Chapter 600: Great Success

In short, the world's largest and most luxurious cruise ship, the Titanic, was ordered by the Morgan Consortium.

In 1912, when the Titanic was on its maiden voyage, it hit an iceberg and sank...

This was not only a disaster in human history, but also a turning point in the Morgan family's wealth and destiny.

Therefore, the Morgan Consortium faced a series of congressional charges and was forced to accept investigation.

The legendary J.P. Morgan of the Morgan Consortium died unexpectedly two months after testifying in court. After that, the Federal Reserve was established and gradually replaced the Morgan family's 150-year-old position as the central bank of the United States.

After that, the United States suffered a great depression, the stock and bond markets were severely depressed, the national economy was also bleak, and the unemployment rate exceeded 10%.

People took to the streets and an anti-Wall Street fury broke out - the theoretical basis behind it was that the mixed business structure of commercial banks and investment banks at that time had drawbacks, which magnified financial risks.

So in 1932, the US Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act, requiring commercial banks and investment banks to separate their operations, in order to further weaken the power of private consortiums and maintain the stability of the financial market.

In the end, this bill forced J.P. Morgan to abandon its investment banking business and choose to transform into a single commercial bank.

In 1935, J.P. Morgan completely closed its investment banking department.

J.P. Morgan's grandson Henry Sturgis Morgan and Harold Stanley led the company's investment banking team to leave and established a new securities company named Morgan Stanley, which we usually call "Big Morgan".

Morgan Stanley's registered capital and founding team all came from the original J.P. Morgan Company. Since then, Morgan has been split into J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley.

Since the 1980s, financial supervision in the United States has also become loose.

With the development and expansion of the American financial industry, commercial banks began to infiltrate investment banks, and many commercial banks have disguised investment banking departments.

In 1999, the U.S. Congress passed the Financial Services Modernization Act, abolished the relevant provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act, legally eliminated the boundaries of the business scope of banks, securities, and insurance institutions, and ended the history of more than 60 years of financial separation in the United States.

As a result, commercial banks began to engage in investment banking business on a large scale, and J.P. Morgan gradually became a full-function bank.

In addition to the commercial banking sector, investment banking and asset management businesses were added one after another, while Morgan Stanley still specialized in investment banking business.

From the perspective of investment banking history, the later J.P. Morgan investment banking branch appeared later than Morgan Stanley, so Morgan Stanley was called "Big Morgan" and J.P. Morgan was called "Little Morgan".

But J.P. Morgan has stronger comprehensive strength. In this case, when Baron was in the financial industry in his previous life, he often heard Chinese industry insiders jokingly call this "Big Head Son and Small Head Dad".

In 2000, J.P. Morgan and Chase Manhattan Bank merged to form J.P. Morgan Chase. Interestingly, Chase Bank was once the financial business platform of the Rockefeller family consortium, and has since undergone several mergers and acquisitions.

In this subprime mortgage crisis, J.P. Morgan Chase not only withstood the test of the subprime mortgage crisis, but also took the opportunity to merge Bear Stearns at a low price...

Later, they will also merge the bankrupt Washington Mutual and become the winner of this financial storm.

In 2004, J.P. Morgan Chase's total assets were 1.12 trillion US dollars, second only to Citigroup's 1.19 trillion US dollars.

In Barron's previous life, by 2009, J.P. Morgan Chase's assets exceeded 2 trillion US dollars, surpassing Citigroup by 200 billion US dollars.

Its investment banking business caught up with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become the largest underwriter on Wall Street.

Yes, in this subprime mortgage crisis, many bankrupt banks and investment banks will become food for other "vultures", but these "vultures" will also hunt within their means.

Because blindly expanding the scale will not increase profits. In the previous and subsequent mergers and acquisitions of large companies, bankruptcy due to failed restructuring also accounts for a large proportion.

Therefore, Barron met with Wall Street capitals including JPMorgan Chase, which still retained power in the subprime mortgage crisis, in order to enter their ranks and maintain a tacit understanding with them, so as to avoid conflicts in "sharing food".

Why did JPMorgan Chase acquire Bear Stearns in the end? Not only is their strength sufficient, but also Bear Stearns' business is more suitable for JPMorgan Chase to merge.

If many of the other party's businesses overlap with yours, then acquisition is not the best choice.

The same is true for Barron. He cannot swallow all the "fat meat" that got into trouble in the subprime mortgage crisis. On the one hand, he does not have that much money. On the other hand, this will cause dissatisfaction among other Wall Street giants, and Standard Chartered Bank will expand too much in the short term, which will easily bury many hidden dangers.

He and other capital giants need to compete and cooperate at the same time, and maintain a certain tacit understanding between each other.

…

"The success of "Iron Man" has made Marvel Studios very excited. They will immediately start planning the second part of "Iron Man" and another character movie "Thor"..."

After hearing what Blue Valley Capital CEO Annika Dawson said, Barron did not object vocally—this in itself was some of the changes made at his suggestion.

Originally, Marvel Studios was planning to start filming "Iron Man" and the Hulk movie "The Incredible Hulk" at the same time, but Barron knew that in his previous life, "The Incredible Hulk" did not perform well, so he decided to Plans for this movie were rejected and instead changed to another movie, "Thor."

However, out of caution, Marvel Studios CEO Kevin Feige decided to wait until the first "Iron Man" movie was released and see the response before starting the "Thor" movie.

As a result, in April this year, "Iron Man" finally began to be released worldwide, including China.

As a result, this Marvel movie, which was not expected by many, took in a box office of US$100.7 million in North America during its opening weekend after its release. It topped the North American box office charts.

After that, "Iron Man" began to be released one after another around the world, and the box office continued to increase.

So far, the North American box office of "Iron Man" has exceeded 250 million US dollars, and the overseas box office has exceeded 200 million US dollars.

According to predictions from relevant agencies, the global box office of "Iron Man" will definitely exceed US$550 million, and may even reach US$600 million!

This figure, compared to its production cost of less than 140 million US dollars, is already a huge profit.

You know, for Hollywood movies, the box office revenue only accounts for a very small part of the total revenue of a movie, and the subsequent revenue from peripherals, DVDs, etc. is the bulk.

And the most important thing is that after the success of "Iron Man", it was announced that the "Marvel Universe" has been opened. Next, the Marvel-MGM Group will be more confident in investing in Marvel movies-this one It's just a beginning.