Chapter 673

In the morning, Simon and Joseph schrap re drafted the lobbying plan on the federal media integration ban.

Vivendi group of France suddenly launched an acquisition of Disney Company. In order to avoid more big Hollywood film companies falling into the hands of foreigners, it is no problem to push Congress to lift the ban on media integration and pass it before Vivendi and Disney reach an acquisition agreement.

Simon is not going to do it.

From the perspective of westero system, Simon hopes that Vivendi's acquisition of Disney will be successful. When another big film company falls into the hands of foreigners, under the pressure of public opinion, the ban on media integration will be lifted in the future, and Denise entertainment will have less political obstacles when it starts to acquire the TV network.

Moreover, if the ban on media integration is lifted ahead of time, it is likely that the old three major TV networks will compete with Vivendi. Even if it happens to be Metro ABC group that Simon prefers, it will be even more troublesome.

Even if it's not ABC, Disney will join forces with NBC or CBS to become another comprehensive entertainment media giant, which will surely become a strong competitor of Denise entertainment in Hollywood.

Simon is not afraid of competition, but also hopes that at the right time there will be a strong enough competitor to compete with Denise entertainment.

But not now.

In contrast, if Disney is allowed to be acquired by Vivendi, this Hollywood studio, which has been unsatisfactory in recent years because of the influence of Simon, will only continue to be weak.

Neither Hollywood natives nor the U.S. government will make it easy for outsiders trying to break into the U.S. entertainment industry.

This has been proved by many cases in the past and in the future.

If Disney merges with the local TV network and Denise entertainment takes action to suppress it, it will certainly attract wide public attention, and the federal government will not sit by and ignore it. On the contrary, if Disney becomes a subsidiary of a French company, even if the Hollywood studio with more than half a century of history goes bankrupt, many people will just turn a blind eye.

Want fair play?

It doesn't exist.

At the end of the day, this is protectionism.

Because of this, Simon will basically establish a close interest relationship with local forces in the overseas expansion of westero system.

For example, when melisandro had the opportunity to wholly acquire Gucci and other companies, Simon gave up on his own initiative. Nokia has just developed, Simon also took the initiative to let the company listed in Europe, in order to share the benefits. On the Russian side, the westero system has provided almost all the operating funds, but only half of the interest share is required, which can be called a massive blood transfusion.

And Australia.

If the Johnston family had not been deeply rooted in Australia, Simon would not have been involved in the mining resources related to Australia's economic lifeline, nor would he have invested heavily in Australia's mobile communications and Internet industry. Because it's very clear that if you rush to occupy the territory without roots and bottoms, you'll only be disappointed.

As a result, many overseas partners of the westero system feel that they have taken advantage of it and spare no effort to use their own resources and contacts in their respective countries to assist the expansion of the westero system. Therefore, Simon gains more.

Look at a bunch of outsiders in Hollywood.

Both Sony of Japan and sigram of Canada, relying on their huge financial resources, have chosen to eat all of their goals in Hollywood, and Vivendi now plans to do the same.

Now that these enterprises have become wholly-owned subsidiaries of your foreigners, the position of the federal government will naturally change.

Peter Cooper and John Peters have greatly damaged Columbia film industry, and even caused Sony a huge write down loss of more than 2 billion US dollars. If Sony is an American company, Peter Cooper and John Peters will surely be investigated and charged for suspected serious economic crimes.

As a result, they left a mess for Sony, and they enjoyed their retirement life with tens of millions of dollars of salary and benefits accumulated over the past few years.

Simon had lunch at Sophia's home at noon. Instead of waiting for Sophia's parents to avoid with their two children in the afternoon, they left Greenwich together and took a helicopter to the famous tourist resort of Massa vineyard, about 250 kilometers northeast of New York.

Sophia had a Simon's property cleaned up in advance yesterday.

Martha Vineyard island is one of the tourist attractions with a long history on the east coast. Not only a large number of rich people, politicians and celebrities like to buy property here, but many American presidents regard it as a designated resort. There are many famous news events around this famous island.

For example, Spielberg's famous work, great white shark, was originally filmed on Martha's Vineyard island.

For another example, John F. Kennedy Jr., who was burdened with the task of rejuvenating the Kennedy family, died when his plane crashed into the sea on his way home after attending a wedding ceremony in Martha's vineyard. Of course, it happened in Simon's memory of 1999, and now little John Kennedy is still alive.

Two Black Hawk helicopters landed one after another on the lawn of a private beach mansion in oak Town, north of Martha's Vineyard island. Unlike Greenwich's 30 acre manor, this beach mansion covers only about 6 acres.Of course, even so, it's not something that ordinary rich people can have, and ordinary people can't expect it.

Simon and Sophia get off the helicopter. Two groups of bodyguards from the other helicopter, led by Neil Bennett, take the lead to enter the villa with various instruments, carry out routine anti eavesdropping inspection, and then install and activate the monitoring system around the manor.

So busy for more than half an hour, the bodyguards removed the annex building, and only Simon and Sophia were left in the three-story resort style main villa.

The world of two.

Sophia is no longer reserved and Simon is still energetic after last night.

After a ridiculous afternoon, when I wake up on the master bed of the villa again, I can see the stars outside through the bedroom window. Unfortunately, the villa has no terrace, and Simon and his wife don't mean to be outdoors. Although the scenery and climate of Martha's Vineyard island are pleasant, there is no shortage of mosquitoes in summer.

The view on the big bed is very small. Sophia pulls Simon up, goes to the window, moves the original sofa coffee table, spreads a blanket and lies down again.

Stick it on Simon's chest, reflecting the stars all over the sky, listen to the little man tell all kinds of strange stories about the stars from the East and the west, then be happy, and then sleep until the next morning.

When Simon woke up in the morning, he made up his mind to be abstinent for a week.

However, thinking about returning to Los Angeles in the morning, I decided to start again next Monday.

Sophia is radiant in the early morning, and her white skin is ruddy, which makes people want to take a bite.

After breakfast, I finally remembered that I had some business to talk about.

In the past few years, melisandro has expanded at the rate of acquiring one company every year. After Gucci, it acquired Chateau Latour in 1990, van clenburg in 1991, CK in 1992 and Christie's in 1993.

Melisandro would have started a fashion TV station last year if it hadn't been for Simon's interference.

Naturally, this year's expansion will not stop.

In fact, since the first half of the year, Sofia has been looking for various targets, but some transactions have failed for various reasons.

In recent years, even though a large amount of money has been invested in expansion, melisandro has unconsciously accumulated more than $300 million in cash balance even after dividends have been paid to other shareholders because of the high profit margin of the luxury industry itself.

In this era, even many of the world's top 500 companies may not be able to take out $3 at will.

Bernard Arnault, the former boss of LVMH, became the world's second richest man with 100 billion US dollars after Jeff Bezos, not without reason.

For the time being, Sofia is short of the target of annexation. In the second half of last year, Sofia began to invest all the money in the US stock market according to Simon's suggestion, and bought a large number of technology stocks that continue to be sought after.

At present, the principal of US $300 million has increased by more than 50%, and can be cashed out at any time for acquisition and expansion.

This time, Sofia brought the information of three companies at one time.

All famous.

Bulgari, Versace, Constantine.

On the private beach of Martha's Vineyard mansion, Simon leans in the reclining chair under the sunshade and looks at the information of the three companies. Sophia, who seems to be wearing only a man's shirt, comes over with a cold drink and puts the tray on the tea table. Instead of going to the reclining chair, he sits directly in Simon's arms and asks, "how about it?"

Simon put down the information in his hand, motioned to the woman to give him a glass of juice, said: "all very good, also have problems."

The three companies, different from Gucci or CK, are in good condition on the surface.

However, there are many problems inside.

Bulgari is an Italian jewelry and watch company, which is still controlled by the Bulgari family.

Compared with merysandro's van clenburg, the company's scale is much larger. In 1993, its turnover was equivalent to US $530 million, and its net profit was US $110 million. In addition, it has recently begun to seek listing on the Milan Stock Exchange, and its IPO valuation is expected to be between us $1 billion and US $1.5 billion.

Melisandro has been in contact with the Bulgari family.

For listing, the attitude of the Bulgari family is different. Of course, listing has many advantages, but it will certainly be bound by all kinds of constraints, both advantages and disadvantages.

It's also melisandro's chance.

However, although some members of the Bulgari family tend to cooperate with melisandro, according to the results of previous discussions, melisandro can get up to 30% of the shares of Bulgari.

This is not in line with Sofia's expectations.

Because melisandro already has a similar subsidiary, Fanke Yabao, which has a very good development momentum in recent years. In 1993, the turnover reached 350 million US dollars. Compared with 1990 before the acquisition, the overall turnover increased by 105%, and the scale is not much worse than that of Bulgari.Most importantly, melisandro has a 60% stake in Van clenburg.

Therefore, if only 30% of Bulgari's shares can be acquired, it will inevitably face a problem of resource balance.

With the same resources, it is self-evident which side the operators will prefer when holding 60% of the subsidiary or 30% of the subsidiary.

This is not what Sophia wants to see.

In order to avoid competitors, large luxury goods giants tend to eliminate potential threats through early acquisition.

Simon's memory of LVMH has done this kind of thing more than once.

However, melisandro, which is in a rapid rising stage, has not yet entered this stage.

If we want to acquire Bulgari, Sofia naturally hopes that this jewelry and watch company, which has a better foundation than van cletta, can go further, not because the uneven distribution of resources leads to unfair internal competition, or even leads to the final decline of one of them.

So if you want to maintain a balance, even if you don't want to take the same 60% stake in Bulgari, according to the assessment of melisandro's acquisition team, it will have to be at least 40%.

The 30% and 40% shares seem to be similar, but for the Bulgari family whose shares have been dispersed in the hands of various family members, it means whether melisandro will become the largest shareholder.

The Bulgari family is willing to accept external investors, but does not want to lead to the loss of control of the family business.

If so, it's better to have an IPO.

Then Versace, the question is more interesting.

As one of the most popular luxury brands in recent years, Versace's turnover reached 650 million US dollars in 1993, and its revenue even exceeded that of Bulgari.

For luxury goods companies, this is really amazing.

You know, Bulgari was founded in 1884 and has a history of 110 years. Versace was founded in 1978. Even if Jennie Versace is brilliant, the growth of luxury brands can not avoid enough accumulation.

So what's the problem?

Sophia didn't sell the story in the materials.

Italian mafia.

According to Sofia's investigation, as Simon remembers, the Versace brand is indeed used as a money laundering tool by the powerful Italian mafia.

Ordinary people always feel mysterious and high-end about money laundering. The actual operation process is very simple.

Take luxury money laundering.

The Gang first signed a loan contract with a luxury goods company and lent a large amount of money to each other out of thin air.

The money certainly doesn't exist.

Then, the gangs use their own power to buy a large number of goods from the stores of luxury companies and contribute revenue to luxury brands. The brands return the revenue to each other in the form of debt repayment, and the original black money immediately becomes legal income.

In order to save costs, luxury goods purchased can even be recycled.

However, in general, the cost of money laundering is often very high.

If someone can create a money laundering model with a cost of less than 30%, he will definitely be regarded as the guest of honor by the global gangs. Actually, black money turns into legal income, but I'm afraid taxes are no less than 30%, and the total cost of money laundering is often more than 50%.

The reason why many Western governments maintain different degrees of tolerance towards gangs lies in the fact that these gangs are also contributing a large amount of taxes to governments.

After Jennie Versace was shot, it was reported that the Mafia tried to steal Versace's ashes and extort debts from the family.

Versace's business is so good that it has a huge profit every year. Even if there is a problem with capital turnover, it can easily obtain financing through formal channels. How can it borrow money from the Mafia?

Moreover, at its peak in 1996, Versace's revenue once reached $1.1 billion.

This is even more unusual.

The profit margin of luxury enterprises is very high, and the revenue scale is limited to the market capacity, but it is difficult to expand.

The $1 billion level revenue in the 1990s is absolutely a big Mac in the luxury industry. Is it true that a designer born as an Italian country tailor has such a great charm to create all this?

You know, after Jennie Versace was shot, even 20 years later, Versace brand revived, and the turnover did not exceed 1 billion US dollars. When Versace was acquired by another comprehensive luxury giant in 2017, its annual revenue was only 660 million euros, equivalent to 750 million US dollars.

Moreover, after Versace's death, Versace's company rapidly declined, its revenue and profits plummeted, and once hovered on the verge of bankruptcy, which even could not afford to hire a catwalk model.

What's the problem?

The luxury brand giant, which has achieved a revenue breakthrough of 1 billion US dollars in less than 20 years, should have enough anti risk ability even if the founder dies or the successor fails to succeed.In this case, the rapid decline of Versace, revenue and profits rapidly decline, the reason for which a little bit of a brain people can understand.

Because some of the extra income is gone.

Not only that,

the matter of stealing ashes to press debts is certainly not aimless.

However, the Mafia will certainly not be stupid enough to "kidnap" Versace's ashes to extort debts. This is obviously just a warning.

What's the warning?

It's very simple. Coercing the dead is not effective.

With the Mafia's terrorist influence in Italy, Simon believes that even if Versace dies, the Versace family will not escape some of its "debts.".

Therefore, in order to repay the debt, Versace must draw a large amount of money from the company, which is likely to lead to the exhaustion or even rupture of the capital chain of the enterprise. In addition, the part of revenue originally supported by black money will disappear with the death of Versace, and all kinds of things will make the decline of Versace inevitable.