Chapter 482

Different from the common leveraged buyout in the 1980s, cersei capital did not intend to split and sell Ltd in a short period of time for quick cash out, but preferred to go public again after long-term operation.

Therefore, in terms of capital, cersei capital is unlikely to adopt the common short-term high interest rate lending and junk bond financing mode in the 1980s.

In order to raise the funds needed for the acquisition of Ltd, cersei capital has been preparing to issue a new fund for the acquisition before the formal acquisition.

After the acquisition, cersei capital has basically completed the fund raising work.

Although the acquisition of more than US $2 billion is far from being comparable to the acquisition of Reynolds nabesk with a total transaction value of US $33 billion, it is the largest private equity acquisition in the past two years against the background that the US has not completely stepped out of the aftermath of the collapse of the bond market a few years ago.

In order to give investors confidence and also for the investment consideration of westero system itself, after the deal was concluded, westero company soon announced that it would buy 10% of the shares of Ltd company at the agreed price, minus the other 10% of the shares reserved by the Wexner family. Cersei capital actually bought only 80% of the shares of Ltd company, and needed to pay US $1.96 billion.

The direct involvement of westero company makes the investors who signed the intention subscription agreement fulfill their fund subscription shares quickly, thus ensuring the successful completion of the acquisition.

The specific acquisition process will take another two months to complete, but Simon soon got in touch with Leslie Wexner, the founder of Ltd.

Leslie Wexner's rich history is very typical in this industry.

The first fashion shop started, and then the chain scale continued to increase in the next 20 years. Finally, it became a LTE company with thousands of chain stores.

Simon's biggest concern about Victoria's secret is actually the underwear chain brand Leslie Wexner bought from another businessman in 1982.

Although Victoria's secret development has been very rapid in recent years, when it comes to LTE, you will only think of Vimy, but in fact, Leslie Wexner still takes the sub brands of women's fashion and sports fashion under LTE as the core of his business.

As a result, compared with a later Weimi brand, which accounted for more than 60% of the sales of the parent company, Weimi now only accounted for more than 20% of the sales of the Ltd company in 1991.

The economic downturn, excessive expansion and abandonment of the original "Limited Brands" business strategy led to the unrestrained pursuit of more fields, which eventually led to the collapse of the U.S. bond market.

In fact, Leslie Wexner, the founder of Ltd, is a very radical businessman, which is very similar to Simon's impression to the outside world.

The rapid rise of the westero system in just six years is like a miracle. Simon's bold and adventurous measures in this process can't even be described as radical.

Simon, however, has always been clear about what he is doing.

There are many unreasonable layouts of westero company in the eyes of outsiders, such as the crazy investment in igritte company in the past two years. For Simon, it's just taking the lead in some industries destined to break out in advance.

Leslie Wexner could not have Simon's advantage as a prophet.

In the past two decades, the continuous expansion of LTE is more than just a natural move of an adventurous businessman.

Fashion has long been a very competitive Red Sea market.

The continued over expansion of LTE has also led to the inevitable homogenization problem of many fashion companies: it is difficult for the fashion industry to play too many new tricks after all.

The serious homogenization of clothing products, too bloated enterprise scale and increased relative cost inevitably lead to the decline of brand competitiveness.

In recent years, the sales volume of women's fashion and sportswear of Ltd has continued to decline with the downturn of the economic situation. The only thing that has gone against the trend is Victoria's secret, which focuses on underwear.

Simon wondered privately whether this was the legendary lipstick effect.

However, in the original time and space, the company began to turn more attention to the operation of Weimi in the 1990s, and returned to the "limited brand" business strategy focusing on core brands, which was probably inspired by the market performance of Weimi in the early 1990s.

Ltd is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.

Ohio is located in the northeast of the United States, bordering Pennsylvania to the East and the Great Lakes to the north. Different from the mountainous western states and counties, Ohio is located in the endless Eastern Plain. As the capital of Ohio, Columbus is right in the middle of this plain.

After returning from Australia, Simon and Janet quickly accepted Leslie Wexner's invitation to visit Columbus, Ohio.

Of course, there are other reasons.Simon's "Butterfly Effect" on the world is becoming more and more obvious, but it has not changed the way things happen.

For example, the Los Angeles riots at the end of April 1992.

The cause of the incident is that in March 1991, Rodney King, a black youth, was violently treated by the Los Angeles police for his behavior of resisting arrest due to a wine rack and a drag racing car. After the incident, he was filmed as a video by passers-by and sold to the television station. As a result, the major TV stations used to "create topics" cut out the first half of the video of Rodney King's various anti arrest actions, leaving only pictures of the other party being beaten on TV.

On April 28, the Los Angeles District Court, based on the complete record of the incident, acquitted four police officers involved, which triggered the dissatisfaction of the black community and led to large-scale riots.

Although the riot only happened in South Central Los Angeles in my memory, who knows if there will be any abnormal changes this time.

The first time it happened, Simon quietly left Los Angeles and joined Janet from New York in Columbus.

As a matter of habit, Columbus has already bought a 50 acre farm style manor in advance.

Unlike Los Angeles and other big cities along the coast, Columbus, located in the Central Plains, is very calm.

In fact, this is not without reason. Located in the conservative northeast of the United States, the proportion of people of color in Ohio is far lower than that in the East and West Coast states, and the proportion of white people in this era is still more than 90%.

Simon didn't feel much about the riot, and it wasn't the first time this had happened in the country.

Leslie Wexner didn't mean to talk about the sensitive incident at the farm estate in the northern suburb of Columbus.

For politicians, it's wrong to go to either side of the issue. Therefore, President Bush didn't come forward with a friendly appeal until two days after the riot. It's an election year, and the candidates are surprisingly reticent about the riots.

It's all votes!

Simon and Leslie Wexner are both public figures. Even if they don't have the scruples of professional politicians, they will make more mistakes if they say too much.

Although it is clear that the extreme political correctness of a country is often the result of this constant silence and concession, Simon did not try to change anything.

Some deep-rooted pessimism in his heart made him more accustomed to watching too many things coldly.

We can't talk more about politics. Of course, we still talk about business.

Today is May 1st, it is already the end of spring and the beginning of summer.

Walking on the farm road full of business, ignoring the outside disturbance, the mood becomes very comfortable unconsciously.

During his stay in Columbus, Simon kept Leslie Wexner talking about the next development of Ltd.

The plight of Ltd in recent years has proved that the company must make changes.

In the original time and space, Ltd abandoned many surrounding brands and focused on the operation of Weimi, which is the result of this change.

However, combined with the information in his memory, Simon found that in fact, there is another attempt for Ltd.

Now that it has been proved to be very successful, the promotion of the brand via the sexy marketing of the show must be retained. However, for the business of women's fashion and sports fashion of Ltd, Simon also proposed another concept of "fast fashion" to Leslie Wexley, which is gradually taking shape but has not developed in recent years.

Many years later, Zara, H & amp; m and gap, the world's most famous affordable fashion brands, all adopted the "fast fashion" mode of operation.

In short, fast fashion is to rapidly promote the fashion trends of major fashion weeks in the relatively cheap consumption field in a very short time.

First class design, second class brand, third class price, this is a very image of fast fashion brand.

To put it bluntly, the so-called fast fashion is actually a quick imitation of the manufacturing trend of the top luxury brands.

In Simon's memory, Zara brand in Spain will be sued once every three days for plagiarizing design, and the annual infringement fee will reach tens of millions of dollars. However, the company has never meant to "turn over a new leaf" and is still tirelessly sending its huge team of designers to major fashion shows.

Compared with the huge profits, the annual infringement cost of tens of millions of euros is really not worth mentioning.

Amancio Ortega, Zara's boss, once used the world-class fast fashion brand to squeeze Warren Buffett out of the top three of the world's rich list with tens of billions of dollars.

Whether Zara of Spain, H & M of Sweden or gap of the United States, the three major fashion giants have been established many years later. However, the three companies still have a long way to go from their peak. Ltd has a deep foundation in the field of fashion. It's not too late to transform in the field of fast fashion before the rise of the three giants.With the development of affordable fashion chain to a certain extent, the further breakthrough of the brand has been a problem for Leslie Wexner for a long time.

Different from luxury brands, affordable fashion is too easy to homogenize. The biggest problem is that it is difficult to maintain its distinctive brand characteristics for a long time. This problem can not be solved by large-scale marketing alone.

The concept of "fast fashion" put forward by Simon in recent days has given Leslie Wexner a feeling of sudden brightness.

Since we can't keep a certain fashion brand characteristic that can attract consumers for a long time, we should do the opposite and always pursue the latest and fastest fashion trend.

As for the moral hazard of plagiarism and imitation that may be involved, there is no psychological burden for a businessman who has been struggling in the mall for decades.

After several days of discussion, Leslie Wexner also accepted Simon's suggestion.

The next step is to focus on the promotion of Weimi brand. At the same time, Ltd plans to integrate its fashion business and build a fast fashion brand by making use of the brand foundation of express, which was the earliest established by Ltd.

In addition, Ltd will also sell some non core businesses, which is certainly not the kind of sale after leveraged buyout in the 1980s.

All the funds from the sale of the assets will be used to develop "vs" and "express".

"Simon, about the idea of underwear fashion show you talked about yesterday, I seriously considered it last night. It's a great idea. However, according to your assumption, if you invite the top fashion models and broadcast them on TV, the budget will be too high. Maybe we can make it a little easier at the beginning. "

"I've thought about the budget," Simon said with a smile. "Les, it's better that this big show is jointly produced by Denise entertainment and Ltd. both sides share 50% of the budget. Denise entertainment is responsible for the distribution of TV platforms, videos and other channels."

Walking in the green farm road, the scenery is pleasant, but people are not drunk.

Leslie Wexner calculated quickly.

Simon has known about both Ltd and Leslie Wexner. Similarly, after the intersection of the two sides, Leslie Wexner has studied the young man's rise very carefully.

Dannilis entertainment can sell a Gucci brand documentary for tens of millions of dollars at the box office, make Madonna's concert documentary sell well at the box office, and make an Antarctic Scenery Documentary a black horse at the box office. Then, it's hard to say whether this underwear fashion show will have the same value.

With that in mind, Leslie Wexner quickly asked, "Simon, we share the budget. Should profits be shared?"

Simon looked at the middle-aged man in his fifties and said, "les, it's only half of the budget that Ltd can get a big promotion of Weimi brand. Isn't that enough?"

"But, after all, we are responsible for half of the budget."

Leslie Wexner hesitated and didn't agree. Ltd can afford all the production budget.

According to the vision of the young man around him, such a big show can't be won without tens of millions of dollars.

It's risky to invest tens of millions of dollars at a time for a fashion show.

And it seems that it's not just about money.

It certainly needs Simon's personal planning, including inviting those top supermodels. It's hard to work without Simon.

Although Victoria's secret performance and popularity are very good, it is only a cheap underwear brand after all.

For many supermodels, for such a brand show, but some lose their value.

If you still get together with other supermodels, it's even more expensive.

But if it's a project show for Simon westero, it's probably easier to accept.

Leslie Wexley is still aware of the two "waist elites" and "leg elites" who suddenly rose in the fashion circle last year.

Westero is just a ticket, to create a rapid rise of two supermodels.

With this young man's strong influence in Hollywood and fashion, it's absolutely easy to assemble a supermodel team for Victoria's secret show.

This can not be achieved by LTE at this stage.

Victoria's Secret in the original space-time, underwear show started in 1995.

However, unlike in the new century, the show has become more and more powerful. At the beginning, the show can only invite one or two quasi first-line models as the main theme. It was not until ten years later that the show of Weimi finally reached the peak of gathering gods.