Chapter 558 Trouble in Rebirth
“Bill, I am Chinese. You know, for me, for companies such as Micron, Samsung, and Elpida that are relatively well-run, even if the other party wants to sell them, I will take them. Not coming down.”
Old Gates nodded clearly.
"Xu, you can change your nationality. I believe Mr. President will approve it as soon as possible."
Xu Liang shook his head, "When we were in the White House, George W. Bush also said the same thing, but I Still refused.”
"Why?"
"China, which has just reformed, has more opportunities than the United States, which has been developing for three hundred years."
Old Gates is a smart man, and he understood what he meant instantly .
"Xu, your vision is further than I thought."
Xu Liang smiled and did not continue the topic.
"Xu, I heard that Pacific No. 1 Fund is about to raise funds again?"
The two chatted for a while and had lunch together, and Xu Liang was ready to leave.
"Xu, you have made it so big all at once. It seems that you have already considered the investment direction?"
Old Gates nodded. Hedge funds will basically not make it too big.
Old Gates smiled and put down the coffee in his hand.
"How much money are you planning to raise?"
Xu Liang left the Gates Manor with the old Gates personally sending him off.
Telling it to George W. Bush, it was mainly because he wanted something from the other party. Obviously Gates Sr. did not receive such treatment.
Old Gates calculated, there is still half a month left.
After saying that, in Xu Liang’s questioning eyes, Old Gates handed over a document bag.
After taking a comfortable sip of coffee, Old Gates looked out the window at the beautiful Lake Washington and said to himself.
“We decided to officially raise funds from outside on November 15th.”
Old Gates waved his hand, the butler bent down and saluted, then turned and left.
Considering that too much money will reduce flexibility, I want to reduce returns.
Coming back now, everything is still the same.
"Bill, I'll take my leave first."
"I'll give it to you."
15 billion US dollars or 20 billion US dollars, triple leverage can leverage 50 to 60 billion US dollars, right It's big enough for a hedge fund.
Xu Liang also doesn’t want to make Pacific No. 1 Fund too big.
After replying, Xu Liang stopped decisively.
"Xu, we are friends and partners. Out of the obligations of friends and the interests of partners, there are some things I think you should know."
He lived here for half a year last year.
Suppressing the doubts in his heart, Xu Liang smiled and stretched out his right hand.
Back in the car, Xu Liang couldn't wait to open the document in his hand. He wanted to see what the old guy was up to.
Therefore, the blockade period of Pacific No. 1 Fund will be longer in the future.
After reading the information, Xu Liang couldn't help but read it again.
15 billion or even 20 billion for Pacific No. 1 Fund is already a lot.
“Cancel the plan to visit Amazon and fly to Silicon Valley immediately.”
After briefly reading a few lines, his expression suddenly became serious.
After a night's rest, Xu Liang arrived at Hongmeng North America Headquarters, No. 1148, Palo Alto, the next day.
"It can't be that fast."
After the soybean war and before the subprime mortgage crisis, he couldn't remember any better investment opportunities. However, some companies have great investment value, but it takes time to realize them.
Old Gates is a smart man, so he didn’t force anything.
Gudu…….
“Around US$15 billion, not more than US$20 billion.”
"It's not clear yet." The old housekeeper replied.
Lu Hui quickly agreed.
——
“Sir, Mr. Xu’s Kunpeng left your private airport half an hour ago.”
“There is something good to watch this time. ”
——
Xu Liang has a Xu Manor in Atherton, Silicon Valley, covering an area of 5.5 acres and a main building area of 4,415 square meters.
“You can look at it when you go back.”
“Do you know where he went?”
Lu Xiaobo led the company’s senior management to hold a simple welcome ceremony.
Soon, there was a hint of anger in his eyes.
Xu Liang didn’t say anything and had a brief meeting with the company’s senior management.
Took Lu Xiaobo into the office.
Hold Hongmeng North America's third quarter report in his hand, with a satisfied smile on his face.
"Warcraft 3" has lived up to his expectations. From its launch in July to now, in just three months, the disc sales have exceeded 10 million copies.
It is the game with the fastest sales volume exceeding 10 million copies among all games in the world. This alone created an astonishing market of US$800 million and brought back nearly US$700 million in net revenue and US$400 million in gross profit to Hongmeng North America.
This data is higher than that of ordinary game companies.
After acquiring Vivendi Games, Hongmeng North America has its own distribution channels, so it saves a lot of money on distribution.
"Warcraft 3" is a relatively mature IP and has high market expectations.
If the seller's market dominates, it will naturally have more advantages in sharing.
The most typical examples are the Ninth City and Blizzard in history.
Ninetowns successfully won the agency rights of "World of Warcraft". Blizzard agreed and put forward a series of quite harsh agency conditions.
For example, there must be an independent telecommunications-level computer room, and the server can only operate "World of Warcraft". The server capacity must also support tens of thousands of people online at the same time. Agents are not allowed to make changes to the game itself, etc.
This condition is still too harsh even now, let alone back then.
At that time, most domestic game companies basically did not have independent computer rooms, let alone personal servers.
Basically they all rent from each other.
If you want to be an agent for "World of Warcraft", it means you have to spend a lot of money to buy a server, and you also have to pay an agency fee of tens of millions of dollars every year.
You can do a simple calculation: the agency fee of 10 million plus independent computer room and server fees, and finally a 15% profit share.
Not even half of the money earned actually goes into your pocket.
At this time, if you represent Korean online games, you can basically get 80% of the profits.
Even so, "World of Warcraft" is still a rare big cake in the eyes of domestic game manufacturers.
25 online game companies participated in the first competition.
Most of the companies were eliminated in the second round, leaving only 8 companies.
In the third round, there were only 4 companies left to compete. In the end, Zhu Jun won the 4-year agency of "World of Warcraft" at the cost of US$13 million, 22% profit sharing, and US$70 million in independent computer room construction fees. right.
If you include the early promotion costs of the game, Ninetowns spent nearly 100 million US dollars on a "World of Warcraft".
This was US$100 million in 2004.
According to the exchange rate at that time, it was equivalent to more than 800 million Chinese coins.
In Pudong, the most prosperous city in Shanghai, this money can fully build a 5A-level high-end office building with an area of 15 square meters.
Able to acquire more than 90% of the country’s Internet companies, including Jack Ma’s Alibaba.
This shows how much advantage popular IP can have during negotiations.
Of course, Ninetowns' gamble did not fail.
During the period from 2004 to 2009, "World of Warcraft" was a great success. The9's annual revenue was almost more than 2 billion, leaving Shanda, NetEase, and Penguin far behind.
Now this big cake falls perfectly into Xu Liang’s hands.
Revenue from game disc sales is only part of the equation.
What is more profitable is the income from peripheral copyrights, including film and television copyrights.
Xu Liang still clearly remembers the sensation that the movie "Warcraft" caused in China when it was released. The crappy plot was able to earn nearly 1.5 billion Chinese dollars at the box office by selling emotions.
As long as the director and screenwriter can do something good, it won't be like that in North America.
Thinking of the movie, Xu Liang’s eyes changed.
“Hasn’t the MGM contract been signed yet?”
"Not yet."
Lu Xiaobo shook his head.
"What's going on? Didn't you say it was settled last time?"
"It was already settled, but when the contract was signed, Kirk Kerkorian He suddenly changed his mind and felt that the contract price was not in line with MGM's value, so he postponed the signing. "When did this happen? Why didn't you notify me?" Xu Liang frowned.
"I only got the news yesterday afternoon. Considering that you were tired from the journey, I didn't notify you in time."
Glancing at him, Xu Liang nodded slightly.
“What are the opinions of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan?”
“They feel that Kirk Kerkorian should be shown off, otherwise it will be easy for the other party to take advantage of him. The price increase caused us to suffer huge losses," Lu Xiaobo said.
Throughout the two lifetimes together, Xu Liang has been in business for many years.
It is very clear that the current situation should be slow rather than urgent.
"What made Kirk Kerkorian change his mind?"
There must be a reason for a person's sudden change.
"There are currently two speculations.
First, Kirk Kerkorian has already made up his mind to regret it, in order to test our bottom line and win for himself. Greater good
Second, other consortiums have joined the competition.
As for the specific reason, Goldman Sachs is still investigating, and there is currently no accurate information. "
Xu Liang stood up, walked around the office, stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, and pondered for a while.
"What kind of reason do you think it is? ”
(End of this chapter)