My Age of Investment

Chapter 1255: Sing on stage

   Chapter 1255 Singing on stage

   The next day.

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

   When Li Di saw Xia Jingxing, he was more kissable than seeing his relatives.

   He shook hands with Xia Jingxing enthusiastically and said, "Daren, it's a pleasure to meet you. People say you are a once-in-a-lifetime wizard on Wall Street. AIG and I are very happy to cooperate with a talented person like you."

Xia Jingxing smiled and looked at the white old man with white hair in front of him. The reason why the other party was able to become the CEO of AIG was not only because he was a well-known expert in "demolition" in the industry, proficient in the splitting and selling of assets, but also because of his wealth. Paulson was an old friend and colleague of his.

   Paulson served as CEO of Goldman Sachs before becoming Treasury Secretary, and Li Di was a director of Goldman Sachs.

After Paulson became Treasury Secretary, Li Di continued to serve as a director of Goldman Sachs and president of Allstate, the largest publicly traded auto insurance company in the United States.

  The old man officially retired in 2007, but a few months ago AIG broke out in crisis, and the old man was invited out by Paulson again. I hope he can lead AIG out of the quagmire with his rich industry experience.

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

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

   And the decision to bail out AIG was driven by Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs.

   To say that there is no PY transaction, Xia Jingxing was the first to not believe it.

   Knowing that Li Di and Goldman Sachs wear a pair of trousers, Xia Jingxing delegated the work of acquisition consultant to Goldman Sachs.

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

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

   No, driven by the banknote ability, Blankfein immediately brought Xia Jingxing to see the Lord.

  Xia Jingxing had a few words with Li Di, and then shook hands with Schwarzman who was standing beside him.

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

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

   Therefore, the company founded by the two is called Blackstone, which is also translated as Bai Shitong Group.

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

   "Daren, Mr. Lou is the wisest official I have ever met, and he highly praises your investment vision and ability.

  If there is an opportunity, I hope that Blackstone can also cooperate with Vision Capital. "

  Xia Jingxing smiled: "We are happy, Mr. Schwarzman and Blackstone, as seniors in the industry, have always been the objects of our learning."

  Schwarzman laughed, and after some greetings, he and Li Di greeted Xia Jingxing and Blankevan to take a seat.

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

  Li Di talked about the history of AIG with a smile, "The predecessor of AIA and even AIG can be traced back to AIG Insurance, which was established in 1919.

At that time, Mr. Cornelius Vanderstahl, the founder of AIG, came to explore the ancient East with a dream of traveling around the world. He founded Meiya Insurance in Modu with a principal of 300 yen. This time brought the western concept of insurance to the Chinese people.

  Speaking of which, AIG Group and the Chinese people still have a friendship spanning 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 was going to acquire AIG, and he naturally knew the past and present of this company.

   As the other party said, this insurance company was first founded in the magic capital.

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

   To explore the East? Traveling the world? It's all bullshit.

   Cornelius is purely because of defrauding in the United States, and the incident happened. He could no longer stay in the United States. He could only run away with a bucket, and then wandered all the way to the East.

His life experience is quite rich. He hunted elephants in Vietnam, worked as a reporter in the Modu Yangwen News Agency, and pretended to be a fool in the church. Finally, when he sold insurance in Meifeng Bank, he discovered the secret of making money from insurance. , So Meiya Insurance was established in Magic Capital, which was later renamed AIA.

After   , AIA's business became bigger and bigger, and its business footprint spread all over the world.

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

   However, AIA has only withdrawn from the mainland market, but it has deeply rooted in Hong Kong, the Gulf, Japan and Southeast Asia, and has been carrying out insurance business until today.

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

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

  Li Di said with a smile: "Not long after that, AIA moved back to the 90-year-old office building, No. 17, the Bund, the capital city, and also obtained the naming rights of "AIA Building".

   has spanned nearly a century, I have to say that AIA still has a lot of fate with the Chinese people.

   Now, Darren, you have acquired AIA, and it is also a good story to spread out! "

  Xia Jingxing laughed without saying a word, what is the history, even if AIA has a long history with China, this is not a reason to buy it.

   However, the Chinese people treat AIA very favorably, and have released historically protected buildings as office buildings for them.

  The 17th Building on the Bund of the Magic Capital is a row of various foreign buildings built a hundred years ago on the edge of the Huangpu River. The granite exterior walls and Renaissance-style reliefs are uniformly used. Opposite is the Oriental Pearl Tower.

  Schwarzman also helped: "Daren, I heard that Envision Capital is still renting an office in Hong Kong. It just so happens that AIA has a building in Central, Hong Kong called AIA Financial Center, which was just completed three years ago.

   If you buy AIA, and you will get a building as a gift, you can change your name to Vision Building. "

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

  Schwarzman didn't expect Xia Jingxing to be so incapable of chatting, so he chatted to death and said with a smirk, "As long as the transaction price is right, the bonus building will not be a problem."

   Blankfein said: "Let's talk about the main point! Envision Capital intends to acquire the entire equity 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."

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

   Given this, we can only give AIA a valuation of $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 liquidates, if there are customers whose insurance policies are not due, they can still generate profits in the future. This part of the value plus the net assets is roughly the intrinsic value.

  Xia Jingxing drank his coffee slowly, watching Blankfein and Schwarzman "arguing" without saying a word.

   The two quarreled red-faced over the valuation of AIA, as if they were about to fight in the next second.

  Suddenly, with a bang, Blankevan slammed his fist on the table, and then gave Xia Jingxing a look.

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

  Li Di and Schwarzman didn't say anything to hold back, they sat on their seats and watched them leave.

   walked out of the AIG building, Xia Jingxing and Blankevan got into the same car.

   Blankfein, who had a dark face the whole time, finally smiled, "Daren, can I act well?"

   "Yes, you can get the golden statue!"

  Xia Jingxing smiled and stopped talking.

   "Daren, I know you're in a hurry to get the AIA, but everything has to be a procedure! We have to go through the procedure."

  Xia Jingxing nodded and said: "I understand, anyway, the stage is set up for you, you can sing slowly!"

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

   We will talk a few more rounds later, and this matter should be almost the same. "

  Xia Jingxing smiled lightly: "I'll leave it to you to talk about it later. I still have something to do. Anyway, the price has been reported to you. It can be low, but it must not be high."

   Blankfein smiled and nodded, looking like he was sure of everything.

  Xia Jingxing still felt uneasy, so he couldn't help but add: "Don't have another accident this time, if there is another accident, I can only give up the acquisition of AIA."

   "Daren, put your heart in your belly. If there is another accident this time, I won't be a good CEO."

   Seeing what Blankevan said so absolutely, Xia Jingxing couldn't say anything more.

   After all, Blankfein is well-versed, and it's not the first time to do this kind of thing, so there shouldn't be any more troubles.

   (end of this chapter)