Simon did not ask for a low profile, so that afternoon, the news that the Victoria's Secret show was about to be closed spread quickly, and it was initially regarded as fake news, however, when some well-informed people got a definite reply from the people on the scene in the morning, the media immediately exploded.

The first is that the major web portals directly push the news to the headlines.

After all, there was no official announcement, and some press releases were still discrewed, thinking that this year's Victoria's Secret show, which had been constantly spreading news, would be suspended, even if it was clarified soon, too many people still found it unbelievable.

This is a super show that is known as the 'Super Bowl of the fashion industry' once it has an average of tens of millions of viewers.

Even if we don't talk about the high market gain that this show has brought to the Victoria's Secret brand in recent years, even the show itself, which has sold tens of millions of videotapes on average in the past few years, also means hundreds of millions of dollars in actual benefits.

Suddenly just give up?

Simon Westeros can't be crazy, right?

Starting on Saturday afternoon, not only all the executives related to the Victoria's Secret brand and even the LTD group, but even Simon also received a series of calls to inquire about the news, and attended the Daenerys Entertainment East Coast management party in the evening, Robert Iger and others also looked suspicious about whether Simon had been stressed too much recently and had mental problems.

The next day, a wider range of traditional media began to join the discussion, and the situation became more lively.

As the largest shareholder of Victoria's Secret's parent company LTD Group, Cersei Capital's Apollo Management Company can be said to have borne the brunt.

At the beginning, the Apollo management team acquired LTD Group for $2.45 billion in all-cash, and according to the usual operation method of private equity, it was basically held for about 5 years, re-listed, and cashed out. The acquisition of the LTD Group was completed in 1992, and next year will be exactly the fifth year.

Therefore, LTD Group is also quietly planning to re-list.

Simon suddenly announced that Victoria's Secret will be stopped after this year, even if it is suspended, it will inevitably have an impact on the re-listing of LTD Group next year, after all, the drive of this fashion show to LTD Group is too obvious.

In the face of the eager inquiry of Leon Black, the head of Apollo Management Company, Simon also patiently explained.

He doesn't want Victoria's Secret to rely too much on this show, nor does he want the entire LTD group to completely cover up the light of the Victoria's Secret brand, in recent years, the fast fashion brand Express under the LTD group has also developed rapidly, but it is completely covered by the light of Victoria's Secret.

All in all, Simon hopes that the company will calm down, rethink its product and marketing strategy, and move on to the next step of expansion with a more rational mindset.

Mainly overseas expansion.

Prior to this, because the Victoria's Secret show was so eye-catching, almost everyone was intoxicated with the bubble brought by the show, ignoring many problems in the company itself, just like the Victoria's Secret in the past, when the show was suspended, all the accumulated problems broke out, and the whole company almost went to a strange place.

Moreover, even without this big show, with the rapid growth of LTD in recent years, coupled with the hot state of the US stock market at this time, the market value of next year's IPO is expected to reach the level of $10 billion.

From $2.45 billion to $10 billion, the average annual return has exceeded 60% in five years, which is very worthy of investors. As a successful project invested by Apollo Management, of course, it will not be fully cashed out at one time, and there is still considerable room for growth in the future, which can continue to bring returns.

At the same time, announcing the closure this year, rather than after next year's IPO, also avoids a lot of potential litigation.

After all, the influence of this big show is indeed too great, if it is announced to cease down after the re-listing next year, it will inevitably impact the stock price, and even trigger a class action lawsuit by shareholders against the Westeros system for malicious manipulation and suppression of the stock price.

From his own standpoint, Leon Black actually can't agree with Simon's statement, but he can't refute it.

Simon's approach is entirely about the long-term development of LTD Group, and as a private equity, it is often necessary to arbitrage more interests in the shortest possible time, so it can be said that there is a clear potential conflict of interest.

It's just that Simon is the big boss behind all this after all.

The boss has the final say.

Secondly, the modeling circle is simply mournful.

Just like the shocked reaction of the big goblins who first heard the news, losing the Victoria's Secret show, the most powerful exposure platform, how can everyone take shortcuts to become famous in one fell swoop in the future? !

It's a pity that as the bottom of the food chain of the big circle, this group of goblins, big and small, has no right to speak.

Even, if Simon is not the biggest boss at the top of the entire Westeros system pyramid, but just the high-level Victoria's Secret who makes decisions about this matter, a certain group of goblins who are not lacking in their bones may have made trouble, and in the original time and space, the Victoria's Secret show has been harmonious for 20 years, and the show has just been suspended, and the goblins immediately rebelled.

Joint letter.

Sue for harassment and sexual assault.

Exposing reports accusing Victoria's Secret of all kinds of discrimination.

Coupled with the sluggish performance of Victoria's Secret itself, the impact of public opinion has further pushed this old company into the abyss.

In short, how to say that sentence.

Well......

It's all forced anyway.

In any case, now that the decision has been made, Simon has no intention of making a higher decision for himself.

After a weekend in New York, Simon departed for London on Sunday afternoon.

A week-long trip to Europe is expected.

The main agenda here is for the investment promotion of the continuous issuance of bonds by the Westeros system in the second half of the year, and some activities, Goldman Sachs, which is responsible for the issuance of bonds, and several other investment banks hope that Simon can attend in person.

Simon arrived in London on Monday local time, and on July 15, Egrett officially released its financial results for the first half of 1996.

Since Igret's total revenue exceeded the $10 billion level, the growth rate of the Internet giant's performance has been slowing, after all, the volume is here, and it is unrealistic to continue to double the growth as it did at the beginning. Previously, in 1995, Igrate's annual revenue increased by 78% year-on-year, and this year, the industry generally believes that Igret's annual revenue growth will be reduced to about 50%.

Facts have proved that due to the madness of the new technology industry, the market is obviously underestimating the performance growth of Igret.

In the first half of 1996, Egret's total revenue for the two quarters reached $13.91 billion, a year-on-year increase of 61% compared with the first two quarters of last year, significantly exceeding the industry's expectation of about 50%.

Not only that, because the gross profit of many of Igret's businesses is really high, coupled with the fact that the entire new technology industry is burning money almost uncontrollably, even if more revenue is used to develop the business, Igret's net profit margin in the first half of the year still exceeded 10%, and finally reached 11.9%, with a net profit of an astonishing $1.655 billion.

The half-year revenue was 13.91 billion US dollars and the net profit was 1.655 billion US dollars, which is almost the revenue volume that many Internet giants in Simon's memory can only achieve after 10 years. Not to mention that in 1996, most Internet companies had not even formed a sustainable business model.

However, the results are real.

The general environment of the Internet industry in the United States has been in place as early as the seventies and eighties, and Simon, with his own forward-looking vision, not only promoted the development of the Internet industry with the strength of the entire Westeros system at least five years in advance, but also directly launched a series of mature business models as soon as he made a move.

In addition, Egrett also has a monopoly advantage in the Internet basic tools and software and other businesses, which is equivalent to the kind of toll bridge that Warren Buffett has a fancy for no competitors to set prices freely.

Internet basic tool software, network portals, search engines, cloud computing, e-commerce, software stores, game malls and other businesses, even if they are still in the relatively early stage of development, but at this time, Igrete is almost equal to a collection of major network giants.

All in all, compared to many new tech companies that are still just 'telling stories' at this time, Igrete has left all potential competitors far behind.

To put it in a cliché way, Egret's current enemy is only himself.

Moreover, according to Simon's potential plan, the company will inevitably be split in the future, and once it is split, it will also be a super industry earthquake that is far more vigorous than the original dismemberment of AT-T, after all, the original AT-T, even if it is a super industry giant, has a market value of less than 100 billion at the time of splitting.

Igrett is destined to be a supergiant with a market capitalization of one trillion dollars.

In any case, on July 15, Igret's better-than-expected revenue and net profit figures directly drove the company's stock price to rise sharply again.

On Monday alone, the stock price of Egrett rose by 3.6% in a single day, which seems insignificant to other companies, but don't forget, this is Igret, which is already close to $400 billion.

With a 3.6% share price increase, the market value of the emerging Internet giant broke through the $400 billion mark in one fell swoop, and by the end of the afternoon, the market value of Eaglet had reached $410.3 billion.

In just one day, the total value of shares held by all Egrete shareholders was worth $14.7 billion as a result of the 3.6% increase.

Compared with Igret's $400 billion volume, the market value growth of $14.7 billion seems to be insignificant, but only this $14.7 billion still exceeds the market value of more than 90% of the companies in the U.S. stock market at this time. It can only be said that the market value of Igrett is already too high, so high that it is numbing.

Just like later, the five major technology giants in the United States, FAANG, often hundreds of billions of trillions, but in fact, there are still too many companies hovering in the range of 10 billion US dollars, and the five major technology giants can only look up.

Igrete led the way, and on the same Monday, Cisco, AOL, Microsoft, Intel, Tinkobar, Oracle and other companies saw their stock prices rise. In fact, it is also because the recent period of intensive release of mid-year earnings reports, and even some analysts believe that at the end of July, the Nasdaq index may rush to 5,000 points.

5000 points, this is the peak that Simon remembered about 2000 years ago.

If it does break through in July, it may indeed lead to the bursting of the new tech bubble before the US election in November.

This is not the case.

There is no doubt that Igret's performance has exceeded expectations, but some people are happy and some people are worried, and Egret's performance is outstanding, which does not mean that the performance of other new technology companies is also bright.

Also in July, in addition to Cisco's growth continued to increase significantly due to the continuous increase in global demand for network equipment, the three major technology giants of the Westeros system, AOL, because of the continuous increase in Internet penetration in the United States and even saturation, at least on a local scale, performance growth began to slow down significantly.

As a result, AOL's mid-year earnings report was lower than expected.

In addition, although the entire new technology industry is still crazy, the penetration of its own business areas is significantly higher than that of other operator regions, in fact, it means that the degree of saturation is higher and the growth potential is reduced, AOL is still issuing bonds and carrying out large-scale infrastructure expansion in the overall situation, which seems to have a blind tendency.

At this stage, the entire new technology industry is almost blind, but this does not mean that everyone does not see AOL's tendency to overinvest.

As a result, AOL's stock price has fluctuated up and down recently.

In the eyes of investors, AOL urgently needs to develop new businesses and increase overseas expansion.

In fact, the direction is very clear.

The Clinton administration's "Telecommunications Act" has touched on business barriers between the telecommunications industry, and AOL should take advantage of the trend to develop fixed-line telephone, cable television and other services, and at the same time further break through its previous business areas, especially to develop overseas business.

It's just that, although there are occasional rumors, AOL's actual action on this seems to be a little slow.

Therefore, it is inevitable to be urged by the capital market.

The most immediate reaction is also the stock price.

AOL has been at the bottom of the Westeros Big Three tech giants in terms of market capitalization, and has been further widened in recent months.

On the same day on July 15, after Igret's market value of $410.3 billion, Cisco's market value also rushed to the next $375.6 billion, while AOL's market value was only $269.7 billion, which has been opened by Igrete and Cisco A gap of $100 billion.

In addition to the Big Three, in the same new technology field, Tinkobar can be said to be the lagging behind.

With the success of the iRec series of digital video camera products released this year, Tinkobar already has three flagship products, namely iPlayer, iCam and iRec, and the annual sales of all three products have exceeded 10 million levels, and because of the rapid growth of the Internet, it continues to increase.

As a result, the IPO exceeded 100 billion yuan when it was listed, and as of the close of trading on July 15, the market value has reached a high of 226.3 billion US dollars.

Another $200 billion corporate giant.

Coupled with Daenerys Entertainment in the traditional media and entertainment field, the closing market value of the day was $353.7 billion.

Suddenly, attention was drawn to one thing again, what is Simon Westeros' net worth now?