Chapter 365

As he trotted with Simon, Larry Ellison said, "Simon, since you are optimistic about Oracle, why don't you give me the voting rights of Westeros shares, just like Microsoft?"

Simon said, "Larry, just because I'm optimistic about Oracle doesn't mean I'm optimistic about you. If Oracle's share price continues to fall, I think it is necessary to change the person in charge. "

Larry Ellison wanted to climb up the pole, but he didn't expect to dig a hole for himself. He laughed and said, "Simon, you must be joking, right?"

They took another turn together. In front of them was Simon's mountain mansion.

Simon didn't mean to invite Ellison to breakfast. He stopped jogging and said, "Larry, since westero has started to buy, it should be a great benefit for Oracle. What's more, I have never interfered in Oracle's operation since westero first bought Oracle a few years ago. You should understand my attitude. Now that you're here today, you're worried about your control over oracle. So, can you tell me what happened to Oracle? "

Larry Ellison didn't expect that Simon's words were right. For a moment, he didn't know how to speak.

Simon saw that Ellison did not speak and asked a more specific question: "the third quarter's financial report is coming out next month. What's Oracle's loss figure?"

"About $30 million," Larry Ellison hesitated, then gave a vague figure, and immediately added: "Simon, this is only temporary. Oracle's single quarter revenue in this quarter can exceed $200 million, a month on month growth of 26%. According to this growth rate, Oracle's revenue in this fiscal year can exceed $1 billion."

Simon didn't listen to Ellison's explanation behind, and couldn't help confirming: "a quarter, a loss of $30 million?"

In the past few years, Oracle's revenue has continuously doubled. This year, it has begun to expand its business to Latin America and Europe, with a very strong development speed. This is also the reason why it was able to reach a market value of $3.6 billion last year.

However, Oracle's net profit for the whole year of last year was only 41 million US dollars, and now it has a loss of 30 million US dollars in one quarter. Without major investment and M & A projects, the sudden huge loss can only mean that there are very serious problems inside oracle.

Simon doesn't interfere in Oracle's operations, but he doesn't know anything about the company.

Since the first half of this year, there have been constant media doubts about the exaggeration and misrepresentation of Oracle's financial data. Oracle's profits in the first two quarters of this year have also been shrinking, resulting in the continuous decline of its share price. Unexpectedly, in the third quarter, there was a huge loss of $30 million.

Larry Ellison was stared at by Simon's fierce eyes and had to nod again.

Simon stopped and asked, "so?"

Larry Ellison knew what Simon meant and stopped hiding it, saying, "Simon, it's just a tactical error. In order to get more bonus, some sales staff count the customers who just signed the intention to purchase software into their performance. As a result, these customers didn't use Oracle's software. I have been dealing with this problem in recent months... "

Larry Ellison didn't go on, but Simon understood.

So far, it's not finished.

The new quarter's financial report is about to be released. Serious sales strategy mistakes, exaggerated revenue figures and huge losses of $30 million are enough for angry shareholders to oust Larry Ellison. This guy came to intercept Simon today. He should be trying to get him to help.

Not to mention Simon's personal reputation of creating a wealth miracle in just a few years, it's just that 15% of Oracle's shares in Westeros, plus Ellison's own 33%, can basically ensure absolute control over oracle.

In the early days, apple, Microsoft, Oracle and other technology companies did not have a multiple ownership structure to guarantee the founder's control.

If Simon and other shareholders want to oust Ellison, even if he is the largest shareholder holding 33% of Oracle shares, he will probably have to pack up his things and leave. That's how jobs was ousted from apple.

After thinking about it for a moment, Simon said, "please contact Jim and write me a report on the details of this matter and the follow-up plan."

Larry Ellison didn't want to go around James Leibold again and said, "Simon, why don't we have breakfast together? My car is over there. Or, you can come to Oracle headquarters in the morning and let's talk about it carefully. "

"Breakfast is OK, and I'm going to New York soon," Simon refused. Although he didn't want to change Larry Ellison's idea, he didn't want to make himself seem too talkative, so he said, "for the time being, go back and contact Jim as soon as possible. I don't want Oracle to hide anything from our major shareholders."

Then, ignoring Ellison, Simon walked to the door of his mountain mansion.

After breakfast, he left Woodside. After the private plane took off, Simon contacted James Leibold to discuss oracle.James is also paying close attention to Oracle's recent developments. If Oracle is not one of the companies that Westeros promised not to reduce its holdings for three years, he has proposed that Simon sell Oracle's shares instead of continue to buy them.

Oracle's problems should be much more serious than what Larry Ellison described to Simon. Excessive expansion leads to tight cash flow, stock price plummeting causes financing difficulties, and may even face class action from shareholders because of its previous boastful performance. If we can't make it through this hurdle, the company may never recover, even if it won't go bankrupt.

The advent of the Internet era will greatly increase the market demand for database software. Simon is not so pessimistic as James. He just requires westero to continue to increase its shareholding while Oracle's share price is low until its shareholding ratio reaches 20%.

Although it's not clear whether Oracle had experienced such a disaster in the original time and space, even if all the business was lost, Simon can afford it now.

There is a four hour voyage between the East and west coasts.

After hanging up the phone with James, Simon sits on the window of the front living room, turns on his laptop and begins to study the video game dune that Nancy gave him a few days ago.

I don't know how long later, the faint fragrance in the air came, Simon looked up, a girl Alison Norris appeared beside him, also changed into a sky blue stewardess uniform, more and more slim, because the hair rolled up, delicate neck appears white and slender.

It has to be said that all of the four vases selected by Janet can score more than 80 points.

Seeing Simon looking up, Alison said, "boss, let me ask if you want to have some lunch on the plane?"

So, the girl couldn't help glancing at the video game on Simon's laptop screen. She felt a faint sense of frustration in her heart. Are you and Becky less attractive than video games?

Simon raised his wrist and looked at his watch. It's eleven o'clock in the morning. It's west coast time. It should be two o'clock in the afternoon on the east coast. Even when he arrived in New York, he had to wait for dinner with Janet, so he said, "help yourself. I'll wait for the restaurant."

Alison nodded, but did not leave immediately. She went down the revolving stairs to the cloakroom on the lower floor, opened the safe in the cloakroom, picked out a box of wristwatches, came to the living room again, bowed to Simon, and said, "boss, do you want to change a watch? These are all adjusted to the east coast time."

The girl is bending over Simon, unbuttoning the collar of a button, revealing a disgusting white.

With the distance between them, the attractive fragrance of women's body is more intense.

Simon picked out a silver Rolex, took the Patek Philippe from his hand and handed it to Alison. He said with a smile, "OK, go and prepare lunch. Don't seduce me here."

Her heart was broken, Alison's face was slightly red, but her eyes were more bold to look at Simon, standing in the same place, a look of being picked by you.

It was not until Simon turned his attention back to the computer screen and apparently ignored her that Alison had to give up and put the box of watches worth more than a million dollars back in the safe, leaving the front cabin to help Simon prepare lunch.

Beauty is in front of Simon, of course, will not be indifferent, he just has his own self-control.

Moreover, in Simon's current position, because it's too easy to get, women really don't have much special attraction for him.

For example, in Hollywood, there are a lot of lecherons, but as far as Simon knows, the top studio bosses don't care much about women.

In private conversation, Robert Redford told him a story about a studio owner in the early 1980s who wanted to hold a swimsuit party.

The Party of the studio boss is definitely more attractive than any Hollywood star's party for men and women who want to be in the top position by all means.

When the hot bikini girl fills the swimming pool of the luxury house, the big guy receives a very important play temporarily and gets involved in it unconsciously. After reading the script, he noticed that it was late at night, so he casually told the housekeeper that the party was over. He picked up the phone and continued to discuss with the screenwriter about the revision of the script. From the beginning to the end, he didn't pay much attention to that pool of Xiangyan.

It was Thursday afternoon when we arrived in New York.

The next day, Simon called together James Leibold, President of Westeros, Leon black, President of Apollo management company of cersei capital, and others to formally discuss the acquisition of Bell Atlantic.

James Leibold, Leon black and Amy Pascal have been preparing for the MCA acquisition for several months. They are very surprised by Simon's sudden two-line operation and the acquisition of Bell Atlantic. They are generally not optimistic about Simon's decision.

After the at-t split in 1984, the federal government greatly encouraged competition in the telecommunications industry. Therefore, in recent years, there are probably hundreds of large and small telecommunications companies in the United States. In fact, AOL is one of them.

Therefore, if you want to buy Bell Atlantic, the legal obstacles are not big, and the key is capital.

Simon's two planned acquisitions, danielis Entertainment's acquisition of MCA and westero's acquisition of Bell Atlantic, will require us $7 billion and US $8 billion respectively, which will add up to US $15 billion.However, after cersei fund management company settled and returned at the end of the year, the funds Simon could transfer back from overseas, excluding 28% capital gains tax, were only about $6 billion. In other words, Simon needs to raise at least another $9 billion in cash to complete the two acquisitions.

If it all depends on loans, according to the 10-year repayment cycle, the annual repayment amount of principal and interest of the whole westero system will exceed $1 billion. In this era, even the top 500 enterprises in the world can't guarantee that they will make 1 billion US dollars every year.

With such a heavy debt burden, the business empire Simon has built over the years may fall apart.

Moreover, as far as acquisition targets are concerned, Leon Blake, who relied on Johnson securities in the leveraged buyout industry in the 1980s, also thinks that Simon's choice to acquire a regional telecom operator is not a good choice.

With the acquisition of MCA, danelis entertainment can not only further consolidate its foundation in Hollywood, but also gain all-round complementation in music, TV, cinema and theme park.

The acquisition of Bell Atlantic is not only a completely unfamiliar industry for Simon, but also has limited development space after the completion of the acquisition.

You know, since the founding of bell telephone and Telegraph Company in 1887, the U.S. telecommunications industry has experienced a hundred years of development. In terms of telephone business, bell system has developed to the extreme.

In the most prosperous period of leveraged buyout in the 1980s, no company targeted the seven small bels separated from at-t, which is roughly the reason.

The standard leveraged buyout will rapidly reduce its own debt by splitting and selling after the completion of the merger. However, the regional telecom companies that experienced the split of at-t in 1984 are trying their best to preserve their market share and avoid being engulfed by numerous small telecom companies. Once split and sold, the value of these telecom companies will plummet. Affected by telecom regulation, they can not strengthen the scale effect through continuous expansion.

Simon's goal of acquiring Bell Atlantic is to operate, and he doesn't plan to adopt leveraged buyout, so he can't reduce liabilities by splitting and selling.

Moreover, even as Simon envisions, the federal government may re liberalize the regulation of the telecommunications industry in the next few years, allowing regional telecommunications companies to expand their market share through mergers and acquisitions, and set foot in the fields of long-distance telephone, cable television and other fields other than short-distance telephone, but it will take time.

Before that, if Bell Atlantic can't digest the huge debt in the acquisition process of westero, it will be difficult for the company to invest too much capital in the expansion of other fields until the telecom regulation is open, and on the contrary, it is more likely to become the annexation target of other telecom giants.

Simon knows that the opinions of James Leibold, Leon Blake and others are golden words. He also knows that the planned acquisition of Bell Atlantic and the expansion after the completion of the acquisition are not as simple as he imagined.

Now, in many years, only Verizon, the second largest telecom company in the United States evolved from Bell Atlantic, will be left. The other six regional telecom companies have disappeared in the wave of mergers around the new century.

However, there are also huge opportunities behind the challenges.

You know, in the 1990s, it's not just the traditional telephone business and the cable TV business reopened to the telecom companies, but also the rapid rise of mobile communication and Internet industries in the telecom field. It's these newly rising fields that will create Verizon, a comprehensive telecom giant with a market value of 100 billion.

Westrow's discussion of launching two acquisitions at the same time continued throughout the weekend.

In the new week, the discussion continues. The release of Forbes magazine's new annual US 400 rich list has attracted countless people's attention.