Back to 1995

Chapter 681
I don’t know if the sudden news is true or not, but the news that came out suddenly, coupled with Goldman Sachs’ support for ICQ before, and Erin’s interview, that Xuele Mountain is nothing to ICQ at all, all add up, the answer It seems that it is ready to come out, that is, ICQ is going to acquire a big company!

When coincidences come together, it often becomes the answer. Goldman Sachs' "support" ICQ has also been interpreted as having already known about ICQ's plan, so it pursues ICQ. Otherwise, there is no reason at all. Wall Street is not a charity hall. Do that kind of thankless thing...

Although it is not known which company ICQ will acquire or merge, ICQ will issue astonishingly "huge" bonds and stocks, but it is already rumored.

These days, whether it is Wall Street institutions or ordinary leeks, what they are afraid of is not "snakes swallowing elephants", but mediocrity. WorldCom Telecom issues so many new shares every year. Investors don't know that WorldCom is cutting leeks. However, WorldCom acquires a lot of companies every year, causing the stock price of WorldCom to soar, and the leeks also admit it!
The news that ICQ was going to issue a huge amount of new shares not only did not cause the stock price to fall, but it skyrocketed. In the blink of an eye, Wall Street institutions led by Goldman Sachs gathered together ICQ stocks, as well as the famous 401K pension fund in America, the Federal Teachers Pension Fund, The Fire Pension Fund, the Truck Driver Pension Fund, etc., all appeared in the ICQ stock seat.

Wall Street institutions and the traders of these federal foundations are the world's top and most well-informed, and they have all begun to pile up ICQ stocks. For leeks, this is almost a clear sign.

Then, as far as the naked eye can see, the stock price of ICQ has been crazily pushed up. When the market opened today, the stock price of ICQ was only less than 130 dollars, but now it is about to be pulled to 170 dollars. The stock price soared 30% in a single day. Almost catching up with the performance on the day of listing.

The market value of ICQ directly soared to nearly 570 billion US dollars, surpassing Yahoo and becoming the top Internet technology stock.

Before Christmas, Yahoo’s market capitalization surpassed US$500 billion as expected. Although Microsoft, SUN, AOL, Oracle, IBM and other mothers-in-law and mothers are on their heads, these companies are not pure Internet companies, they can only be regarded as concept stocks , can't become the leader, and Yahoo is the "orthodox" of the Internet.

But Yahoo seems to have had a bad fate. It was overwhelmed by Netscape a few years ago, and now it has finally become the leader of the Internet, but it has been caught up by ICQ again!

After the market closed, ICQ issued multiple announcements in a row, claiming to issue 7000 million new shares worth more than $120 billion, and issue another $40 billion in debt, raising a total of $160 billion.

Half an hour later, ICQ released another explosive news, officially launching an acquisition transaction with America Telecom. ICQ initiated an offer for America Telecom in the form of equity exchange plus cash. After the merger is completed, the new company will be led by ICQ, but Retain the American Telecom brand.

There are only a few words in the announcement, but everyone who sees it has one thought in their hearts, that is, ICQ is going to swallow the elephant, and the valuation of American Telecom has skyrocketed, which is outrageously expensive, but don't care about the water, ICQ Acquired American Telecom, directly became a giant company!

Isn't it mocking ICQ for not making money, engaging in insider trading to split up Sierra, then ICQ will take down the upstart in the telecom industry, regardless of the net profit of American Telecom, let's just say whether American Telecom makes money, one year's broadband revenue, mobile network , Mobile phone retail channels, the combined revenue last year was close to 78 billion US dollars, which is much more than Xueleshan!
Almost as soon as the announcement was released, the major technology and financial media in America began to report frantically. A large wave of media and reporters poured into the headquarters of ICQ and American Telecom, but there was no sign of Irene and Iger.

"A billion dollar giant is about to be born!"

The headlines given by the media for this transaction are all hundreds of billions of dollars. After all, ICQ plus American Telecom, the largest social empire on the Internet, and the largest broadband operator in America, directly become an enhanced version of AOL. The Internet and telecommunications, the two hottest industries in recent years, have just merged into one.

As for whether the merger will fall through, no one has such an idea. After all, the big sponsors of ICQ and America Telecom are all named Bruno Song!
ICQ was able to propose this merger, obviously with Song Yang's permission, otherwise how dare it play like this.

"If the merger is completed, ICQ and America Telecom will form a company with an annual revenue of 105 billion US dollars, more than [-] million Internet users worldwide, the largest broadband and mobile network operator in America, and the giant of the top ten mobile phone retailers in America. Mac!

ICQ can promote America Telecom's market to the whole world, and America Telecom can make up for ICQ's most important cash flow, but so far, America Telecom President Iger has not expressed any opinion on the rumors. "

In a meeting room, the TV news was turned off. AOL president Keith tried his best to calm down. The sudden news made Keith, who had just swallowed Netscape in his stomach and became the leader of the Internet martial arts for a few days, completely depressed. up.

AOL acquired Netscape for more than US$40 billion. Before it had a good time, ICQ suddenly swallowed up all the popularity of AOL.

In addition, American Telecom is still the most direct opponent of AOL. ICQ has acquired AOL, which makes Case feel nervous. Broadband will replace dial-up Internet sooner or later. Case knows this well, but he needs time!
"Gentlemen, I think we should speed up!"

Case calmed down, smiled and said to a group of executives headed by Time Warner President Jerry Levine.

Today is the day when the directors and executives of AOL and Time Warner met. The two sides had contacted several times. Finally, under the impetus of Case and Jerry Levine, they began to talk about the "merger" of the two companies.

But, who knows, before it even started, it was hit in the head. ICQ's acquisition of American Telecom made Time Warner start to worry about whether the merger with AOL would become a shitty deal.

Jerry Levine habitually pulls his tie, but it turned out that he didn't wear a suit and tie today in order to adapt to the "trend", but deliberately changed into an open shirt that is popular in the Internet circle. This is to express his determination to lead Time Warner The media empire of this traditional industry has entered the Internet industry.

Jerry Levine has already seen the decline of traditional media. Yahoo, an Internet company that has only been established for a few years, has more than ten times the circulation of newspapers owned by Time Warner.

Now the Internet is still difficult to overthrow the media empire like Time Warner, but Jerry Levine can see the decline of Internet companies. He spent more than one billion dollars to transform Time Warner into the Internet, but the effect The mediocre, traditional media style makes it difficult for Time Warner to make waves in the Internet industry.

That’s why today’s meeting with AOL happened. If he couldn’t play it by himself, Jerry Levine prepared to form an alliance with the Internet giant that would play it, and let Time Warner enter the Internet. AOL just needed media content, and the two parties basically hit it off.

However, the news of ICQ’s acquisition of American Telecom inevitably made Jerry Levine doubt whether AOL can withstand the onslaught of ICQ and American Telecom. You must know that Time Warner’s most important thing is AOL’s 500 million dial-up Internet access. user.

Case looked calm and said calmly, "No, American Telecom has broadband users, how many users can it have, 100 million, 200 million, even if it has 300 million users, it can't compare with AOL's 500 million users. user!"

Thirty-five million against 500 million, Case gave me a look of superiority, "President Levine, I know what Time Warner is worried about, and I can guarantee that AOL will not give up the broadband market. In fact, AOL has planned to Lay your own broadband lines, and AOL won't be replaced by American Telecom."

Jerry Levine also knows that the accounts are not really calculated. Don’t look at America Telecom’s broadband users are less than half of AOL’s, but they earn much more than AOL’s. Telecom is 21 US dollars, plus the mobile Internet access fee, the profit of a user of American Telecom is several times higher than the profit of a user of AOL!
Jerry Levine was still a little hesitant, but in front of him, besides AOL, he really didn't have much choice. Yahoo didn't have a telecommunications business, and it overlapped too much with Time Warner's business. ICQ was also an option, but Jerry Levine heard some rumors that ICQ was very close to NBC Group, and Time Warner would not come to make fun of it. The only choice seemed to be AOL!
Seeing Jerry Levine's expression, Case added more information, "AOL can give up the acquisition and complete the merger through a merger. AOL can exchange 1 share of Time Warner for 1.5 shares of Time Warner to complete the transaction!"

As soon as these words came out, Time Warner was obviously a little moved. In other words, Time Warner was more valuable than AOL. After the transaction was completed, it seemed that AOL had acquired Time Warner. It was Time Warner, and Case eventually backed down in order to get the deal done.

The merger of American Telecom by ICQ will not only affect AOL and Time Warner, but the telecommunications industry, which is about to be broken, is even more stimulated by this news.

WorldCom, which just spent more than US$100 billion last year to buy MFS Telecom, once again announced the issuance of a large number of new shares. It is rumored that Bernard Arnault is eyeing MCI Telecom, another giant in the telecom industry.

This year, America is obviously more lively than last year, and the stock prices of major technology giants have skyrocketed.

In the past, a big acquisition could be discussed for several years, but this year, the news of AOL’s acquisition of Netscape was just discussed for a few days, and then it was revealed that ICQ was swallowing up Telecom America, and WorldCom was doing something wrong again. All kinds of big news, the entire American technology industry, is simply a mess.

(End of this chapter)