Reborn as a tycoon in Hong Kong

Currently in the United States, Lin Baicheng has three companies, namely New Century Software Company, Starlight Company, and Morning Star Pictures. In addition, there is a joint venture company Zhonghe Gaming Company with Phil Smith and Goldman Sachs.

Excluding assets other than the company, there are also shares in Apple and Microsoft. Lin Baicheng is the major shareholder and director. Finally, there is gold futures investment.

It has been almost three months since Lin Baicheng left Los Angeles last time. What Isabella and Bill reported were the changes in Lin Baicheng's assets in the United States during the past three months.

It was mainly Isabella who was reporting, with Bill supplementing from time to time.

The first is New Century Software Company. When Lin Baicheng left Los Angeles, the company's office software won official orders for 30,000 units through Republican connections, and it began to cooperate with Apple to apply office software to Apple computers.

In the past three months, the office software has once again sold 50,000 units in other official states. The price is still US$199 per set on the surface, but actually US$149 per set.

In addition to the official market, New Century Software's salespeople also visited hospitals, banks, schools and other markets, selling a total of 150,000 units. Moreover, this market still has deep potential that can be tapped. However, the prices in these places vary depending on the one-time purchase quantity. Some cost US$195 per set, some cost US$190 per set, and the lowest is only US$180 per set.

After all, $199 for a set is just the retail price. If people buy in large quantities at one time, they must give discounts, so the prices vary.

Then there is the amount sold through Apple Computer channels. Although it is not a lot now, there are still thousands of units. With the rise of the personal computer market, it can be predicted that more and more users will buy office software.

In just a few months, New Century Software's turnover has reached more than 40 million US dollars. Although the profit has to deduct software research and development costs, salesperson commissions, employee salaries, follow-up upgrades and maintenance and other costs, even so, The average profit can also reach about 70% of the turnover.

Moreover, as more office software is sold, the cost of software development and subsequent upgrades and maintenance will become lower and lower after being evenly amortized, which is equivalent to a disguised reduction in costs and an increase in profit ratio.

After a few months, New Century Software Company has reached its current situation, and Lin Baicheng is very satisfied. As long as it does well in the next few years, when the company goes public, it will at least be a company with a market value of more than US$1 billion.

After that came Starlight Company.

Starlight Company is engaged in channels, and its main business is to open stores in cities, counties and towns with developed economies and high population density. When Lin Baicheng left Los Angeles last time, Starlight Company had expanded to more than 200 stores and about 1,000 stores. staff.

In this company, Lin Baicheng invested a total of 50 million US dollars in cash. In addition, he also invested the profits made by the company itself into channel expansion.

Therefore, without any shortage of money, in three months, Starlight Company has now reached nearly 400 companies with nearly 2,000 employees. If store managers and employees had not received certain training, the expansion would have been faster.

In terms of revenue, Starlight Company's monthly revenue now reaches 30 million U.S. dollars, but its profit is only 3 million U.S. dollars. After deducting employee wages, water, electricity, etc., the boss Lin Baicheng can get 150 million U.S. dollars. Ten thousand dollars is not bad.

However, at this time, with the continuous investment of profits and the expansion of scale, if there are nearly 20 million US dollars in profits in one year, Lin Baicheng's 50 million US dollars investment can be earned back in just over two years.

It takes more than two years to pay back the capital, and then make a net profit. This return on investment is not too long. However, the premise is that everything goes smoothly, the operation is proper, and there are no setbacks. If something happens, the time to pay back the capital will only be lengthened.

There is another thing that Lin Baicheng is concerned about at Starlight Company, and that is the sales of Rubik's cubes.

The Rubik's Cube began to be sold in March. At that time, Starlight Company had only 40 stores. In addition, the Rubik's Cube had just been put on sale, so the sales volume of the Rubik's Cube in March was only about 10,000, and the revenue was about 200,000 US dollars.

Later, with the promotion of Rubik's Cube and the expansion of Starlight Company's channels, by the end of October, the sales volume of Rubik's Cube has reached about 460,000. By the end of this month, the sales volume of 500,000 units planned by Lin Baicheng at the beginning should be completed.

However, the total sales of these 460,000 units are not $20 each. The price of the Rubik's Cube began to decrease as early as June, and now each Rubik's Cube sells for $18.

When Christmas comes, the price of the Rubik's Cube will be reduced again, this time to $15 each. However, at this time, the price of the Rubik's Cube will be temporarily fixed and will not change in the short term. We will decide when to reduce the price based on the actual situation.

The Rubik's Cube has a turnover of more than 8 million U.S. dollars. Although the cost of each Rubik's Cube is only 1.2 U.S. dollars, publicity fees, shipping costs and other expenses are large. Currently, the profit is only about 3 million U.S. dollars. However, as the sales volume of Rubik's Cube increases, the bulk of the early promotional expenses will no longer be spent, and the proportion of profits to revenue will inevitably increase significantly.

Morningstar Pictures, this company Lin Baicheng also invested US$50 million. Shirley Lansing was responsible for acquiring three small companies at a cost of US$22 million. After three months, Shirley Lansing had of course completed the internal integration of the company.

In addition, with the remaining US$28 million, Shirley Lansing used the funds to expand distribution channels and invest in three low-cost movies.

Hollywood is different from Hong Kong. Although Hollywood also has short-filming movies, the number is smaller, and most of the movies are not short in shooting time. Generally speaking, the bigger the investment, the longer the shoot will take.

After the film is shot, it usually cannot be released immediately. It has to be promoted and waited for theaters to schedule the film. After a complete set, a movie only takes half a year from shooting to release, which is considered fast.

Therefore, although Morningstar Pictures has invested in three low-budget movies, none of them has been completed, let alone been released in theaters.

However, this does not mean that Morningstar Pictures has done nothing during this period. In addition to expanding distribution channels, the company also distributes low-cost films produced by other production companies, and also distributes overseas films.

If you only do distribution, usually the distribution company will not lose money, or the possibility of losing money is very small, because even if the film loses money at the box office, after the distribution company gets the share from the theater, it will first withhold its own distribution expenses. The remaining fee is then paid back to the production company.

Of course, if the retained box office share is not enough for distribution expenses, then there is no other way, and the distribution company will have no choice but to admit it is unlucky and lose money. As for asking for such good things from the production company, just think about it, it is simply impossible to succeed.