Chapter 371 Three Years (Subscription Support Request!)
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Time flies like flowing water.
In the blink of an eye, three years have passed.
During these three years, Xu Kai had a very fulfilling life.
Three years ago, after Xu Kai sold the subsequent copyright of "Detective Chinatown 3" for 5 billion yuan, he shifted his work focus to Hollywood, preparing to use Hollywood's powerful influence to turn himself into an international superstar and spread Chinese culture to the world.
Unexpectedly, Xu Kai accidentally took too big a step.
During these three years, Xu Kai starred in and appeared in "Rush Hour 2", "Rush Hour 3", "Shang-Chi", "Shang-Chi 2", "Iron Man 2", "Captain 2", "Thor 2", "Hulk 2", "The Avengers" and many other Hollywood movies.
"Rush Hour 2" and "Rush Hour 3" starring Xu Kai, as well as the previous "Rush Hour" were actually the key to Xu Kai's entry into Hollywood.
These three "Rush Hour" movies made Europeans and Americans truly know that there is a Chinese superstar named "Yu Qingyun" in this world.
Moreover, the global box office of each of these three "Rush Hour" films exceeded 400 million US dollars, and all of them entered the top 100 in the global box office market.
However, although the "Rush Hour" series has a high global box office, its box office mainly comes from North America and China. In European countries and regions, its audience is relatively limited.
The key is that the audience of "Rush Hour" is relatively older, and they have a deep-rooted impression of the Chinese.
In other words, although these people like Xu Kai's "Rush Hour", they cannot become Xu Kai's fanatical fans, nor can they change the image of Chinese people in their eyes.
What really made those young audiences fall in love with Xu Kai was the Chinese superhero Shang-Chi and the Marvel superhero movies released in the past three years.
It is Shang-Chi and numerous Marvel superhero movies that have made Xu Kai a world-famous superstar known to every household in countries and regions where Marvel superheroes can radiate.
In addition to making Xu Kai a household name, the Marvel series of movies also made him earn countless money - even the two independent Shang-Chi movies "Shang-Chi" and "Shang-Chi 2", which Xu Kai thought would lose money, made Xu Kai a lot of money.
Let’s put it this way, just by producing a few Marvel movies, Xu Kai easily paid off the 10 billion he borrowed from Minxin Bank.
After becoming famous, Xu Kai starred in several movies tailored for him by other Hollywood film companies and Hollywood directors, such as "First Kiss 2" (still starring Xu Kai and Sophie March), "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" (this is a script contributed by Xu Kai, starring Xu Kai and Nicole Johnson), "The Expendables" (a movie similar to the Expendables, starring Xu Kai and Johnson), etc.
Xu Kai also appeared in many movies as a guest star, such as "The Matrix", "Autobots 3", "The Magician 5", and voiced the characters in several Hollywood animations, etc.
In short, Xu Kai has been very active in Hollywood in the past three years.
The key point is that Xu Kai not only acts in movies himself, but also directs them himself.
Seriously speaking, Xu Kai is actually more successful as a director than he is as an actor.
Because Xu Kai directed numerous award-winning films such as "Forrest Gump", "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Truman Show", "The Pursuit of Happyness", "Schindler's List", "The Godfather", and "Life is Beautiful", and also directed films such as "Inception", "Avatar", "Titanic", and "Jurassic World" that topped the world box office rankings.
When Xu Kaigang started working as a director in Hollywood, he actually just wanted to make more money to ensure that his Marvel superhero movies could be filmed smoothly.
However, after the hit movie "Forrest Gump" brought Xu Kai both fame and fortune, Xu Kai felt that he should not miss the fame and fortune, so he produced films such as "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Truman Show", "The Pursuit of Happyness", "Schindler's List", "The Godfather", and "Life is Beautiful" at a super high rate of four or five films per year.
In the past year or so, Xu Kai has become more and more confident in his fame and ability, so he wrote, directed, and starred in "Inception", "Avatar", "Titanic" and "Jurassic World", preparing to reap one last wave of box office revenue before leaving Hollywood.
actually--
In addition to wanting to make more money, Xu Kai actually had to write, direct and star in the four movies "Inception", "Avatar", "Titanic" and "Jurassic World" because he had to do so.
For example, Xu Kai filmed "Titanic" because Sophie March always wanted to star in an artistic love movie, so Xu Kai wrote, directed and starred in "Titanic" for her.
Nicole Johnson saw that Xu Kai was willing to make a movie for Sophie March, so there was no reason for her not to make a movie for her. After all, she had been serving Xu Kai wholeheartedly for more than two years and even gave birth to a son for him.
So, not wanting to favor one over the other, Xu Kai filmed "Avatar" for Nicole Johnson.
As for "Inception" and "Jurassic World", they were filmed by Xu Kai for Zhu Bing, Zhang Zhiwei and Zhang Xiaosu.
To be honest——
During the three or four years that Xu Kai has been in Hollywood, his greatest achievement is not in movies, but in soundtracks and music.
In the past few years, Xu Kai has composed music for dozens of Hollywood movies. He achieved all the major music awards in the world in just one year and released many songs that were praised and sung by Europeans and Americans.
Moreover, Xu Kai also took time out to hold solo concerts in many states in the United States and many countries in Europe. With Xu Kai's unprecedented great achievements in the field of music, Big Bird became the most famous band in the world.
So, seriously speaking, Xu Kai's achievements in the field of music may be even higher than his achievements in the field of film.
actually--
The reason why Xu Kai was willing to take the trouble to compose music for other people's movies, including making guest appearances in other people's movies, was mainly because he wanted to use his favors to exchange for opportunities for Chinese actors to appear in Hollywood movies.
Not only in other people's movies, but also in Xu Kai's own movies, Xu Kai tries to add Chinese actors as much as possible.
Of course, the premise is that it doesn't affect the quality of the movie too much.
Different from other Hollywood filmmakers who like to use those squinty-eyed Chinese actors, the Chinese actors used by Xu Kai are all handsome men and beautiful women, and they are rarely given absolute villain roles, so that they can represent the new era Chinese and bring positive influence to the Chinese people.
Thanks to Xu Kai's efforts, many Chinese actors have been able to go to Hollywood to broaden their horizons or even develop their careers in Hollywood.
During these three or four years, the Chinese also completed the largest cultural export in modern history.
At the same time, Xu Capital also completed further expansion because Xu Kai made a huge amount of money in the film market in the past three or four years.
A word that is often heard in the capital market is "betting".
Anyone who pays attention to the domestic capital market will surely find that the word “betting” appears very frequently.
Because of the bet, some people laughed at the end, some fell to the bottom, some lost everything, and some even went to jail.
It gives people the feeling that many big guys in the country have to go through several rounds of gambling before they can complete the upgrade of killing monsters and become big bosses.
So, what is a bet agreement?
As the name suggests, it is actually a bet agreement, that is, the financing company and the investor have to make a bet. Generally, when financing, everyone has to set a target for the company. If the company completes the target as required, the financing company wins the bet. If the target is not completed, the investor wins the bet. Then the losing party has to compensate the winning party with something, such as money, equity, etc.
This is a bet agreement.
Xu Kai had no idea when the gambling agreement in this life had developed - perhaps it was during the more than ten years he had been in prison.
What Xu Kai knew clearly was that the first relatively public case of gambling in his previous life was Mengniu.
In the early 2000s, Yili was the absolute leader in the milk market, with a market share of over 30%.
This is normal, after all, Yili was listed on the A-share market in 1996.
But halfway through, Mengniu suddenly appeared.
Under the leadership of Mengniu's founder Niu Gensheng, Mengniu was truly unstoppable in those years.
By the way, let me talk about Niu Gensheng, the founder of Mengniu.
In fact, Niu Gensheng first worked at Yili.
During his time at Yili, Niu Gensheng was truly an extremely capable person, rising through the ranks to become vice president. The team he led achieved 80% of Yili's performance.
Later there were rumors that there was some power struggle within Yili. Anyway, Niu Gensheng went out on his own and founded Mengniu.
As a result, after Niu Gensheng was born, nine senior executives of Yili gave up their high salaries at Yili and followed Niu Gensheng to start their own business.
Then, hundreds of Yili employees came one after another to tell others and come to join Niu Gensheng.
Mengniu suddenly had an experienced entrepreneurial team.
However, even so, Mengniu's revenue in its first year working alone was only more than 37 million.
But just four years later, by the end of 2003, this figure had become 4 billion, more than 100 times more.
Later, some people even called Niu Gensheng the "Father of the Dairy Industry" because of Mengniu's achievements.
The dairy industry is an economy of scale, which means that at the beginning you have to get all the cows ready and at the same time get the supply chain ready.
Anyway, the initial investment cost of the dairy industry is very high, and the marginal cost in the future is very small.
For this kind of industry, as long as the market still has potential, the more you expand, the more you earn.
Therefore, for Niu Gensheng, as long as the market capacity is large enough, if he wants to make more money, he needs to expand, expand, and expand again.
What does expansion require? Money, of course.
Then the problem arises: for Mengniu, a relatively unknown private enterprise at the time, it was impossible for it to borrow a large amount of money from the bank.
It’s no problem to say that Niu Gensheng is very good at product development and marketing, but when it comes to the capital market, Niu Gensheng is at a loss, so he was very anxious at the time.
Fortunately, Mengniu, which was in urgent need of money at the time, was targeted by Morgan Stanley.
At that time, China had just joined the WTO and the living standards of the Chinese people were improving rapidly. Therefore, although the dairy industry had not yet been vigorously developed, the market potential was huge.
The industry leader at the time, Yili, was actually a state-owned company and had been listed for three years. For Morgan Stanley, it was simply impossible to squeeze in.
So Morgan Stanley set its sights on Mengniu, which was developing well at the time.
So, when Mengniu was in great need of money, Morgan Stanley, together with CDH Investments and Actis, found Niu Gensheng.
On one side, high-quality companies are short of money, while on the other side, there is money but short of high-quality companies. The two sides hit it off.
In 2002, Morgan Stanley invested US$26 million in Mengniu.
In the following year, Mengniu grew rapidly, and then ran out of money again.
So Niu Gensheng found Morgan Stanley again and asked Morgan Stanley to invest more.
Morgan Stanley certainly has money, but they are afraid that Mengniu will not perform well and will not be able to go public, which will prevent them from making money.
In order to protect their own interests, Morgan Stanley told Niu Gensheng that they were optimistic about Mengniu, but the Chinese market was full of uncertainties. So, they were willing to invest another US$35.23 million in Mengniu, but they had a condition - let's set a goal. If Mengniu's revenue compound growth rate exceeds 50% in the next three years, we, the investors, will give you another 78.3 million shares (roughly equivalent to 6% of Mengniu's shares at the time). In return, you, Mengniu, have to give us 78.3 million shares.
Morgan Stanley had a beautiful idea. If Mengniu's performance soared and the annual growth rate could exceed 50%, it would be easy to go public. Even if I gave some rewards to the management, it would be reasonable. It didn't matter if the stock price didn't rise that high. I could still get some shares as compensation. In short, I wouldn't lose anything.
First of all, Niu Gensheng faces the pressure of lack of money. Secondly, he also has confidence in Mengniu. The key is that Niu Gensheng cannot raise money through other channels.
Therefore, the two parties reached a gambling agreement and the gambling began.
Maybe Niu Gensheng was really capable, or maybe heroes were made by the times, or maybe Mengniu was just lucky. Anyway, Mengniu, which received the investment, developed rapidly and was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in less than three years. In 2005, its performance doubled thanks to the phenomenal marketing of Super Girls. In 2006, it surpassed Yili to become the leader of the domestic dairy industry, easily winning the bet agreement.
Mengniu won the bet, and the management received more than 60 million shares, directly cashing out billions of Hong Kong dollars. Although Morgan Stanley lost the bet, Mengniu was listed and its share price kept going up, so it directly cashed out 2.6 billion Hong Kong dollars in the secondary market, and its return rate on Mengniu directly exceeded 550%.
Both parties achieved a win-win situation.
From this example, we can see that the so-called gambling agreement is actually some unfair terms added by investors during financing in order to avoid certain uncertainties in the future.
Some people may say, how can this be called a dominance? Didn’t Mengniu win?
That's right.
Mengniu won.
But the problem is, you don’t know what will happen if you lose.
Take South Beauty as an example.
Some people may not be familiar with the brand "South Beauty", but when it comes to Big S and her husband, Wang Xiaofei, one of the four young masters in Beijing, probably everyone knows them.
South Beauty is a high-end chain restaurant brand founded by Wang Xiaofei's mother Zhang Lan. It was extremely prosperous around 2008/09/10.
Zhang Lan claims that she wants to create a LV in the Chinese food industry.
Since its establishment in 2000, South Beauty has been overcoming difficulties all the way.
By 2008, South Beauty had become the only Chinese food provider for the Olympic Games, with 70 stores across the country, making a daily net profit of 2 million yuan and a valuation of 2 billion yuan.
Zhang Lan claimed that in the future, wherever there is LV, there will be South Beauty. In the next ten years, we will be among the Fortune 500 companies in the world, and in the next ten years, we will be among the top three of the Fortune 500.
Zhang Lan's business was going so smoothly that it was natural for her to think about going public.
Before going public, Zhang Lan was thinking about trying hard to raise more money.
At this time, CDH Capital came again.
CDH may have benefited from the bet, and it played another bet with South Beauty.
What are you betting on?
The bet is that South Beauty will go public in four years.
If successful, it will be successfully listed, and there will be no rewards.
If you fail, I'm sorry, Ms. Zhang Lan, you have to return all the previous investment to me, and add a "reasonable" rate of return, which is 20% annualized.
Moreover, CDH has prepared for the worst-case scenario by adding an additional clause, which means what if Zhang Lan cannot come up with the money? That doesn’t matter, CDH can take Zhang Lan’s shares and sell them for cash.
Anyway, the goal is to ensure that CDH makes a profit without losses.
Normally, Zhang Lan would not agree to such harsh conditions.
After all, the risk in the catering industry is not very high, and the cash flow is so stable. She just needs to make money slowly and steadily.
But Zhang Lan was doing too smoothly at the time and was full of confidence. She saw that catering companies like Quanjude and Xiang'e Qing had all gone public and were developing well, and she couldn't help but feel itchy.
In addition, CDH has both funds and experience in listing, so listing is a sure thing for South Beauty.
Zhang Lan thought again, even if we take a step back, this bet is nothing more than some money. Even if I don't achieve my goal, the worst that can happen is that I will compensate you some money.
So, Zhang Lan happily agreed to the bet.
After receiving the investment, Zhang Lan became very popular for a while, giving speeches everywhere and becoming the most powerful female entrepreneur in China. Wang Xiaofei also married Big S in a high-profile manner.
South Beauty also submitted an application for listing on the A-share market in 2011.
But the good times did not last long. In January 2012, the relevant authorities announced a list of companies whose IPOs were terminated.
This includes many companies in the catering industry, including South Beauty.
The reason given at the time was that in the catering industry, there are many cash transactions on the purchasing and sales sides, so there is no way to guarantee the authenticity of the financial reports.
Zhang Lan was stunned for a moment.
Because at that time there were only 8 months left until the final effective deadline of the bet agreement.
Zhang Lan had no choice but to rush to Hong Kong to go public.
As a result, Zhang Lan encountered the global stock market crash, and there was a time when Chinese private enterprises were not allowed to go public overseas.
This is actually a law to protect Chinese companies.
Of course, there are also rumors that it was because of financial problems at South Beauty that it was unable to go public.
Anyway, the listing in Hong Kong was not successful.
Both IPOs failed.
This triggered the repurchase agreement in the bet agreement.
But during those two years, South Beauty was hit by the financial crisis. Zhang Lan was broke and could no longer afford to buy back the shares held by CDH.
This further triggered the second layer of the bet agreement, called the right of first sale and liquidation priority.
Capital is the most ruthless. CDH Investments directly and bluntly found CVC, a European private equity giant, and sold 82.7% of the shares of South Beauty held by CDH Investments and Zhang Lan for US$300 million.
CDH took the money and left happily.
Later, CVC tried many things to revive South Beauty, but in the end, whether due to lack of ability or something else, it failed to save South Beauty.
The founder Zhang Lan left the scene in disgrace. Her glory was gone, and family affairs became a mess.
actually--
There are few examples of gambling like Mengniu. In the world of capital, there are more examples like South Beauty.
What most capitals like to do is to rely on the fact that they are the financial backers. They will not bet with you on any performance development, but will bet with you on whether you can make money for them. If you can, I will support you, if not, I will destroy you, without hesitation.
In other words, if you go public, I will take the money and exit in the secondary market. It doesn’t matter if you can’t go public. I will sell your company, you will bear the debt, and I will still make money and leave.
The most important thing is that most of the gambling agreements are signed at the personal level of the founders, which means that the founders will be infinitely implicated, and may even lose everything and end up in jail.
Therefore, the gambling agreement seems fair, but it is not.
As long as the bet agreement is signed, the investor will definitely make money together. If the company loses money, goes bankrupt, or goes to jail, all the money will belong to the financing party and the founder. The investor has zero risk. Even if the company loses money, the investor will still make a lot of money.
Therefore, this seemingly fair bet actually greatly reduces the risk for investors, and all the risks are passed on to the financing party and the founder.
Moreover, some capital is even so arrogant that there is no reward at all for winning and there will be huge penalties for losing, so the gambling agreement becomes a penalty clause.
And because Xu Kai, a man with a far-sighted vision, is in charge, and because Xu Kai himself is not a qualified capitalist, Xu Capital seldom signs any gambling agreements with the financing parties, and generally will not kill the financing parties, nor will it easily abandon the financing parties, and will definitely help them if it can.
The key is that Xu Kai never runs away after making money - most of the time, he stands with the founder until the end.
The key point is that Xu Kai never interferes with the operations of the founding team and has always been an extremely reliable major shareholder.
Therefore, Xu Capital is often called the most conscientious capital by entrepreneurs, and Xu Kai is also known as a great philanthropist in the capital world.
The most important thing is that Xu Kai, who has made countless money in the entertainment industry, always has a large amount of liquid funds on hand.
This also leads to the fact that once entrepreneurs are short of money, they will first look to Xu Capital for financing.
Xu Kai would use his forward-looking vision and insights to pick out projects with development potential and invest in them.
Over time, Xu Kai invested in hundreds of companies.
Most of the companies invested by Xu Kaito are doing very well, and the market value of some of them has skyrocketed exponentially.
As a result, in just a few years, Xu Kai became the world's richest man, and his total assets were dozens of times that of the second place. The key point was that this was only the part of his wealth that Xu Kai had revealed...
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(End of this chapter)
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