Chapter 1016 Decision

John Mark did not look at the trend analysis report of the Nasdaq index, but directly found the stock price data of AOL.

As of today's close, AOL's share price has been volatile for a week, and finally settled at $26.522 billion, with a market value of $43.6 billion. Relative to last week's market cap of $46.1 billion, it has dropped a full $2.5 billion.

Morgan Stanley has always been on the sidelines and has no plans to sell the stock in its hands, but John Mark knows that many shareholders who are worried that AOL's stock price will collapse under the pressure of a large-scale reduction in Firefly Investments have already begun to sell. stock in hand.

In this week alone, AOL shares traded at $5.6 billion, more than one-tenth of AOL's market value, according to data on the documents in hand.

Obviously, while some people are leaving, there are also many investors who are optimistic about AOL stocks silently entering the market.

John Mark has always focused on core businesses such as Morgan Stanley's stock and bond issuance, and is not too concerned about the international foreign exchange market. However, this week, he also began to agree with Eric's analysis of Nasdaq's future trend after having a detailed understanding of the Russian economic situation and the Southeast Asian economic crisis and other data.

After the Southeast Asian countries have been scoured, the huge profits earned by the major international hot money need to find an investment target as soon as possible. He originally thought that the investment target was likely to be Russia, whose economic situation is recovering, but now he understands that Russia's economic recovery is just an illusion, so these funds will only flow back to North America, which is in the Fed's interest rate hike cycle.

North America is at a time when the wave of new technology is surging, and naturally it becomes the best investment target for these hot money.

Well, the Nasdaq's breakthrough of 2,000 is likely to be just the beginning, as Eric said.

Facts have also proved Eric's judgment. After the Nasdaq index successfully exceeded 2000 points last week, the growth rate has not slowed down, but there are obvious signs of acceleration. It is only this week that the Nasdaq index has reached its highest level. Near 2070 points, the gain reached 3.5%.

These general economic trends aside, John Mark's attention soon returned to the AOL business.

Except for Yahoo, which will be listed at the end of the year, among several high-profile star technology companies on the Nasdaq market, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Sun and other companies have no plans to reduce their stock holdings on a large scale. Even Yahoo! The original 30% new share issuance ratio has also been compressed, and the final new share issuance ratio may only be 10% to 15%. It is impossible for Wall Street investment institutions to invest in these companies in a short period of time.

So, ignoring the hidden risks, it is not difficult to find that Firefly Investment's plan to reduce its holdings of AOL shares on a large scale is not only a threat to Wall Street investors, but an opportunity.

After carefully weighing the pros and cons again, John Mark finally made a decision.

He plans to unite a group of investors and eat all the stocks in Firefly Investments at one time.

According to the current market value, 32.6% of the AOL shares directly held by Firefly Investments are worth about $14.2 billion. Such a huge amount of stock assets is impossible for any investment institution on Wall Street to fully undertake.

However, if it is spread out and taken over by a dozen or even dozens of investment institutions, then it is a very feasible thing to digest this $14.2 billion worth of stocks.

From another perspective, this behavior is actually very similar to corporate IPOs. And issuing stocks happens to be one of Morgan Stanley's basic businesses.

Of course, the value of AOL shares held by Firefly Investments is simply too high.

14.2 billion US dollars, which has exceeded the largest IPO plan in history of 13 billion US dollars set by Deutsche Telekom a few years ago,

Therefore, it is certainly not difficult to implement it in practice.

However, as long as it can take over the stocks in the hands of Firefly Investments, the sword of Damocles that has been hanging over AOL's head will disappear, and AOL's stock price will also completely get rid of the risk of major shareholder reduction. Without the constraints of Firefly's investment, coupled with the rapid development momentum of AOL itself, the company's stock will undoubtedly take advantage of the new wave of technology.

After making a decision, John Mark didn't hesitate, picked up the phone on the desk and started calling Morgan Stanley's executives. He planned to hold a meeting overnight to discuss how to implement the plan.

Morgan Stanley's impromptu high-level meeting held late into the night, and even Morgan Stanley's new CEO, Philip Purcell, called to inquire about John Mark's intentions.

Although Morgan Stanley has merged with Dean Witte for more than half a year, the original management system of the two companies has also fought over the management rights of the new company with the appointment of Philip Purcell, the former helm of Dean Witt, as the new company ceo The dust has settled, however, the executives of the original Morgan Stanley system have never given up their plans to fight for the initiative. At present, the businesses of the two companies have not begun to merge on a large scale for various reasons.

Although John Mark did not hide his plans from Philip Purcell, he did not intend to invite the other party to participate.

The next day, John Mark, who had only rested for less than five hours, flew to Los Angeles again with the plan discussed by a group of Morgan Stanley executives last night.

Eric was invited by William Hearst III of the Hearst family to take Aniston to Hearst Castle in San Simeon on Saturday. When I got up in the morning and received a call from John Mark, I had to temporarily cancel the trip and stay at the Sharp Point Manor.

At this time, in the study on the basement floor, Aniston, who was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, was in a very bad mood. He drew an ugly head of Eric on the large writing board that took up the entire wall, and threw it away in his hand. The fountain pen rubbed over like an anxious kitten again, and leaned on the back of the leather chair and put his arms around Eric's neck.

Eric put down the draft of the "Gravity" split shot in his hand, reached out and pulled Aniston behind him and hugged him on his lap, put his arms around the chick's waist and kissed her cheek, sorry: "This is really an accident Ah, let's go to San Simeon together in the afternoon and come back on Monday, okay?"

"Didn't you say that "Gravity" starts on Monday, how can it be delayed," Aniston said, leaning comfortably on Eric, "It's just that I finally had a date, what a pity, I am I just bought a dress."

Eric said: "Oh, then you can also change it now, let me see."

Aniston said angrily: "I won't change it, I won't show it to you."

Eric smiled and said, "Okay, if you don't change it, you won't change it. Anyway, I don't like the way you dress."

"Ah, you bad guy," Aniston was confused for a while, then came to his senses, bouncing off Eric with a laugh and scolding, but didn't let go, just turned and sat on the large desk in front of him, raising his feet Lightly kicked Eric's leg.

Eric didn't dodge either, looking at the sweet girl in front of him with a smile. Over the years, Aniston's appearance has hardly changed, just as he first saw him. Thinking of all the things he has experienced over the years, Eric can't help but feel a little emotional.

Aniston felt Eric's gaze, but suddenly felt a little embarrassed. After insisting on staring at him for a while, he picked up the "Gravity" split shot that Eric had just placed next to him, blocking the two of them, and said shyly, "Don't look at it."

His vision was blocked, and he noticed Aniston's little hand holding the drawing board. Eric suddenly remembered something, got up and said, "By the way, I suddenly remembered that I have a gift for you."

"What?" Aniston, who had been pretending to be an ostrich, immediately got interested and jumped off the desk and followed.

Eric walked to the wall, removed the decorative artwork, revealing the safe in the wall, and said to Aniston, whose eyes were shining, "Hey, close your eyes first."

"Cut, I don't care about your safe password." Aniston said, turned around and said in a small voice, "Is that all right?"

Eric was not worried that Aniston would see the safe code, but was afraid that she would see a whole set of rings inside, which would be bad.

Opening the safe, Eric picked one out of the box containing the set of rings, took out one, closed the safe, turned around and pulled Aniston's left hand, who was still facing away from him, tried it, and it happened to be on his left hand. on the ring finger.

When Aniston saw Eric put a rose gold ring on his hand, he first raised his eyebrows, then took off the ring again, skillfully checked the engraving inside the ring, and then dissatisfied: "I just Don't fall behind the red heart q behind that girl."

Eric was a little surprised: "You know this?"

Aniston said angrily: "That girl has shown off in front of me many times, how could I not know, and I have seen people wearing such a ring in public more than once and being photographed."

Having said that, Aniston glared at Eric again, returned the rose gold ring in his hand, and said, "I want red hearts too."

Eric was also digesting the information that Aniston had just revealed. With the girl's character and her tit-for-tat relationship with Aniston, she would indeed take the initiative to show off the ring she got to Aniston.

As for the one who was photographed, it should be Julia. Among the women who got this rose gold ring, only Julia wore it without shyness all day long.

Subconsciously took the ring that Aniston handed back, Eric smiled bitterly: "There are no red hearts anymore, each ring is unique."

Aniston's eyes were a little more sly: "Then I want the king."

"This won't work," Eric immediately shook his head and added, "Neither does Xiao Wang."

Aniston knew in his heart that this was impossible, otherwise the big and small king would definitely fall into Drew's hands, and it would be her turn: "Or, Eric, you open the box and I will choose it myself."

Now that Aniston already knew about this set of rings, Eric no longer kept secret, opened the safe, took out the box containing this set of rings, and showed it to Aniston.

Aniston saw that in addition to the big and small kings, there were seven missing rings in the box. Barabara accused Eric, and finally took the plum blossom k. He also said that he would be able to wear the ring directly, inlaid with black A rose gold ring with diamonds, even if it is seen, it is estimated that it will not be associated with an engagement ring or the like.

Seeing Aniston playing with the ring on his hand with great interest, Eric put the box away again, then came over and put his arms around the chick's slender waist, saying, "Jenny, you must know that this ring wears But you can't take it off."

Aniston had just seen the rose gold ring, but in fact it was far less indifferent than what Eric saw.

Hearing what Eric said, Aniston leaned against Eric's arms, slammed his chin on his shoulder, was silent for a while, and said, "Why am I so unlucky to meet you guy."

"Yes," Eric nodded softly.

Aniston lightly hammered Eric's back, and said angrily, "What are you doing?"

"I was thinking how lucky I am to make you so unlucky."

Aniston moved his chin on Eric's shoulder, snorted hot air in his ear, and threatened like a kitten: "Your ear is right next to my mouth, believe it or not, I will bite it off. it."

Eric suddenly fell silent, and the two embraced tacitly for a while, until the communicator on the wall turned on the indicator light, and Eric knew that John Mark had arrived, so he let go of Aniston.

"Eric, I'm so sorry, but I have to come over to disturb you on the weekend. Oh, and the beautiful Miss Aniston. My wife likes to watch your "Friends" the most." Sure enough, John Mark arrived, and as soon as we met , the two sides exchanged warmly.

"It's okay, I don't have anything special to do on the weekend," Eric subconsciously maintained an oriental politeness, which made Aniston roll his eyes.

Gently, John Mark shook hands and greeted, and Aniston took the initiative to run over to make coffee for the two of them. She had already seen the group of maids in the manor, but the little girl was absolutely reluctant to let those girls in.

After a while, when a pot of coffee was brought up, Aniston avoided it again, and Eric and John Mark, who had casually chatted for a few words, got to the point.

Taking out the plan that he had been busy until late last night, John Mark handed it to Eric and said, "Eric, you can take a look at the plan we made first, and we will talk about it later."

Eric nodded. The reason why he gave up taking Aniston to San Simeon and agreed to this meeting was that he had already listened to John Mark briefly introducing his thoughts on the phone, but he still had to learn more about it. The other party's thinking, this matter can continue to talk.