Trotting after Simon, Larry Ellison followed what he had just said: "Simon, since you are optimistic about Oracle, why don't you hand over the voting rights of Westeros to me like Microsoft?"

Simon said unceremoniously: "Larry, just because I'm optimistic about Oracle doesn't mean I'm optimistic about you." If Oracle's stock price continues to fall, I think it is necessary to change the person in charge. ”

Larry Ellison tried to climb up the pole, but he didn't expect to dig a hole for himself, and laughed dryly, "Simon, you must be joking, right?"

The two turned another corner together, and in front of them was their villa.

Simon didn't mean to invite Ellison to have breakfast together, stopped jogging, and said, "Larry, since Westeros has started to buy, this should be a big positive for Oracle." Moreover, from the first time Westeros bought Oracle a few years ago until now, I have never interfered in the management of Oracle, and you should understand my attitude. Now that you're here today, you're starting to worry about your control over Oracle. So, you can tell me, what's going on with Oracle?"

Larry Ellison didn't expect Simon's words, and he didn't know how to speak for a while.

Seeing that Ellison didn't speak, Simon asked a more specific question: "The third-quarter earnings report will be released next month, what is Oracle's loss number?"

"Probably, $30 million," Larry Ellison hesitated before giving a vague number, and immediately added: "Simon, this is only temporary, Oracle's single-quarter revenue can exceed $200 million this quarter, an increase of 26% quarter-on-quarter, and at this growth rate, Oracle's revenue can exceed $1 billion this fiscal year." ”

Simon didn't listen to Ellison's defense later, and couldn't help but confirm: "A quarter, a loss of $30 million?"

Oracle's revenue has doubled in the past few years, and this year it began to expand its business into Latin America and Europe, which is why it was able to hit a market value of $3.6 billion last year.

However, Oracle's net profit for the whole year last year was only more than 41 million US dollars, and now it has lost 30 million in a quarter.

Although Simon does not interfere with Oracle's operations, he is not completely ignorant of the company.

Since the first half of this year, there have been media inquiries about the exaggeration of Oracle's financial data, and Oracle's profits in the first two quarters of this year have also shrunk, which has caused the stock price to continue to fall. Before the third quarter, there was a huge loss of $30 million.

Larry Ellison was stared at by Simon's fierce eyes, and had to nod again.

Simon simply stopped and asked, "So what?"

Larry Ellison knew what Simon meant, and no longer hid it, saying, "Simon, this is just a strategic mistake. Some salespeople count customers who only sign up for software purchases in their performance in order to get more bonuses, and as a result, these customers don't use Oracle's software, and I've been dealing with this for the last few months......"

Larry Ellison didn't go on here, but Simon understood.

Until now, I still haven't finished it.

The new quarter's earnings are about to be released, and serious sales strategy mistakes, inflated revenue numbers, and huge losses of $30 million are enough for angry shareholders to oust Larry Ellison from office. This guy came to intercept Simon today, probably wanting him to help endorse him.

Not to mention Simon's personal reputation for creating a miracle of wealth in just a few years, just Westeros' 15% stake in Oracle, plus Ellison's own 33%, can basically ensure absolute control of Oracle.

In the early days, technology companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle did not have multiple shareholding structures that guaranteed control of the founders.

If Simon, along with other shareholders, wanted to oust Ellison, even if he was the largest shareholder with a 33% stake in Oracle, he would probably have to pack up his things and leave, which is how Jobs was kicked out of Apple.

After thinking about it for a moment, Simon said, "You contact Jim, and write me a report on the details of this matter and the follow-up plan." ”

Larry Ellison didn't want to go around James Raybould anymore and said, "Simon, why don't we go have breakfast together, my car is over there." Or, you can take the time to come to Oracle headquarters in the morning and we'll talk about it. ”

"Forget about breakfast, besides, I'm going to New York soon," Simon refused, although he didn't have the idea of replacing Larry Ellison in his heart, he didn't intend to make himself look too talkative: "That's it for now, you go back, contact Jim as soon as possible, I don't want Oracle to hide anything from our major shareholder anymore." ”

With that, ignoring Ellison, Simon walked towards the door of his mountain mansion.

After breakfast and after the private jet took off, Simon contacted James Raybould to discuss the Oracle matter.

James has also been following Oracle's dynamics lately, and if Oracle wasn't one of Westeros' original promises not to reduce its holdings for three years, he would have proposed that Simon sell Oracle shares instead of continue to buy them.

Oracle's problems should be much worse than what Larry Ellison described to Simon, with cash flow constraints due to overexpansion, difficulties in financing due to a plunging stock price, and even a shareholder class action lawsuit due to previous inflated results. If it doesn't get past that, the company may collapse, if not go bankrupt.

The advent of the Internet era will greatly increase the demand for database software, and Simon is not as pessimistic as James, but asks Westeros to take advantage of the downturn in Oracle's stock price to continue to increase its holdings until its stake reaches 20%.

Although it is not clear if Oracle in the original plane has experienced such a catastrophe, even if the business is really lost, Simon can now fully afford it.

There is a four-hour flight between the east and west coasts.

Hanging up the phone with James, Simon sat down in the window of the front cabin living room and turned on his laptop and began working on the Dune video game that Nancy had given him the other day.

I don't know how long it took, the faint fragrance in the air came, Simon looked up, and Alison Norris, the A girl, appeared next to him, and changed into a sky-blue stewardess uniform, which became more and more slender, because the hair was pulled up, and the delicate neck looked more and more white and slender.

I have to say that the four vases selected by Janet can all score more than 80 points.

Seeing Simon look up, Allison said, "Boss, let me ask if you want to have some lunch on the plane?"

Saying this, the girl couldn't help but glance at the video game on Simon's laptop screen, and a faint sense of frustration arose in her heart, isn't she and Betsy not as attractive as video games?

Simon raised his wrist and looked at his watch, the time was eleven o'clock in the morning, this was West Coast time, and it should already be two o'clock in the afternoon on the East Coast, even if he arrived in New York, he could only wait for dinner with Janet. So he said, "Prepare some casually, I'll wait to go to the restaurant." ”

Alison nodded, but did not leave immediately, walked down the spiral staircase to the cloakroom on the lower level, opened the safe in the cloakroom, picked out a box of watches and came to the living room again, bowed down and handed it to Simon, and said, "Boss, do you want to change the watch, these are all adjusted East Coast time." ”

The girl was bending over Simon, unbuttoning the neckline of a button, revealing a gruesome snow-white patch.

The distance between the two is narrowed, and the seductive female body fragrance is also stronger.

Simon picked out a silver Rolex, took off the Patek Philippe in his hand and handed it to Alison, smiling, "Okay, go get lunch, don't seduce me here." ”

Her mind was broken, Alison's face was slightly red, but her eyes were more daring to look at Simon, standing in place with a look of picking.

It wasn't until Simon turned his attention back to the computer screen, apparently ignoring her appearance, that Allison had to give up, put the million-dollar box back in the safe, and leave the front cabin to help Simon prepare lunch.

In front of the beauty, Simon is certainly not indifferent, he just has his own self-control.

Moreover, to Simon's current status, because it is too easy to get, women really do not have too special attraction for him.

For example, in Hollywood, there are many womanizers, but as far as Simon knows, the top studio bosses don't care much about women.

In a private chat, Robert Redford told him a joke about a studio owner in the early '80s who wanted to throw a swimsuit party.

The studio bigwig's party is definitely more appealing to men and women who want to get on top than any Hollywood star.

When the hot bikini girl fills the pool, the big guy receives a very important script on the spot, and he reads it and immerses himself in it unconsciously. After reading the script, he noticed that it was late at night, so he casually ordered the housekeeper to end the party, picked up the phone and continued to discuss the script revision with the screenwriter, and didn't care too much about the pool of fragrance from beginning to end.

It was already Thursday afternoon when I arrived in New York.

The next day, Simon summoned James Raybould, president of Westeros, Leon Black, president of Apollo Management, a subsidiary of Cersei Capital, and others to formally discuss the acquisition of Bell Atlantic.

James Raybould, Leon Black, and Amy Pascal have been preparing for the MCA acquisition for months, and they are all very surprised by Simon's sudden two-line operation and the acquisition of Bell Atlantic, and they are generally not optimistic about Simon's decision.

After the AT-T split in 1984, the federal government encouraged competition in the telecommunications industry, so there were hundreds of large and small telecommunications companies in the United States over the years.

Therefore, if you want to buy Bell Atlantic, the legal hurdles are not large, the key is funding.

Simon's two planned acquisitions, Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of MCA and Westeros' acquisition of Bell Atlantic, would require $7 billion and $8 billion, respectively, adding up to $15 billion.

However, after Cersei Fund Management settled and returned at the end of the year, the funds that Simon was able to transfer back from overseas, excluding the 28% capital gains tax, were only about $6 billion. In other words, Simon needs to raise at least another $9 billion in cash if he wants to complete these two acquisitions.

$9 billion, or $1 billion a year for the entire Westeros system would have to repay the principal and interest of the debt under a 10-year repayment cycle. In this era, even the world's top 500 companies are not guaranteed to earn $1 billion a year.

With such a heavy debt burden, if you don't pay attention, the business empire that Simon has built over the years may fall apart.

And, in terms of acquisition targets, Leon Black, who was in the leveraged buyout industry in the 80s with the help of Dechong Securities, also believes that Simon's choice to acquire a regional telecom operator is not a good choice.

With the acquisition of MCA, Daenerys Entertainment will not only strengthen its roots in Hollywood, but also gain access to a full complement of music, television, cinema chains and theme parks.

The acquisition of Bell Atlantic was not only a completely unfamiliar industry for Simon, but also limited in the scope of growth after the acquisition of the company.

You must know that since the establishment of the Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1887, the telecommunications industry in the United States has experienced a hundred years of development, and the Bell system has developed to the extreme in terms of telephone business.

At the height of the buyout boom in the '80s, no company targeted Seven Bell, which was spun off from AT-T, and that's pretty much why.

A standard leveraged buyout will quickly reduce its debt through a split sale after the merger is completed, but regional telcos try to preserve market share and avoid being swallowed up by countless smaller telcos that have come from behind. Once sold, the value of these telcos plummets, and they are unable to strengthen their economies of scale by continuing to expand due to telecom regulations.

Simon's goal in acquiring Bell Atlantic is to operate and not to adopt a leveraged buyout, so it is even more impossible to reduce debt through a split sale.

And even if, as Simon envisions, the federal government might re-regulate the telecommunications industry in the coming years, allowing regional telcos to regain market share through mergers and get involved in areas such as long-distance telephony and cable television beyond short-distance telephony, it will take time.

Until then, if Bel Atlantic is unable to absorb the huge debt from Westeros' acquisition, it will be difficult for the company to invest too much capital in other areas of expansion until telecom regulations are opened, and it will be more likely to become a target for other telecom giants.

Simon knew that the opinions of James Raybould, Leon Black and others were good words, and he also knew that the planned acquisition of Bell Atlantic, and the expansion after the completion of the acquisition, was not as simple as he imagined.

Many years later, only Verizon, the second largest telecommunications company in the United States, which evolved from Bell Atlantic, remained, and the other six regional telecommunications companies all disappeared in the wave of mergers around the new century.

However, there are also huge opportunities behind the challenges.

You must know that in the 90s, not only the traditional telephone service and the cable TV service that was reopened to telecom companies, but also the rapid rise of the two major industries of mobile communication and the Internet in the telecommunications field, it is these new rising fields that will create a comprehensive telecommunications industry giant like Verizon with a market value of 100 billion.

Westeros System discussions about launching two acquisitions at the same time continued throughout the weekend.

In the new week, the discussion continues, and Forbes magazine's new annual list of America's 400 richest people is released, which instantly attracts the attention of countless people.