Chapter 58: investment progress

"What are your plans? Uncle, are you still going to save Pete?"

"No one can save him, William, only himself can save him."

Speaking of this matter, John Drey's mood was a little heavy. He stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looked at the courtyard outside William Chen's villa, and said, "You seem to be more concerned about this matter?"

"You know, Uncle John, the lawyer in charge of my legal and tax affairs, Ms. Alicia, she is the wife of that Mr. Pete." William Chen shook his head and said, "What I am concerned about is how this matter will affect the What kind of influence do I have."

"In this case, the lady may be hit harder. After all, what happened to Pitt this time is too disreputable. Those **** photos were spread everywhere."

"But you can rest assured, William, it will not have any effect on your side. The lady's heart may be hit a lot, but this matter will not involve her personally, but will be because of Pete's She will receive widespread sympathy for a broken thing, and as long as she is a little smarter, she may even benefit from it."

John Drey looked at his nephew, thought for a moment, and said: "As for whether you should continue to hand these things over to her, you can think about it yourself. What I need to remind you is that although fundamentally he is involved The things that arrive won't have anything practical to your company, but one thing, if they really want to make things bigger, it's hard to say that they won't use your background to make a fuss."

William Chen understood what John Del Rey meant. The Pitt scandal caused a lot of uproar. It was hard to say that there was no party behind it. It was even possible that they planned to expose the incident.

Then the direction of this matter depends on how much Pitt's exact evidence the other party has, and how much their purpose is to achieve.

William Chen will definitely not be involved in these matters, but he also needs to assess whether he will be involved in this matter, or how much he will be affected.

The photos exposed now can only prove the fact that Pitt is suspected of recruiting prostitutes. If there is no other more accurate evidence, then this matter will only stop there.

Although it is illegal to recruit prostitutes in the United States, according to previous practice, federal prosecutors can bring charges against prostitutes, but generally do not charge "clients" like Pitt. So if the evidence is limited to this, Pitt may resign as governor, but never go to jail, and may even run again soon.

If this is the case, the elephant party will definitely not be satisfied, so it is not impossible to follow Alicia and pull Chen William Chen, who has a deep background in the Donkey Party family who has cooperated with her, into the water.

After all, the transfer of benefits is also a part of corruption. Even if they can't find the slightest evidence at all, just hyping up this matter can ruin Pitt's image in the eyes of the public.

So John Drey mentioned that the things he needs to consider are mainly these aspects.

John Del Rey didn't stay with William Chen for too long. After chatting with William Chen about his recent situation and William Chen's own investment, he set off to leave.

According to him, he also has to contact some members of the Donkey Party to make arrangements for Pitt's affairs.

"Go see your grandfather when you have time, William. He also cares about you very much." John Drey said to William Chen when he left.

Seeing the back of his uncle leaving, William Chen knew that the pressure he was facing at this time was not small. Pete's current scandal is very unfavorable for the situation of the Donkey Party in this important constituency in New York State, so John Drey this time Came here to figure out a way to clean up this mess.

After waking up this morning, William Chen took another twelve-hour flight. He spent most of the time reading books on the plane, and now he came back and talked with his uncle for so long, and when John Drey left, he really felt a little tired.

So William Chen took a short rest, took a bath, and drove to the Meta Investment Company in Building 666.

Seeing Building 666, William Chen couldn't help thinking that during the time he was away from New York, if the most embarrassed person was Governor Pete, then the most beautiful person was probably Gared of the Kushnar Group.

With the holding of Building 666 and the renovation plan of the building totaling 3 billion US dollars, Gared and the Kushnar Group behind him have made a splash in New York during this period of time, occupying the front page news of many media.

It was also the time when Gared was proud of the spring breeze, and William Chen also saw a report that he went to the Troup headquarters building with flowers to look for Ivan Tower, the so-called "high-profile show of love".

Regarding this matter, Ivanta also explained to William Chen on the phone, saying that it was entirely Gared's own opinion, and at that time she declined the date invitation of the other party.

However, this incident also reminded William Chen that Gared still has a heart for Ivanta, and besides him, it is unknown how many people are attacking her. Therefore, although the progress of his relationship with Ivanta is not bad, he still cannot take it lightly, and the relationship between the two needs to be determined as soon as possible.

After entering the office, William Chen first approached Nielsen and asked about the negotiation with Netflix and other companies during this period.

Knowing that Chen William will be back today, Nielsen has already prepared relevant materials. Regarding these, Chen William is not in a hurry to read them. He has also seen a lot of Nielsen's briefings during this time, so he asked directly: "Just to put it simply. Let’s see which companies are interested now.”

"At present, the most in-depth discussion is on Netflix. Netflix began to develop into the streaming media field in 2007. After two years of technology accumulation, their streaming media technology is now basically mature, but limited to bandwidth, the effect has not yet let them. Satisfied, there is no way, it can only be solved with the expansion of broadband.”

"Recently, they put forward a plan to strengthen content production, so they need additional investment, and that's why they are very interested in our proposed equity investment. The current market value of Netflix is ​​about 2.3 billion US dollars. , Now that the negotiation is progressing, the other party has proposed to allow us to invest 200 million US dollars and obtain additional shares, so that we can obtain 5.415 million shares of Netflix, accounting for 8% of the total equity after the investment."

This price can be accepted by William Chen, of course, provided that Netflix can still have the scale of development in his previous life. After all, William Chen knows that after his previous life, the market value of Netflix exceeded 200 billion US dollars. Compared with this, now The market value of 2.3 billion US dollars is simply the price of cabbage.

But now it seems that Netflix's development path is still very correct, and it is the success of content production that allows Netflix to develop later, and even become the only seventh largest after Hollywood's six.

Seeing the slight hesitation on Nelson's expression, William Chen asked, "This condition is acceptable, are there any other obstacles?"

"Yes, the main problem now is CEO Reed Hastings. In private contact, I feel that he still has doubts about our holding such a high proportion of shares."

Seeing William Chen's somewhat puzzled expression, Nielsen explained: "Reed Hastings was one of the co-founders of Netflix and was the first to hold 70% of the original shares, but after many rounds of financing and IPO listings , and after his successive reductions, he currently holds only more than 3 million shares, with a shareholding ratio of about 5%."

"Is it so little?" Chen William just found out about this. Before, he thought that companies like Penguin and Ali in his previous life, after the listing, the founder only held about 10% or less of the shares, which is already very low. Unexpectedly, the market value of Netflix is ​​now only 2.3 billion US dollars, and Reed Hastings, the founder and CEO, has only 5% of the shares.

"Yes." Nielsen continued: "And the most important thing is that Netflix is ​​not like those Internet companies in Silicon Valley. The stock is divided into AB shares, and the management's shares have higher voting rights; Netflix's shares are all Common stock, so Reed Hastings' stake is very dangerous, and he's definitely worried about losing his management of the company, so he's choosing investors very carefully."

"So what he is most worried about now is that after introducing our investment, the shares he can control will be diluted, and there is a danger of us taking control of the company?" William Chen took Nelson's words. , said.

"Yes, boss. The reason why our negotiations are stalled now is mainly because of his role in it," Nelson replied.

To be honest, he couldn't be sure of his boss's true thoughts in his heart. After all, in the previous companies, including the New York Observer and Twitter, William Chen either acquired them wholly, or owned a large proportion of the shares and had absolute control. right. Therefore, on the Netflix side, the idea of ​​directly kicking Reed Hastings and taking control of the company is not ruled out.

Seeing Nelson's expression, William Chen understood that he also misunderstood his own thoughts. For Netflix's investment, he does not necessarily seek control, but only hopes to have a certain influence on the company while enjoying the growth dividends of the company. Therefore, for William Chen, Reed Hastings S's concerns are still very easy to dispel.

"I'm very satisfied with the conditions you negotiated. As for Mr. Hastings' concerns, he can also be reassured. Well, make an appointment and I'll meet and discuss with him in person."

Hearing William Chen say this, Nielsen was overjoyed. If that was the case, then as long as Reed Hastings let go, there would be no resistance to this investment, so he hurriedly said that they would arrange a meeting immediately.

"What about other companies?"

"Other companies, Tesla and Marvel are currently talking, and they are very hopeful to invest, but Facebook CEO Zuckerberg directly rejected our proposal."

"Oh? Why?" Zuckerberg rejected him directly, but William Chen became somewhat interested in this.