My Age of Investment

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The next day.

Blankfein accompanied Xia Jingxing to the AIG Building and met with Edward Liddy, who had just taken over as CEO, and the seller's consultant, Schwarzman Schwarzman.

When Li Di saw Xia Jingxing, he felt closer than meeting a relative.

He shook hands with Xia Jingxing enthusiastically and said: "Darren, it's nice to meet you. People say you are a once-in-a-century genius on Wall Street. AIG and I are very happy to cooperate with outstanding talents like you."

Xia Jingxing looked at the white-haired old man in front of him with a smile. The reason why he succeeded in becoming the CEO of AIG was not only because he was a well-known "bone dismantling" expert in the industry and was proficient in splitting and selling off assets, but also because of his wealth. Paulson and he are old friends and colleagues.

Before Paulson became Treasury Secretary, he served as CEO of Goldman Sachs, and Li Di was a director of Goldman Sachs.

After Paulson became Treasury Secretary, Liddy continued to serve as a director of Goldman Sachs and also served as president of Allstate, the largest listed auto insurance company in the United States.

The old man had officially retired in 2007, but a few months ago a crisis broke out at AIG, and Paulson invited the old man out again, hoping that he would lead AIG out of the quagmire with his rich industry experience.

The first thing Li Di did when he took office was to allocate US$20 billion of the US$85 billion in initial bailouts received from the government and return it to Goldman Sachs. .

Goldman Sachs was the first of many AIG debtors to receive money.

The decision to rescue AIG was driven by Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Xia Jingxing was the first to not believe it if there was no PY transaction.

It was precisely because he knew that Li Di and Goldman Sachs were in the same trousers that Xia Jingxing delegated the work of acquisition consultant to Goldman Sachs.

However, there is also a hidden danger here, that is, Goldman Sachs and AIG can easily collude to kill Vision Capital.

Therefore, Xia Jingxing and Blankfein had another negotiation yesterday and revised the terms of the acquisition consultancy they had signed previously.

No, driven by Qian's ability, Blankfein immediately brought Xia Jingxing to see the rightful owner.

Xia Jingxing chatted with Li Di for a few words, and then shook hands with Su Shimin who was standing beside him.

Schwarzman has no Chinese ancestry, but he looks a bit like a Chinese. His real American name is Stephen Schwarzman, and his ancestors are German Jews.

Schwarzman means black in German, and he also has a partner named Peter Peterson, which means stone in Greek.

So the company founded by the two people was called Blackstone, also translated as Baistone Group.

Schwarzman was very talkative and very interested in the Chinese market. He kept asking Xia Jingxing about everything about China.

"Dairon, Mr. Lou is the wisest official I have ever met. He highly respects your investment vision and ability.

If given the opportunity, I hope Blackstone can also cooperate with Envision Capital. "

Xia Jingxing smiled: "I am very happy. As seniors in the industry, Mr. Schwarzman and Blackstone have always been the ones we learn from."

Su Shimin laughed heartily, and after some pleasantries, he and Li Di invited Xia Jingxing and Blankfein to take their seats.

In this way, the meeting between the two parties started in a relatively relaxed and pleasant atmosphere.

Li Di smiled and talked about the history of AIG, “The predecessor of AIA and even American International Group can be traced back to American Asia Insurance, which was founded in 1919.

At that time, Mr. Cornelius Vanderstal, the founder of AIG, came to the ancient East to explore with a dream of traveling around the world. He founded American Asia Insurance in Shanghai with a principal of 300 yen. It was the first It was the first time that the Western concept of insurance was brought to the Chinese people.

Speaking of which, AIG Group and the Chinese people actually have a friendship that spans 90 years.

Without the trust and help of the Chinese people 90 years ago, the world’s largest insurance group would not have been born..."

Xia Jingxing listened with a smile. After all, he wanted to acquire AIG. He naturally knew about the past and present of this company.

Indeed, as the other party said, this insurance company was first founded in Shanghai.

But the founder is definitely not as inspiring and glorious as Li Di said.

Adventure to the East? Travel the world? It's all bullshit.

It was purely because of his fraud in the United States that Cornelius got exposed. He could no longer stay in the United States, so he could only run away with the bucket, and then wandered all the way to the East.

He has quite a rich life experience. He hunted elephants in Vietnam, worked as a reporter at a foreign newspaper in Shanghai, pretended to be a god in a church and had a good time. Finally, when he was selling insurance at Meifeng Bank, he discovered the secret of making money from insurance. , so American Asia Insurance was established in Shanghai, which was later renamed AIA.

After that, AIA's business grew bigger and bigger, and its business footprints spread all over the world.

Until 1949, AIA ran away in despair along with HSBC. HSBC moved its headquarters to Hong Kong, and AIA moved back to the United States.

However, AIA only withdrew from the mainland market, but it took deep roots in Hong Kong, Bay Area, Japan and Southeast Asia and continues to carry out insurance business to this day.

The business that AIG wants to sell is also this part of the Asian business. They have divested all the assets of their subsidiaries and branches in various Asian countries and re-established the AIA Group.

"In 1992, AIA finally returned to the Chinese mainland market and became the first foreign-funded insurance institution to be issued a business license for personal life insurance business after China's reform and opening up. It was also the only wholly foreign-owned insurance company in mainland China."

Li Di said with a smile: "Shortly afterwards, AIA moved back to the 90-year-old office building at No. 17 Shanghai Bund, and also obtained the naming rights of "AIA Building".

After nearly a century, I have to say that AIA still has a close relationship with the Chinese people.

Now that Darren has acquired AIA, it will be a good story if word spreads about it! "

Xia Jingxing smiled and said nothing. What history is there? Even if AIA has a close relationship with China, it is not a reason to buy it.

However, the Chinese people have treated AIA very favorably, releasing all historically protected buildings for them to use as office buildings.

No. 17 Building on the Shanghai Bund is located on the edge of the Huangpu River in a row of various foreign-owned buildings built a hundred years ago. They all use granite exterior walls and Renaissance-style reliefs. Opposite is the Oriental Pearl Tower.

Schwarzman also spoke up and said: "Darren, I heard that Vision Capital is still renting an office in Hong Kong. It happens that AIA has a building in Central, Hong Kong called AIA Financial Center, which was just completed three years ago.

If you acquire AIA, you will be given a building as a gift and it will be renamed the Vision Building. There is no problem. "

Xia Jingxing smiled, "Really? Is it really possible not to include this building in the transaction consideration?"

Su Shimin also didn't expect that Xia Jingxing was so incompetent at chatting and chatted to death. He said with a smile, "As long as the transaction price is appropriate, it's not a problem to get a building as a bonus."

Blankfein said: "Let's get to the point! Vision Capital intends to acquire all the shares of AIA, but only at a reasonable price."

Schwarzman nodded and said: "After evaluation, we believe that the valuation of AIA at US$40 billion is a reasonable figure."

Blankfein shook his head repeatedly, "The valuation of US$40 billion is absolutely unreasonable. AIA's net profit in 2007 was only US$2 billion, and its net profit in the first three quarters of 2008 dropped to only US$1 billion.

In view of this, we can only give AIA a valuation of US$20 billion. "

Schwarzman argued: "We cannot accept this valuation because the embedded value of AIA alone is US$20 billion."

Embedded value is a concept unique to the insurance industry. It is essentially the liquidation value of an insurance company, but it is different from net assets.

Because when the insurance company is liquidated, if there are customers whose policies have not expired, they will still be able to generate profits in the future. This value plus the net assets is roughly the intrinsic value.

Xia Jingxing drank coffee slowly and watched Blankfein and Schwarzman "quarreling" without saying a word.

The two had a red-faced quarrel over the AIA valuation issue, as if they were about to start a fight in the next second.

Suddenly, there was a "bang" sound, Blankfein punched the table hard, and then gave Xia Jingxing a look.

Xia Jingxing stood up silently and followed Blankfein out of the office.

Li Di and Su Shimin did not say anything to persuade them to stay. They sat in their seats and watched the two people leave.

After walking out of the AIG Building, Xia Jingxing and Blankfein got into the same car.

Blankfein, who had a dark face the whole time, finally smiled and said, "Dylan, my acting skills are okay, right?"

"That's right, you can win the statuette!"

Xia Jingxing smiled and stopped talking.

"Darren, I know you are anxious to win the AIA, but everything has to follow procedures! We still have to go through the process."

Xia Jingxing nodded and said, "I understand. The stage has been set up for you anyway, so just sing slowly!"

Blankfein said with a smile: "When we slammed the door and walked out, many AIG employees saw it, and it should be on the front page of Wall Street tomorrow.

After we talk for a few more rounds, this matter should be almost settled. "

Xia Jingxing smiled faintly: "I'll leave everything to you to negotiate. I have something else to do. Anyway, the price has been quoted to you. It can be low, but it must not be high."

Blankfein smiled and nodded, looking confident.

Xia Jingxing still felt uneasy and couldn't help but add: "Don't let anything happen again this time. If there is another accident, I will have no choice but to give up the acquisition of AIA."

"Daerun, keep your heart in your heart. If something happens again this time, I will no longer be the CEO."

Seeing that Blankfein spoke so eloquently, Xia Jingxing couldn't say anything more.

After all, Blankfein is familiar with the situation, and this is not the first time he has done this kind of thing, so he should not cause any trouble again.

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