Top of the Great Era

Chapter 2096 Responsibilities of the CEO

Boss Ma has returned to China, and it is not convenient for Zhou Buqi to meet with Sun Zhengyi, Yang Zhiyuan, or a major shareholder of Yahoo in private, as if he is planning to conspire behind his back.

If he is a foreigner, Zhou Buqi may weigh it up, maybe he will be the top.

Boss Ma is fine.

They are all in the same circle, and they are old friends again, so they can't cheat him on such a big matter.He wants to get back 20% of the voting rights, which is related to Ali's future development and listing plans, and he cannot afford to delay.

Zhou Buqi also relaxed. His wife and children are going to move from Sydney to Silicon Valley, and it may take a day or two to prepare. He simply took a few secretaries and went to the metropolis New York with Senior Sister Zhen Yu .

Let Gu Zanli and Yao Yao meet the world.

Senior sister Zhen Yu took the first step, accompanied by Ning Yaxian, and went to New York to make an appointment with two private equity funds, and wanted to borrow 15 billion US dollars from them to meet the recent acquisition.

Zhou Buqi went to Netflix first, and the people from Ziweixing Global had already arrived. He coordinated and pushed Netflix to complete the acquisition of Dark Horse Comics.

In the past few years, Dark Horse Comics has adapted many classic movies. Universal Pictures is the largest partner of Dark Horse Comics. People from Universal Pictures will act as consultants for this acquisition, which can reduce the complexity of the transaction.

If there is an opportunity in the future, we can further deepen the cooperation between Universal Pictures and Dark Horse Comics.

With that done, he took off for New York.

On the plane, Sun Guanran and Ning Lu reported a major event that just happened.

Zynga, a social gaming company, finally goes public!

In the past period of time, there has been a lot of hype.

This IPO should be the last high-profile case this year. Not only the entire game industry is paying attention, but the capital market is also closely watching.

This will almost be a bellwether event.

If Zynga's listing goes smoothly and the stock price continues to rise, this not only shows that the potential of Zynga, a company, has been recognized, but can also affect the entire game industry.

For Zynga, the task is huge!
In order to go public successfully, Zynga has made many concessions. The prospectus has been changed and revised. The issue price has been lowered three times, and even the 15% discount fee has been given up, just for the stock price to rise and get off to a good start!

Needless to say, the effect came out.

The opening price hit $11!

Compared with the issue price of 10 US dollars, an increase of 10%!

good news!
All parties are very excited, and a lot of big money seems to be undercurrent.

In the financial market, the sense of smell must be sensitive and the action must be fast!
Many fund managers are ready. As long as Zynga's stock price continues to rise, they will widely buy the stocks of various game companies, because Zynga's stock price can fully reflect the status quo of the game industry.

However, Zynga only lasted less than an hour.

The situation changed suddenly.

Zynga的股价开始一路下跌，从11美元跌到了10.8美元、10.5美元、10.3美元……然后降低到了发行价的10美元，还是没有止住下行的趋势！

Break!

$9.8, $9.6, $9.4...

Just as Zhou Buqi and his group were flying to New York at this time, the market soon had a lunch break, and Zynga had already fallen below the issue price, with a drop of as much as 6%.

When Zhou Buqi heard the news, he sighed, "What should come will still come, and now the game industry will cast a shadow again."

Sun Guanran and Ning Lu were sitting opposite him, each with a computer in front of them.

Hearing what the big boss said, Sun Guanran reacted immediately, and checked first, "Well, yes, the stocks in the game industry are all falling, Blizzard fell by 0.6%, Changyou fell by 0.8%, EA plummeted by 4%... ...Is this EA because of the acquisition of a friend's studio?"

Zhou Buqi coughed, "Maybe."

Ning Lu was very surprised, and asked: "Boss, why did the stock price drop for such an excellent company as Zynga? What kind of logic is behind this? I see that many investment analysts are posting that they don't recommend shorting Zynga. "

Zhou Buqi saw Gu Zanli and Yao Yao sitting on the other side, both eyes showed a bit of anticipation and timidity, wanted to participate, but felt that he didn't understand anything, and was afraid of delaying the business.

"Come here!"

Zhou Buqi beckoned to them both, then picked up Yao Yao, put her on the inside, Gu Zanli sat on the outside, and kissed each of them on the cheek.

This was the first time he kissed Yao Yao, and Yao Yao's face was like a ruby ​​in one fell swoop.Gu Zanli, on the other hand, was much more cheerful, approached with a smile on her face, and gave Boss Zhou a soft kiss.

Zhou Buqi reached out to call the stewardess, asked for a few glasses of juice, and then responded to Ning Lu, "Why are you so good?"

Ning Lu said: "Zynga has 2.3 million users and more than 5400 million daily active users. With so many users, isn't it excellent?"

Zhou Buqi nodded, "So, this is a game giant. Even if it breaks, it is still a first-class game company. There is a well-known game company in the United States called Take-Two. You can check the current market value. How many?"

Sun Guanran was paying attention to the stock market, and soon found out, "US$18.4 billion."

"Yeah, it's only 18.4 billion US dollars, what a big gap."

Zhou Buqi was very emotional.

Recently, he also dealt with Major League Baseball because of the acquisition of the San Francisco Giants.The baseball league had a proposal, saying that it would be better if the baseball 2k game was handed over to Changyou for development?
Zhou Buqi didn't dare to accept this challenge.

Looking back, I found out that it was incredible.

Several major sports leagues in the United States cooperate with take-two to develop games, such as NBA2K for basketball, as well as games related to rugby 2K, baseball 2K, and ice hockey 2K, which are all developed by the game studio of take-two. distribution and operation.

The more you know about this company, the better.

It has a lot to do with Universal Pictures.

Take-two's main game is the racing game "Grand Theft Auto"... In fact, it is the source of inspiration for Universal Pictures' well-known series of movies "Fast and Furious", but the producer made a slight modification when making the movie, and then There is no need to pay royalties.

It can be seen from this that it is not recognized by the market to make that kind of traditional computer games.

Even an industry giant like Take-Two has dozens of well-known games under its banner, as well as shocking big games like "Red Dead Redemption", "Civilized City" and "BioShock", with a market value of only 18.4 billion US dollars.

This is an American game company, which is not bad.

Going to Europe, South Korea and Japan to buy game companies can be cheaper, and tens of millions of dollars can buy a bunch of excellent game intellectual property rights.Ren Yuxin has already taken action, aiming at the Japanese market. Well-known Japanese game companies such as Wannan, Square, Enix, Konami, Koei Tecmo, SEGA, and CAPCOM have to ask for prices.

When I arrived in New York, I first met the private equity tycoon to talk about loans.

It was so easy.

The other party has only one request, which is to pay the interest first, and would rather have a lower interest rate.

When Zhou Buqi heard it, he almost didn't laugh.

Sure enough, it's Wall Street. These capitalists are all in the same way, and they all see money!

Obviously, the other two institutions also wait until they get the "profit", and then fill the accounts to ensure the dividend at the end of the year.Getting the interest first is equivalent to transferring the profit belonging to next year to this year's book.

Of course Zhou Buqi agrees.

From the two institutions, a total of 15.7 billion US dollars in loans.

Then, Zhou Buqi could only receive 15 billion U.S. dollars in cash, and the remaining 7000 million U.S. dollars was paid to the other party first in the form of interest.

The loan period lasts for half a year, and the interest rate is nearly 10%.

In short-term revolving loans, it is already very low.

Many private equity funds make profits by providing such short-term revolving loans.If it is a loan from a bank, not to mention the need for collateral, the process is complicated, and the arrival is too slow, making it difficult to deal with emergencies.

This kind of private equity capital institution lends money, which can be bolder and more efficient, without going through those complicated procedures, and can lend money as quickly as possible.

On the second day, I went to Ziweixing-Farley Building, which has already started renovation, and the planning area of ​​Changyou Headquarters, where construction was suspended due to winter.

It was not until the afternoon that I met Changyou CEO Don Mattrick who hurried back from Europe.

In the evening, the two attended a charity reception in Long Island. Zhou Buqi personally donated 120 million US dollars, and Mattrick donated 10 US dollars... The host of the reception was a Wall Street investor. My brother, who is in charge of the merger review agency, was also present.

Got a really good news.

Changyou's acquisition of Ziweixing International's game business department at a price of more than 80 billion US dollars is about to pass the approval, and the result will be available before Christmas at the latest.

When attending the reception, Zhou Buqi brought Ning Lu, who has the best English, and her schoolgirl Gu Zanli.

Now it's time to see the world.

But when leaving, Gu Zanli whispered with some distress: "Boss, did you really donate?"

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "What are you doing? You can't fraudulently donate money, right?"

Gu Zanli blinked her eyes a few times, and said in a low voice, "Can it be reimbursed? You are donating money for Changyou's business, you can't pay it out of your own pocket."

It was winter outside, Ning Lu and Gu Zanli were wearing skirts and coats, it was still a bit cold.

Zhou Buqi didn't care about the etiquette of the upper class, he paid the money and delivered the goods, and withdrew after the transaction was over.

Holding the two of them in his arms, he hurriedly rushed into the car that had already turned on the air conditioner.

After getting in the car, Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Official donations, theoretically, can be reimbursed by the company, just find a name. But it's not necessary. Changyou has fewer people and more affairs now, so don't create complications for them. .”

At this time, someone knocked on the car window.

It's Don Mattrick.

Zhou Buqi put down the car window, sat in the car and talked to him, "What's the matter?"

Mattrick said: "Zynga's situation is not very optimistic, and the expected stock price given by major investment banks is also around $10. The trough of the game industry will soon come."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Isn't that just right, the opportunity has come."

Mattrick said: "I asked HR to launch a recruitment plan, and it is estimated that 3 people will be recruited within 800 months..."

"can!"

Zhou Buqi didn't want to listen to his long-winded words, so he agreed immediately.

"One more thing," Mattrick knew that it would be inconvenient for the big boss to have a female family member in the car, so he spoke quickly, "An investor contacted me, saying that he was optimistic about the prospects of Changyou and wanted to invest in the primary market. invest."

The secondary market refers to the stock market, where stocks are bought.

However, the stock market fluctuates too much, and the transaction scale is relatively small.To buy more or sell more, in order not to cause turmoil in the stock market, we usually start with the primary market first.

The shares in Changyou's primary market are basically in the hands of Ziweixing and Sohu.

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Ziweixing has no shortage of funds for the time being, and there is still a large amount of debt financing. It will not sell stocks. You can ask Charles to see if Sohu needs to sell part of the stocks to get money back." .”

As the CEO of the company, Don Mattrick is very self-aware, unlike Yahoo's Yang Zhiyuan.

Yang Zhiyuan is an entrepreneur, for the sake of the company.

He wants to do good for the company.

This is not quite right.

According to normal corporate logic, the CEO serves the board of directors and all shareholders. A CEO should not be thinking of the company, but of the shareholders. The biggest responsibility of the CEO is not to manage the company, but to make money for shareholders.

The shareholders are the bosses of the company, and the CEO should do whatever the shareholders want.This is the point that Yahoo's board of directors criticized Yang Zhiyuan the most. He put his personal ideals and feelings above the interests of shareholders.

Mattrick is clearly different.

Very considerate of shareholders.

Zynga's listing breaks, and then the game industry will inevitably fall into a more muddy quagmire.In other words, Changyou's stock price will also decrease.

This is an inevitable trend.

If investors are recruited at this time to take over some stocks from Ziweixing or Sohu, the two major shareholders, it can save the two major shareholders from the loss of Changyou's share price in the future.

At this time, Mattrick took the initiative to attract external investors to take over the offer for shareholders. It can be said that he has both face and face, and his job responsibilities are in place.

(End of this chapter)