Chapter 2337 The virtue of diligence and thrift

The next day, Zhou Buqi went to South Korea, and Xu Baihui also went with him.

Recently, S/M Entertainment is cooperating with Jieyu Media to jointly launch a new girl group. The new women's team will be a multinational force, mainly composed of girls from China, Japan and South Korea. If possible, choose an Asian American or go to Southeast Asia to find a mixed-race girl left behind by white people, so that you can open up the European and American markets in the future.

This is the butterfly effect.

At least there was no such girl group in the previous life.

Xu Baihui holds a lot of power and asked Boss Zhou if he should reserve a few for him... It's okay to keep them all for him. I guarantee it will be done!

Zhou Buqi firmly refused, "Do your business well!"

From the capital to Seoul, it’s a quick trip.

On the plane, Xu Baihui chatted with him, "Why are you going to South Korea? Is it convenient to tell you?"

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "What's so inconvenient about this?"

Xu Baihui rolled her eyes at him, "Aren't I worried that you have any business secrets?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Even if it's a business secret, you shouldn't hide it from you, right?"

Xu Baihui said with a smile on her face, "That's pretty much it!"

Zhou Buqi said: "Go see Li Zairong and talk about Yahoo."

"Yahoo?"

Xu Baihui is very strange.

As Zhou's boss, he went to South Korea in person and hurried to see Li Zaiyong, with the intention of asking for help. This is not right. What can Yahoo ask Samsung Electronics to do? In order to get through the relationship with Samsung mobile phones?

Zhou Buqi said angrily: "Those Americans are really used to living a rich life, and they know how to waste money every day. Even Lu Qi is the same, maybe because he has lived in the United States for too long, and the Chinese nation has a tradition of diligence and thrift in housekeeping. All virtue is gone.”

Xu Baihui couldn't help laughing, "What's going on?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Didn't something happen to Yahoo last year? Later, the board of directors was reorganized and a new CEO was replaced. After the new team came to power, the first thing they had to do was to increase revenue and reduce expenditure."

"Um."

Xu Baihui nodded lightly.

She also heard something about Yahoo’s previous confusion. Precisely because Yahoo was in chaos, this gave Mr. Zhou the opportunity to take advantage of the situation and acquire Yahoo.

Zhou Buqi said: "The CEO of Yahoo is named Thompson. He is a good person, but his thinking... is too American and too wasteful. At that time, Yahoo's business in South Korea had fallen into losses for the fifth consecutive year. He felt that Yahoo There is no chance to turn around in the Korean market, so I plan to exit Korea and stop losses in time.”

Xu Baihui said softly: "Well, we should withdraw from South Korea. I always go to South Korea and know it quite well. Their people love China and like to use domestic products and are unwilling to use foreign products. International Internet giants are here South Korea’s market share is very low.”

Zhou Buqi nodded, "That's the logic."

"Ah?" Xu Baihui was a little confused, "Isn't it the reality?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Yahoo wants to withdraw from the Korean market to save money. However, Yahoo has more than 600 employees in South Korea and there are many signed business contracts. If it withdraws, Yahoo will have to This resulted in more than $90 million in severance and liquidated damages being paid."

This is typical American thinking.

If you see something bad, just throw it away.

For example, when eating watermelon, you can cut at least half of it and throw it away; for example, when slaughtering cattle and sheep, only the best parts of the meat are left for sale, and the rest are thrown away; for example, when exporting grain, transporting grain on freighters, during the loading and unloading process Thousands of kilograms of grain may be scattered in the middle... No one will pick it up, and it will be swept directly into the sea to feed the fish.

This is often the case when many large companies reorganize their businesses.

If you don’t need them anymore, just cut them all off!

Therefore, in this process, staggering restructuring costs are often incurred, which can amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Zhou Buqi suffered this loss when he reorganized Ziweixing Global. When he saw the terrifying restructuring cost of US$1 billion, he was shocked and speechless.

Fortunately, he took SoftBank along with him at the time.

There is enough money.

As long as you get the job done, it's worth spending the extra money.

Reorganizing Yahoo won't do it.

In order to acquire Yahoo, Ziweixing International had to spend nearly 12 billion U.S. dollars, which was half a stock transaction and half a cash settlement. This was an unimaginable amount of money.

In order to raise funds, Zhou Buqi conducted a wave of selling and selling speculation, selling part of his shares in Alibaba, Yahoo Japan and Facebook. After collecting the cash in Ziweixing International's account and the cash in Yahoo's account, the fund-raising was barely successful.

This resulted in Ziweixing International having little money on its books.

Another US$1 billion in corporate bonds with an interest rate of up to 9% was urgently issued to maintain the basic operations of the company.

This is also the reason why Boss Zhou recently acquired two companies, Snapchat and Shopify, and there are many different opinions internally. It’s really a bit indigestive.

Ziweixing International has not yet been listed, so financing is very difficult.

Now the company's corporate debt has reached 8.5 billion US dollars, which has basically reached its peak. If you want to issue more corporate bonds, you must either go public and use the stock price to endorse it, or you must promise a high return with an annual interest rate of more than 10%.

Ziweixing International must save money.

Zhou Buqi knew what he was doing.

Therefore, if you want to intervene in Yahoo's restructuring, you can save a fortune.

You might even make money!

"A severance package of 90 million US dollars?" Xu Baihui was stunned, "So much?!"

Zhou Buqi said helplessly: "Yes, the labor cost is high. Fortunately, there were many conflicts between the management and the board of directors in the past few months, and the plan to withdraw from South Korea has not been launched. After I took over Yahoo, Thompson followed I made this suggestion and was immediately stopped.”

"Have you stopped? Are you not withdrawing from the Korean market?" Xu Baihui frowned slightly, a little suspicious, "Can you lead Yahoo to revive in the Korean market? Isn't that impossible?"

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Absolutely not. If I could handle the Korean market, I would not support Jin Fanxiu to establish the Korean Kakao Group, and Ziweixing's business would go directly into it."

When Xu Baihui saw him smiling, she knew that he must be knowledgeable. She was relieved and asked softly: "Then what are you going to do? Find Li Zairong? Let Samsung Electronics help?"

"right."

"How to help?"

"Sell Yahoo Korea to him."

"I knew it!"

Xu Baihui covered her mouth and laughed, overjoyed. This was indeed Boss Zhou's style.

Zhou Buqi said with emotion: "Many people start to waste money when they have money, and forget the glorious virtue of diligence and thrift. Many rich people just throw away their old clothes if they don't like them. But these high-end clothes , even if you buy it on the second-hand market, you can still sell it for a lot of money."

Xu Baihui said with a smile: "Yes, there are many female stars in Japan. They sell their stockings, shoes, original bras and underwear to the public, and it has become a big industry. They are really thrifty."

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, the principles are the same. Things that some people think are discarded are just a dream for others. Businesses that big companies don't like and want to throw away are for many small businesses. Enterprises may be willing to pay any price to get it.”

Xu Baihui couldn't stand his bragging, "Has Samsung Electronics become a small company?"

Zhou Buqi said: "There are specialties in the technical industry, and Samsung Electronics is good at the electronic field. In the Internet field, their strength is indeed very weak. In the past few years, Yahoo has always provided software and mobile services for Samsung's hardware products. This It took a few years for Ziweixing to rise, and larger orders fell into Ziweixing’s hands.”

Boss Zhou has such a good relationship with Prince Samsung, which is somewhat of a face-saving project.

In fact, it is a bundle of interests.

Each takes what he needs.

If Zhou Buqi wants to make a lot of money in South Korea, a big conglomerate like Samsung is a hurdle he cannot avoid. Even if it can be circumvented, there will definitely be fierce friction with Samsung.

This is completely unnecessary. It’s better to do less than to do more.

Many friends, many paths.

For Samsung Electronics, it is not just as simple as making money, but also a long-term strategy for corporate development.

Samsung Electronics is very strong in the field of hardware. In terms of industry comprehensiveness and independence, it is the world's strongest. It dominates the mobile phone, tablet, and TV markets.

However, Samsung Electronics has a fatal flaw, that is, the level of its Internet services and software business is too poor.

It was fine ten years ago.

At that time, TVs, mobile phones, etc. were all independent and their connection with the Internet was not that strong. Things are different now. Hardware and Internet platforms have been connected. The emergence of smart TVs and smartphones has completely changed the way hardware products are played.

Hardware products must not only make good basic hardware, but also make good software, and provide the best Internet service experience.

This is Samsung Electronics' biggest weakness.

what to do?

If Samsung Electronics cannot handle the situation with its own strength, it will have no choice but to look for foreign aid and purchase related services from Internet companies.

Who should I buy it from?

Google?

This doesn’t work. Samsung already uses Google’s Android system, and if it purchases Google’s related technologies and services, wouldn’t that completely tie Samsung mobile phones to Google?

In that case, Samsung mobile phones will completely surrender to Google and will no longer have any bargaining power.

Microsoft?

This is even worse. Microsoft also has a hardware business, producing TV sets and smartphones. This is even more erosive than Google.

Companies such as Oracle, IBM, and Adobe all have strong software, but poor Internet services.

Amazon is mainly engaged in e-commerce, and Facebook has not yet grown up... So in the past few years, Samsung Electronics has been looking around the world. The only Internet giant that is truly capable of matching Samsung smartphones and Samsung smart TVs is Yahoo. .

Starting in 2007, Samsung Electronics began strategic cooperation with Yahoo, and later the business cooperation between the two parties became deeper and deeper. In the field of Internet services and software business, Samsung Electronics mainly relies on Yahoo.

It was not until the rise of Ziweixing that Samsung Electronics had a second choice and gradually turned its main partner to Ziweixing International.

Especially Zi Weiyun.

There was no Ziweixing in the previous life, and Samsung Electronics once relied on Baidu to provide technical support. So much so that Baidu's technical vice president always goes to South Korea on business trips to discuss business with Samsung Electronics and guide them to improve.

This vice president of technology is a woman, her husband is a well-known entrepreneur, her family is very wealthy, and she has an open marriage, and everyone has their own interests. Taking advantage of the opportunity to come to Korea to discuss business with Samsung, she always went to S/M Entertainment and met a handsome guy from the EXO group who was a trainee in Korea.

She is both a godmother and a godsister. The most important thing she needs is money. She also paid the handsome boy liquidated damages and helped him leave S/M Entertainment and return to China to develop. He has been praised all the way, so that he has no acting skills but constant resources. He has made blockbusters, big IP TV series and popular reality shows, and slowly became a national idol.