Only a few investment funds are financed from Hong Kong, and the income needs to be announced to the holders on a regular basis.

In this way, in a small area, among the high-net-worth investment customers of Heung Kong and Asia Wing Xiang Bank, it is rumored that West Coast Capital is one of the few funds that can make a lot of money in the financial crisis.

This makes it very easy for West Coast Capital to raise funds by issuing new funds to Winway Bank's high-net-worth investment clientele.

It's just that after this wave of wool picking is over, Liu Ruoyi has little opportunity for the future financial market, and there is not much money that can easily make a lot of money. Although in terms of trend, if you grasp the opportunity of crisis recovery, there is still a lot of opportunity to surpass the market after a long time.

But compared to the current profiteering opportunity, it is a small thing, so Liu Ruoyi led them to be conservative in the operation of West Coast Capital.

First of all, the expectation of future earnings has begun to be significantly lowered to the level of normal operation, and more than double digits can be advertised, but the publicity of more than 30% of annual earnings will be completely prohibited.

Even some funds have begun to make conservative investments with double-digit expected returns, such as treasury bond investments and excellent corporate bond investments, which were not valued at all before.

This is a conservative strategy for investing in foreign funds.

Internally, Liu Ruoyi's most important capital position is still invested in the financial industry, which was deeply damaged in the financial crisis, and in the excellent stocks of the technology industry that were accidentally injured.

Those investment banks and large financial institutions where the rest is king are the targets of Liu Ruoyi's large increase in positions. Now the valuation of these financial companies is frighteningly low, if they can be acquired, Liu Ruoyi wants to buy one or two more companies, with her current financial strength, there is really this possibility.

It's just that Liu Ruoyi knows that this is impossible, and part of the wreckage of Lehman Brothers after the bankruptcy of the acquisition is already luck, that is, relying on the mess in the financial circle at that time, and the upper level needs to have funds to stabilize the overall situation, so it will be particularly generous to Yongxiang Bank, which has invested a lot of money.

If you're not content enough to reach into the depths of Wall Street, you're waiting to be cleaned up.

In addition to the fact that the valuation of the financial industry is as cheap as a white pick, it is also a good time to invest in technology stocks.

Amazon, Apple, and Google, which go without saying, continue to be the best targets for buying, and Intel, which has been damaged by the crisis, is also worth buying.

As a result, most of Liu Ruoyi's earnings were absorbed into the stocks of these high-quality companies.

Other funds under West Coast Capital have also allocated a lot of shares according to this model.

At present, West Coast capital has less than $20 billion of liquidity in its hands. Most of them are short-term bonds or treasury bonds, and the liquidity time can be very fast, which is to meet the needs of some fund investors to withdraw cash.

After a certain period of time, the investment fund will open the redemption function, and you can redeem your fund shares as long as you apply a few days in advance.

Now that the funds under each fund have gained a lot, some investors may think of withdrawing to settle down. After all, the least gains this time are more than 50%, and it has been more than two years since the investment in 2007 to now, especially when everyone else has lost a lot of money.

It's such a cool feeling.

Of course, this has created a certain cash demand for West Coast Capital, which has left about 10% of the nearly $200 billion in managers for turnover.

It is precisely with this huge liquidity that Liu Ruoyi dares to start the company's acquisition at any time.

But playing with mergers and acquisitions is really not Tony Tsai's specialty. I really don't get used to this kind of demand.

However, as a qualified investment banker, Tony Chua also has to learn that he can buy and sell anything.

He himself is not very familiar with this aspect of business, which does not mean that he has no way, after understanding Liu Ruoyi's appeal.

Tony Chua quickly assembled a sizable merger negotiation team and made the restructured Lehman Brothers the professional financial advisor for the acquisition.

After the wreckage of Lehman Brothers was acquired into the Yongxiang system, the original name and investment banking team were retained, and most of the employees were also retained.

Of course, this kind of money-making business cannot be cheapened by others, and Tony Tsai will only choose "his own people" to be the allies of the acquisition. Although in the eyes of Americans, West Coast Capital has little to do with Lehman Brothers.

Just like West Coast Capital has nothing to do with Liu Ruoyi on the surface. Only by clarifying the equity relationship between the two in a very complex way can we understand that they are natural allies.

...

...

IBM has made an offer for the acquisition, which is now $10 per share, for a total price of $8.3 billion, and IBM would need to spend about $6.5 billion in cash, considering that Sun Microsystems itself has about $1.8 billion in cash or cash equivalents. ”

Gregg, an M&A expert invited by Tony Tsai, introduced.

"But IBM's acquisition will most likely trigger the monopoly sensitive provisions, and it is very likely that it will not be approved by the antitrust authorities." The concentration of IBM in the high-end server market is too high, and it has exceeded the 25 percent dangerous monopoly warning line. ”

"Despite IBM's statement that it has not violated competition laws, neither the United States nor the European Union will likely be able to approve their merger request lightly. ”

"So, our opponent is not IBM, but this,"

Greg's report points to another company that is eyeing the sun's microsystems.

"Oracle is the real rival, and even though they don't have an offer yet, I'm sure they're just waiting for their time. There are many irrationalities in IBM's acquisition plan, and some people judge that the probability of failure is high, so Oracle does not panic. ”

"Now the premium offered by IBM is too high. So, our strategy now is to wait for IBM to fail and then compete with Oracle, or to follow IBM's pace and disrupt Oracle's plans directly?"

"The former means we're going to pay a lot of money, and I believe it's at least a billion dollars more than a reasonable price, and at the current stock price of Sun Microsystems at $4.99, IBM's offer is already at a premium of 100 percent! A reasonable acquisition premium should be between 30 and 40 percent. ”

As an M&A professional, hiring Greg was not cheap, but Tony Chua felt that it was worth the money.

Compared with the hundreds of millions of dollars in excess costs that may be involved in an acquisition, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in M&A consulting fees is simply a drizzle.

Obviously, no one is paying attention to this small company that is in the dark right now, and although they are still alive, their business scope has been limited to providing customized processor IP core designs for the embedded industry, so as to collect licensing fees to get by. ”

"Judging from the revenue in recent years, they can collect about $60 million a year, maintaining a R&D team of more than 100 people, and it seems that life is also good. The stock price has also been stable, basically maintaining a market capitalization of between $150 million and $200 million. ”

"However, I think that if we were to buy this company, as soon as the news spread, it would cause a change in the market, and there would be unexpected reactions. IMG, ARM, these MIPS competitors will take action or even join forces to carry out anti-mergers and acquisitions. ”

"Because their businesses are very competitive, IMG and ARM are reluctant to see new changes in MIPS. ”

"So if we want to be successful, we have to impress the board and shareholders at a high premium, and make a real commitment to maintain the business relationship. In this way, the first move in the acquisition will be obtained. ”

...

Greg's report soon spread to the other side of the ocean, and Liu Ruoyi pondered for a while after reading the consultant's report.

Then replied with a few words.

Sun Microsystems, with a total price of $8.5 billion, and MIPS with a total price of $400 million, with a final purchase price of less than $8.5 billion, will be paid by 1% as dividends to the M&A team.

As a stepping stone for Liu Ruoyi to try to enter the hardware of the mobile Internet era, the cost of 9 billion US dollars is worth it for Liu Ruoyi.

In the future, the mobile phone market will be as high as hundreds of millions of units a year, and the potential of this market will not be long before it begins to explode with the popularity of 3G networks.

There is almost no suspense that the mobile communication market will surpass the PC market, and now there is an opportunity to enter the upstream front end of the ecological chain in this market. Liu Ruoyi didn't want to miss it because of fate.

So for these two companies, it is a must-win.

The M&A team was authorized and was as scrappy as a chicken.

...

For CEO Jonathan Schwartz, the past year has been one of great luck.

The acquisition is not a good thing for him, and it is customary for both IBM and Oracle, which is rumored to be waiting to make a move, to take the lead in the management once the acquisition is successful.

In other words, he's basically waiting to be laid off. Although being removed from management will get a lot of severance pay, as a large company that was once famous.

Schwartz is also a big name in the IT world. However, after being dismissed and dismissed, his reputation is obviously very bad, and it even affects the second "employment".

Like him, a big man here, although he made a lot of money when he was in power, and there were options for tens of millions of annual salaries, but he also spent a lot of money on alcohol.

Villas, yachts, private jets, and parties are all very expensive.

And Schwartz is not a thrift.

From the solar microsystem, we know that the cost is so great that it is about to drain the last drop of blood of the elephant.

A little-known CEO of West Coast Capital made an appointment, and Schwartz didn't really care about it at first, but it is said that he brought Lehman Brothers as a financial adviser.

Schwartz was finally a little moved and met with Tony Tsai and his party.

I heard that West Coast Capital has expressed interest in the acquisition, and has a financial guarantee of tens of billions of dollars from Lehman Brothers.

Schwartz's mind was a little moved.

There is no doubt that West Coast Capital is a pure-play investment company, and they don't have the right person to navigate Solar Microsystems in the short term.

Then the next situation is obvious.

After the West Coast Capital takeover, management will survive until they find a new candidate.

There are obviously not many such candidates for Solar Microsystems, so Schwartz has every chance to redeem himself and prove his worth again after the acquisition!

"If West Coast Capital is willing to contribute $10 in U.S. stocks, we tend to support West Coast Capital's acquisition plan. The condition is that no large-scale layoffs or job changes can be initiated after the acquisition. ”

Schwartz said. This is a condition for his self-preservation. At the same time, there will be nothing to be picky about on the board side.

"Mr. Schwartz, I hope your company will understand that IBM will not give Sun Microsystem any hope, but will only swallow up market share for higher monopoly gains, and then dismember and integrate Sun Microsystem. ”

Tony Tsai didn't talk about Schwartz, but talked about something else.

"If we take over, we'll at least maintain the integrity of the solar microsystem, ensure the interests of our employees, and make the whole market fairer. ”

"So, we don't just need Mr. Schwartz to support the acquisition, we need Mr. Schwartz to explain how harmful the IBM acquisition is to the market. ”

If IBM can't be forced back, it is clear that the purchase price will not be lowered. Greg's idea was to make a big deal about the monopoly harm of the IBM takeover.

Of course, the best candidate is the CEO in front of him, who is waiting to be "laid off".

Schwartz clearly didn't think of what the West Coast capital was planning to do. But it's acceptable to think about it, if you want to do your current position, it's obviously impossible not to submit a name.

The question is, will the other party give me a chance after I surrender?

"We have a responsibility to tell the public the facts, but it needs to be done in the right way and at the right time. Schwartz said ambiguously.

If West Coast Capital can't gain an advantage in the bid, it would be self-digging to say this.

Tony Tsai certainly understands the mystery of this, and it is good to be able to get this answer now, at least it shows that the management and IBM are not very good at dealing with each other.

This information is good news for the M&A team.

The first contact between the two sides was tentatively established.

Greg then used his influence to begin to blow the story of the serious market imbalances caused by IBM's takeover, and to warn the public of the enormous harm caused by monopolies.

Since the businesses of the two companies overlap so much, there is no reason to merge and acquire, and the best solution is to be acquired by a third party capital.

This can not only save the work of tens of thousands of employees of Sun Microsystem, but also further maintain the vitality of the market, so as not to form a monopoly situation in the server market.

Greg's operation caused some repercussions, and HP was the first to respond that this would make the server market unbalanced, and future server customers would have to accept IBM's high costs, because the RISC-class server market would be monopolized by IBM by then.

If the user has no other vendors to choose from, then the price increase will be the only thing that can be confirmed.

The computer press even found excitement and opened up a special topic to talk about the pros and cons of this matter, and in general, public opinion was very unfavorable to IBM.