Just when the iphone1 was popular all over the world, the news suddenly came that Henry was going to buy the European media giant Bertelsmann Group, and offered a sky-high price of 100 billion US dollars!

However, the acquisition of Bertelsmann is real, but the $100 billion is purely a media fabrication, and the Bertelsmann Group is simply not worth the price. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 Although Bertelsmann Group is one of the world's top 500 companies with a history of more than 170 years, the ranking of the top 500 companies is at the end of the crane, and its revenue has not exceeded 20 billion US dollars, and in recent years, due to the impact of the Internet, the performance of the Bertelsmann Group has gradually declined, and if it does not make changes, it will have to fall out of the top 500 companies in a few years.

This time, Henry suddenly sent someone to the door and asked to buy Bertelsmann, which made Bertelsmann feel that it was an opportunity, Henry Williams is the recognized hegemon in the Internet field, and it is also the key breakthrough for Bertelsmann to seek the transformation of the digital industry! So the two sides hit it off, and Bertelsmann immediately terminated the cooperation with Sony and began to negotiate with Smith, the representative sent by Henry. Among them, Sony is very pitiful and sad, it spent a lot of effort to take the initiative to "pursue" Bertelsmann, but just when the two sides were only short of the last base of "communication", they were suddenly "green", not sad, not sad?!

Some time later, at 10 o'clock in the morning on November 1, 2003, Bertelsmann Group held a press conference at its headquarters to announce that Bertelsmann accepted the acquisition of Williams Royal Investment Company and was willing to sell 80% of the shares!

After the news broke, the global book and music market was shocked and panicked!

Amazon was originally the largest retail bookstore on the Internet, and now that Henry Williams has acquired Bertelsmann, Bertelsmann's world's largest popular book publishing group, Random House, and Europe's largest publisher of periodicals and magazines, Gunayar, all belong to Henry, and it is natural that Amazon's competitiveness in the book industry will be further strengthened in the future.

As for the music market, MP3 websites and daily music software have occupied about 55% of the market share of Internet music, and the emergence of iPhones has skyrocketed the market share of iTunes stores, and the entire Internet music sales channel is almost monopolized by Henry Williams alone. However, this one-sided dominance is not what other record companies want, so they are actively supporting other music playback software to fight it, and many of them have copyright restrictions on MP3 sites, Everyday Music and iTunes! Therefore, many users complained that some of the songs found were copyright restrictions and could not be played, which was really unpleasant!

BMG Records has now been acquired by Henry, so naturally there are a large number of songs that can be unbanned. On the one hand, it solves the problem of the origin of the songs, and on the other hand, it causes a rift in the alliance of record labels. BMG Records took the lead, and many record companies followed suit. Of course, the other four major record companies must still insist on copyright restrictions on some songs, and if they are all opened, then Henry's music software will really become a monopoly. If the sales channels are controlled by one person, then the right to speak and bargain is not what others say, and the four major record companies are not so stupid!

As one of the world's top five record companies, BMG Records is naturally strong, signed with many well-known singers, and has a large number of song copyrights! Therefore, when the news that a large number of songs will be lifted in iTunes, the sales of iPhone1 smartphones have increased in vain, rising to 2 million units per day, and before that, sales have stabilized, and only 100,000 units can be sold per day!

So far, more than 35 million iPhone 1 smartphones have been sold, making it a miracle in business history! Since Henry delisted Apple, Apple's revenue and profits are not known to the outside world. An 8GB version of the iPhone 1 costs $599 and has a net profit of $300, a 16GB version of the iPhone 1 costs $699 and a net profit of $345, and the 32GB version of the iPhone 1 costs $1499 and has a net profit of $780! However, this is just the phone hardware profit......

AppStore and iTunes also have a lot of revenue, and after sharing with third parties, Apple made $2.5 billion.

In fact, this is only the income related to iPhone1 mobile phones, the hot sales of iPhone1 have also driven the sales of iPod, MacBook, iMac and other products, all of Apple's products add up, and it should have earned nearly $16 billion in October, and the net profit in a month is so high, I'm afraid no one will believe it!!

Henry, with the idea of making a fortune in a muffled voice, decided that it was better to keep a low profile, and if users knew that Apple had made so much money on them, he would definitely be unhappy.

"Your Majesty, have you ever thought about going public with Apple?"

Willett sighed in a shocked tone, "Apple is so profitable, the market value will definitely be very high!!"

"Yes!" Henry thought for a moment and nodded, "The Williams Empire doesn't have a stock exchange yet, and when everything is on the right track in the Empire, I will have people set up the 'Diego Exchange' in Diego, and then let Apple list on the Diego Exchange to start this first !!"

"Well, with Apple's current profitability, it will definitely get off to a good start!"

"Yes, there is no doubt about that, no matter where it is listed, it will be sought after by countless people!" ......Henry paused, staring into the distance, and said lightly, I want to make Diego Exchange a second NASDAQ, just one Apple is not enough, at that time, I plan to have many companies under my name listed on Diego Exchange one by one, with the support of these companies, Diego Exchange will definitely be able to grow and become one of the largest stock markets in the world, and at the same time make Diego one of the international financial centers!"

"In addition, after the company goes public, the stock price will inevitably rise, and most of the people who buy the shares should be citizens of the Williams Empire, which can be regarded as giving them benefits!" Henry said.

"Your Majesty, this is hiding wealth from the people!"

"That's right!" Henry nodded and smiled.

While Henry was talking to Villeret, Pearson Education took the initiative to send a request to the Bertelsmann Group, hoping to merge its Penguin Publishing Group and Random House!

The rise of the Internet has had a serious impact on the paper book market. Both Random House and Penguin Publishing are on the decline. Now that Random House has found a buyer and will use Henry's Internet resources to transform the digital industry, where will Pearson Education, the world's publishing giant, go from here?

After the launch of the iphone1 smart phone, Pearson Education Group found that more and more people read e-books through iBook, once the popularity of smart phones in the future, it will greatly squeeze the survival market of paper books.

Smith immediately called Henry and reported the situation.

"Your Majesty, Pearson Education has offered us a merger between Penguin Publishing Group and Random House, ......?" Smith asked.

When Henry heard this, he couldn't help but be stunned, he still remembered that "Harry Potter" was published for him by Penguin Publishing Group!

"Forget about the merger, Pearson Education Group seems to be the world's largest education and training group, you directly acquired it for me!!" After Henry finished speaking, he smiled secretly in his heart, it was really "a sheep into the tiger's mouth", you didn't mention the merger of Penguin Publishing Group and Random House, I really didn't think of buying you!

Pearson Education Group is the world's leading education group with a history of more than 150 years, dedicated to providing educators and students of all ages with high-quality educational content, educational information technology, testing and assessment, professional certification, and all education-related services. Pearson Education has spread to more than 60 countries around the world, ranking first in the world in many fields such as higher education, primary and secondary education, English education, professional publishing, examination and assessment, online education, etc., helping more than 100 million people around the world to receive education and training.

For the sake of the great cause of education in the Williams Empire, it seems that it is imperative to acquire the Pearson Education Group! New Oriental is still small in scale at present, and it cannot provide too many talents for the Williams Empire. Pearson Education is more mature, larger and more important.

"Han Xin points soldiers, the more the merrier", Henry is not stingy with his investment in education.

"Smith, what is the approximate market capitalization of Pearson Education Group?" asked Henry.

"Pearson Group is one of the world's leading publishing and media giants, including the world's largest education publishing group (PearsonEducation), Penguin Publishing Group, the famous Financial Times Group and the famous Economist Group, with more than 30,000 employees in 65 countries and regions around the world. Pearson Group is world-renowned for having the richest intellectual property and high-quality publications. With annual sales of more than $7 billion, we estimate it at $15 billion. ”

Smith added, "Your Majesty, the Financial Times ranked first in the November 2003 ranking of the world's most influential media outlets, and even the Wall Street Journal ranked second!"

Henry nodded, Wall Street has the Wall Street Journal, and if Diego has the Financial Times, it will play a very big role in the development of the Diego Exchange in the future!

"Then a $2 billion premium to wholly acquire Pearson Education Group!!," Henry said lightly, but his tone was full of domineering.

"Yes!"

……

……

Pearson Education Group was very depressed, and planned to merge its Penguin Publishing with Random House, but unexpectedly attracted the attention of Henry Williams and sent someone to buy him!

Pearson Group held an emergency meeting of the Board of Directors.

At the meeting, a director said: "The Internet is a big trend, and if Pearson wants to maintain strong development, it must turn its core education publishing business to digital transformation and invest heavily in emerging markets! Obviously, Henry Williams has taken both! With Henry Williams' help, Pearson's digital transformation will be very easy, and the Williams empire and African education are lagging behind, which is our emerging market !!."

"You're right, if it's a partnership, we'd be very willing, but Henry Williams wants to buy us wholly!" said another director, frowning.

As soon as he finished speaking, the audience suddenly fell silent.

"However, the price offered by the other party is fair, and if you want to sell it, you can sell it!"

"Let's not talk about selling, after all, Pearson Group is a British group with a history of more than 150 years, how can it be sold so easily?!"

Although Henry Williams is the king of the Williams Empire, he is also British, and he is the pride of our British, and Pearson Group sold to him, or it may become the first company in history to enter the world's top 500 companies as an education industry, so that education can benefit more people! So, if everyone is really for the cause of education and not for money, I think Pearson Group should be sold to Henry Williams!! A man in his forties and fifties with glasses suddenly stood up and shouted to the crowd.

When everyone heard this, they couldn't help but discuss it in a whisper.

Half an hour later, an old man in his seventies who was sitting at the top suddenly said: "Crofts is right, we are not doing education for money, but for education! The purpose of Pearson Group is to 'help everyone develop their best potential', so I am willing to sell Pearson Group to help more people!! not to mention, the other party bought Pearson Group at a premium, and did not treat us badly." On the contrary, Pearson is facing a decline in performance......"

The old man is Lance Heslett, chairman of Pearson, with a 15% stake and is the group's largest shareholder. And his prestige in the group is very high, as soon as he spoke, many people quieted down, and couldn't help but rethink and change their decisions.

"Let's vote, and the one with the most shares will decide the fate of the group!" said Lance Heslett in a deep voice.

"Just as Mr. Heshlett said, vote!" Crofts stroked his glasses and said loudly, "I support it, sell it to Pearson!"

"I am against selling Pearson......"

“……”

At this moment, Smith was resting on the sand side of the reception room at the Pearson headquarters, a cigarette in his mouth, puffing through the clouds, and acting calmly. A few minutes later, the door to the reception room opened, and Lance Heslett walked in first, "Mr. Smith, we have voted to sell it to His Majesty King Henry Williams for Pearson......" Lance Heslett said to Smith with a smile on his face.

(To be continued.) )