My 1999

"Bill, I'm from China. You know, for me, even if the other party wants to sell relatively well-run companies like Micron, Samsung, and Elpida, I can't get them."

Old Gates nodded clearly.

"Xu, you can change your nationality. I believe Mr. President will approve it as soon as possible."

Xu Liang shook his head, "Bush Jr. said the same thing when he was in the White House, but I still refused."

"Why?"

"China, which has just reformed, has more opportunities than the United States, which has been developing for three hundred years."

Old Gates was a smart man and understood what he meant instantly.

"Xu, your vision is farther than I thought."

Xu Liang smiled and did not continue the topic.

"Xu, I heard that Pacific No. 1 Fund will be raising funds again soon?"

"We have decided to officially raise funds from the outside world on November 15."

Old Gates did the math and found that there was still half a month left.

“How much money are you planning to raise?”

"Around US$15 billion, not more than US$20 billion."

After the soybean war and until the subprime crisis, he couldn't remember a better investment opportunity. However, some companies have great investment value, but it takes time to realize them.

Therefore, the blockade period of Pacific No. 1 Fund will be longer in the future.

Considering that too much money will reduce flexibility, we want to reduce returns.

Xu Liang also doesn’t want to make Pacific No. 1 Fund too big.

With 15 billion US dollars or 20 billion US dollars, three times the leverage can leverage 50 to 60 billion US dollars, which is huge enough for a hedge fund.

Old Gates nodded. Hedge funds will basically not get too big.

15 billion or even 20 billion for Pacific No. 1 Fund is already huge.

"Xu, it's so big all at once. It seems that you have already thought about the investment direction?"

"It can't be that fast."

After replying, Xu Liang stopped decisively.

According to George W. Bush, it was mainly because he wanted something from the other party. Gates Sr. obviously did not receive such treatment.

Old Gates is a smart man, so he didn't force anything.

The two chatted for a while, and after sharing lunch, Xu Liang was ready to leave.

"Xu, we are friends and partners. Out of the obligations of friends and the interests of partners, there are some things I think you should know."

After finishing speaking, in Xu Liang's questioning eyes, Old Gates handed over a document bag.

"You can look at it after you go back."

Suppressing the doubts in his heart, Xu Liang smiled and stretched out his right hand.

"Bill, I'll take my leave now."

"I send you."

Xu Liang left Gates Manor with Old Gates personally seeing him off.

Back in the car, Xu Liang couldn't wait to open the document in his hand. He wanted to see what the old guy was up to.

After briefly reading a few lines of words, his expression suddenly became serious.

Soon, there was a hint of anger in his eyes.

After reading the information, Xu Liang couldn't help but read it again.

“Cancel your plans to visit Amazon and fly to Silicon Valley immediately.”

Lu Hui quickly agreed.

——

"Sir, Mr. Xu's Kunpeng left your private airport half an hour ago."

Gates Sr. smiled and put down the coffee in his hand.

"Do you know where he went?"

"It's not clear yet." The old housekeeper replied.

Old Gates waved his hand, and the butler bowed and saluted, then turned and left.

Gudu….

After taking a comfortable sip of coffee, Old Gates looked out the window at the beautiful Lake Washington and said to himself.

"There's something good to watch this time."

——

Xu Liang owns a Xu Manor in Atherton, Silicon Valley, covering an area of ​​5.5 acres and a main building area of ​​4,415 square meters.

He lived here for half a year last year.

Now when I come back, everything is still the same.

After a night's rest, Xu Liang arrived at Hongmeng North America Headquarters, No. 1148, Palo Alto, the next day.

Lu Xiaobo led the company's senior management to hold a simple welcome ceremony.

Xu Liang didn't say anything and had a brief meeting with the company's senior management.

He took Lu Xiaobo into the office.

Holding Hongmeng North America's third quarter report in his hand, a satisfied smile appeared on his face.

"Warcraft 3" has lived up to his expectations. From its launch in July to now, in just three months, the disc sales have exceeded 10 million copies.

It is the game with the fastest sales volume exceeding 10 million copies among all games in the world.

This alone created an astonishing market of US$800 million and brought back nearly US$700 million in net revenue and US$400 million in gross profit to Hongmeng North America.

This data is higher than that of ordinary game companies.

After acquiring Vivendi Games, Hongmeng North America has its own distribution channels, so it saves a lot of money on distribution.

"Warcraft 3" is a relatively mature IP and has high market expectations.

If the seller's market dominates, it will naturally have more advantages in sharing.

The most typical examples are The Ninth City and Blizzard in history.

Ninetowns successfully won the agency rights of "World of Warcraft". Blizzard agreed and put forward a series of quite harsh agency conditions.

For example, there must be an independent telecommunications-level computer room, and the server can only operate "World of Warcraft". The server capacity must also support 10,000 people online at the same time. Agents are not allowed to make changes to the game itself, etc.

Not to mention this condition back then, even now, it is still too harsh.

At that time, most domestic game companies basically did not have independent computer rooms, let alone personal servers.

Basically they all rent from each other.

If you want to be an agent for "World of Warcraft", it means you have to spend a lot of money to buy a server, and you also have to pay an agency fee of tens of millions of dollars every year.

You can do a simple calculation: the agency fee of 10 million plus the cost of an independent computer room and server, and finally a 15% profit share.

Not even half of the money you make actually goes into your pocket.

At this time, if you represent Korean online games, you can basically get 80% of the profits.

Even so, "World of Warcraft" is still a rare big cake in the eyes of domestic game manufacturers.

In the first competition, 25 online game companies participated.

Most of them were eliminated in the second round, leaving only 8 companies.

In the third round, only four companies were left to compete. In the end, Zhu Jun won the four-year agency rights for "World of Warcraft" at the cost of US$13 million, 22% profit sharing, and US$70 million in independent computer room construction fees.

If you include the early promotion costs of the game, Ninetowns spent nearly 100 million US dollars on a "World of Warcraft".

This was US$100 million in 2004.

According to the exchange rate at that time, it was equivalent to more than 800 million Chinese coins.

In Pudong, the most prosperous city in Shanghai, this money can fully build a 5A-level high-end office building with an area of ​​15 square meters.

Alibaba can acquire more than 90% of the country's Internet companies, including Jack Ma's Alibaba.

This shows how much advantage popular IP can have during negotiations.

Of course, Ninetowns' gamble did not fail.

During the period from 2004 to 2009, "World of Warcraft" was a great success. The9's annual revenue was almost more than 2 billion, leaving Shanda, NetEase, and Penguin far behind.

Now this big cake falls perfectly into Xu Liang's hands.

Revenue from game disc sales is only part of the equation.

What is more profitable is the income from peripheral copyrights, including film and television copyrights.

Xu Liang still clearly remembers the sensation that the movie "Warcraft" caused in China when it was released. The crappy plot was able to earn nearly 1.5 billion Chinese dollars at the box office by selling emotions.

As long as the director and screenwriter can work hard, it won't be like that in North America.

Thinking of the movie, Xu Liang's eyes changed.

"Hasn't the MGM contract been signed yet?"

"not yet."

Lu Xiaobo shook his head.

"What's going on? Didn't you say it was settled last time?"

"It was originally negotiated, but when the contract was signed, Kirk Kerkorian suddenly changed his mind and felt that the contract price was not in line with MGM's value, so he postponed the signing."

"When did this happen? Why didn't you notify me?" Xu Liang frowned.

"I only got the news yesterday afternoon. Considering that you were tired from the journey, I didn't notify you in time."

After looking at him, Xu Liang nodded slightly.

"What's the opinion from Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan?"

"They feel that they should give Kirk Kerkorian a break, otherwise it will be easy for the other party to take advantage and raise the price without limit, causing us to suffer huge losses." Lu Xiaobo said.

Taken together, Xu Liang has been in business for many years.

It is very clear that the current situation should be slow rather than urgent.

"What on earth made Kirk Kerkorian change his mind?"

There must be a reason for a person's sudden change.

"There are two speculations at the moment.

First, Kirk Kerkorian had already made up his mind to go back on his word, in order to test our bottom line and gain greater benefits for himself.

Second, other consortiums have joined the competition.

As for the specific reason, Goldman Sachs is still investigating, and there is currently no accurate information. "

Xu Liang stood up, walked around the office, stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, and pondered for a while.

"What do you think the reason is?"