My 1999

‘X-Mines’ represents a special elite group in French higher education, a small aristocratic circle, similar to the ‘Skull and Bones Society’ of Yale University in the United States.

This group is composed of the top 20 best students of the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris each year.

They are oligarchs under the French Republican system.

For more than two hundred years, they have controlled the most important companies in France and influenced the French economy.

Alstom CEO Patrick Kron and Schneider Electric CEO Jean-Pascal Tricova are among them.

Although Vivendi has changed its CEO, few people outside are optimistic about Vivendi’s future.

They all want to eat the corpse of ‘it’ to strengthen themselves after the giant falls.

But Jean Foch is worthy of his talent.

As soon as he took office, he restarted the accounts, and controlled costs and cut expenses bit by bit.

Selling Vivendi’s games and Universal Entertainment businesses reduced Vivendi’s debt to less than 10 billion euros.

And it retained the vitality to grow again.

Xu Liang personally experienced how difficult this guy is.

Vivendi Games, which was originally planned to be acquired for US$2.5 billion, was negotiated to US$3.3 billion, and part of Hongmeng's equity in 2002 was added before it was finally acquired.

In 2003, through continuous maneuvers, Universal Entertainment assets were sold at a high price of US$14 billion.

These two transactions alone reduced Vivendi's debt by 13.95 billion euros (the exchange rate of the euro to the US dollar was around 1.24 in 2003).

Add to that some scattered businesses, such as 10% of the equity of Echostar, etc.

Vivendi's debt was directly reduced to less than 10 billion euros, and a sum of cash was reserved in the account.

After bringing Vivendi back to life, Jean Foch's second step was to divest Vivendi's public utilities.

Public utilities assets require large investments, low returns, and long payback cycles.

And there is limited room for growth.

It is seriously affected by administrative restrictions.

It has little to do with Vivendi's main business of telecommunications and new media after its transformation.

Splitting the public utilities part can also cut down expenses and reduce costs.

With tens of thousands of people, the monthly salary expenditure alone is as high as hundreds of millions of euros.

Add to that equipment depreciation, debt repayment, etc.

It is almost difficult to make much money.

After completing the business cuts, Jean Foch began to lay off employees again.

After three years of continuous adjustments, Vivendi finally came back to life.

The business has completely stabilized.

Jean Foch's series of operations showed the qualities of an excellent corporate manager, but it is still not enough.

Only reducing costs and business divisions to turn the tide is a general talent, and being able to lead the company to success is a commander talent, similar to Jack Welch who led IBM out of trouble and fully recovered.

"Jean, we have known each other for more than three years. In the past three years, I have seen you pull Vivendi back from the brink of bankruptcy with my own eyes. You have made outstanding contributions. Even the Chinese financial media have praised you very much."

Jean Foch smiled more.

Human nature always makes everyone like to hear good words, and no one is an exception.

Moreover, Vivendi's resurrection is his most proud masterpiece.

Xu Liang changed the subject.

"But I believe that with your talent, Vivendi will not stop at its current scale. So I really want to know, what are your thoughts on the future of Vivendi?"

Jean Foch is also a smart man, and he instantly understood Xu Liang's purpose.

Obviously, this is a test for himself.

If he can pass, he can still be in charge of this huge new media and telecommunications giant after Vivendi is acquired.

If he can't pass, in order to successfully acquire Vivendi, Xu Liang will definitely give himself huge benefits.

But it is impossible to be in charge of Vivendi again.

Although he likes money, if possible, he still wants to control Vivendi, a huge world new media and telecommunications giant.

He pondered for a while.

"I personally agree with Mr. Xu's judgment on the pan-entertainment industry. Hongmeng's layout over the years has been very effective, so I plan to make Vivendi a giant in the pan-entertainment field.

At the same time, I also highly respect Mr. Xu's conclusion that the future belongs to the Internet, so Vivendi's future strategy also includes the Internet.

However, the foundation of the Internet is telecommunications.

Especially with the continuous growth of the Internet and hardware-intervention devices, telecommunications services based on broadband access will develop rapidly. This is a rapidly growing golden market.

And as the Internet speed gets faster and faster.

The 3G application market will also become more and more mature. Maybe in ten years, maybe eight years, the mobile Internet mentioned by Mr. Xu will become a reality.

By then In the future, telecommunications services including broadband access and mobile phones will become the foundation of mobile Internet.

In order to ensure that the company is not threatened by telecommunications companies in the future and not to miss this rapidly developing market, telecommunications must be one of Vivendi's main businesses.

Even the first business.

In addition, I plan to sell Havas Group's news, magazines and publishing businesses and only retain advertising and media businesses.

Under the impact of the Internet, the sales of paper media are becoming increasingly weak, and the rapid development of Bing Books, Google Books and Amazon is also constantly impacting the offline publishing market.

Although the impact is not very obvious now, with the continuous development of the Internet and the replacement of e-readers, the sluggishness of the publishing market will become more and more obvious.

While the situation has not deteriorated yet, sell at a high price and use the funds to strengthen Vivendi's main business. "

Looking at Jean Foch who was talking freely, Xu Liang looked at him with a new eye.

He shouted every day that the future is the era of the Internet and web2.0 belongs to the mobile Internet, but not many people really listened to him.

Looking at Jean Foch's appearance, he was obviously ready to do it.

Of course, it is not ruled out that he was just trying to please himself.

But he never said that the publishing market would decline, at least not publicly.

Obviously, this is his own judgment.

From this point of view, Jean Foch is worthy of the identity of 'X-Mines'.

He is a real elite.

However, his vision is still not enough, and he did not see the decline of portal websites.

But there are not many people in the world who can see this level.

If he did not have the memory of his previous life, he would not believe that the famous Yahoo would decline, and the four major portals representing the Chinese Internet industry would be replaced by BAT.

"In addition to selling Havas' publishing business, I also plan to acquire the world's fourth largest game developer 'Ubisoft'. "

Subconsciously looking at Xu Liang.

"Dear Xu, what I regret most now is selling Vivendi Games to Hongmeng. "World of Warcraft" can at least make Hongmeng earn $5 billion."

Looking at Jean Foch's envious look, Xu Liang couldn't help but smile.

$5 billion? Who are you looking down on?

Not to mention the well-known game copyrights such as "Counter-Strike", "Half-Life", "King's Quest", and "Diablo".

Just the "World of Warcraft" series can make several $5 billion.

"Ubisoft is indeed a good company. If I were not afraid of antitrust laws, I would also be prepared to acquire it."

"Rayman", "Assassin's Creed" series, "Far Cry" series, "Prince of Persia" and other well-known games, I am drooling when I look at them.

It's a pity that Hongmeng is now the world's largest game company, and it's fine to acquire small companies.

If it is a game giant like Ubisoft, it will definitely be stopped.

"I think so too. Now we have acquired 5.4% of Ubisoft's shares and obtained a seat on the board of directors. If nothing changes, I plan to increase Vivendi's stake in Ubisoft to about 29% in three years and get two or three board seats.

Then start the formal acquisition. ”

France's securities laws are different from those in the United States.

Once an external company holds 30% of the target company's shares, it automatically triggers a mandatory acquisition invitation.

As long as the target company's shareholders are willing to sell, you must acquire it according to the acquisition agreement.

"It's a good strategy, and the possibility of success is also very high."

In this life, Blizzard was acquired by itself, so Vivendi's reputation in the gaming industry is not as bad as it was later.

As a French company, Vivendi still has great hope of acquiring Ubisoft.

"What about games? Are there other targets?" Xu Liang asked with a smile.

"EMI Music Company.

Music is an indispensable part of pan-entertainment.

It's a pity that I understood it too late. If I could have listened to your judgment and analysis of the pan-entertainment industry earlier.

I would never sell Universal Music and Vivendi Games."

Xu Liang smiled and said, "There is no if in the world."

"That's why I regret it. ”

“The global music market is in a downturn now. Warner is selling Warner Music, and EMI’s business is getting worse. With Vivendi’s current financial level, it may not be a good thing to acquire EMI.”

“It is precisely because everyone is not optimistic that it is convenient to acquire. Just like when you acquired Universal Music Group from Vivendi.

If the music industry gets out of the trough and develops thoroughly in the future.

It may not be so easy for Vivendi to acquire EMI again.

Under competition, more money will be spent. ”

Xu Liang nodded and smiled: "You are so sure that the music market will develop."

“I don’t believe it, but I believe in you.”

“Haha, this trust is really heavy.”

After the laughter subsided, Xu Liang looked at the man in front of him seriously.

“Dear Jean, you are a talented professional manager. If I acquire Vivendi, you will still be the CEO of this company.”

Jean Foch breathed a sigh of relief.

After opening his heart and saying so much, he finally got a good promise, although it was just a promise.

“It’s my honor! "

Xu Liang smiled.

"When you return to Paris, you can discuss with Vidiwan's management and ask them how many shares of the Pacific Fund they can take?

In addition, you have to emphasize one point to them.

Don't think about selling more shares to others or investing through loans.

Each of them has a limit of 50 million US dollars.

But you are different.

I will give you a share of 100 million US dollars, and I don't care how you get the money together. "

Jean Foch's eyes lit up.