Because of its complete privatization and being away from the capital market, Verizon has had a weak sense of presence among the public in recent years. Only the industry knows that this telecom operator has already been deeply rooted in the field of mobile communications.

During the dinner, Simon first discussed with Raymond Smith to push Verizon into the capital market again.

In fact, it was another IPO.

There are many purposes and benefits to make this decision.

The first is to reduce the Westeros system's shareholding ratio in Verizon.

Under normal circumstances, business owners hope to gain more corporate shares. Simon did the opposite, still in order to further integrate the Westeros system into the US economy.

Just like this Igret IPO.

Including the additional 100 million new shares issued recently based on the Green Shoe Mechanism, Egret's current total share capital has reached 4.426 billion shares, of which Westeros holds 2.561 billion shares, and the shareholding ratio has been reduced to 57.9%. The biggest benefit of transferring up to 42.1% of the shares to Egret's management and investors is that Egret's potential targets have been much less.

Tens of millions of investors have a total of more than 100 billion US dollars in interests and are tied to the Westeros system. Whether it is federal antitrust institutions or many competitors inside and outside the United States, if you want to target Igrit, it is equivalent to targeting the huge capital alliance behind Igrit.

If you are not careful, you may be crushed to pieces.

The development of the US telecom industry has been more than a hundred years. If you want to break the deep-rooted old pattern, you will inevitably face many potential resistances. The integration strategy can undoubtedly minimize these resistances.

The second is to raise funds.

This is also the key expansion strategy for the Westeros system in the next few years. Taking advantage of the great market form, we should keep more cash through listing or issuing bonds as much as possible. In history, many new technology companies that emerged in the 1990s went to an end due to capital shortages after the bursting of the Internet bubble.

The third reason is that it will complete the merger with American Online after its listing more intuitively and conveniently.

Verizon Telecom, which is not listed, even if the valuation of US$30 billion given by Forbes this time, is still low in Simon's opinion. If it is directly merged with the high market value of the United States Online under the privatization state, it will be difficult to make a valuation that satisfies all parties, and may also cause potential litigation risks.

After listing, the stock prices of both parties are determined by the capital market, and it will not cause too much controversy if the merger is initiated again.

Simon also discussed personnel issues with Raymond Smith in advance after the merger of AOL and Verizon.

This matter is somewhat related.

The predecessor of AOL was originally just a startup that provided internet services in Verizon's predecessor, Bell Atlantic. At that time, Raymond Smith was already the head of Bell Atlantic. Now, the CEO of AOL, Steve Case, was just an entrepreneur, and the status of the two was very different.

Now, American Online is at its peak. Although the identities of the two cannot be completely changed, once merged, Raymond Smith can only become Steve Case's subordinate.

Simon is very cautious about such things.

If Raymond Smith cannot work closely with Steve Case after the merger, or even restrict each other, the merger will have no meaning and may even have catastrophic consequences for the two companies. The merger decision cannot be changed, so once some signs appear, Simon can only kick one of the two out.

However, neither of the two was eliminated was something Simon wanted to see.

When talking about this during the meal, Raymond Smith expressed his gratitude and said that he would do his best to cooperate with Case in the future, which made Simon a little relieved, but it was not absolute.

Many things are much easier to say than to do.

In the following days, the media's discussion on the 1995 Forbes US 400 Rich List became even hotter, after all, there were too many highlights on this year's list.

Simon is high with a personal wealth of $700 billion and is hard to shake.

Following closely behind, Microsoft founder Bill Gates' personal net worth also increased to US$57.3 billion. Compared with 1994, the increase also reached more than 100%.

Warren Buffett, third place, has a personal wealth of $12.6 billion, exceeding many people's expectations, thanks to Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of Metropolitan ABC Group. Berkshire Hathaway, which owns Metropolitan ABC Group, has been rising in recent months due to this positive news.

Larry Ellison, fourth place, is a dark horse. His personal wealth of $11.7 billion mainly comes from his 31.2% stake in Oracle.

With the explosion of the new technology industry and the close connection between Oracle and Westeros system, Oracle's database software has become increasingly obvious in recent years. When Forbes counted the list, Oracle's market value had reached US$37.6 billion. Even if it cannot be compared with giants with 100 billion market value such as Igret, it has surpassed most traditional corporate giants in the US stock market.

It is worth mentioning that Westeros currently holds 24.6% of Oracle, so this company alone contributed $9.2 billion in personal wealth to Simon.

Paul Allen, fifth place, has a personal wealth of $10.9 billion.

Forbes counts Bill Gates and Paul Allen’s reference market value is US$151.5 billion. According to calculations, Westeros’s 18.7% stake in Microsoft also contributed $28.3 billion to Simon’s personal wealth.

Sixth, seventh and eighth place tied for the 6th.

Tim Berners Lee, Jeff Bezos and Carol Butz of Igrit Company, are all wealthy of $8 billion.

The same super dark horse.

Forbes magazine was originally intended to wait for Igret to list and then count the wealth list for the new year. Therefore, the wealth basis of the three giants is the closing price on the first day of Igret's listing on October 6, and the same is true for Simon's personal wealth.

The ninth place is John Kruger, whose personal wealth is $6.1 billion.

John Kruger is 81 years old this year. This old media tycoon who once competed for control of Orion Pictures with Sam Redstone to enter Hollywood has gradually retired. Over the years, he has been clearing up and selling a large number of assets, then switching to trust investment, and starting to prepare for wealth inheritance. Many TV stations under the FOX TV network established by Rupert Murdoch are from John Kruger's macro media companies.

Tenth place are Jim Walton and John Walton, two brothers of the Walton family who tied with eleventh place. Both brothers have personal wealth of $4.6 billion.

The Walton family still cannot be underestimated.

However, due to various equity changes, the wealth of Sam Walton's widow and four children is no longer uniform. After the two brothers, the other three Waltons' personal wealth continues to occupy the 12th to 14th place, with wealth figures of US$4.5 billion, US$4.5 billion and US$4.3 billion respectively.

Behind the top ten, there is also the former housekeeper of the Westeros family, Alice Ferguson, who is ranked 15th, with a personal wealth of US$4 billion.

Daenerys Entertainment CEO Amy Pascal, ranked 17th on the list with his personal wealth of $3.5 billion.

In addition, Claire Gain, the 35th-ranked girl, relied on a 13.2% stake in Tincobaier, tied with Neil Brantley, another founder of Tincobaier, No. 36. Both of them have a wealth valuation of $2.2 billion.

Later, D girl Deborah Lippman also ranked 87th on the list with a 56% stake in Instagram website, with her personal wealth value of US$1.1 billion.

This year's Forbes US 400 Rich Rich List is $340 million, which happens to be the back cover of the famous talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

Among the 400 people, companies under the name Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Larry Ellison, etc. are not counted as big names that are held by the Westerosian system rather than controlled or supported. Such as Simon, Tim Berners Lee, Alice Ferguson, and C girl, etc., who are truly closely linked to the Westerosian system, can be considered as the "Westerosian", with a total of 37 people.

If it were not for the deliberate suppression of all parties, "Simon Westeros controls the United States" would definitely have become a hot topic on major media platforms recently. When a person relies on huge wealth to have a significant impact on a country's politics, economy, culture and even military aspects, it is almost the same as saying that it is control.

In fact, the Westeros system is far from reaching a certain level, but this trend is very obvious.

Just like this time.

Compared with the public opinion atmosphere in the past few years, the media is lively and there are many less remarks such as clamoring to limit Simon Westero's personal wealth to continue to expand or to enact targeted tax bills. Instead, doubts about the number of $700 billion are one after another.

This is actually what Simon hopes to see.

How is it possible for $700 billion?

All right.

Even if the books reach US$700 billion, most of them are just stock assets, and stock assets with serious bubble components are still stock assets. Don’t it be said that the new technology bubble is already very serious now? Westeros is the best manifestation.

Simon doesn't need to make arrangements for such things to guide public opinion now.

As the core of the entire Westeros system, not only its related companies, but also its close cooperation media giants such as Time Warner, News Corporation, and the New York Times Group, will consciously protect a young man because everyone has a stake in it, and they will prosper and lose.

After the outside world was in trouble and rejected all interview invitations as usual, Simon's life was still as follows.

The transaction settlement process of Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of Metropolitan ABC Group has come to an end.

After the stock settlement ratio registration statistics for the first two weeks of October, the final choice was to convert Metropolitan ABC Group stocks into Daenerys Entertainment stocks as high as 83%. Even Warren Buffett changed the settlement ratio of half of the stocks and half of the cash to 70% of the stocks and 30% of the cash.

Therefore, the $20.9 billion acquisition agreement reached at the time, Daenerys Entertainment's final cash payment share was only $3.5 billion, less than half of Daenerys' own cash reserves of more than $7 billion.

On the other hand, after the settlement is expected to be completed and the total share capital of the new Daenerys Entertainment Group is paid to the former shareholders of Metropolitan ABC Group, the total share capital of the brand new Daenerys Entertainment Group has increased to 2.599 billion shares, and Simon's shareholding ratio of the merged new company has been reduced from 81.9% to 74.5% with 1.937 billion shares.

According to Daenerys Entertainment's dual equity structure, the shareholding ratio has dropped to 74.5%, and Simon's voting rights over Daenerys Entertainment are still as high as 96.7%.

Control remains unmoved.

Therefore, Simon still feels that the 74.5% shareholding ratio is a bit high, but it is not easy to reduce it in the short term, so he can only slowly reduce his holdings in the future.

The handling of litigation and strikes around the Wisconsin Logistics and Distribution Center has been suspended.

This was a decision made by Simon himself.

In order to avoid those who are interested in comparing their latest wealth and wealth with a group of truck drivers who are destined to be blacklisted, they will wait for the recent public opinion to cool down before dealing with it.

It was Friday, October 27th in a blink of an eye.

The end of the year is coming.

The third movie "Soul Conjuring 2" in the Soul Conjuring Movie Universe series produced by Daenerys Entertainment was released on this day, announcing the beginning of the Halloween schedule.

Before this, a series of videos released during the summer season have basically been drawn one after another.

Among them, the box office of "Jurassic Park 2" in North America was US$413 million, temporarily ranking as the 1995 local box office champion. Whether it can hold this position depends on the box office performance of "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" released on December 22 during the Christmas season.

This is also a focus of recent movie fans.

It also caused some controversy.

Logically speaking, "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" is more conducive to the DC superhero blockbuster spanning the two major festivals of Thanksgiving and Christmas to fully utilize its box office potential. One of the important reasons is that it is scheduled to be released on December 22 is to make way for the 3D animated movie "Beauty and the Beast" produced by Daenerys Entertainment.

Although "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" was released by Time Warner, Simon has the final say on the schedule.

Pixar's 3D version of "Beauty and the Beast" is scheduled to be released on November 17.

After all, he is a wholly owned son.

Moreover, Simon actually hopes to leave some breathing space for some movies from other Hollywood studios. Otherwise, "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" with a local box office of 400 million yuan will inevitably lead to a dominant situation when it is released on Thanksgiving.

Time Warner has complained about this, but he can only endure it.

Everyone knows that if this matter is on others, they will make decisions similar to Simon.

In addition to "Jurassic Park 2", which crushed the summer, Daenerys Entertainment also produced "Apollo 13", led by Tom Hanks, with a cumulative box office of US$177 million in North America. "Jurassic Park 2" and "Apollo 13" also became the only two movies with a box office of over 100 million in the summer of 1995.

Daenerys Entertainment launched the new David Finch film "Psychological Game" at the end of the summer season. The production cost was $50 million, and the final local box office was only $51.34 million. It is expected that the overseas box office will be roughly the same. The global performance of exceeding 100 million is not too bad, but it is far from satisfactory.

Other Hollywood studios' films such as "Die Hard 3", "The Elf", "Brave Heart" and other films have been directly or indirectly impacted by "Jurassic Park 2", and this time they have not been able to cross the threshold of 100 million yuan.

Warner Bros. burned $175 million in "Future Water World", which even caused the old studio to lose all the money.
To be continued...