"President, this is the details of our company's stock transactions last week. The turnover rate in the secondary market is relatively large, which is a typical situation of incremental price decline and institutional withdrawal...... Relatively severe. ”

One day in mid-April, at the headquarters of Wang An Computer Company in Silicon Valley, the chief financial officer of Vunderbilt, took a report with a heavy heart and threw it on the desk of CEO Wang Lie.

"Gu Biao, this bastard! Those people on Wall Street who have suffered losses, didn't they jump out to sanction him?" Wang Lie was angry when he saw it, and slammed the desk hard.

In his opinion, he still suspects that Gu Biao is a rat belly and chicken intestines, and he is jealous for the sake of fighting for the wind.

Otherwise, everyone is Chinese, eh, it should be said that at least they are all Chinese, and there is no core contradiction, why do you have to help IBM and Microsoft consortium and other traditional closed system computer companies like this?

Of course, Gu Biao had known the fate of Wang An's computer for a long time, and had the idea of replacing it. But this kind of thought, at this juncture, no one would think of it.

Wang Lie took over the position of CEO of Wang An Computer Company for more than a year, and his father Wang An's cancer did worsen a little.

For the first time, the company has experienced a floating loss in financial data, but the external financial report can still be concealed

The company's sales are still good, with nearly $2 billion a year. It's just that in the year after Wang Lie took office, the company's product models have declined due to further aging and market competitiveness, so they have to maintain this sales figure through discounted sales.

In other words, when his father was in power, the company not only had high sales, high gross profit margin, strong product competitiveness, and a net book profit of two or three billion US dollars a year.

After Wang Lie took over, relying on discounts, sales did not fall much, but the total price fell by nearly two percent, and these two percent were almost the original profits. As a result, sales fell from $2.4 billion a year to $1.8 billion, but net profit fell from $280 million to nearly $100 million.

In order to cover up the loss of 100 million yuan, the current practice of financial fraud is to make part of the "cost" into "investment".

In Silicon Valley, the cost of being able to deal with cover-up in this way is mainly the cost of research and development.

Just like Huawei, why the profit of financial statements is low is because Huawei's R&D costs are 100% of the cost, and Huawei's pursuit is low-key, and the financial statements are ugly. Anyway, this company is not listed, and there is no need to please shareholders, just to secretly rub back the big move.

Another type of typical is Apple, many of Apple's R&D costs are not directly spent on their own R&D, but by "investment" to collect enough for a small external scientific research company, become its own subsidiary, and then occupy the company's technological achievements.

When you use the trick of "investment", it will show that your parent company's own expenses are very low, and most of the gross profits earned can be converted into net profits, and you only take these net profits out to "buy, buy, buy" after the fact, not to spend the first party of net profits for research and development, but to let you buy and buy objects to spend, so that the parent company's financial report will look good, and it can please shareholders and raise the stock price.

Wang Lie also used this trick last year, when facing the crisis of Cunningham, John Chambers and others who had rebelled and lost their business.

He asked the chief financial officer, Vunderbilt, to find a way to get some new subsidiaries, which were actually controlled by Wang An, and then outsource the company's R&D work and make the cost into an investment. So although Wang An Computer actually lost $100 million this year, it is not very obvious in the stock market statement, and it is about just breaking even.

However, this kind of trick cannot be commonly used, especially since Wang An Computer does not have a tradition of doing this, and there must be many loopholes in a hasty setup.

If it doesn't get better in another year or two, or if the epoch-making research and development results can't come out, the lid won't be covered.

Another kind of trouble, which is more dangerous, but now seems to be extremely unlikely, is that once there is a major bear market in the US stock market, especially in the technology stock market, then these little tricks in the bull market phase will not be able to cover up.

When the SEC is in a bull market, it is possible to relax a little.

Once the bear market arrives, in the face of the raging anger of American stockholders, the SEC will also be ruthless and catch a few typical examples to calm the anger of American stockholders.

Now, Wang An Computer, which was already struggling to maintain the situation, has suffered a decline in trust in the stock market, which means that the cycle of raising more R&D funds for the next generation of products may be blocked.

Although Wang An Computer will not issue new shares at the moment, as long as it is in a bull market, when the company's own stock price rises and is favored by the capital market, it is still possible to increase róng zī.

This kind of róng zī mainly relies on the issuance of corporate bonds and equity pledge loans.

For example, if the equity in the hands of Wang An and his son has a market value of 2 billion US dollars, then with a discount, the general mortgage bank may dare to lend you 1.5 billion or 1.6 billion US dollars.

If Wang An's computer's stock price falls, and the 2 billion shares are only worth 1.5 billion, then the mortgage amount will be reduced to about 1.2 billion. If your original mortgage has exceeded 1.2 billion, you will have to add collateral to the bank and increase the equity mortgage ratio.

And the most terrifying thing at the moment is that Wang An's father and son have been in a high position of mortgage since the second half of last year.

Because in the second half of last year, co-founder Cunningham did not support Wang Lie to take over Wang An's class, and used withdrawal as a threat. At that time, the Wang family father and son used the method of additional equity pledge to buy back Cunningham's equity at a high level, in exchange for letting Cunningham get out of the way, so as not to get in the way.

Therefore, the equity pledge warning line of Wang An and Wang Lie's father and son belongs to a state that is about to collapse after a big fall. The sequelae brought about by Cunningham's withdrawal of funds are not enough to digest it in half a year.

In the past six months, although Wang Lie has not done anything good since he took over, and there is no good news to disclose to the public, the overall bull market of US stocks is after all, so even if your performance is not very good, as long as it is not outrageous, the stock price will not fall

It can be said that from December last year to March this year, Wang Lie's performance has been bad in the past 4 months, but because Gu Biao did not deal with him during this time, Wang An's computer's stock price was tepid, and the stock stocks stabilized while the market was strong, until Gu Biao poked the bubble again at this moment.

……

Of course, Wang Lie himself is well aware of these situations, so in the face of the bad news of Vanderbilt's announcement, he can only make this decision:

"At the moment, we can't afford to pledge any more shares, and if the capital market's confidence in us declines further, we'd rather cut back on our capital and pay off some of our mortgages. ”

However, money will not be conjured out of thin air, and to pretend that Wang An Computer is not bad for money, and can pay off a part of the cash and reduce the pledge amount as the stock price falls, it means cutting a large piece of expenses.

"So, which part of the expenses are cut?" asked Superintendent Birdbilt, crisply.

As a financial background, this kind of people have no feelings for the company's technology and products, they are the most cold-blooded group in C, and he can do whatever the CEO asks him to do.

"Make a comprehensive layoff plan, but don't announce it yet. Recently, let a group of people take half-pay or low-pay vacations, everyone should not be disgusted, everyone is too busy. If it really can't be done, you can only cut the production of the R&D department, or sell the R&D subsidiary that was outsourced before selling. Wang Lie thought about it, and finally replied.

After Wang Lie finished speaking, there were many other things that he wanted to arrange, but after thinking about it, those things were not a financial person who could put his beak in Moldbilt, so he waved his hand to signal that the other party could go.

After Wardbilt left, Wang Lie asked his secretary to arrange a car and went back to his seaview villa in the Bay Area.

He felt very confused and wanted to ask his father for instructions.

The Wang family's villas are luxurious, with views of the pristine golden sands of San Francisco Bay and a long stretch of private shore shaded by palm and coconut palms. However, the atmosphere in the villa is very oppressive and solemn.

After a year of deterioration, Wang An's cancer is now less able to walk. The continuous chemotherapy also caused his original short hair to fall out, and even his eyebrows were thinning out.

At this time last year, before handing over the CEO to his son, Wang An could still insist on working for more than half a day every day and walking on his own. When his son was just taken over as CEO, he insisted on listening to an hour's work report every morning and after dinner every day to keep a grasp of the company's major events.

Now he can only stand up on his own and walk on crutches for no more than half an hour every day, and he can't breathe. The rest of the time is either to recuperate in bed or to have the maid push the wheelchair out. Moreover, his son's routine report on the company's affairs has been reduced to only once a day, only half an hour each time, and he will not tell Wang An unless something major happens.

This time, when Wang Lie returned to the villa, Wang An was being pushed by the maid into the glass room facing the sea, looking at the sea half-asleep.

"Dad, you're not asleep, are you?" asked Wang Lie cautiously.

Wang An opened his eyes slightly, and his expression and breathing did not fluctuate: "What's wrong? ”

Wang Lie sorted out the wording: "Gu Biao, the mad dog, is eyeing us, his set of fallacies and heresies are now very popular outside, and the investment banks on Wall Street are all holding a magnifying glass to look at us technology companies according to the kind of risks that Gu Biao said blindly." Our financial chain is dangerous. ”

Wang An wiped the armrest of the wheelchair and found something like a book. Wang Lieshun looked at it, but found that it was actually "The Innovator's Dilemma".

"Dad, why don't you take good care of your body, this kind of thing depends on what he does. Wang Lie couldn't help but persuade.

"If I don't watch it, I'll never have a chance to watch it again!" Wang An sighed, "Those who know me, Gu Biao." Do you think what he said is wrong? Can our company cross this generational discontinuity and develop smoothly?"

"Do you think he's right?" Wang Lie was shocked.

Wang An sighed: "If I am not sick, I will definitely be able to survive the crisis that Gu Biao said, and bring the company to the next generation of growth curve." It's a pity, relying on you, I don't dare to say whether I have confidence or no confidence now. Tell me how you've been coping lately. ”