Negotiations between GE and Time Warner are still ongoing, and another major media merger has been finalized again.

On September 11, Westinghouse Electric and CBS Group held a joint press conference at the CBS headquarters in Rockefeller Center, New York, announcing that Westinghouse Electric would acquire CBS Group at a price of $9 billion, while assuming a total of $1.9 billion of CBS Group's debt, with a total transaction amount of $10.9 billion.

Some time ago, when the news of Daenerys Entertainment's intention to acquire CBS Group went viral, CBS's market capitalization peaked at $8.7 billion, and if the deal came true, it would be difficult for Daenerys Entertainment to win CBS within the $11 billion offer.

Daenerys Entertainment turned to Metropolitan ABC Group with a false shot, CBS's stock price plummeted, and this time, Westinghouse Electric only gave a 23% premium on the stock price before the merger was announced, not counting debt, and the $9 billion merger and acquisition amount was $2 billion less than expected for CBS to be acquired by Daenerys.

This is taken for granted by many media outlets.

How can Westinghouse, which has a market value of just over $40 billion at the moment, compare with Daenerys Entertainment?

Since it can't take Daenerys's ride, it can sell for $9 billion, which is quite a high price compared to CBS, which was still hovering at $5 billion at the beginning of the year.

With the announcement of the CBS change of ownership, it is basically announced that the three old TV networks in the United States are all attached to the door of large corporate giants, and it is unlikely that there will be drastic changes in the short term. Those who have a keen perception of the media industry are even more aware of the meaning behind these changes: a division of TV platform resources by large corporate giants.

Although the market share of public television networks has been continuously eroded by cable television, no one can ignore that the three old television networks play a vital role in influencing and controlling public opinion in the United States.

These are the three loudspeakers that can advertise the whole country, which is stronger than the communication ability of any traditional paper media.

With the rise of the Internet, the decline of print media, and the division of television resources, the media industry in the United States has returned to the era of oligopoly from the blossoming of a hundred flowers that lasted for decades before the 90s. Monopoly means the loss of freedom, the loss of freedom of the press.

However, this trend of long-term convergence is not something that just anyone can stop.

On the other hand, CBS Group's other 'suitor' Viacom, because of the defeat in this merger dispute, when the news of the merger of Westinghouse Electric and CBS Group was announced, the stock price fell sharply by 6.1% on the same day, many people understand that the plan to miss the merger and acquisition of CBS to transform into a media giant, Viacom's future fate is likely to only become the acquiree, and it is impossible to expand too widely.

In a frustration, Summerstone publicly stated that afternoon that he would file a lawsuit against Westinghouse Electric and CBS Group, accusing the two companies of fraud against Viacom during the merger negotiations, and intended to prevent the merger from going through at all costs.

The outside world is confused about this.

Simon got the news that Lei Shidong was tricked by CBS major shareholder Larry Tisch in this transaction, and Tisch promised Lei Shidong that as long as the offer was raised to $9.2 billion, he could agree to the other party's share exchange merger offer, and then released the news to Westinghouse, forcing Westinghouse to raise the offer from the previous $8.7 billion to $9 billion at the last minute.

It still doesn't seem to be as high as Viacom's $9.2 billion offer, but Westinghouse has given an all-cash transaction plan.

In the process of mergers and acquisitions, unless they are very optimistic about the development prospects of the two companies after the merger, most of the shareholders of the acquired company will tend to get more cash in their pockets.

Viacom raised the offer to $9.2 billion, which on the surface seems to allow the original CBS shareholders to get more shares of the new company after the merger, but the problem is that no one can guarantee how the new Viacom will develop after the merger of the two companies, and what if the stock price plummets?

Therefore, the $9.2 billion share swap merger and the $9 billion all-cash acquisition are not too stupid, and you know how to choose.

As for Lei Shidong's anger, the result can only be ruined.

To be played is to be played.

At the end of the day, Viacom itself simply couldn't raise enough cash from Wall Street to fund the acquisition, and it was the result of the Westeros system's quiet efforts, and Simon didn't want to see Viacom acquire CBS in the first place.

At the same time that Westinghouse Electric reached a merger agreement with CBS Group, another much smaller deal was also finalized.

After two months of low-key negotiations, Apollo Management, a Westeros system, finally acquired IBM's battery R&D and production division for $1.25 billion, which includes a total of five battery product R&D teams in North America and overseas, and three battery factories in New York, Mexico and China.

Simon made the deal through the name of Apollo Management primarily to facilitate the split.

At this stage, IBM's battery R&D and production department mainly produces traditional flushable nickel-cadmium batteries for IBM's laptops and other electronic devices, and the two factories in Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, and Guangdong, China, are the only two factories in Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, and Guangdong, China, are used to produce the latest lithium-ion batteries, and the scale is far less than the two large battery factories in Mexico and China.

Simon took over IBM's battery R&D and production department, mainly for lithium batteries.

As a veteran electronics giant, IBM's heritage is no less than that of Japan's leading electronics manufacturers, Sony first launched commercial lithium-ion batteries in 1992, IBM also completed the development of related products last year, and established a lithium battery factory in Albany, New York.

After Louis Gerstner was appointed to take the helm of IBM in 1992, he has been streamlining the huge and bloated IBM, IBM's battery department is not a burden to the old giant, but because it is not a core business, the revenue and profits realized for IBM are not high, and after the Westeros system took the initiative to extend an olive branch, Gerstner quickly agreed.

The IBM boss originally hoped to use the Westeros halo, just as Welch only wanted to sell half of NBC's shares, to change IBM's battery division from a sole proprietorship to a joint venture with Westeros, with IBM only holding a stake and handing over the operation to Westeros Systems.

If it were something else, Simon would probably agree.

It is difficult for a single battery supplier to survive independently, and it is definitely necessary for customers to maintain IBM's shareholding, and this company will definitely be able to get IBM's huge orders in the future.

However, since Simon only wants IBM's lithium battery R&D team, patented technology and product factory, and is not interested in the mainstream heavy pollution nickel-cadmium batteries at this stage, it will not work to maintain IBM's shareholding.

After several phone calls between Simon and Gerstner, the other party finally relented and agreed to hand over the electronics department to Apollo Management. At the same time, Simon promised to give IBM a 25 percent stake in Recttery, a battery company directly established by Westeros

Rectery is an original word that follows the rules of corporate naming in Silicon Valley, and is a splicing of recyclable battery.

After taking over IBM's battery division, Apollo Management will spin off all the teams, patents and factories related to lithium batteries and sell them to Recttery, and then run the remaining traditional nickel-cadmium battery business on its own.

Even if lithium batteries are an inevitable trend in the future, traditional nickel-cadmium batteries still have at least 10 years of life cycle, and at this stage they are the mainstream equipment of various portable electronic products, and it is not difficult for this part of the business to make a difference.

After the completion of the spin-off, the nickel-cadmium battery business will also form a separate company, and Apollo Management plans to provide corporate efficiency, expand production, and strive for more market share through a few years of operation, and then either package and sell, or choose to go public, and finally cash out.

Standard one-time private equity M&A restructuring operation.

At the same time, inheriting IBM's full set of R&D team, patented technology and production plants, and no longer constrained by IBM's bloated and huge enterprise system, because there is a wide range of potential needs from IBM, Tinkobar and even Nokia, there is no need to worry about market problems, and Recttery can devote itself to the development and production of the latest lithium batteries.

There's a lot going on in this world all the time.

In recent years, however, the American public has been discovering that more and more of the big things happening around them seem to be related to the Westeros system.

Because the follow-up split and reorganization plan is not known, Simon's potential layout is even more confidential, IBM's sale of the battery division did not cause too many waves, but another FLAS*** relying on the Igrett Facebook social network was launched, which became a carnival for many people.

This is "Happy Ranch", which has been developed for a long time in order to maintain the status of "Happy Farm".

In fact, it is also to build momentum for the Igrete IPO roadshow.

Although a corporate IPO enters a quiet period of several months after the submission of a prospectus, it does not mean that a company cannot stimulate the market through some commercial operations.

As a result, "Happy Ranch", which is completely linked to "Happy Farm", was launched on September 22.

It happened to be 18 months after the launch of "Happy Farm".

At the beginning, the game operation team of "Happy Farm" decided to launch "Happy Ranch" at the moment when the game began to decline, so as to provide charcoal in the snow, rather than icing on the cake, and the estimated launch time of "Happy Farm" was about 12 to 18 months after the release of "Happy Farm".

As a result, under the careful care of the operation team, the life cycle of "Happy Farm" is far beyond many people's imagination.

The operation team initially predicted that the peak user scale of "Happy Farm" should be around 100 million, however, as of the launch of "Happy Ranch", the total number of users of "Happy Farm" worldwide has reached 149 million, even if the game revenue has passed its peak, with a terrifying large user scale, in the past week, "Happy Farm" has brought in $21.79 million through item sales.

From its opening on March 25 last year to the present, in 18 months, the cumulative income of "Happy Farm" is 1.129 billion US dollars. Compared with the $196 million in the first seven months of the opening, in the latest year, the data exceeded the peak of $30 million in a single week and then began to fall, and under the overall stability, the revenue in 11 months was close to 1 billion.

It's a miracle.

Although it can't be compared with the games such as "Pokemon Treasure" and "Super Mario" that brought billions or even tens of billions of dollars to game companies in Simon's memory, the problem is that the revenue brought by those games is the accumulation of an entire series for decades or even peripheral income.

In comparison, "Happy Farm", which is also a phenomenon, is only a game, there is no sequel, and the game's revenue exceeded $1 billion in less than two years.

This dazzling result far exceeds all the farm games Simon remembers, but it is not unexpected.

The game was a success after its launch last year, and although the pre-development cost was only $1.5 million, the two giants Daenerys and Igrete spared some of the investment in the game, in order to ensure that the game's internal ' was as good as possible. Ecological balance', to avoid the drawbacks of too much output or too fast upgrades, the operation team even specially recruited a team of top mathematicians and sociologists, who are responsible for studying and statistically stating the data involved in this game and continuously optimizing it, sparing no effort to ensure the user's gaming experience.

To make the in-game planting activities more realistic, Happy Farm also has a team of botanist advisors.

It is precisely because of these details that "Happy Farm" has been unrelenting for 18 months, although the user growth rate has been slowing down, there is still no obvious decline.

The launch of "Happy Ranch" this time is mainly to build momentum for the IPO of Tinkobair.

In addition, there is also the consideration that Daenerys Entertainment will launch its first fiscal year full-year financial report after last year's IPO next month.

Because it is a game directly linked to "Happy Farm", some props and virtual currency of "Happy Farm" can also be used directly in "Happy Ranch", therefore, don't look at it as a seemingly simple flas***, after it was launched on September 22, it has become a carnival of the entire Internet.

September 22 happens to be Friday.

After sparing no effort in the early stage of large-scale publicity, "Happy Ranch" was launched on time at 8 o'clock in the evening of the same day, and as of 8 o'clock in the morning of the next day, the number of activated users of "Happy Ranch" exceeded 40 million in 12 hours.

By 12 o'clock in the evening on Sunday, September 24, the number of activated users of "Happy Ranch" successfully exceeded 100 million in three days over the weekend, and finally reached 107 million. That's more than two-thirds of the 149 million Happy Farm users.

The operations team announced on the official Facebook account of Happy Ranch at 12 o'clock on Sunday that it will surpass the Guinness Book of Records for the fastest number of users to apply for the game, which is 100 million.

When the new week arrived, "Happy Ranch" has become the hottest topic of discussion in the media, and this influence is directly transmitted to the capital market, which brought Daenerys Entertainment's stock price to rise sharply on Monday.