Chapter 312

A restaurant on Venice Beach.

Bill Gates got off the plane from Los Angeles International Airport and arrived here directly. Near 12 o'clock, there were many guests in this famous restaurant, but Simon had not arrived yet.

Bill Gates is thinking about what to do next when he is led by the waiter to sit down at the predetermined position. He notices a couple coming in quietly laughing and talking. Looking up, he immediately recognized Hollywood star Richard Kiel and his supermodel girlfriend Cindy Crawford.

Richard Kiel has passed these years, but his girlfriend is as beautiful as in TV and newspaper.

Bill Gates can't help glancing at Cindy Crawford. Women are always sensitive to some gaze. Cindy Crawford feels Gates's gaze and turns to look at it. She notices that it's a man with black glasses who seems familiar, but she doesn't mean it. She just takes back her gaze.

Realizing that he was almost ignored, Bill Gates angrily withdrew his eyes and pretended to look around. No one in the restaurant seemed to care about a billion dollar tycoon sitting here.

Just as I was thinking about it, there was a commotion at the door of the restaurant.

Looking back, it turned out that Simon westero was coming. His bodyguard was blocking the reporter who wanted to come forward. The waiter noticed the movement and took the initiative to help the young man open the glass door.

Simon westero came in, and everyone in the restaurant was immediately attracted. Some of the guests obviously got up and seemed to want to say hello, but they just stayed where they were.

Bill Gates hesitated and took the initiative to stand up and take the first two steps.

Simon approached, warmly extended his hand to Bill Gates and said, "Hi, bill, good afternoon."

Bill Gates finally felt a little more gaze on his body, and his mood was a bit complicated. However, his face was smiling, he shook hands with Simon and said, "nice to see you again, Simon."

As they were about to sit down, Richard Kiel and Cindy Crawford, who had just entered the restaurant, came over and said hello to Simon with obvious ingratitude, which was quite different from the natural estranged star style when they entered the restaurant before.

"I seem to have read the outline of paramount's ia Archives Cindy, your performance in Gucci mark is really good. Maybe you can try to develop to Hollywood Oh, well, I'm kidding. Don't rely on me

After a few words of banter, Richard and Kiel returned to their seats.

Simon and gates also took their seats, watching the beautiful waitress put down her reserve and asked for her signature after Simon ordered. It was also obvious that she left a card. When gates remembered that he had borrowed his Boeing 767 from Westeros this time, he could not help accumulating more envy in his heart.

He has always been the focus of attention in the IT circle, but in front of this young man, in this city of fame and wealth, he can't get any attention at all.

Thinking about the situation that he wanted to visit the front cabin on the plane, but was refused by the stewardess because it was the private space of Westeros, gates secretly decided that he would have a car not inferior to this young man in the future.

Finally, after dinner, Bill Gates thought about it and said, "Simon, I saw igritte's World Wide Web Technology in San Francisco. I have to say that the development potential of this technology is really great."

Igritte's World Wide Web technology has closely linked Cisco, AOL, sun and other companies held by Westeros.

However, Simon doesn't have the idea of making igrit's graphical interface browser a built-in browser for Windows system for the time being. He plans to keep a low profile and let this technology develop for another year or two, fully mature and become a unique standard in the industry, and then carry out large-scale promotion.

Instead of taking Gates' topic, Simon just said with a smile, "I've tried the beta version of windows 3.0. Compared with previous versions, Microsoft's products have made great progress this time, and will definitely be further recognized by the market after its release next year."

Now that Simon brought the subject to this, Gates said, "so you're going to continue to buy shares in Microsoft?"

"Yes, you know, bill, I have a lot of money recently. Since I have a promising company, I must invest it as soon as possible."

Bill Gates can't help thinking of many reports during this period.

The young man in front of us may not be the richest man on the Forbes list, but he is probably the one with the most cash among all the world's billionaires. It's just that cersei capital, which has been shrouded in clouds, is said to have reached $8 billion in cash, half of which seems to belong to this young man.

Only the $4 billion in cash exceeds the wealth of most of the world's super rich.

With that in mind, Bill Gates said, "but Simon, I don't think you should keep buying. Westero company holds more than 10% of the shares of Microsoft. Because of the purchase of westero company, many institutions have begun to grasp the shares of Microsoft, and there are fewer and fewer scattered circulating shares in the market. As you know, the decrease of circulating shares will definitely have a strong inhibitory effect on the rise of stock price. I think Westeros has enough shares in Microsoft. You can consider buying shares in other companies. "Simon had previously roughly guessed that gates should be such an idea.

The decrease of the proportion of circulating shares in the secondary market and the decrease of trading activity of a company will indeed restrain the rise of the share price.

"However, I still want to buy more Microsoft shares," Simon said. He seemed to think about it, and then said, "bill, otherwise, I have made such a suggestion before. How about selling your Microsoft shares to me? I can buy them at 10% of the market price. You now have 45% of the shares, sold me 10%, you are still the largest shareholder of Microsoft. Moreover, I'm not interested in the control of Microsoft at all. As long as you can sell me some shares, I can also authorize you the voting right of Westeros holding Microsoft shares. Westeros is only a pure shareholder. "

Bill Gates couldn't help thinking of the Boeing 767 he was on when he came to Los Angeles.

Although he quickly entered the Forbes rich list after Microsoft's listing, he also ranked the top of Forbes North American rich list this year with a fortune of US $1.5 billion. However, because his assets are basically Microsoft stocks, his living standard is not as high as that of a billion level billionaire.

For example, he doesn't even have a private plane right now.

Compared with the young people in front of us, it's even worse.

In fact, when we first met, the young man proposed to him to buy Microsoft shares directly from him. Because he thought that there was still a lot of room for the share price of Microsoft to rise, he did not hesitate to refuse.

Now, it seems good to sell some stocks and improve your life.

If you sell a share by yourself, you can get the voting rights of all the shares held by Westeros company. In this way, you will not lose the control of the company, and may even realize the absolute control of the company.

However, selling 10% at one time is definitely not feasible.

Westero is optimistic about windows 3.0, so is gates.

Microsoft's market value has been maintained at around $3 billion this year, but Gates believes that after the operating system goes public next year, the company's share price will definitely soar again.

"Simon, 10% is too much," Bill Gates said after thinking about it, "and if you want to buy it, you have to pay the market price. I won't sell it at a discount."

Obviously, his previous arrangement should have worked.

Simon didn't show any joy. He patiently said, "bill, just think about it. If you sell me 10%, you can get 20% of the voting rights of Westeros, which will give you complete control of the company."

"Up to 5%," Bill Gates said, ignoring Simon's bewitching. "But I can talk to Alan. Maybe he has the idea of selling shares, too."

With the current market value of Microsoft, gates can cash out more than 150 million US dollars by selling 5% of the shares.

This time, the money is still very affordable. After all, the price of the latest Gulfstream is only more than $10 million. In addition, with this fund, we can make some other investments.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen have held a total of 70% stake in Microsoft in recent years.

At the beginning, Bill Gates tried every means to reduce the shareholding ratio of his partner in order to firmly control Microsoft. I didn't expect that Gates still didn't "forget" the other side of the sale.

Simon naturally would not express any objection, saying: "in this case, I can also contact Allen."

After all, Bill Gates felt some excitement from Simon's tone, and subconsciously added: "Simon, I can sell you some shares, but you must permanently authorize me the voting right of Westeros."

"It's impossible, bill. You will definitely continue to reduce your Microsoft stock in the future. You can't sell your stock almost and keep voting rights of Westeros. However, I really don't want to fight for the control of Microsoft. You are the most suitable operator of this company. Therefore, the authorization period of westero company is ten years. Of course, in this process, I may also reduce my holding of Microsoft's stock appropriately. In this regard, westero still has its own freedom. Within ten years, no matter how much of westero's remaining holdings, the voting rights of these shares will be yours. "

Bill Gates nodded slightly and said, "what about ten years later?"

Simon shrugged and said, "ten years is a long time, bill. Ten years from now, who knows?"

"Well," Bill Gates nodded, and finally said, "besides, you have to stop taking Microsoft shares from the open market."

"No problem."

They were chatting, and the waiter quickly brought up the lunch.

Bill Gates got 5% of the shares. Simon felt that Paul Allen's transfer of another 5% of Microsoft shares to himself would not be a big problem.

In fact, Simon only hopes to get another 5% stake this time, so that he can increase his stake in Microsoft to the planned 15%. Now, westero's stake in Microsoft is likely to increase to 20%. If you think about the value-added potential of Microsoft in the future, this business will be profitable.However, Simon could not help thinking about the problem of funds.

Originally, the increase of holdings in Microsoft and Intel was a plan that lasted for several months, and funds could be raised while absorbing.

Westero has made a lot of moves recently. If it wants to get 10% of Microsoft's shares at one time, it will need more than 300 million dollars in cash.

Without cersei capital, Simon would have to borrow from the bank again. Fortunately, up to now, he has paid off the principal and interest of each bank for more than 200 million US dollars, and the amount of liabilities has decreased from 900 million US dollars at the beginning of the year to more than 700 million US dollars now. At this time, he has added another 300 million US dollars of liabilities, and the total amount of liabilities is still 1 billion US dollars.

They had lunch happily. In order to help Damen strengthen his confidence in selling stocks, Simon generously borrowed his Boeing 767 to send gates back to Seattle.

The next day is still a busy work.

Denise Entertainment's series of key projects next year are at all stages of production, and the plans for those 10 films are steadily advancing.

Considering that the Los Angeles Premiere of Batman is coming soon, Simon doesn't leave the United States at all. He just makes an appointment with Janet to fly to Australia to spend Christmas with his family after the premiere.

At Microsoft, two days after Bill Gates left, the news came. Paul Allen also agreed to sell 5% of Microsoft shares to Westeros. Simon directly told James Leibold to put down all the things in his hand and take charge of this matter directly to ensure the smooth purchase.

The news soon came out.

Compared with Intel, which has exceeded the market value of 6 billion at this time, the increase of Microsoft's stock in recent year has not been too high, and its market value has always been maintained at around 3 billion US dollars. After the small crash in October, there was a big setback.

Now, with the spread of the news that Westeros has increased its 10% stake in Microsoft, the company's share price immediately soared.

Fortunately, the two sides have agreed on the price in advance. Bill Gates and Paul Allen did not sit down because of the rise of the stock price. It is very difficult for Simon to trade such a large stock transaction according to the market price.

At the same time, the company also quickly discussed a new $300 million loan plan with Citibank.

Considering the risk factors, it is generally difficult for other companies to get money from the bank if they want to buy stocks through loans.

For westero, that's not a problem at all.

Now, no one will doubt the repayment ability of Westeros. We all know that if cersei capital's funds were not transferred back to China, it would involve high tax costs, and Westeros would not need a loan at all.

Relying on cersei's capital, westero's loan has almost no risk.