"Amazon's biggest weakness is that it's too cheap?" The statement exploded like a thunderclap in their online video call, making Boss Wang feel his head was about to split.
To understand the impact of this statement, one needed to know Amazon's current market capitalization.
According to the closing data of that evening, in October 2005, Amazon's market value was 21.6 billion US dollars. Its peak market value for the entire year of 2005 was 24.3 billion US dollars, a decrease of over 2 billion US dollars since June of that year.
So, what was Amazon's total market value in 2022?
Not too much, only 1.17 trillion US dollars, and at its peak, it boasted a terrifying market value of 1.65 trillion US dollars.
The market value had increased by a staggering 1.1 trillion US dollars.
From this perspective, Amazon, selling for only 21.6 billion US dollars now, was indeed incredibly cheap.
Of course, this was from Boss Huang's God's-eye view. However, for Hao Jianguo to be able to utter the words that Amazon's current price was too cheap was truly extraordinary.
"You mean, you want Jiangnan Group to buy the entire Amazon?" Boss Huang's voice was somewhat low as he asked.
"Exactly. Its total market value represents our best opportunity. I estimate that by 2006, the total market value could rise to around 30 billion US dollars, possibly even reaching 40 billion US dollars at its peak. At that point, the acquisition cost would more than double. Therefore, now is the best time for us to acquire Amazon, and it's also the lowest price for Amazon in three years. It shouldn't be too difficult for us to acquire Amazon at this time!" Hao Jianguo stated firmly.
"Acquire Amazon..." Huang He, in the video, fell into hesitation. After a full quarter of an hour, he finally spoke, "How much do you estimate it would cost to buy Amazon?"
"Amazon currently only has 20% of its shares circulating in the stock market, so the possibility of acquiring Amazon through the stock market is very low. We can only acquire a large number of Amazon shares by directly purchasing them from existing shareholders."
"If we can acquire over 50% of the shares, we can, as the chairman, command Amazon to use our Western Mustang Wallet as the sole payment method."
"And if we acquire over 50% of the shares, we can directly initiate a tender offer and completely acquire all of Amazon's shares."
"Currently, Bezos holds 21.5% of Amazon's shares, and another 20% are circulating in the stock market. The remaining less than 60% are held by various investment institutions and individuals. Generally speaking, as long as we offer an attractive enough price, we can obtain most of the equity. This means we have to acquire at a premium."
"Since 2003, Amazon's stock price has exceeded 20 billion US dollars, but since then, its stock price has consistently fluctuated between 20 and 25 billion US dollars. The highest point was the peak market value of 25.6 billion US dollars created in 2003, while the lowest market value is the current 21.6 billion US dollars."
"Looking at its long-term market value, from its IPO in '97 to now, Amazon's stock price has increased twentyfold, making it a quality stock."
"However, looking at its market value over the past three years, Amazon has clearly entered a bottleneck period. And for companies that enter a bottleneck period, 90% of them will face a decline in stock price later on, with less than 10% being able to break through the bottleneck and continue to rise."
"Especially in the last three months, due to the rise in oil prices, Amazon's transportation costs have increased, and logistics costs have followed suit, increasing the logistics price per item by about 1 dollar on average. This has directly caused Amazon's sales to fall by more than 10% in these three months."
"Therefore, the entire market's outlook for Amazon is currently negative. Most institutions are confidently publishing comments stating that Amazon is about to drop below the 20 billion US dollar mark and return to 10 billion US dollars, with even bankruptcy being a possibility!"
"So, under the current circumstances, many people are eager to sell their Amazon stock. As long as we are willing to acquire Amazon stock at a premium, almost no one will refuse; instead, they will proactively sell their shares to us!"
"My experts unanimously believe that acquiring Amazon at a premium of at most 10%, i.e., at a total price of 23 billion US dollars, will allow us to completely control all of Amazon's shares and make Amazon a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jiangnan Group. This is our best opportunity!"
"Boss, I am willing to swear on my career that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If we miss it, we will regret it forever, and this is Amazon's biggest weakness!" In the end, the excited Hao Jianguo even resorted to swearing on his professional career.
"Acquire Amazon?" Huang He hesitated further, muttering to himself, "24 billion US dollars, that's nearly 200 billion RMB. Where would I get 24 billion US dollars in cash to acquire Amazon?"
"Boss, if I may be so bold, our entire North American company generated over 12 billion US dollars in total sales for the parent company last year. How can the company not have 24 billion US dollars?" Hao Jianguo asked with some confusion.
"And the profits gained by the Western Mustang Fund in recent years must also exceed 10 billion US dollars. We should be able to afford this money; otherwise, I wouldn't have proposed this idea to you!"
Although Hao Jianguo said this, the intelligence from Goldman Sachs told him that Jiangnan Group had at most around 5 billion US dollars in cash.
This was all calculated by Goldman Sachs based on the North American company's sales data, various data from China, and crucial confidential data and business intelligence from various banks.
Of course, according to Goldman Sachs' calculations, Jiangnan Group's total capital should have exceeded 50 billion US dollars, but this was capital, not cash.
"Jianguo, there are some things you don't know... never mind. You are the person I trust most, so I'll tell you directly. The company account currently has only about 12 billion US dollars, which is still half of the 24 billion US dollars you mentioned!" Huang He sighed.
"The company account has 12 billion US dollars?" Hearing this news, Hao Jianguo couldn't help but swallow. Good heavens, their company really had so much money.
And since Jiangnan Group belonged entirely to Boss Huang, it meant that Huang He had up to 12 billion US dollars in cash available?
This was an incredible super-performer!
"Damn Goldman Sachs, making such critical mistakes in intelligence!" At the same time, Hao Jianguo cursed Goldman Sachs' intelligence network in his mind for being useless. Despite having leaked all of Jiangnan North American's business data, the final calculation was off by a full 7 billion US dollars. This was simply outrageous!
Also, how did Huang He accumulate so many US dollars?
Hao Jianguo couldn't figure it out, where did Huang He get so much money from.
Well, he certainly didn't know that a game mall called "00 Game Mall" had contributed over 10 billion US dollars in pure profit to Jiangnan Group in just one year.
Yes, that was indeed an exaggerated figure.
After almost all major PC game manufacturers partnered with Jiangnan Group last year, the rake-off from the 00 Game platform reached unimaginable levels.
Jiangnan Group directly took 30%-15% of the pure profit from over 70% of the single-player PC game market profits. This was only the total profit of the single-player game market. What was even more terrifying was the profit commission from online games.
Although this profit commission was currently less than 4 billion US dollars, online games would be the most powerful game market in the world in the future, and the terrifying profits that could be drawn from it could be guessed with common sense.
In addition to the commission from games, Huakechan, that is, the China Electronics Technology Industry Alliance, also contributed massive profits to Jiangnan Group.
Although Jiangnan Group, as the nominal chairman, was not entitled to draw a penny of profit from the industry alliance, remember that over 30% of the patents and production technologies of the entire China Electronics Technology Industry Alliance were provided by Jiangnan Group.
Furthermore, Jiangnan Group controlled the supply of low-to-mid-range electronic chips, LED screen manufacturing, and exclusive supply chains for other key high-tech electronic equipment in the entire alliance.
And these devices could directly radiate to the global electronic technology network through Huakechan. These companies could bring Jiangnan Group over 8 billion US dollars in gross profit annually, and these were all real and tangible!
At this time, the blind box business, which Jiangnan Group started with, had already fallen to third place in Jiangnan Group's internal rankings. Although the annual sales were still terrifying, with global blind box sales exceeding 30 billion US dollars for the whole year.
However, because the profit margin of the blind box business was relatively low, the final profit submitted was only around two to three billion US dollars. With all these miscellaneous items added together, heaven knows how much actual usable amount Boss Huang held. In any case, the figure of 12 billion US dollars still lacked imagination.
However, because the 12 billion US dollars reported by Boss Huang far exceeded 5 billion US dollars, Hao Jianguo did not doubt the authenticity of this figure at all. After all, could the working capital in Huang鹤's hands possibly exceed 12 billion US dollars?
But on the phone, Boss Huang was still crying poverty, saying, "Jianguo, you don't know how much huge investment our company has to make in research and development every year. Just the vacuum train project alone costs me 4 billion US dollars a year, and that's in US dollars."
"Not to mention the funds needed for various chip and electronic projects, and our university. I've already spent over 15 billion US dollars this year. You don't know how tight the total company is right now!"
"Tight..." Hearing Boss Huang crying poverty, Hao Jianguo's mouth twitched, indicating that his brain couldn't process it anymore.