Top of the Great Era

Zhou Buqi's work in South Korea is not over yet, but he can't stay any longer, so he hastened to arrange a flight to the United States.In half a month, Senior Sister Zhen Yu's due date will be.

To accompany you in advance, you can't pinch back.

On the plane, Zhou Buqi asked Sun Wanran to arrange to contact Carl Icahn and ask him to come to Silicon Valley, and hope to have an in-person interview with him on important matters.

Sun Guanran sent an email in broken English, and was a little worried, "Can he come?"

Zhou Buqi said: "I don't know, let's see if the face of the world's richest man is enough."

It turns out, enough.

Before the plane even landed, an email came back saying that Mr. Icahn would arrive in San Francisco on Monday, three days later.

Surrounded by the sea, the Bay Area is typically warm in winter and cool in summer.

Much more comfortable than Seoul.

Zhou Buqi slept for several hours on the plane and didn't go home yet.Seeing that it was getting late, I planned to go to the company first to pick up Mr. Wen from get off work.

Wen Zhixia has now returned to work.

There is no milk tea shop.

Instead, he really followed Zhou Buqi's suggestion to work as an assistant for Zheng Xiaoli and develop the Yahoo app.

Now that he came to the company, Zhou Buqi went to see Lu Qi first, and briefly talked about his trip to Korea.

Lu Qi was stunned, "Can you really sell Yahoo Korea?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Why not? Yahoo Japan's market value is nearly 200 billion U.S. dollars. Judging from this standard, how can Yahoo Korea reach the expected market value of 100 billion U.S. dollars."

Lu Qi twitched the corner of his mouth, thinking that Boss Zhou could really talk nonsense.

Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "You don't have to worry about this matter, I'll just deal with it! Wait a few days for Li Zairong to lead a team to discuss the details of the acquisition, and you'll be fine."

Lu Qi took a deep breath, "If Yahoo Korea can really sell it at a good price and get a lot of cash back, then the company's operating pressure will be relieved in the second half of the year."

Zhou Buqi asked: "How much money does the company have on its account now?"

Lu Qi said: "There are still 6.3 million US dollars of available funds reserved for payment to Yahoo shareholders. Oh, by the way, the stock repurchase funds of Ali and Yahoo Japan have already arrived."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Where's Facebook?"

Lu Qi said, "It's a bit troublesome."

When Facebook went public, Ziweixing International sold a large amount of its shares.

However, there is still more than half left.

Zuckerberg is working hard to eliminate the company's "bad" shareholders, and Ziwei Star International also wants to sell stocks to get money back. The two parties are very consistent in this intention.

Although Facebook has only been listed for a few months, it is far from the lifting period.

But it doesn't matter, the ban is only aimed at the secondary market, as long as the stocks are not sold in the stock market.

Transactions in the primary market are not restricted.

According to Facebook's current market value, the share price in Ziweixing International's hands is worth US$60 billion.Which big institution can buy so many stocks?
The Internet is too risky!

For those private equity funds, it is necessary to optimize the allocation. It is okay to have a few selling points, but it is a bit unaffordable to invest a lot of money.

Also, the transfer of shares in the primary market needs to go through the board of directors. This is the most basic business ethics.At least with Zuckerberg's permission, you can't sell shares to his competitors.

So when encountering this kind of thing, it is often the CEO.

That is to say, Zuckerberg contacted big investment banks, big institutions, or private equity capital, and he led the formation of a big consortium to take over the stocks held by Ziweixing International.

Zhou Buqi asked: "What's the trouble? Zuckerberg is doing something?"

Lu Qi said: "The price he offered is 20% lower than the current stock price."

"What?" Zhou Buqi thought he heard it wrong, "Can't you? The Facebook stock in my personal hands has also been cleared. It was also an institution that Zuckerberg found, and the transaction was based on the stock price that day."

Lu Qi said: "You are the young man, right?"

Zhou Buqi said: "It's quite a lot!"

Lu Qi shook his head, "Maybe I'm a personal friend with you, but this is business with Ziweixing, and we have to do business with each other. Anyway, we didn't reach an agreement, and his bid was only 46 billion US dollars. Calculated based on Facebook's current stock price, these stocks are worth at least $58 billion.”

Zhou Buqi was not very happy, "Is this deliberately lowering the price?"

Lu Qi said: "It's not surprising. The whole world knows that in order to acquire Yahoo, we have to pay 120 billion U.S. dollars in cash alone, including taxes and fees. Ziweixing International is not a listed company, and it is expected that we will encounter a cash flow crisis. .”

Zhou Buqi touched his chin, "It's a bit outrageous!"

Lu Qi laughed and said, "Now the two are competitors, and all product lines have collided! The fight is fierce! Facebook even released a special app called Facebook News, which is aimed at Yahoo."

Zhou Buqi asked: "How about passing him? Let's find an investment institution by ourselves."

"It's almost impossible." Lu Qi didn't think it was a good idea. "After Facebook went public, it was already a public company. Important shareholders would attend the shareholders' meeting. If they bought our company without Zuckerberg's approval, In the future, you may not be able to get the opportunity to participate in the general meeting of shareholders, let alone the nomination of directors."

In the final analysis, Ziwei Star International still holds too many Facebook shares.

After making large purchases, investors want to have a certain say, at least to enter the shareholders' meeting or the board of directors and gain some inside information.

Only in this way can we make the most accurate investment analysis, whether to hold for a long time or sell decisively.

You can't be like many retail small shareholders who don't have any information and just make investment choices firmly and emotionally.

Zhou Buqi asked: "How long can the funds in the account be used?"

Lu Qi said: "I lose 2 million US dollars every month, and I can support it for 3 months."

Don't look at Yahoo's mess, but Yahoo can generate a net profit of about 7000 million US dollars every month.The business of Ziweixing International is not good. It is booming and attracting worldwide attention. Every project is a big money-burning project, and it cannot make ends meet.

Counting the high debt interest burden, Ziweixing International is losing at least US$2 million every month.

Seeing that Boss Zhou was silent, Lu Qi quickly expressed his position, "Of the US$2 million loss, US$1 million is from the cloud computing business. The other US$5000 million is debt interest."

Zhou Buqi felt that his tone was a bit heavy, so he said easily: "Money matters don't matter! It's okay. I'll ask Zuckerberg later."

Lu Qi tentatively asked: "Should we properly shrink the front line? Reduce external mergers and acquisitions and business expansion..."

"No need!" Zhou Buqi rejected the suggestion without hesitation, "Now is a critical period, whoever is faster will be able to rush to the front line, and whoever hesitates will definitely fall behind."

Lu Qi said: "If Facebook's stock can be sold smoothly, the cash flow pressure will be basically resolved, and there will be no worries until the listing..."

Zhou Buqi said: "No hurry! Yahoo still has a lot of assets!"

……

The transaction value of Ziweixing International's acquisition of Yahoo is approximately US$235 billion, half of which is cash and half of which is shares.

This part of the cash expenditure emptied Ziweixing International's wealth.

Fortunately, Yahoo has enough assets.

Just break it up, dismember it, sell it, sell it.

Carl Icahn has been working hard for several years, hoping to win Yahoo, then dismantle the core assets and sell them all... so that he can make a lot of money.

Now, Zhou Buqi has taken control.

The style is no worse than Carl Icahn.

First, it sold 20% of the shares held by Yahoo in Ali, and then sold 20% of the shares held by Yahoo Japan, and the payment was about 100 billion U.S. dollars.

If Yahoo Korea can be successfully sold, it will also bring back a wave of blood.

That doesn't count!

Zhou Buqi has his eyes on Flickr, a wholly-owned independent subsidiary of Yahoo, which is a photo social networking site.

Two years ago, after Microsoft failed to acquire Yahoo as a whole, it gave a new acquisition plan, wanting to acquire Flickr for US$10 billion.However, Yahoo's board of directors at the time believed that Flickr was the key to revival and was unwilling to sell at all.

When it was Zhou Buqi's turn, it was different.

Ziweixing International has Ucgram, a picture social product based on smartphones that is popular all over the world, with 1.4 million users worldwide.There is no need to repeat this.

Someone within the company suggested that Flickr and Ucgram could be merged.

Zhou Buqi thought the same way for a while.

But after Xu Liangjie became the president of Yahoo, he found that something was wrong, so he reported the situation to Boss Zhou. From top to bottom, Flickr is against merging with Ucgram.

Mainly three points.

First, after the merger, there will be layoffs, and the layoffs must be Flickr employees;
Second, after the merger, managers will definitely choose Ucgram. There is almost no upward path for Flickr.One is his biological son and the other is his godson. Everyone knows the stakes;
Third, the Flickr team is full of disdain for the Ucgram product and is unwilling to "downgrade".

This is not unreasonable.

There is a sharp comment in the industry: "Quality users can buy SLRs after posting pictures on Ucgram and getting advertising dividends. Then use SLRs to take pictures and send them to Flickr."

The photos on Ucgram are all taken by mobile phones, which are relatively low-end.

Flickr is a more professional, experienced and high-end photo website. Photos taken by SLR cameras are only entry-level. It has the best photos on the Internet.

Zhou Buqi was rude upon hearing this.

Depend on!
So much trouble!
Then disassemble it and sell it!
With the popularity of smart phones, the global digital camera industry has been hit hard in the past two years, shrinking by 30%.The camera giants in Europe have transformed one after another. Some provide cameras for mobile phones, while others provide camera modules for drones, looking for new ways out.

Under this general trend, the vitality of Flickr will only become worse and worse, and it will sink along with digital cameras.

Before that, though, get Yahoo Korea's business in order.

Go home in the evening and check your email.

There is good news.

Li Zaiyong acted very quickly and sent an email.