Chapter 427

Simon returned to New York on July 11 after a week in England, Finland and Italy.

AOL will be officially listed on NASDAQ on July 12.

In the previous two weeks of IPO roadshows, AOL caused a very strong response among investors across North America, with a cumulative subscription of more than 210 million shares, 9.5 times the IPO volume of AOL.

Meanwhile, in line with the IPO on July 12, AOL released the company's financial report for the second quarter of 1991 in advance on July 10.

As of June 31, AOL had 3.63 million official users in the most prosperous regions of the East and west coasts of the United States, up 56% from the previous quarter. In the three months from April 1 to June 31, AOL's revenue reached $270 million, up 137% from the first quarter.

Although the quarterly loss reached $160 million, no one can ignore AOL's explosive growth.

At six o'clock in the morning, Simon woke up at the villa in the northern suburb of Greenwich on time.

The woman in her arms opened her eyes quickly because of Simon's action. She was confused for a short time, and her face was a little shy.

Simon couldn't help pinching Sophia Fischer's ruddy face when she woke up and said, "would you like to go to Manhattan with me?"

Sophia didn't get away from the man's hand. She just pressed it gently and said, "I'll go back to my home later."

Yesterday, I flew over from Italy with Simon. Because I was greedy, I didn't have the first time to see my children. This is also the reason why the woman was embarrassed just now.

Simon just laughed and said, "in that case, you can sleep a little longer."

Sophia put her head on the pillow and watched the man put on his clothes. Then she got up, and the sheets slipped behind, revealing an attractive spring. Seeing Simon look at him, he can't help but raise his hand and cover it. In his expectant eyes, he pretends to put it down inadvertently and slowly looks for his clothes to put on.

Simon washes and walks downstairs. Alice, the housekeeper, and Claire, the c-girl, have prepared breakfast with the other girls.

The two women will attend the IPO bell ringing ceremony with Simon today, just before they officially go to the stage.

There has been a lot of speculation about Simon's increasingly low-key private life, including the beautiful girls around him. The two women's going to the stage this time will certainly attract some comments, but this is also the experience they have to bear. It's better to let the public get used to something early than to expose it at the last minute.

After breakfast and saying goodbye to Sophia, Simon and his party set out for Manhattan.

I have experienced the bell ringing ceremony of blockbuster's listing, and I am familiar with it this time.

However, this time, more procedures will be arranged than last time, including the media interview Simon will personally give before the bell ringing ceremony.

AOL's IPO has obviously attracted more media attention.

Simon's car just appeared outside the headquarters of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in midtown Manhattan. A large group of reporters gathered around him, and several TV stations' live interview cars were parked around him.

The bodyguards get out of the car first. A group of four surround Simon and the two women who follow him to get out of the car. There are four other bodyguards outside to support the crowd and force Simon to enter the exchange.

The reporters around raised all kinds of questions without any response, so they quickly adjusted their strategies and madly pressed the shutter on Simon, especially the two women who followed him today.

Some people even began to guess the identity of the two women, and even talked about the idea of marriage.

But, of course, that's the only way to think.

If you don't have any concrete evidence to write your idea in the newspaper, you'll probably have to wait for westrow to sue you for bankruptcy.

Some time ago, the super tycoon just put a few young people in bankruptcy, although things are basically done by Janet, the outside world naturally attributed these to Simon.

James Leibold, Steve case, Jeff Bezos, Carol Bartz, John Chambers, Raymond Smith and other senior members of the westroth system attended the bell ringing ceremony.

Today's IPO, as AOL's chairman and CEO, Steve case is only the nominal protagonist. We all know that a young person is the focus of attention.

With the continuous outbreak of the Internet industry, more and more people see Simon's brilliant layout in this new high-tech field in just a few years.

Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Cisco, AOL, igrit, and even Bell Atlantic, which has been officially renamed Verizon Telecom, are all like this.

Among them, Cisco, AOL and igrit have formed a whole Internet industry chain of Internet equipment providers, Internet service providers and Internet content providers. The three companies jointly created a popular World Wide Web standard, which has gained overwhelming popularity in less than two years. Other similar enterprises have no time to follow up and participate in the competition.Many people expect that Cisco, AOL or igrit will become a big Mac in the future.

As a result, AOL, one of the three companies, has received far more attention than Simon's blockbuster listing at the beginning of last year.

It's not a time for greetings. It's eight o'clock. After a brief greeting, everyone starts to do their own business.

Simon was also led into the interview area of the exchange by the staff. This interview will be broadcast live on ABC, NBC, CBS and other mainstream TV networks as well as the morning news program of New York local TV station.

The interview time is only ten minutes, and each reporter is only allowed to ask one question.

Because it was one of Simon westero's rare public interviews, everyone cheered up.

Simon sat down on one of the two sofas in the interview area, next to Richard seaman, a vice president of the Nasdaq stock exchange who was the host himself.

After a brief preparation, the vice president took the lead in saying, "Simon, such an opportunity is really rare, so how about giving me a chance to ask questions first?"

Simon nodded with a smile and said, "sure, but you've already asked, so next."

Everyone at the scene was stunned and then laughed together.

It's just a joke, of course.

Richard seaman didn't take it seriously. He insisted on holding the microphone and said, "this is the second time you have come to the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. Last time it was blockbuster, this time it was AOL. What I want to ask is, of course, not which company is next time. Although I really want to know, but what I want to ask is, what do you think about the current situation of the US stock market and the trend in the next few years, If possible, I'd like to give you some more investment suggestions. "

This is obviously a big problem.

However, as Simon is now, he is fully qualified to comment on the economic trend of the whole country.

Although it deviated from the theme of AOL's IPO today, Simon thought about it and said: "as we all know, the federal stock market experienced a strong rebound for several months in the first half of the year. Because of the weakness of the real economic situation, many people think that the rebound is very watery, but I don't think so. In recent years or, if calculated from 1987, the Federation has gone through two incidents of the stock market bubble burst and the bond market crash. The two collapse will also squeeze out the bubble in the federal economy, so I believe this year will be the beginning of another bull market in the federal stock market.

Listening to Simon's analysis, everyone around nodded slightly. Seeing that Simon said that he didn't plan to continue, Richard asked, "well, what about the investment proposal?"

Simon had no choice but to say: "in a market that is at the bottom and is waiting to rebound, it is very easy for any investment to gain profits. The key is patience. Of course, if you are more specific, I recommend that you invest in technology stocks in the next few years. Like AOL, which is on the market today. "

Richard got his own answer, no longer asked, neatly handed the opportunity to ask questions to a eager reporter under the stage.

The reporter from the New York Times took the microphone and immediately said, "Simon, the IPO price of AOL is $21, which is equivalent to a company valuation of $3.15 billion. However, AOL's revenue in the last quarter was only $270 million, and its annual revenue may be only $1 billion. The industry estimates that the stock price of $2.1 billion is equivalent to a price earnings ratio of about 35 times. Is this pricing too high? How do you think AOL can support such a valuation? "

Simon has considered this issue in advance, so he skillfully said: "for a company that has just IPO, the stock price should more represent a kind of future. AOL is even more so. The company's high growth is well known. Therefore, I don't think the IPO price of AOL is on the high side. In fact, I think it's a bit low. "

Simon's answer is more or less a panacea.

Anyone who has carefully analyzed AOL can probably see that this company not only represents a high growth, but also a strong monopoly.

Because the technology patent of the world wide web is in the hands of the westero system, not only AOL itself, which has exclusive agreements in the three major operators' business areas. Moreover, both Cisco, the upstream Internet equipment provider, and igrit, the downstream Internet content provider, can protect AOL's advantages in the industry through too many means.

Over the past six months, the two operators, bell Pacific on the west coast and Nynex on the east coast, have not completely torn face with AOL. One reason is that on the one hand, the contract lacks support from upstream and downstream technology and content.

If the two companies tear up the original exclusive agreement in order to enter the ISP field, it is obviously impossible for them to get the support of Cisco and igrit, let alone the authorization of the corresponding technologies in the World Wide Web field.

If we only need to make compensation according to the agreement to tear up the agreement, then it is not impossible to forcibly use the world wide web technology in the absence of technical authorization, even if the westrow system is sued for bankruptcy. As long as the company has a little bit of business ethics bottom line, it is impossible to do so.However, these relatively sensitive advantages can not be clearly stated by Simon in any case.

Say it, that is to give people a handle.

Warren Buffett has a very well-known "toll bridge" theory, the main idea is that a company has a strong monopoly advantage in a certain region, and the company has absolute pricing power

at the beginning, this theory was put forward to provide Berkshire with a reference to find investment targets, but because of what Warren Buffett said in the public media, this theory is not perfect It has become the target of criticism in some company lawsuits that Berkshire has the intention to manipulate the market wantonly.

Which company in the world doesn't want to be "the only one" and doesn't want to have a monopoly advantage?

Just, too many things can be done, but don't say it.

Therefore, Simon's answers to some questions may be regarded as very nutritious, or even ridiculed by some people who claim to be smart. However, even some entrepreneurs who like to teach successful experience in the media, as long as their heads are not completely broken, probably will not really confide in the public.

Of course, even if he was deliberately clumsy, Simon revealed enough in the next ten minutes of the interview.

Over the past few years, the market has a strong sense of blindness to Simon, who has created a series of wealth miracles in just a few years. AOL is one of the core enterprises in the westrow system. Therefore, when the bell ringing ceremony is over and the inquiry before the official opening starts, AOL's share price will continue to soar.

So until 10:30, after more than an hour of continuous five rounds of inquiry, AOL finally opened trading at $32.75.

75, up 56% from the $21 issue price.

However, this is only the beginning.

In the following trading sessions, AOL's share price continued to rise, up to the point that some investors who had subscribed for the shares in the early stage could not help but have the idea to start selling.

Finally, as of 3:30 p.m., AOL's share price was set at a high of $43.25.

On the first day of listing, AOL's share price rose by 106%, with a market value of $7.46 billion at the close of the day.

After the IPO, westero's stake in AOL fell to 65.4%.

As a result, many people suddenly found out that Simon westero's asset statistics last year were almost unknown AOL company. Just one year later, he brought 4.9 billion US dollars of book wealth to the young man.

However, the 4.9 billion US dollars of wealth has exceeded the total wealth of most of the rich in the United States and the world.

However, it is undeniable that AOL is only a part of the thriving westero system.

The following weekend, the media continued to discuss the box office trend of AOL next week, and began to focus on Simon's personal wealth.

In the past year, it is no exaggeration to say that the westero system has definitely completed a leap forward development, which mainly includes the acquisition of MCA and Bell Atlantic. What makes the industry even more astonishing is that when everyone thinks that the huge debts brought by these two acquisitions drag down the whole westrow system, the stock market rebound in the first half of 1991 is followed.

Although both MCA and Bell Atlantic have been delisted, no one can deny that Simon westero has completed a bottoming out.

Two acquisitions, even one or two months later, when the Gulf War begins, westero system will not be able to win the two companies at the original price.

Therefore, in the light of the current stock market situation, the current value of the two companies is definitely more than the original $14 billion.