Video Game Empire - Chapter 678
For commercial banks, the most important asset is deposits. For investment banks, the most important asset is people! The ability and connections of partners determine the rise and fall of an investment bank!
Take Peter Peterson, the former chairman and chief executive of Lehman Brothers, who took over in 1973 when Lehman was on the brink of bankruptcy after betting on interest rates and suffering huge losses. As a result, under his leadership, Lehman Brothers achieved record profits for the next five years, jumping back to the fourth largest investment bank in the United States at the time, after Salomon Brothers, Goldman Sachs and First Boston.
However, in the late 1970s, the Lehman company was at its peak. After entering the 1980s, it fell into a low point again due to internal factional struggles, and was finally acquired by American Express in 1984. As a loser in the struggle, Peterson resigned from Lehman and turned around to found Blackstone.
The name Blackstone is equally familiar to many laymen who do not engage in finance. Before Li Xuan’s rebirth, it was already one of the largest asset management companies in the world, with total assets under management exceeding US$600 billion, which is higher than the GDP of most countries in the world.
In contrast, Hilson-Lehman is not small, but it is big but not strong. It even recorded a loss of US$110 million in the last fiscal year, which dragged down the overall performance of parent company Express. This is also the fundamental reason why the new CEO of Amex immediately wanted to sell the investment banking department after he took office.
In 1981, American Express spent 930 million US dollars to acquire Hillson, 360 million US dollars to acquire Lehman in 1984, 720 million US dollars to acquire ids, and 8-9 years to acquire ef Hutton. $1 billion, while other scattered small mergers and acquisitions during this period cost almost $500 million. That is to say, in the past ten years, the total investment of American Express for mergers and acquisitions is at least 3.5 billion US dollars.
And Li Xuan’s previous offer for the overall acquisition of the investment banking department of Amex was also US$3.5 billion. At first glance, Amex seems to have no loss, but if inflation and time costs are included, Amex’s diversified expansion over the past ten years is undoubtedly a great deal. Bad deal.
A thriving company is not necessarily because of how good the management is, but when a company is in trouble, there must be something wrong with the management. For Amex, the failure of diversification over the past decade is largely to blame for the success of its predecessor, CEO James Robinson. The performance of its investment banking department, Hilson Lehman, has not improved because of the incompetence of its head Peter Cohen.
When Express acquired Hillson, the second-largest securities brokerage in the United States, Hillson’s CEO Will was a powerful figure. So Robinson used a single move, promoted him to be the vice president of Express, and selected Peter Cohen, who was only 36 years old, as the new head of the Hillson Company.
Peter Cohen’s greatest asset to Robinson may be being obedient. Therefore, although American Express later acquired companies such as ids, Lehman, and ef Hutton, Peter Cohen’s status has not been shaken. The result was the newly formed Hilson-Lehman Company, which had been poorly integrated internally. In addition, the external environment has not been good in the past few years, and it is normal for new companies to suffer huge losses due to internal and external troubles.
After Li Xuan acquired Hillson-Lehman, he also had to face the problem of how to manage this huge investment bank well.
Li Xuan manages the Oriental Group, and he has always followed the principle of handing over professional affairs to professional people! He is undoubtedly a layman for Wall Street, and he needs to find an internal elite to help him sort out the internal contradictions of Hilson-Lehman Company and integrate all the financial industries under the name of him and the Oriental Group.
“Mr. Peterson, Mr. Schwarzman, the lh fund was originally Mr. Li Xuan, a private investment fund used for personal wealth management. At that time, the electronics industry in Hong Kong and surrounding areas was not as developed as it is now, so in order to promote For the development of the upstream and downstream supporting industry chain of Dongfang Group, lh fund specially allocates a part of the assets for early venture investment in the electronics industry!
With the large-scale transfer of the production of consumer electronic products such as home appliances, computers, and electronic game consoles to Asia, lh fund has achieved a very good return on capital in the venture capital investment in the Asian electronics field in recent years. This has also given the brand of ‘lh’ fund a certain reputation among the global venture capital peers!
In addition to venture capital, lh Fund currently includes two specialized private equity investment funds, a mutual fund with Hong Kong stocks as its main investment target, and a hedge fund! The total scale of assets under management of lh fund has exceeded 70 billion Hong Kong dollars. Our funds mainly come from Southeast Asia, Taiwan-Taiwan and Hong Kong local capital! ” Zhuang Yuhai, the CEO of LH Fund, spoke eloquently to the two blond white people around him.
In fact, Zhuang Yuhai also came from Wall Street. Before returning to Hong Kong to join the lh fund, he was a senior partner of the famous American investment bank Salomon Brothers. However, compared with Peterson, who was already the chairman and CEO of Lehman Corporation fifteen years ago, he is still one level behind.
Of course, if we only talk about the current asset size of the lh fund, Zhuang Yuhai is already on an equal footing with Peterson’s Blackstone.
That’s right, the candidate for the new head of Hilson-Lehman that Li Xuan was looking for was Peter Peterson, the original CEO of Lehman Brothers. In another time and space, Blackstone’s performance is enough to prove that Peterson is a truly capable figure.
It’s just that Peterson’s own Blackstone company is developing well, and he may not be willing to take over the mess of Hillson-Lehman~www.mtlnovel.com~ So Li Xuan’s plan is to simply buy his Blackstone company. to show their sincerity.
Of course, it is impossible for Li Xuan to tell the other party that I want to acquire your company as soon as he comes up. This is not an expression of sincerity but a naked slap in the face. Therefore, Li Xuan, in the name of the lh fund, sent an invitation to the management of Blackstone, and asked the other party to come to Hong Kong to discuss matters related to in-depth cooperation.
In fact, after the development of the lh fund in recent years, it has not only gained a reputation in the field of venture capital, but has grown into one of the most well-known asset management companies in Asia. In terms of ability alone, the level of Zhuang Yuhai’s performance may not necessarily prevent him from serving as the leader of Hillson-Lehman.
But after all, he has been away from Wall Street for many years, and it is difficult to control the situation immediately after being parachuted back. Instead, it may cause greater turmoil within Hilson-Lehman! In contrast, Pete Peterson is not only one of the most senior and top management talents on Wall Street, but also has worked for Lehman Brothers for many years. He has a certain network foundation and can quickly stabilize the situation. 2k reading net
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