Top of the Great Era

Chapter 2147 High-order shipments, low-order bottom-hunting

Konami's transformation towards a social game strategy has indeed attracted Zhou Buqi's absurd sense of time and space disorder.It's 2012, and it feels like 2010 again.

However, ridicule is ridicule, the background of Japanese game manufacturers is really strong.

Konami's expected earnings this year are as high as $34.8 billion.

It's scary enough!

Much higher than Changyou!

Changyou has not held a board meeting this year, and executives are analyzing data to determine an expected growth target for this year.

If it is set too high, once the target is not met at the end of the year, it will be questioned by shareholders and the market; if it is set too low, it will not be conducive to the growth of stock prices, and it will be difficult to mobilize the enthusiasm of employees.

Currently, three options are proposed internally.

方案1：收入增长20%，从22亿美元增长到26.5亿美元；净利润增长35%，从7.4亿美元增长到10亿美元。

方案2：收入增长35%，从22亿美元增长到30亿美元；净利润增长50%，从7.4亿美元增长到11亿美元；
方案3：收入增长50%，从22亿美元增长到33亿美元；净利润增长60%，从7.4亿美元增长到12亿美元。

Zhou Buqi was full of confidence and felt that he could propose the most daring third plan on the board of directors.

Don Mattrick proposes Option 1, which is the most conservative.

He believes that the coming year will be the first full fiscal year after Zhou Buqi became the chairman. In the financial report, Changyou is only allowed to succeed and not to fail, and should focus on stability.

There must be no accidents!

Once the expectations are too high and the tasks cannot be completed by the end of the year, the executives will be criticized. Not to mention, he is the chairman who is most questioned by the market.

There will even be some conspiracy theories.

For example, at the beginning of the year, a target of 50% growth for this year was set.

The stock price reflects the company's future value, which means that according to normal logic, the company's stock price can skyrocket by 50% in a short period of time.Once the performance at the end of the year fails to meet the target, the stock price will plummet.

Many small shareholders who bought at a high level will be deceived by "expectations" and lose money.

This has the suspicion of capital operation.

Could it be that Changyou had an internal operation, arranged for people to buy Changyou's stock in advance, and then deliberately released an exaggerated expected target, leading the stock price to skyrocket.

After the stock price soared, they slowly shipped and cashed out at a high level.

After the real financial report is released, it fails to meet expectations, and the stock price plummets... some people will be happy and some will be worried.

In the big A shares, similar operations abound.

Major shareholders are always able to cash out at high prices when the time is best.Therefore, there is a law that has not changed for thousands of years when playing stocks in big A-shares. The stocks of companies whose major shareholders frequently cash out must not be bought. This thing is more risky than currency speculation.

Ren Yuxin, another executive director and co-CEO, is more confident than Mattrick. He proposes option 2 and believes that this goal can be achieved.

Chairman Zhou Buqi is the most radical, and he prefers option 3.

However, even the most aggressive option 3 has a revenue target of only $33 billion this year.Konami's expected revenue is $34.8 billion.

It can be seen how strong this old game giant's ability to create wealth is.

The disadvantage is that the profit margin is too low.

There is a lot of wealth created, and there is too much wealth that can be squandered. The expected net profit is almost US$10 billion less than that of Changyou.It is no surprise that Konami, as well as other Japanese game giants, have a depressed market value.

To solve the problem, we can start from two aspects.

When Zhou Buqi met Sun Zhengyi, he said his thoughts, "There are two ways to solve the long-term downturn in the market value of Konami or Capcom. One, create more value; two, reduce the value of squandering .”

Sun Zhengyi sighed, "Creating more value is the solution. Many problems and ills of Japanese companies are seen by everyone, and no one can solve them. Unless you have Kazuo Inamori's ability."

Zhou Buqi smiled, "I'm not that good, I'll just lay off staff."

Kazuo Inamori solved the predicament of JAL, in fact, with one trick, reducing the value of squandering, and through his management philosophy of "respecting heaven and loving people" and "self-sacrifice", he gave the employees blood.

The employees are enthusiastic and work hard.

This can not only increase the value created, but also reduce the value squandered, especially reduce communication costs.

In a large company, there are many departments, each group and each unit are numerous, and every communication between different groups is actually a cost payment.

For an efficient company, the communication is completed in 5 minutes, and the cost is almost zero.

Companies with poor efficiency may have to go through various procedures, report layer by layer, prepare meeting rooms, and prepare meals after the meeting... Even in order to persuade the other party to cooperate, they have to use their own department's funds to invite the other party to dinner, One-stop massage service.

It may have taken half a month to finally reach a unified intention.

Kazuo Inamori's "amoeba" management model got the job done, and JAL came to the rescue.

This thing can't be imitated.

Zhou Buqi knew that he was not at that level, so it was most effective to make an example of layoffs.

Whoever does things, will be fired; whoever lies down for a long time, will be fired; whoever does not unite with employees to create difficulties for others, will be fired; whoever is selfish and does not listen to discipline, will be fired; the leaders in charge of several departments cannot solve inter-departmental coordination problems, will be fired as well .

This trick is the simplest, most effective, and the easiest to manage, and it is popular all over the world.

Japanese companies basically have a lifetime employment system, and the inability to fire has become the most difficult problem.

Masayoshi Son said embarrassingly: "If you don't have this ability, it is almost impossible to buy a game company of the level of Konami and Capcom."

"Can't Capcom?" Zhou Buqi frowned slightly, "Capcom's market value is only 8 million US dollars, which is only 4% of Changyou's! Have you read Capcom's financial report last year?"

At present, the financial reports of major companies have not yet been made public, and they are still being counted. The official version will have to wait until the end of March at the earliest.However, it is still possible for those who are related to get some rough internal financial reports.

Sun Zhengyi nodded, "I have seen it, and they are all surrendered."

Zhou Buqi said: "Well, 7.5 million US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 5%, zero profit of 6000 million US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 14%. Two months later, when Capcom officially announced last year's financial report, the stock price is guaranteed to plummet. "

Masayoshi Son sighed and said: "The corporate philosophy in Japan is different from that in Europe and the United States. To be precise, Japan is a limited company, not a company. A club is a society. A Japanese company is a small society. Any country, In a society, it is impossible to say that a citizen is too lazy and incompetent, so he will be expelled from his nationality, right?"

"Depend on!"

Zhou Buqi was very speechless, your sister, you can really fool me.

Sun Zhengyi said: "It is almost impossible to acquire Capcom as a whole, and Konami is even more impossible. I am very firm on this point. If this is your strategy, it must be revised."

Ren Yuxin, who was sitting on the side, smiled and said: "At this stage, Capcom chooses to cooperate with Changyou, which is in their best interests. Because their stock price is quite high, with a market value of 8 million US dollars. Wait until the end of March. , The financial report was released in early April, and Capcom’s stock price plummeted. When Capcom cooperates with Changyou again, the conditions will not be so good. The sooner they talk to Changyou, the more they can take advantage.”

Sun Zhengyi said: "Yes, as far as I know, this is also their internal thinking. Otherwise, even if Changyou is the game company with the highest market value in the world, it will be difficult to connect with Capcom, and there may be no intention to talk about it. "

Zhou Buqi said in a deep voice: "In the past two or three years, the performance of Japanese game companies has continued to decline. Judging from the current situation, it may continue to decline for several years."

Masayoshi Son waved his hand and sighed, "It's useless for you to tell me. I'm just telling you what I've learned. Konami won't negotiate with you about the acquisition intention, not even talk about it. Karp Kong will talk to you, but the direction of the talk must not be an overall acquisition.”

Small companies can buy it, but it is almost impossible for large companies to buy it.

Unless this big company goes bankrupt and cannot be saved, a big foreign company will have the opportunity to take over and clean up the mess.Big Japanese companies are really not companies in the general sense.

Fortunately, Changyou has a plan in advance.

If the overall acquisition fails, then strategically invest in shares and obtain their game intellectual property rights through cooperation.Even the cooperation plan, Ren Yuxin has prepared five or six kinds here.

At this time, Sun Zhengyi had a visitor at home, and he was going out to greet him.

Both Zhou Buqi and Ren Yuxin were guests, and they were waiting in the reception room, talking in low voices.

Ren Yuxin said: "It's almost the same as our previous judgment."

Zhou Buqi nodded and said in a low voice: "Seize the opportunity, now is the low period of the game industry. Konami is actively transforming into social games. What does this mean? It means that the entire Japanese game industry is seriously behind the times , Out of touch with the world trend. Even traditional companies like EA know that social games are not good enough. According to my judgment, the game industry will improve this year. The game industry belongs to the IT industry and will be affected by the big market of the IT industry. The impact of the situation. After June, game stocks around the world will soar.”

Ren Yuxin said with a smile: "Capcom cooperated with Changyou during the high stock price period before the public financial report. On the surface, they took advantage of it. In fact, the 'high price' in their eyes is actually a real low price. "

Zhou Buqi nodded and said: "Listen to Sun Zhengyi's tone, we have a great chance to invest in Capcom with a lot of money."

"Well, let's invest strategically, and at least 30% of the shares must be obtained." The more Ren Yuxin thought about it, the more interesting he became. This is the usual business method of Boss Zhou. It is completely based on cognition, "They thought it was a high-order shipment, but it was actually our low-order bargain hunting."

Zhou Buqi said: "The Japanese game industry must continue to focus on it. Those classic game IPs are very valuable. You can target Capcom first. As long as the cooperation between Changyou and Capcom creates huge value, It will give the green light for Changyou to cooperate with more Japanese game manufacturers in the future.”

(End of this chapter)