American Fortune Life

The crisis that Starbucks has suffered this time is very serious. As early as 2006, Starbucks, which was undergoing rapid development, announced a massive expansion plan.

In the next 3 to 5 years, Starbucks intends to open about 15,000 stores in the United States and overseas markets. The ultimate goal of Starbucks is to open 25,000 chain stores around the world, just like McDonald's, which has nearly 30,000 branches around the world, so that Starbucks' stores are everywhere.

This crazy expansion strategy has been well implemented. In the past 10 years, Starbucks stores expanded from 1,000 to 13,000. A prominent example is that Starbucks has more than 1,400 stores in California, but it is still opening 5 new stores every day.

The expansion eventually hit Starbucks hard. In 2007, Starbucks' performance in the United States fell sharply by 50%. In January of this year, as the founder of Starbucks, Schultz had to go out to fight the fire again, as the company's chairman and CEO, to deal with the operating pressure brought about by the crazy expansion, and announced the closure of 100 stores on the spot.

And had to announce to the public that it will continue to close 600 branches in the United States, and plans to lay off 12,000 employees in the next 9 months. . .

Since the financial tsunami last year, Starbucks has been confronted with internal and external troubles, and its stock price has dropped from 40 dollars in 2006 to 19.8 dollars.

However, Schultz, who returned to Starbucks, was using crazy shock therapy to reform the company. Regardless of the loss of turnover, he asked Starbucks across the United States to suspend business for three hours and retrain employees on how to make good coffee.

Andy admitted that Howard Schultz did have courage and the ability to save Starbucks. After all, Starbucks almost occupied the world later, which means that the other party's reform tactics are very feasible.

But for a listed company, these bewildering behaviors that lead to profit losses are undoubtedly tantamount to suicide. All kinds of strangeness.

There is only one chance. If you miss it, Andy wants to grab Starbucks again, and you need an astronomical purchase price to do it. Now, hehe, the market value is less than 7 billion US dollars, as long as you control 10% If the shares exceed 50%, Andy can completely own the global coffee chain, survive the economic crisis, and bring Andy more than 2 billion yuan every year. profit in dollars. . . . . .

In the bedroom, Ivana clung tightly to Andy's arms, stroking Andy's abdominal muscles with her small hands, and asked softly, "Are you really planning to launch a hostile takeover of Starbucks?"

"If you don't take what God gives, you will suffer!"

"?" Ivana pouted,

Xiumei frowned and raised her head to look at Andy with question marks all over her face, speaking again from heaven.

"It means that if you don't want what God gave you, you will suffer in reverse... Go to sleep, this requires a good plan, this is a time-consuming offensive and defensive battle..."

. . . . . .

"First of all, we must continue to suppress their stock prices and use media public opinion to create panic about Starbucks' operations and profitability..."

In the Gaia conference room the next day, a 10-person Starbucks team began explaining their plan to Andy.

"Food safety issues! Whether it's the cow milk containing the artificial growth hormone rBGH that happened before, or the expired fruit juice problem that happened in the rabbit country, they can be used or even concocted..."

Andy was a little hesitant about this proposal. He didn't want to smash the signboard of Starbucks. If it really messed up, he would be really depressed. He shook his head slightly.

Seeing that the boss was dissatisfied with this idea, the person who spoke just now immediately crossed out this item, and then said: "Starbucks has laid off employees too much, and there will definitely be a lot of violations of the fair employment law. We just need to find these people. , Let them accuse Starbucks and bring in the US Labor Relations Board to initiate a lawsuit against it...

At the same time, according to data, Starbucks’ nine-year turnover in the UK reached 2 billion pounds, but the cumulative corporate income tax paid was only 5.6 million pounds. Last year, Starbucks’ turnover in the UK was 298 million pounds, but it announced a loss of 32.9 million pounds. pay any taxes.

According to our analysis and data, Starbucks has adopted a series of complex methods to evade paying taxes, including collecting patent and copyright fees, providing high-interest loans to the UK branch and using the company's supply chain to shift profits, like magic tricks They seem to make the profits they generate in the UK disappear without a trace, cleverly avoiding taxes.

Although tax avoidance is legal, and the British tax department can't say anything, but Starbucks' move will definitely be taken away by the current global financial tsunami, the sharp increase in unemployment, the economic downturn, and the decline in consumption levels. Arousing the anger of the British public, the stock price is bound to plummet again. . . "

The corner of Andy's mouth twitched, he looked around with a strange expression, and complained in his heart, these guys are really poisonous and jerk enough, what kind of tricks can they come up with.

"There is also the issue of instant coffee, boss, we need to use the media's public opinion to attack Howard Schultz's personal prestige and Starbucks' brand value.

The aggressive attack on the instant coffee market led by Schultz contradicts the idea of ​​reshaping the brand value that he has been preaching since his return.

You must know that in the traditional concept, instant coffee has nothing to do with superior quality. Instant coffee has always been dismissed by those coffee lovers, even Starbucks, which regards coffee quality and consumption experience as its life.

It is precisely because Starbucks has created coffee as a unique cultural and spatial experience, which is significantly different from the mass products of food giants, that it is widely loved by people and its value has skyrocketed. Great impact! "

Andy opened his mouth a little dumbfounded, but in the end he didn't say anything, he smiled wryly as his head started to ache, Nima, are you trying to suppress the stock price of Starbucks, or are you trying to kill Starbucks all at once?

Seemingly seeing his entanglement and worry, Alvetrie, who had been sitting on the sidelines and listening silently, waved his hand, interrupted the continuation of his subordinates, and said to Andy: "Boss, you don't need to worry about us. These crises created for Starbucks, because they will find ways to deal with and carry out public relations, offsetting the impact, we are hostile takeovers, all the goals are to smash their stock prices to the lowest, and then they can use 50% higher than the market price Acquisition of shares at double the price.

Boss, Starbucks has 6,000 shareholders. It would be a nightmare if we came to buy them one by one. What we need is to force them to have no choice but to sell to us.

If we want to spend less money, we need to create panic in the market. First cut off half of the 6,000 shareholders and let them sell them in the secondary market. After we absorb enough chips, we will directly and publicly announce a hostile takeover!

Taking a step back, even if our acquisition fails, the value of the stock in our hands will skyrocket due to the acquisition. I have never understood that no one has sold such scattered shares. The acquisition has a new judicial interpretation and restrictions, but this huge number of shareholders is really easy to break through! "

Hearing Al's question, Andy shook his head slightly and said: "Before Starbucks' aggressive expansion, if you were an investor, you would choose to sell a company that is almost a dominant company and sees it constantly grabbing market share. Shares? No way, people are always looking for profit. The speed of development and future prospects have made these people very united. Now, they can't sit still!

So be it, make the plan more detailed and detailed, and then start implementing it. . . By the way, this project is called the Black Knight! "

Andy stood up, propped his hands on the conference table, leaned forward, looked around the faces of everyone with neither happy nor sad expression, then slowly straightened his body, and said in a clear voice.