Richest man

Chapter 36 Oceania: Kerry Parker (3)
Integrated Chemical Company is suitable for his principle. It is the only polystyrene packaging material company in Australia, accounting for 75% of the market sales. In March 1988, Kerry bought the company from its American boss at a price of 3 million yuan, and earned an after-tax profit of 1.5 million yuan from it in the second year; later, the price of polystyrene soared, and the profit even high.When the company changed hands in 5500, Kerry made far more money than he invested.

In 1987, Kerry was extremely enthusiastic about stock trading, although he was pessimistic about the world economy.One of the most outstanding transactions was that he cooperated with a British commercial bank to buy 1% of a company's stock at a price of 10 million yuan.Later, it was sold just two weeks before the stock market crashed in October of that year, making a huge profit of 8000 million yuan.

As early as the early 80s, Kerry formed an alliance with British financier Gold Smith and banker Ross Schild to challenge several large American companies to buy them and change their way of doing business.Although they did not achieve their ultimate goal, they also made a lot of money from it.For example, in 1984, they easily made a profit of 7000 million yuan by buying and selling a large paper company.Two years later, they used the same method to pretend to annex a large American shipping company, and also made huge profits from it.

Before 1991, his second principle was never to lose money and go into debt.When negotiating with bank bosses, Kerry had every right to pop in for a five-minute sermon on the dangers of borrowing; he also boasted that he had warned Hawke and Keating not to live on foreign debt.But by the late 5s, according to a senior aide to Kerry, he was as keen to borrow other people's money as anyone else.The debts of his United Newspapers rose sharply. Between 80 and 1987, the money borrowed rose from 1991 million yuan to 8 billion yuan, mainly because Kerry spent money everywhere.

However, as the real value of the publications has increased and the company's other investments have yielded considerable profits, Kerry has grown richer.But Kerry never considered himself to be infallible, an entrepreneur who only wins and never loses.His strengths are that he is good at timing and has a keen instinct; he will listen to the opinions of his advisers for a long time, and then act decisively.

In terms of success, the most prominent is undoubtedly the purchase of magazines from the Fairfax Group, which was negotiated by Kerry in early 1988 at a price of 2.12 million yuan.Kerry took advantage of the property rights disputes and business changes within the group at that time, and bought their first-class magazines at a lightning speed, including "Women's Life", "People", "Metropolis", "Doll", "Home Alone" etc.This has greatly enhanced the leading position of United Newspapers in magazine publishing in Australia, and its market share in the country exceeds more than half.Once the magazines were bought, Kerry quickly expanded their reach significantly by strengthening their sales and advertising operations.

To sum up, Kerry's trick in doing business, in addition to prudently competing with his opponents, is to dare to act boldly and succeed more than fail.Some commentators like to say that Kerry is a "money touch" guy, which is not the case, because many of the things he dabbled in did not make money.Of course, it's not just luck for him to get rich. It is impossible to become the richest man in Australia just by luck.His forte is timing, knowing when to buy and when to sell, and typically he buys when prices are low and sells when prices are high.Moreover, he is an excellent strategic thinker, instinctively anticipating the needs of the market.Perhaps most importantly, when he bought an existing company, he always looked for ways to improve it.Workers would lose their jobs and factories would close, but the expenses would be significantly lower, making it a more valuable and well-managed business when it was sold.

Another great thing about Kerry is that he knows when to stop and when to do nothing.This is different from entrepreneurs like Bond, who couldn't control themselves and kept buying until they suddenly went bankrupt during the recession in the late 80s.Kerry can control himself, at least when it comes to big business.For example, between 1983 and 1988, the Bond company's fortunes increased 20-fold because Alan Bond always bet the money he won on one project on the next venture.So, it was doomed for him.In contrast, during the investment peak period from 1986 to 1991, Kerry's United Newspapers only expanded fourfold.And unlike Bond, Kerry also borrowed money to buy companies, but he always managed to pay them off in a timely manner.

Kerry was right about himself as a businessman: he was a gambler, but he never risked his entire fortune.In pursuit of greater profits, he has the guts to place large bets, but he never takes risks so blindly.Also, he knows when to cut his losses.

There are more successes than failures. This may be the generalization of Kerry's experience.Doing business might be easier than betting on the horses, Kerry no doubt thought so.

Here, there is another secret that I have to tell readers: In fact, neither Kerry nor Murdoch regard local media as the main way to make money.Because Murdoch's News Corporation is an international organization as a whole, its future development projects will also appear in other parts of the world, rather than concentrated in Australia, which is everywhere restricted; as for the profit growth of Kerry PBL, it mainly comes from casinos and other Invest in projects, not its media kingdom.

Today, Kerry has left most of the company to others.His son, James Parker, 36, is the current chief executive of PBL Group and will eventually succeed his father.Kerry's wife, Rose, is not interested in corporate affairs nor is she too involved in her husband's social life.She lives reclusively, concentrating her main energies at home.Like everyone else, Kerry loves to watch TV.He loves movies and sports, and despises the artistic and the refined.He hated literature and the fine arts, and considered going to a concert at the Sydney Opera House a mere torture.He never read because he was dyslexic as a child, and he has a lot of movie videos in his study.For him, the greatest enjoyment after returning home every day is lying on the sofa and watching TV.He always likes to brag about his TV watching habit to others, claiming that he watches TV for at least four hours a day.A tycoon who has created a huge media empire guides people to read and enjoy art through the media he owns, while he lazily watches light-hearted TV programs with contempt.This is Kerry, the richest man in Australia who is both an "angel" and a "devil"!

annex
Kerry and Murdoch: Australia's two major media tycoons

Before Rupert Murdoch became an American citizen, there were two major media tycoons in Australia - Rupert Murdoch in charge of News Corporation and Kerry Parker, the planner of PBL Group.The former owns 21 newspapers in Australia, and also holds many influential newspapers, magazines and TV stations abroad.The latter dominates the local TV and magazine circles, including the No. 89 TV station with the highest ratings, and its ACP company, which publishes [-] magazines, covering women, men, young people, business, It is the largest magazine publisher in the country in terms of international trade, automobiles, sports, food, home furnishing, and computers.The media controlled by these two media giants has almost monopolized the information Australians see and read, and every move of the two tycoons can turn Australia upside down, and their influence cannot be underestimated.

Some people in the industry described Australia's media industry as like Snow White, the Queen and the Seven Dwarfs in fairy tales, with Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Parker playing the two main characters, while other media organizations just played the dwarfs character of.The slightly influential one is the John Fairfax Group, which owns 7 newspapers and 6 magazines in the local area. The strength is still not enough to compete with the two major groups.

Helmer, CEO of John Fairfax Group, said: "The two media giants have a common feature, that is, they both inherited their father's business in the local area, and then carried it forward. After so many years of development, they have established a stable media kingdom. It is difficult for outsiders to get involved. Although they have gradually handed over the management of the business to the next generation of the family, they still have to make the final decision in case of important events, which casts a strong personal color on the group and lacks operational transparency.”

For this reason, the health and life of the two media tycoons have a great relationship with the rise and fall of the group's stock price and business expansion.The 66-year-old Kerry Parker had a kidney transplant three years ago, and the market believed that it would affect PBL's plan to buy Fairfax.Similarly, the scale of News Corporation has been rarely discussed. Instead, people are more concerned about the words, deeds and life of 71-year-old Rupert Murdoch, especially after he married Wendi Deng and gave birth to another child at an early age. , has become a topic of outsiders' gossip.

The two major media groups are evenly matched in Australia. On the surface, they compete with each other to win the support of more audiences. However, in fact, the types of media controlled by the two major groups are different, so there is no positive impact and they can develop independently.

Is the media dominance unbreakable
"If you want the local media to be competitive, besides diversifying the content and ensuring good quality, then there should not be only a few groups participating in this industry." Haiermo pointed out, "The world's technology is developing rapidly, and many leaders Leading international media organizations, such as News Corporation and AOL-Time Warner, have kept pace with the times and used new technologies to develop their communication careers. In contrast, Australia’s local media industry has stagnated for many years, especially the selection of TV channels Less than in the US and Europe, this is due to the Australian government being too protective of its home-grown TV industry and unwilling to issue more TV licenses."

Apparently, with the process of internationalization, Kerry, who has achieved a dominant position by "monopolizing" the local media industry, is also being challenged.More and more international media giants are hitting the door of Australia.

On the other hand, although Kerry Parker is far inferior to Murdoch in the newspaper industry, he still has a longing for the newspaper industry.Since 1991, the PBL led by him has tried to acquire the Fairfax Group, which owns more than ten newspapers and periodicals, in order to further expand its media kingdom, and can simultaneously own three different media such as TV stations, magazines and newspapers.However, many members of the Commonwealth of Australia believe that Kerry Parker has manipulated too much media, especially since he owns a television station and should no longer set foot in newspapers. As a result, the federal government has yet to approve the relaxation of regulations on cross-media ownership.Kerry Parker once said angrily: "I'm not going to run Fairfax anymore." The long-distance love between PBL and Fairfax for more than ten years has come to an end.

In fact, a deep dive into the two most successful media outlets in Australia reveals that neither of them use local media as their primary means of making money.News Corporation is an international organization as a whole, and its future development projects will also choose other places in the world, rather than concentrated in Australia, which is restricted everywhere; as for the profit growth of PBL, it mainly comes from casinos and other investment projects, not its media kingdom.From this point of view, if you want to become a media tycoon, you have to enter other fields at the same time to show your strengths.

At the same time, the Australian federal government still requires foreigners to own no more than 15% of the local media, and the laws on cross-media ownership are also very strict.As a result, Canadian groups and PBL, which owns the TV station, have tried unsuccessfully to acquire a stake in Fairfax in the past.Kerry seems to have a long way to go.

However, people in the industry believe that cross-border mergers and reorganizations of media groups have become a development trend, and the Australian media industry will inevitably face conflicts between unity and diversity, globalization and maintaining national characteristics. Therefore, relevant laws need to be revised.

Obviously, the entry of foreign programs, technology, and capital has become an irresistible trend, and more importantly, behind these forces is the impact of foreign cultures and ideas.Although the two major media kingdoms have established an unbreakable foundation in Australia, it is difficult for other groups to pose any threat to them, and it is even more difficult for foreigners to break into this market.But the business world is unpredictable, and the only constant in the world is change.If Kerry Parker, a "double-faced tycoon", wants to pass on the media empire created by the Kerry family through the third generation intact from generation to generation, the challenge is undoubtedly huge.There is a computer on every desk in every home, and the software I write runs on those computers.

(End of this chapter)