Hollywood Hunter

"Norman attended a reception for foreign investors in the Kremlin last week and met Yeltsin. He mentioned your recent selection of girls in Russia."

Du Mui Point Manor.

The time is Friday, January 21.

Simon and Anthony Johnston just sat down in the reception area next to the curtain wall of the Shell Villa with a great sea view, and Anthony talked about it.

Janet brought coffee to her husband and brother herself. She was going to sit down beside Simon. Hearing that she lost a look of "My brother vented me, be careful," she took the initiative to walk away.

Simon had no guilty conscience. He was not surprised that Yeltsin knew that he had recruited Uyghur maids in Russia. The skinny camel was bigger than a horse. If Russia inherited the KGB intelligence system of the former Soviet Union, it would not even be able to detect such things. There may be a complete worry of overthrowing the country.

Simon also knows that he has been the focus of attention of governments around the world, both openly and secretly.

After all, he is the only one in the world who has made hundreds of billions of dollars from scratch.

Taking a sip of coffee from Janet, Simon smiled and asked, "What did Yeltsin say?"

Anthony didn’t mean to question his younger sister. For the anomalous existence of his brother-in-law, it is difficult for him to take up his brother’s arrogance: “Yeltsin said that Russian girls are all excellent, and your selection criteria are too strict. In addition, he invites you to have the opportunity to visit Moscow."

"If you have a chance, I actually want to visit Moscow."

Anthony nodded, and couldn't help but said, "What are you doing with so many girls?"

Simon didn't hide it, saying: "I plan to train some maids for the family. You know, the ones I train are definitely more reliable."

Anthony said: "Sophia Fessy, Alice Ferguson and Claire Gein?"

Sophia, who is in charge of Melisandre, Alice who is in charge of Igreat's e-commerce business, and Claire who founded Tinkobair, are all from the Westeros family.

Although the public media seldom discuss these, the circles around Westeros are still very fond of the women around Westeros. For this reason, there are too many women who want to join Simon.

Women like Sophia Fessi were only selected by Simon after their personal abilities were basically finalized. Now, his brother-in-law plans to train them from scratch. Anthony thinks about the brother Norman, who is in charge of the Russian business, talking to him about this matter and Yeltsin's words that Simon's selection criteria are too strict. It is certain that these girls will only be better in the future.

Almost couldn't help but ask Simon for one or two to be his assistant, but Anthony gave it up when he spoke.

As the eldest brother and brother-in-law said this seems not very solemn.

So he changed the subject and said: "Speaking of Russia, my father scolded Norman at Christmas last year. He said that you should not show too much about the political realm to our Russian agent Mikhail Friedman. The reminder of ambition was correct, and also warned Norman to break Yeltsin if he got too close."

In recent years, the collapse of Russia has created a large number of capital oligarchs, taking advantage of the opportunity of this country to promote privatization and circulate assets in various fields.

The emerging oligarchs in Russia cannot have too much of their own funds, so they rely on overseas capital for blood transfusions. The Westeros system has not let go of this gluttonous feast.

Simon selected Mikhail Friedman, one of the seven oligarchs of Russia in the 1990s, as the spokesperson of the Westeros system, including the Johnston family, in Russia. The reason why he is the other party is because Mikhail Friedman is the only ‘survivor’ among the seven old oligarchs after the emperor came to power.

This is not accidental.

Mikhail Friedman is a businessman who is very good at judging the situation and actively avoiding too much involvement in politics. Although this made him the lowest strength among the seven old Russian oligarchs, when other capital oligarchs who interfered and manipulated the Russian political situation were taken down one after another, Friedman, who was very witty, was affirmed by the emperor.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Westeros system got in touch with Friedman before other capitals and funded the formation of the Alpha Group. In recent years, more than 500 million US dollars have been bet on this businessman. This money is nothing for the Westeros system, but it is enough to buy too much in Russia.

Although Mikhail Friedman in memory has no political ambitions, Simon is not sure whether the other party will still be like this after the time-lapse incident, so he took the initiative to remind him more than once.

Listening to Anthony's tone at this time, Simon asked: "Tony, don't you understand?"

"Norman has always been in charge of matters in Russia. I was away that day and my father didn't explain it to me." Anthony shook his head and said, "I just think this is not your previous layout style?"

Simon has always attached great importance to the political arena in North America and Australia. Anthony also knows that the Westeros system secretly funded the affairs of the current President Clinton. Therefore, Russia, which is still in a state of turbulence, is logically the best platform for political deployment.

Simon sorted out his thoughts and explained: "Russia is different from us. Although it has implemented a federal system, the political genes of this country that have lasted for nearly a century cannot be changed. This is destined to be a country more suitable for strongman politics. At this point, I am actually very optimistic about Yeltsin. He is more of a speculator than a qualified politician."

Anthony thought for a while, and said: "What do you mean, Russia is likely to have another strong national leader in the future?"

Simon nodded: "This kind of chance is very high, and once it appears, this kind of person will certainly not allow the existence of commercial oligarchs who like to interfere in national politics. Then it will be the moment when the oligarchs encounter liquidation. Therefore, in Russia, we try our best to only Do business without talking about politics."

Anthony probably understood Simon's thinking, and said: "It's impossible not to talk about politics at all?"

"Of course, so we funded Yeltsin to participate in the election, and at the same time expand our political contacts as much as possible, but do not interfere or even manipulate. I understand that doing so may prevent us from fully integrating into the inner circle of Moscow. Friedman in recent years The results are not as good as other oligarchs, but this is the long-term solution."

Anthony nodded and said, "I will explain your point of view to my father when I go back."

Simon was puzzled: "Huh?"

Anthony smiled: "Since my father didn't explain it to me last time, he probably didn't quite understand it. He only warned Norman out of trust in you."

Simon laughed too.

With the old man’s personality, even if he didn’t understand this matter, he would not ask him directly, and it was even more simple and rude to his son.

Simon also discovered a small mistake of his own. When reminding Mikhail Friedman, he forgot to explain his intentions to Norman Johnston.

Simon has a lot of memories of his two lives, and he lived on the other side of the ocean in his previous life, so he can easily understand these joints.

In contrast, Raymond Johnston, who has always lived in an open political environment like Australia, has become accustomed to protecting his family’s interests by exerting influence on the government. Therefore, even if he has enough life experience, it may not be easy to understand. The thinking mode of a political figure in the system is even less likely to see the future like Simon.

In the final analysis, Simon is indeed an anomaly.

Insight into the world is all knowledge.

Human life is limited. Even a person who is astute and sophisticated can't cover everything, and will inevitably have his own insight and thinking limitations.

Simon is equivalent to having someone else's life for more than a decade, and it is a super bug for future insights.

After talking like this, Anthony remembered one more thing: "Westero's office in Russia is located in St. Petersburg, and the headquarters of Wiper Communications is also there. Is there any special arrangement for this?"

Simon did not expect Anthony to bring up this detail.

The answer is of course yes.

Someone is working as assistant to the mayor in St. Petersburg at this time. The core of Moscow used to be basically from the St. Petersburg department. Perhaps something will change in this time and space, but there is no harm in establishing a good relationship at this time. Even if the Westeros system can provide assistance at certain critical moments in the future, it will definitely get more generous returns.

It's just that it is impossible to explain this frankly to Anthony anyway.

Fortunately, this question is also easy to answer.

"Westero's current investment in Russia is mainly in telecommunications. As you know, St. Petersburg is very close to Helsinki. Both cities are on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and the distance is less than 300 kilometers. It is convenient for Nokia to cooperate with Russia. "

Anthony nodded, feeling nothing wrong with Simon's explanation.

Verizon Telecom of the Westeros system and two Russian agents Mikhail Friedman established VimpelCom (VimpelCom) two years ago. The registered place of VimpelCom is located in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, one of the European tax havens, mainly conducts mobile communications business in Russia, and of course also includes other businesses such as Internet services. However, the PC penetration rate in Russia is too low at this stage, and mobile communications are the focus in the short term.

Nokia, which also belongs to the Westeros system, is naturally the only base station and terminal equipment supplier for Wiper Communications.

Verizon Telecom provides technical and operational support, Nokia is responsible for equipment supply, and the two companies have joined forces. Currently, it is Russia’s largest mobile communications operator. It has a considerable number of users in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and is also trying to provide Expanding business in Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Poland and other countries.

In terms of equity, Verizon Telecom and Alpha Group each hold 50% of the shares, and Verizon Telecom is responsible for corporate operations.

It seems that no one has controlling rights, but in fact, Westeros still holds 15% of Alpha Group. The Johnston family’s holding of Alpha Group is also 15%. Mikhail Fried Mann’s nominal shareholding ratio is 60%, but his personal shares are only 30%, and the remaining 40% is only held on behalf of others.

Not to mention the secret shareholding structure of Alpha Group, through indirect shareholding, the Westeros system actually has absolute controlling rights in Wiper Communications. Similarly, using this indirect shareholding model, the Johnston family actually absolutely controls the oil and mining assets of Alpha Group.

According to the estimates of the Johnston family, the actual total value of the oil and mining assets acquired by Alpha Group at a low price is more than US$5 billion, while the cash investment in acquiring these assets is less than US$300 million.

The Westeros system's entry into the Russian telecommunications market is far more simple than Simon's imagination, and it is not even enough to describe it as ‘indiscreet’.

The indiscretion here, of course, does not refer to the Westeros system itself.

For several years in a row, watching an empire collapse and dissipate in the hands of careerists and speculators, Simon has more than once felt strong compassion.

Feel like a crocodile.

Having said that, if it hadn't been for the layout of the Westeros system in Eastern Europe and Russia in recent years, the selection of the Wei family maid will not be so smooth this time. The personnel team is readily available, and Simon only needs to order it and someone will execute it. Otherwise, it would be strange if other upstarts who only have large sums of money but lack the foundational strength, dare to play this way and not be eaten by a large number of local snakes and cut a piece of meat by the way.

Simon understood very early that if he wanted to get rid of the labels of ‘upstart’ and ‘fat sheep’, the most critical part was to turn the capital he had into a real right to speak.

From 1986 to the present, in more than seven years, Simon has not only owned more than 100 billion US dollars in personal assets, but these personal assets have also been successfully transformed into the Westeros system in media, fashion, entertainment, politics, finance, and telecommunications. Omnipresent strong influence in fields such as, technology, etc.

In addition to personal wealth, this conversion of strength is what makes Simon the most satisfied.

Anthony Johnston did not show up in Los Angeles for no reason.

Preparations began in the middle of last year. The acquisition was formally filed in August. In October, the two parties reached an agreement. After more than three months of government review, the Australian authorities formally approved the consortium represented by Johnston Holdings on Wednesday. Capital's acquisition of the Australian mining giant Billiton.

This transaction also means the further integration of the Johnston family and the Westeros system.

The transaction is approved and the next step is to pay.

Anthony came to North America to deal with this matter.

Due to the continued downturn of the Australian economy over the past half year and the depreciation of the Australian dollar against the US dollar, Billiton’s acquisition transaction price was finally 21.6 billion Australian dollars, equivalent to 15.1 billion US dollars, which was lower than the initial cost forecast of 16 to 17 billion US dollars estimate.

However, the valuation of Johnston Holdings' own mining assets in the acquisition was also reduced to 3.9 billion Australian dollars, equivalent to 2.8 billion US dollars, lower than the initial valuation of 3 billion US dollars.

The final transaction size is 25.5 billion Australian dollars, equivalent to 17.9 billion US dollars.

Worldwide, the total size of this transaction is second only to the $33 billion Reynolds Nabisco merger and the $18 billion Philip Morris merger with Kraft Foods in the late 1980s. Moreover, unlike the previous two leveraged buyouts, which created huge debts of tens of billions of dollars, Johnston Holdings and its allies will use their own funds this time without incurring additional debt, so they appear to be more generous.

Since the two parties reached an agreement in October last year, this acquisition has been subject to intense media attention.

On the other hand, the Johnston Holding Group initially only hoped to acquire 35% of the new company’s shares. However, due to the continued decline in the Australian economic environment and the downturn in the steel industry, Morgan Stanley, which originally intended to jointly participate in the merger, and other external parties Capital reduces the investment share, causing Johnston Holdings and Westeros to assume more funds.

Therefore, in the final plan, the original mining assets of Johnston Holdings will be integrated into the new company, and the converted shareholding will be 15.6%.

The $15.1 billion Rio Tinto transaction price is still the original cash and stock payment model. The cash payment is the $8 billion determined during the initial preparations for the acquisition, and the remaining $7.1 billion is converted into shares of the new company.

After the completion of the acquisition and integration, the new company will continue to remain listed.

However, the original plan, the Johnston family and Westeros company only need to invest 1.5 billion US dollars each, and the rest of the funds are responsible for other shareholders and external capital of Johnston Holdings. Now, because of the reduction in the original capital contribution of allies such as Morgan, the total cash that the Johnston family and Westeros needs to pay has increased to 4 billion US dollars.

US$4 billion is not too much for Simon, but the Johnston family is a little struggling. Even the first determined US$1.5 billion requires a loan. After negotiation, it was finally decided that the Johnston family’s investment share remained unchanged, and Westeros’ investment share increased from 1.5 billion US dollars to 2.5 billion US dollars.

This also means that when the acquisition is completed, only Westeros’ shareholding in the new company will reach 13.9%, which is already a very high proportion for a large mining group. The original Billiton is a public holding company. There are not many shareholders holding more than 5% of the shares.

The $1.5 billion of the Johnston family and the $1 billion of other shareholders of Johnston Holdings also received 13.9% of the equity.

Taking into account the 15.6% of the original mining assets of Johnston Holdings in the new company, the total shareholding of Johnston Holdings will reach 43.4%, far exceeding the initial expected 35% shareholding ratio, which is already far from absolute holdings. Not far.

In order to avoid monopoly capital controlling the country’s core industries and then manipulating the market to affect the economy, the Australian government reviewed the acquisition for more than three months, and it was finally passed.

Moreover, this is already considered lucky.

Because the World Trade Organization will be officially established in April this year.

If it is delayed for a few more months, when it comes to a core resource industry such as iron ore, which is very sensitive around the world, it is also a huge M&A with a total transaction size of 17.9 billion US dollars. It will definitely need to go through other WTO member states. The approval of the company can be released, and it will only be more protracted then.

After completing this merger, Johnston Holdings wants to go further in accordance with Simon's vision and build the BHP Billiton Group in the original time and space. Will it increase significantly. Therefore, the first thing to do next is to increase efforts to lobby the Australian government to formulate a more relaxed anti-monopoly regulation bill for the iron ore industry.

Heavy capital, strong supervision and periodicity.

These are important shortcomings in the energy and mining field. If the Westeros system has not had enough capital accumulation, and there is an absolutely trustworthy partner like the Johnston family, Simon is not willing to get involved in this field. .

However, investing in capital-intensive fields such as energy and mining is also a necessity for the Westeros system. Because with the current size of the Westeros system, it is impossible to focus on a few millions and tens of millions of dollars.

In the rough statistics of the annual financial report, only in the past year, the annual net profit of Daenerys Group reached 2.27 billion US dollars.

The core companies of the Westeros system such as Verizon Telecom, Melisandre, and Cersei Capital, although the current profitability scale cannot be compared with Daenerys Entertainment, continue to generate very considerable profits. Even for companies such as Igreat and AOL that are still losing money, because of the increase in turnover and the development of external equity and debt financing, Westeros does not need to invest too much money.

As a result, the entire Westeros system will continue to generate more and more capital surpluses.

Simon continues to purchase luxury properties like sweeping goods all over the world, buying large tracts of land that cannot be developed at all, spending no less than the cost of training a princess to train the Weijia waitresses, and often gives away vases worth millions of dollars. The expensive gifts of U.S. dollars, so many, seem to some people to be extravagant, but the private expenditure in the past year is less than 500 million U.S. dollars, which is only equivalent to the annual profit scale of Verizon Telecom. It can't be spent on companies such as Daenerys Entertainment, Cersei Capital and Melisandre.

So, what should the entire Westeros system do with the large-scale huge cash input each year?

Of course you have to invest!

Otherwise, these funds will only continue to depreciate in dollar inflation.

In my memory, Buffett bought tens of billions of U.S. dollars in Apple's stock. Many people think that it is not wise. The key is that these people have overlooked one point. Berkshire Hathaway, which has a cash reserve of 100 billion and has a large amount of cash every year , The target that can invest is only Apple, a trillion-dollar enterprise giant with a market capitalization of USD.

In the early 1990s, the gold content of the U.S. dollar is still very high, and most corporate giants generally have only one to two billion U.S. dollars. As a result, the Westeros system, which receives billions of dollars a year, is already facing the problems of Berkshire Hathaway two decades later.

To complete the layout of relatively familiar industries such as entertainment, technology, and fashion, Westeros system wants to continue to expand, and Simon can only expand into other unfamiliar areas.

Moreover, if you still want to seek the right to speak in the investment process, there are not many areas where you can invest.

For example, Simon really wants to buy Boeing, which has a market value of only about 20 billion U.S. dollars. However, Westeros and Cersei Capital, which continue to absorb Boeing stocks, have not yet reached 10% of the shares of this aviation and giant. , Has received an inquiry letter from the Federal Department of Justice, requesting Westeros and Cersei Capital to explain their intention to buy Boeing stock.

After several negotiations between the two parties, although the Westeros system was not prohibited from continuing to buy Boeing stocks, the Ministry of Justice restricted the Westeros system to obtain at most one board of directors of Boeing. It is conceivable that if Simon wants to buy Boeing in its entirety, it will only get a 100% rejection.