successful project invested by Apollo Management Company, of course it will not be completely cashed out at once. There is still considerable room for growth in the future and it can continue to bring returns.
At the same time, announcing the closure this year instead of announcing it after the IPO next year also avoids many potential lawsuits.
After all, the influence of this big show is indeed too great. If it is announced to be suspended after re-listing next year, it will inevitably impact the stock price and even trigger a class action lawsuit by investors against the malicious manipulation of the Westeros system to suppress LTD's stock price. Now, LTD still maintains In the privatized state, there is no such problem.
From his own standpoint, Leon Black could not agree with Simon's statement, but he could not refute it.
Simon's idea is entirely for the long-term development of LTD Group, and as a private equity company, it is often necessary to obtain more benefits in the shortest possible time, and there are obvious potential conflicts of interest.
However, Simon is the big boss behind all this.
The boss has the final say.
Secondly, the modeling community is in dire straits.
Just like the shocked reaction of the big fairies when they first heard the news, without the most powerful exposure platform of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, how can everyone take shortcuts and become famous in the future? !
It's a pity that as the bottom of the food chain in the large circle, this group of fairies, big and small, have no say.
Even if Simon is not the biggest BOSS at the top of the pyramid of the entire Westeros system, but is just the top executive of Victoria's Secret who made the decision on this matter, a certain group of goblins with a lot of coolness in their bones may have started to make trouble. In the original time and space, Victoria's Secret The show has been peaceful and prosperous for twenty years. As soon as the show was suspended, the goblins immediately rebelled.
A joint letter.
Sue for harassment and sexual assault.
Expose, report and accuse Victoria’s Secret of all kinds of discrimination.
Coupled with the sluggish performance of Victoria's Secret itself, the impact of public opinion has further pushed this old company into the abyss.
Anyway, how to say that.
Um…
It's all forced anyway.
In any case, now that the decision has been made, Simon has no intention of changing his decision no matter how others react.
After spending the weekend in New York, Simon left for London on Sunday afternoon.
The trip to Europe is expected to last a week.
The main agenda here is to promote the investment promotion of the continuous issuance of bonds by the Westeros system in the second half of the year. Several investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, which is responsible for the bond issuance, hope that Simon can attend in person.
Simon arrived in London on Monday local time. On the same day, July 15, Eagle Reiter officially released its financial report for the first half of 1996.
Ever since Igret's total revenue exceeded 10 billion US dollars, the Internet giant's performance growth rate has been slowing down. After all, given its size, it is simply unrealistic to double its growth as quickly as it did at the beginning. In the previous year of 1995, Yigrit's annual revenue growth rate was 78% year-on-year. This year, the industry generally believes that Yigrit's revenue growth will drop to about 50%.
Facts have proved that due to the craziness of the new technology industry, the market has obviously underestimated the performance growth of Ygritte.
In the first half of 1996, Yigret's total revenue in the first two quarters reached US$13.91 billion. Compared with the first two quarters of last year, the year-on-year growth reached 61%, significantly exceeding the industry's expectations of about 50%.
Not only that, because the gross profits of many of Yigrit's businesses are really high, and the entire new technology industry is burning money almost uncontrollably, even if more income is used to develop the business, Yigrit's first half of the year The net interest rate still exceeded 10%, eventually reaching 11.9%, and the net profit was an astonishing US$1.655 billion.
Half-year revenue was US$13.91 billion and net profit was US$1.655 billion. Speaking of which, this is almost the revenue volume that many Internet giants in Simon's memory can only achieve in 10 years. Not to mention that in 1996 in the original time and space, most Internet companies had not even formed a sustainable business model.
However, this performance is real.
The foundation of the American Internet industry was laid as early as the 1970s and 1980s. With his forward-looking vision, Simon not only fully promoted the development of the Internet industry at least five years in advance with the power of the entire Westeros system, but also A series of mature business models were launched directly from the launch.
In addition, Igret also owns businesses such as Internet basic tools and software that currently have monopoly advantages. This is equivalent to the kind of toll bridge that Warren Buffett likes that has no competitors and can set prices freely.
Therefore, even though the software business, including portals, search engines, social networks, e-commerce, software stores, game malls, cloud computing and other businesses are still in the relatively early stages of development, at this time, Igret is almost It is equivalent to a collection of major Internet giants later.
All in all, compared to many new technology companies that are just burning money to tell stories at this time, Yigrit has left all potential competitors far behind.
To use a more clichéd phrase, Igret’s current enemy is only itself.
According to Simon's potential plan, this company will inevitably be split up in the future. Once it is split up, it will be a super industry earthquake that is far more vigorous than the dismemberment of AT-T. After all, the original AT-T, even if it is A super industry giant, its market value at the time of the split was less than 100 billion.
Ygritte is destined to become a super giant with a market capitalization of trillions of dollars.
In any case, on July 15, Igret's revenue and net profit data exceeded expectations, which directly drove the company's stock price to rise sharply again.
On Monday alone, Yigret's stock price rose by 3.6% in a single day. An increase of more than 3% may seem insignificant when compared to other companies, but don't forget, this was close to 400 billion before. Igret on a dollar scale.
With a share price increase of 3.6%, the market value of this emerging Internet giant broke through the US$400 billion mark in one fell swoop. At the close of the afternoon, Yigret's market value had reached US$410.3 billion.
In just one day, the total value of the shares held by all Eagleret shareholders increased by US$14.7 billion due to this 3.6% increase.
Compared with Yigrit's US$400 billion, the US$14.7 billion market value growth seems to be insignificant. However, only this US$14.7 billion still exceeds the market value of more than 90% of the companies in the US stock market at this time. It can only be said that Ygritte's market value is too high, so high that it makes people numb.
Just like later, the five major technology giants FAANG in the U.S. stock market frequently commanded hundreds of billions of dollars, but in fact there are still too many companies hovering in the range of tens of billions or even billions of dollars. For the five major technology giants, we can only look up and look up.
With Igret leading the way, on Monday too, the stock prices of companies such as Cisco, America Online, Microsoft, Intel, Tinker Bayer, Oracle, etc. all rose. In fact, it is also because the recent period has been a period of intensive release of mid-year financial reports. Some analysts even believe that by the end of July, the Nasdaq index may reach 5,000 points.
5,000 points, this is the peak reached around 2000 in Simon's memory.
If there is a breakthrough in July, it may really cause the new technology bubble to burst before the US election in November.
This is not the case.
There is no doubt that Yigret's performance has exceeded expectations. However, some people are happy and some are sad. Yigrit's outstanding performance does not mean that the performance of other new technology companies is equally outstanding. .
In the same July, in addition to Cisco's growth continuing to increase significantly due to the continued increase in demand for network equipment around the world, America Online, another major technology giant in the Westeros system, followed closely because of the U.S. Internet penetration rate. Continuously improving and even reaching saturation, at least within the local scope, performance growth has obviously begun to slow down significantly.
This also led to AOL's mid-year financial report being lower than expected.
In addition, although the entire new technology industry is still crazy, the popularity of its own business areas is significantly higher than that of other operator areas. In fact, it means that the degree of saturation is higher and the growth potential is lower. AOL is still issuing bonds on a large scale And carry out large-scale infrastructure expansion, which seems to have a somewhat blind tendency.
At this stage, the entire new technology industry is almost blind, but this does not mean that everyone cannot see AOL's tendency to over-invest.
This has also led to recent fluctuations in AOL's stock price.
In the eyes of investors, AOL urgently needs to develop new businesses and increase overseas expansion.
In fact, the direction is very clear.
The Clinton administration's "Telecommunications Act" has lifted business barriers between telecommunications industries. AOL should take advantage of this trend to develop fixed-line telephone, cable TV and other businesses, while further breaking through its previous business areas, especially developing overseas.
AOL's overseas expansion is indeed very strong, but in terms of business diversification, although there are occasional rumors, AOL's actual actions in this regard seem to be somewhat slow.
Therefore, it is inevitable to be urged by the capital market.
The most direct reaction is also the stock price.
AOL's market value has always been at the bottom among the three major technology giants in the Westeros system, and it has been further increased in recent months.
On the same day of July 15th, after Igret's market value of US$410.3 billion, Cisco's market value also surged to US$375.6 billion, while AOL's market value was only US$269.7 billion, which had been There is a gap of hundreds of billions between the two companies of Gretel and Cisco.
In addition to the three giants, in the same new technology field, Tinker Bayer can be said to have caught up from behind.
With the great success of the iRec series of digital camera products released this year, Tinker Bayer already has three flagship products, namely iPlayer, iCam and iRec, and the annual sales of the three products have exceeded 10 million levels, and because of the Internet The rapid growth is still increasing.
As a result, Tinco Bayer, which exceeded the 100 billion level when the IPO was listed, had a market value of US$226.3 billion as of the close of trading on July 15.
Another US$200 billion corporate giant.
Coupled with Daenerys Entertainment Group in the media and entertainment field, the closing market value that day was US$353.7 billion.
After calculation, the cumulative market value of these five corporate giants that are firmly controlled by the Westeros system has reached a terrifying US$1,635.6 billion. Suddenly, people are paying attention to one thing again, Simon... How much is the current net worth in Westeros