Back to 1995

Chapter 890 Flying down three thousand feet

Whether it is the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, they are all ushering in a sudden collapse. How glorious it was to rely on technology concept stocks and Internet concept stocks before, it is so embarrassing now.

General Electric is a representative of the technology industry and a major shareholder of ICQ. It used to claim to be the laurel of the technology and Internet industry, but now it is in bad luck.

Internet stock prices plummeted, as did General Electric's stock price. The throne of America's largest company by market capitalization has always been contested by three companies: General Electric, Microsoft, and Cisco.

After the verdict of the anti-monopoly case came out, Microsoft immediately fell into chaos, and the stock price no longer cared at all. Now it is filing a lawsuit and lobbying public relations companies all over the world to overturn the verdict.

The market value of General Electric also fell from 5940 billion US dollars to about 5000 billion US dollars in a few days, and nearly [-] billion US dollars disappeared in a few days, so Immelt had to return to General Electric to sit in charge!
Compared with ICQ, General Electric is the foundation of Immelt. He can tolerate the collapse of ICQ, but he cannot tolerate the collapse of General Electric.

As soon as he returned to the General Electric headquarters, Immelt heard that Edgar Bronfman Jr. wanted to sell ICQ shares to preserve the capital of the Bronfman family.

As a last resort, Immelt called little Edgar again, trying to stabilize him. Now the entire Nasdaq is frightened, and they will sell stocks at the slightest sign of trouble.

If at this time, Little Edgar, the president of ICQ, suddenly ran away, then the entire ICQ would probably fall apart immediately!
Edgar Bronfman Jr. hesitated for a while. The veterans of the Bronfman family, Bren Dyche and others, all suggested that Edgar Jr. resign immediately and run away, throwing away all the shares in ICQ. From Canada, I called Edgar Jr. Although he was not forced to sell his shares, he also threatened that Edgar Jr. would consider for the Bronfman family!

Immelt felt little Edgar's hesitation, and raised his voice a little, "Little Edgar, the storm will pass, if you want to live forever in the ridicule of the outside world, you can choose to leave ICQ now.

But once you leave, you will never have a second ICQ in your life! "

Listening to Immelt's words, Little Edgar looked at the ICQ stock price that seemed to be stabilizing slowly. Facing Bren Dyche who was waiting anxiously, Little Edgar finally shook his head slowly. He was going to Take another gamble, betting that the stock price of ICQ has already fallen to the bottom. After all, ICQ really has a lot of high-quality industries...

As Immelt said, little Edgar now has nothing but ICQ. He does not want to be the "sinner" of the Bronfman family. The existence ridiculed by the media can only bet on ICQ. It will collapse, betting that ICQ's stock price will rise again!
Hearing Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s decision, Bren Dyche was silent for a while, and finally took out a resignation letter and put it in front of Edgar Bronfman Jr. He didn't want to be the one who took the blame That person, once the stock price of ICQ collapses in the future, is likely to be sued by a class action, and Bren Deitch doesn't want to be that scapegoat.

General Electric headquarters, after Immelt stabilized Edgar Bronfman Jr., he successively called the remaining major shareholders of ICQ, including Goldman Sachs, Telephone and Telegraph, Comcast, and Song Yang. Go to the phone and ask the major shareholders of ICQ to overcome difficulties and not to sell the shares of ICQ.

On the phone, all the major shareholders of ICQ agreed, but only the ghost knows whether they will run away or not. At this time, the stock prices of Telephone and Telegraph Group and Comcast Group also kept falling.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Immelt closed his eyes and rested for a moment, picked up an encrypted anti-tapping phone on the table, and dialed a number, "Mr. Congressman..."

As the giant company with the largest market capitalization in America, if you say that General Electric has nothing to do with people, it is estimated that the dog will shake its head.

Over the years, Welch has not only built a huge empire for General Electric, but also left behind a huge network of contacts. The number of congressmen donating on Capitol Hill is no less than that of the Koch brothers.

After making several phone calls in a row, Immelt's complexion became worse and worse. The last few calls he made were to big figures from the American Treasury, the American Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Commander, and even the Federal Reserve. But from the information I heard, without exception, the American municipal department has no idea of ​​saving Nasdaq and the Internet!
Because we are in a special period now, so what if we saved Nasdaq, cleaned up the mess, and don’t know who the new commander-in-chief is. At that time, maybe we won’t get any credit for it, and even made a wedding dress for nothing!
Even Immelt heard even worse news. The bad old man in charge of the Federal Reserve seems to be telling young people in America not to be too arrogant, and telling the upstarts of the Internet what it means to not listen to the old man and suffer a loss In front of us, America is expected to raise interest rates six times for the US dollar within two years, completely squeezing out the Internet bubble...

Hearing this news, Immelt almost couldn't help scolding his mother, and then thought of a more difficult problem, General Electric is going to have no money!

General Electric was originally not short of money and had a lot of cash flow. Welch left GE with a big enough business and sufficient cash flow. However, in order to obtain ICQ’s majority shareholder status, Immelt spent a lot of money. There are too many dollars, especially the acquisition of ICQ shares from Song Yang, which almost drained all of GE's cash flow!
Which company in America now hoards hundreds of billions of dollars in cash, at most tens of billions of dollars in the account, which is already a lot.

But that was not under special circumstances. Like now, if General Electric wants to stabilize its stock price, it must repurchase its shares generously. However, when the stock price falls, the stock cannot be sold, and it cannot issue new shares. It also needs to repay those debts. , It needs a large sum of US dollars in cash.

Counting on Wall Street institutions and banks to send charcoal in a timely manner is purely overthinking. Thinking of this, Immelt's face became extremely ugly, and he couldn't help feeling anxious. If GE's stock price collapses again, it will not borrow enough dollars. If it is a knife, the old empire of General Electric may be on the verge of collapse!

At this time, Immelt couldn't help thinking that General Electric had sent a large amount of cash to Song Yang, and the expression on Immelt's face became obscure. In cash, unlike other figures on the wealth list, almost half of Song Yang's net worth has been cashed out!

Stretching out his hand to the phone, Immelt retracted it. General Electric has not yet reached the end of its rope. At this time, he borrowed from Song Yang. Immelt feels that Song Yang's conditions are not that simple...

"Today, the Nasdaq index closed around 3500 points. Within this month, the Nasdaq fell by 30%, setting a historical record!

However, Wall Street analysts believe that the short-term risks of Nasdaq have been released. Major Internet technology companies, including Microsoft, ICQ, Yahoo, AOL Time Warner, General Electric, Cisco, Oracle and other companies, have fallen by more than 20% in a short period of time. , it is unlikely to fall sharply in the short term, and the Nasdaq index is expected to usher in a recovery! "

The routines around the world are basically the same. Now Wall Street analysts are also persuading leeks. When the Nasdaq index was 5133 points, these analysts were persuading leeks not to get in the car. But there is no chance.

When the Nasdaq index fell to 5049 points, analysts declared, "Short-term risks are hard to buy and turn back." Now that it has fallen to 3500 points, the analysts persuaded leeks, "Nasdaq has no way to fall! "

In less than a month, the Nasdaq index has fallen by 30%. Is it possible that it can fall again? Wall Street institutional analysts seem to be right in their analysis. After all, you can’t count on the Nasdaq index. If it falls below 80 points, the entire Nasdaq market value will drop by [-]%. Doesn’t that mean that the American stock market is hopeless, and it has to be pulled down and reopened, and it will become a joke of the whole world? !
After the Nasdaq index fell to around 3500 points, it seemed to have finally stabilized. The stock price of ICQ did not collapse again. Sitting in front of the computer screen, the bearded little Edgar breathed a sigh of relief as if he had collapsed.

Little Edgar Bronfman, who had been staring at the office for several days, felt a sense of fatigue. He felt that it was time to enjoy a big meal and take a good rest.

Back at the villa, Edgar had a meal of ingredients brought in by air from Canada. Little Edgar, who had just fallen asleep after taking a bath, was woken up by a sudden ringing of the phone.

Little Edgar Bronfman, with red eyes, took the phone from the servant and said impatiently, "Who?!"

Hearing the news from the phone, little Edgar didn't even realize that the phone in his hand had dropped to the ground, and only the sentence he heard just now was in his mind, "WorldCom's financial fraud, suspected of more than tens of billions of dollars financial fraud!"

Colin McMillan came to work at the ICQ headquarters early in the morning. He wanted to use this method to show his performance and avoid being on the list of layoffs. Although ICQ has not yet started layoffs, Silicon Valley It has already been rumored that many Internet companies have quietly laid off employees, and even closed their doors!
In just a few days, the entire Silicon Valley has completely changed into a look that Colin McMillan does not recognize at all. In the torrent, Colin McMillan has no idea what happened, nor I don't know where it will be washed by the flood.

But the atmosphere of ICQ today was extremely dull. All the people who entered the office were sitting in front of the computer desks and seemed to be busy, but the entire office was silent. After the Nasdaq opened, he heard a curse , that came from the department manager's office.

Colin McMillan, like everyone else, opened the stock software and saw ICQ, which had fallen to a market value of 3200 billion dollars. After the market opened, the stock price fell in a straight line, and the market value fell from 3200 billion dollars to 3100 dollars visible to the naked eye. Billion, 3000 billion, without any resistance, it directly fell below the market value of 3000 billion dollars...

(End of this chapter)