Chapter 677： To be the catcher?

I didn't expect to meet in the hotel suite, and I didn't give a warm hug as soon as I met. Yang Cheng suddenly felt a little uncomfortable. Is this still the familiar Paris?

As soon as I got off the bus, the waiter arranged by Paris took him to the cafe inside the hotel. Not only was Paris Hilton waiting for him, but also a few people who were familiar but could not be named.

Stepping forward to greet Paris and accepting her hug and face-to-face ceremony, it was time to look at these people who stood up to greet him and looked extraordinary aura.

Realizing that today's meeting might not be easy, Yang Orange secretly woke up.

With a relaxed smile, he looked at Paris Hilton, the expression in his eyes was very obvious, "What the **** are you doing?"

Paris Hilton didn't say it clearly, but after returning a "knowledge in a moment" look, he put on a standard formula smile and introduced, "Everyone, I don't need to introduce Jason's name, right?"

One of them, a middle-aged man with a friendly smile, black hair, black eyes and white skin, answered, "Naturally needn't be introduced. Now in Manhattan, Jason is famous."

Yang Cheng smiled back and waited for Paris’s introduction, “Jason, this is Mr. Jon Gray, the global real estate leader of the Blackstone Group and the chairman of the Hilton Group’s board of directors.”

Obediently, she is indeed a big man, Yang Cheng exclaimed childishly in her heart.

Of course, he was still unmoved on the surface, but his smile became more enthusiastic, and he took the initiative to extend his hand and said, "The great hero of the Hilton Group is finally fortunate to see it today."

Jon Gray smiled undiminished, and shook Yang Cheng's big hand, "I'm so rewarding Jason."

Who says foreigners are not polite? This is not just the right way to be humble.

Immediately afterwards, Paris pointed his words to the one on Jon Gray's right, "Christopher Nasseta, President and CEO of Hilton Group."

Yang Orange's pupils shrank sharply. Before he waited for his greetings, Paris gestured to the person on Gray's left and finished the introduction in one breath, "This is Mr. Hamilton James, the president of Blackstone Group."

Yang Cheng secretly took a breath, good fellow, a big man, these few people gathered here are definitely going to do something.

Greetings to the two of them one by one, the five people sat down around a round coffee table and signaled to the waiter to serve Yang Cheng a cup of coffee. Paris Hilton, who was the presenter, started to shed some light, "Jason, call you over this time. There is a business that I want to talk to you. The Blackstone Group wants to sell a share of about 25% of Hilton Group’s total equity."

After speaking, Paris leaned into Yang Cheng's ear and whispered, "They hope you can take it down."

After holding down such a sentence, she stopped speaking, as if the scene had never happened before, sipping coffee to herself.

Yang Cheng cursed secretly in her heart, "Sao Langhoo, I want Xiaoye to be the catcher, should I give some reason?"

However, on the surface, he was curious and surprised to look at Hamilton James, the leader of the world’s top consortium. To some extent, his rank is slightly higher than that of Citibank CEO McCobert. One chip.

"Mr. James, if I remember correctly, the Blackstone Group completed the best private equity operation case in the history of Hilton Group. Now is the time to reap the fruits. Why sell it?" Strong questioning asked Hamilton James.

However, Yang Cheng is not exaggerating. The leveraged buyout jointly completed by Blackstone and Hilton is enough to be called the most profitable transaction in history and is also a typical case of successful private equity operations. By persuading its creditors to delay the debt repayment period, before they have to take action In terms of restructuring debt and implementing good management, instead of blindly cutting costs and laying off employees, Blackstone has improved Hilton's performance, which was once beyond the cognition of many people.

These few people in front of us are all witnesses and traders of this successful case. As early as 2006, the Blackstone Group began to "pursue" the Hilton Group on the advice of Jon Gray, and internally named the transaction "Project Murphy" (Murphy Project, the name comes from the movie Beverly Hills Detective starring by comedian Eddie Murphy in 1984, when Hilton was headquartered in Foshan.

In June 2007, the Blackstone Group finally acquired Hilton with a record $26.7 billion leveraged, and quickly privatized it and delisted it. The Blackstone Group, together with its real estate, private equity funds and some co-investors contributed $6.5 billion, and the rest More than 20 billion US dollars are provided by many investment banks on Wall Street, with a leverage ratio of 80%.

As the planner of the whole plan, the core of Jon Gray's plan is to dig Christopher Nasetta, who believes that Nasetta is the key to bringing Hilton back to life.

At Hilton, Gray and Nasetta started working well, but the good times didn't last long. When the world financial crisis hit in 2008, due to the outbreak of the financial tsunami and the economy fell into recession, Blackstone and its partners seemed to feel that the price they paid was too high. , Used too much debt, and chose the worst time to complete the transaction.

Some partners, including the famous Lehman Brothers, are almost out of existence. After the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the tourism industry has severely declined, and Hilton’s performance has also declined. Global sales have fallen by 20%, and cash flow has fallen by about 30%. For a moment, it seemed that Nasetta's wish to revitalize Hilton's glory would never be put into practice.

To make matters worse, its competitor Starwood Hotels and Resorts International Group sued Hilton in federal court, accusing Hilton employees of stealing Starwood’s successful "W Hotel Affiliate Program." Yang Cheng, who was still studying at the time, was very impressed with this incident. Deeply, because Wall Street is about to turn the sky, Starwood called this "obvious corporate espionage, theft of trade secrets, unfair competition and computer fraud." The US Department of Justice agreed and began investigating Starwood's allegations.

However, with the support of Hamilton James, the two finally persevered. As the financial crisis gradually faded away, and the "buyit, fixit, sellit" adopted by Jon Gray and Christopher Nasetta (buyit, fixit, sell) "Sell strategy has brought a new look to Hilton (this strategy has also been incorporated into the textbooks of many business schools as a classic teaching case).

Relying on years of rich management experience in the hotel industry, Christopher Nasetta implemented a series of innovation plans as soon as he took office, including relocating the headquarters from Beverly Hills, California to Virginia, replacing senior management staff, and significantly reducing operating costs.

The Blackstone Group also increased its investment in Hilton and restructured its debt. In December 2013, Hilton was listed in the United States, becoming the largest IPO in the global hotel industry at that time. After the successful listing, the Blackstone Group, Hilton’s largest shareholder, also became The biggest winner, at this time, Hilton's market value has more than doubled.

After the reorganization and listing, the Blackstone Group boldly promoted Hilton's franchise strategy, which allowed Hilton to make hotels with the Hilton brand blossom everywhere with very little investment.

Under the management of the Blackstone Group, the number of hotel rooms in the Hilton system has almost doubled to 900,000, and there are 350,000 rooms under planning. Hilton has also launched a new brand to attract more ages and different Class of customers.

In addition, Hilton also increased its revenue through some lucrative real estate transactions. In 2014, Hilton transferred its iconic hotel, the building ownership of the Waldorf Astoria New York, to the State Insurance Group for US$1.95 billion. Hilton is also trying to create more value for shareholders by spinning off the real estate sector it owns. This measure directly raises Hilton's stock price.

Shortly after Hilton went public, the Blackstone Group, which integrated and handled the hotel business, also began to reduce its holdings to recover investment costs.

Since 2014, the Blackstone Group has gradually liquidated its Hilton stocks through multiple transactions, and each transaction represents a large amount of money.

The Blackstone Group and its investors are not the only ones who have benefited from Hilton’s turnaround. The hero Christopher Nasetta also acquired Hilton stocks worth about $250 million. Of course, as CEO, he is temporarily unable to sell shares.

Of course, this is the opinion of the outside world. At this time, Yang Cheng, who is in the center of an "era", can’t look at it like thisThe Blackstone Group is ready to cash out and run away. What reason does Nasetta have to stay? Holding shares? Unless he can gain the trust of the new board of directors and continue to serve as the CEO of Hilton Group.

I quickly extracted relevant information in my mind, and stared at Hamilton James with great gaze, to see what he could say.

However, Yang Cheng was disappointed. Hamilton James never concealed his truth*, spreading his hands and said sincerely, "At that time, it was to make money. The purpose of the Blackstone Group's existence was to benefit our investors and shareholders. We have reaped multiple profits from Hilton, and it is time to retreat and give it to the next owner who is willing to hold it for a long time and is willing to work hard for Hilton."

Yang Cheng squinted his eyes. He did not expect Hamilton James to dare to tell the truth, because in the face of his potential acquirer, it is normal for him to exaggerate Hilton and portray a bright future. James However, he did the opposite, and he deserves to be the captain of the Blackstone Group.

I gave Hamilton James a thumbs up, but he sneered, "Based on the current stock price of Hilton, 25% of the shares are worth more than 6 billion U.S. dollars. Why do you think that I am willing to spend such a sky-high acquisition price? Become a puppet launched by the Blackstone Group?

You also said that the potential of the Hilton Group has almost been squeezed out by the Blackstone Group. I have to rely on Hilton Group’s profit and dividends to recover my investment. I am afraid I have to wait until I retire. Do you think I have this patience?

Don't tell me about Hilton's brand value. This brand can never belong to anyone outside the Hilton family, including me and you, the Blackstone Group! Https://)

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