Reborn Tycoon Rise

The general sequence of a bona fide acquisition is that the acquirer first reaches an acquisition intention with the shareholders of the acquiree, and then communicates with the management to reach a series of agreements.

The order of the two can be reversed. After all, it is business. Even if the acquisition fails, the "friendship" will still exist.

After that, we enter the most critical link: quotation! ! !

The negotiations ahead are generally conducted in a very friendly environment, with everyone having a cocktail party and discussing the future together.

Of course, this is the boss's prerogative. As for a group of subordinates, they enter the battlefield. The two sides will stay together for several months and hold hundreds of meetings to discuss various details.

But for the top management, major shareholders, acquirers, and intermediaries of both parties, cooperation is always friendly.

But once the quotation time comes, both parties will immediately tear off the mask of friendship, because at this time, giving in is a loss of tens of millions of dollars.

On July 11, 1983, the Blackstone Foundation officially issued an announcement to acquire the Disney Group. Based on Disney's total value of US$1.8 billion on the previous day, the Blackstone Fund offered a total price of US$2.16 billion, with a premium of 20 %, while assuming all of Disney’s liabilities.

Blackstone Fund is a large investment fund registered in the United States by Xu Zhi two years ago. It earned US$1.2 billion from gold futures that year, except for a small amount used to acquire Mack Trucks and RCA TV businesses (these two were only a fraction of the total) , the rest are loans), and almost another billion US dollars have been injected into this Blackstone Fund. According to Xu Zhi’s vision of God, the Blackstone Fund has purchased high-quality products such as Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Pepsi, General Electric, and Berkshire Hathaway. Company stocks, and then refinancing them using these stocks as collateral.

Because we are prepared to hold these stocks for a long time, and considering the size limitations of these stocks themselves, the financial leverage used is only doubled.

In order to arrange the right people to manage the company, Xu Zhi invited Peter Peterson, the founder of the original Blackstone Group, to manage the fund. The remuneration is naturally not low, with an annual salary of US$3 million plus bonuses, which is comparable to top American companies. CEO.

But everything is worth the money. Under Peter's management and Xu Zhi's "high vision" guidance, the total scale of this fund has exceeded 3 billion US dollars, and the debt is less than 1 billion, which is equivalent to within two years. It has made a net profit of one billion US dollars. In terms of profit, it is not much better than Midea.

This fund has become the cornerstone of Xu Zhi’s investment in the United States, and this acquisition of Disney was initiated by this fund.

An hour after Blackstone announced its acquisition plan, Disney immediately rejected the acquisition offer, believing that the $2.16 billion value seriously underestimated Disney's true value.

Although Disney has declined, it is still the most important component of American culture and is the childhood memories of countless people. Such a company was proposed to be acquired, and the acquirer was an overseas capital, a Chinese from Hong Kong.

Although the Blackstone Fund is registered in the United States, it is not difficult for reporters with great savvy to find the sponsors behind it. What's more, the Blackstone Fund itself represents Xu Zhi's investment in the United States, so it does not deliberately conceal it. .

The identity of the funder behind it can be traced, but the size of the Blackstone Fund and the investments of all parties are absolute secrets. Blackstone’s investments are mainly for profit and do not pursue voting rights for the companies it invests in. In addition, Peter’s superb skills Through various financial means and cross-shareholdings in various leather companies, it is difficult for any outsider to understand the current scale of Blackstone Fund.

Some senior reporters quickly noticed Disney's answer: it was not a complete rejection, but because the price was not high enough.

That is to say:

Need more money!

The New York Times published a special article analyzing and predicting this acquisition, concluding that this acquisition is an inevitable result, and the remaining issues are the final price and time.

This reporter’s analysis was correct. The next day, Blackstone Fund quickly put forward a new offer of US$2.34 billion, which was a 30% premium compared to the stock price before the acquisition was launched.

This price is already very sincere. Before the birth of Internet companies, the price proposed for acquisition rarely showed a large premium, because both brands and assets have their own value. Only in the Internet era, the value of a product is determined by its future The future is decided.

Many shareholders are obviously satisfied with this price, and many investors are already eager to give it a try, but Disney's management is in a turmoil at this moment.

Professional investment banks like Goldman Sachs have acquired countless companies and will do their homework on each company that is about to be acquired.

If it is a public company, when Goldman Sachs receives an acquisition task, it will naturally contact the board of directors of the acquired party directly.

But for a family business like Disney, its head, family and related beneficiaries will never agree to such an acquisition, because once the company is acquired, they will naturally be the ones who are out.

As the head of Walt Disney, Ron Miller has been under tremendous pressure since he took office. In the past ten years, Disney's financial situation has declined, which has made him even more irritable and irritable.

When he received the first acquisition offer from Blackstone Fund, he thought it was a prank by some boring person, because he had never heard of this Blackstone Fund. Disney is now in decline, but it is still a large listed company in the United States. He knew full well that the entire United States had the ability to acquire their funds.

But "coincidentally", there was a plan to hold a board meeting that morning, and the members of the board of directors were also present when the acquisition offer was received.

According to legal requirements, when this kind of acquisition request is made, if it is rejected, it requires the consent of the board of directors. However, among the directors present, someone actually knew about this Blackstone Fund, which also showed that the scale of this fund is not small.

In the end, although the board of directors also rejected the acquisition offer, the reason for the rejection was that the other party's offer was insufficient.

After the meeting, Ron returned to the office with a calm expression and ordered a subordinate he trusted to investigate the Blackstone Fund.

The next day, when Ron looked at the information in his hands and the second wave of offers from Blackstone Fund, he already knew that not only was the acquisition true, but he had obviously been abandoned!

Facing this second acquisition offer, the company's board of directors held another temporary meeting. This time was different from yesterday. Ron could see that many people were satisfied with the current price.

However, in pursuit of a higher price, the board of directors obviously rejected this price. Obviously, they wanted to get a higher price from the "Hong Kong" enemy.

"Damn it." After returning to his office, Ron punched the table.

The assistant next to him looked at John's ferocious face and said, "Chairman..."

"I'm fine." Ron Miller asked in a deep voice, "Has James from Wells Fargo responded?"

The assistant said: "I have already replied. James has rejected your plan to borrow money and increase capital. And..."

"And what?" Ron asked.

The assistant said: "James said that he hopes that we at Disney can seriously consider this acquisition. He said that the board of directors of Wells Fargo Bank no longer believes in our ability to repay the loan. If we insist on going our own way, then Wells Fargo Bank has the right to withdraw all loans!"

"Nonsense, the loan we owe their bank has never been repaid normally!" Ron said angrily. Disney is in his hands. Although it is not operating well, it has always cooperated with Wells Fargo Bank. Unexpectedly, in this kind of situation, In times of crisis, not only did the other party not help, but they also added insult to injury.

The assistant said: "Chairman, James made it very clear that this is the decision of their bank's board of directors, and he has no right to interfere."

"Okay, in that case, you can go to other banks and ask." Ron said unwillingly.

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