My Peninsula 2007

Chapter 495 Win-win
BlackRock acquired 20% of NGN from DFJ at a relatively low price, and its share price surged shortly after it came into BlackRock's hands.

Regardless of how much money BlackRock might make from such an investment, it would significantly boost the company's reputation. It's important to remember that BlackRock's core business is asset management; its vast assets don't solely belong to it, but largely originate from investors around the world.

For BlackRock to gain the trust of these investors and get them to willingly hand over large sums of assets, it needs more than just strong support from Washington. It also needs its own growing reputation. It needs to help investors make money and convince them that it can make money.

Therefore, BlackRock doesn't mind increasing NGN's valuation and investing more money in it, because the more it invests, the more it earns. In BlackRock's eyes, NGN is a delicious, expanding cake, and what it needs to do now is not to devour the cake in one bite, but to make it even bigger.

To go further, BlackRock's goal with its investment in NGN is not just to make money from NGN's development, but also to make the NGN investment a successful example, proving to potential investors worldwide that BlackRock not only has strong background and strength, but also excellent investment acumen.

Therefore, by investing in NGN, BlackRock not only aims to profit from NGN's development but also seeks to acquire more assets under management from potential investors. From this perspective, BlackRock and Anruson's positions are currently aligned; both hope for NGN's rapid growth.

Therefore, Susan was dissatisfied with An Rusong's asking price in two ways: firstly, An Rusong's valuation of NGN was too conservative, and secondly, he offered too few shares to attract investment.

According to Susan, or rather BlackRock's plan, they intend to acquire at least 15% of NGN's equity through this round of financing. This would give BlackRock a controlling stake of over 35% in NGN, a stake that would be more advantageous to BlackRock.

Susan's stance was clear: BlackRock didn't care about the amount of investment, or whether An Rusong's shares were sold for a higher or lower price. BlackRock was concerned with the percentage of shares held, and in this regard, An Rusong, as the company's largest shareholder, had to make certain concessions.

In addition, Susan also stated that BlackRock cannot be a bystander with only dividend rights in the development of NGN. In order to protect the interests of the investors represented by BlackRock, they must have a certain voice, at least the power to make changes if NGN's interests are harmed.

As mentioned before, An Rusong knew that he could not monopolize control of NGN forever without the supervision of any investors. Such an NGN would be unhealthy. However, he would not make concessions to BlackRock so readily. Otherwise, if the other party could easily achieve its goal this time, they would definitely take advantage of him next time.

However, one of the conditions Susan proposed was something that An Rusong was very interested in, and even surprised him. According to Susan, if NGN and BlackRock reached a cooperation agreement and the latter became NGN's main investor, then BlackRock would, after liquidating ICQ's existing assets, incorporate them into NGN's system as a partial investment.

An Rusong had an in-depth conversation with Susan about this issue. According to Susan, BlackRock had indeed been paying attention to NGN for a long time, and their intention in contacting AOL and making plans to acquire ICQ was to integrate ICQ with NGN, thereby further promoting NGN's growth in terms of scale and market share.

To be honest, during the years that AOL controlled ICQ, strategic errors in its development, coupled with the emergence of a series of similar software, did lead to a significant decline in ICQ's overall business. From a competitive standpoint, NGN is indeed not afraid of ICQ today. However, from a mergers and acquisitions perspective, ICQ is a very attractive and lucrative opportunity for the rapidly growing NGN.

As mentioned before, NGN is only just beginning its internationalization journey, and its business expansion in Europe is very limited. ICQ, on the other hand, has almost all of its active users concentrated in Europe. Most importantly, ICQ also has two main servers in Europe.

If ICQ can be acquired and its overall business integrated into NGN's system through user interoperability, NGN will be able to rapidly expand its business in Europe in the shortest possible time. This will not only help NGN expand its user base but also promote the rapid implementation of its localization strategy.

In addition, ICQ's portfolio of patents and its large technical team are also coveted by An Rusong.

Even if NGN doesn't gain anything substantial in this acquisition and only manages to absorb the shell of ICQ, it would still be clearly beneficial to NGN's development. After all, acquiring ICQ would be equivalent to eliminating a competitor for NGN's future development.

At the same time, the acquisition of ICQ will enhance market confidence in NGN's future development, thereby further boosting NGN's market valuation.

Therefore, in the final analysis, the acquisition of ICQ was beneficial not only to NGN and An Rusong, but also to BlackRock, the instigator of the deal; it was a win-win situation for both parties. It was precisely because of the ICQ acquisition that An Rusong was willing to make some concessions to BlackRock that he could accept in subsequent negotiations.

Inside the room, the girl who had been lying on the bed struggled to get up. She pulled a blanket over herself, carefully got out of bed, and slowly made her way towards the bathroom.

An Rusong ignored the other person and continued to look at the television, but his mind was still on the matter of cooperating with BlackRock.

Two days after the first informal meeting with Susan, negotiations between NGN and BlackRock have stalled again in the last two days.

Because the negotiations had attracted much attention, during the two days that the negotiations stalled, a large number of reporters surrounded the gates of NGN Company every day, and An Rusong's phone was almost ringing off the hook with calls from all sides.

Even Lee Min-po, who was stationed at the Blue House, made a special call to inquire about the specific situation. It was clear that the president was very worried about the failure of the talks between the two sides.

However, although there was much speculation about this matter, An Rusong knew very well that the reason why his meeting with Susan had stalled was not because she was dissatisfied with the negotiations and wanted to leave him hanging. The reason Susan did not show up was because she was not in Seoul at all. She had secretly run back to the United States, hiding from the attention of all parties. There were more important things that required her attention there.

An Rusong learned of Susan's secret departure from Seoul and return to the United States from her friends in the "StockMavericks" group. This was a top secret for the South Korean news media, but it was not difficult for some well-informed people on Wall Street to find out.

According to the group members, Susan's secret return to the United States was related to AIG Group, also known as the famous "American International Group".

American International Group (AIG) is the largest insurance company in the United States. Ranked 18th globally in terms of overall strength, its stock has consistently been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, demonstrating its formidable strength.

Yet, this very company has rapidly fallen into the brink of collapse in the past six months, with its stock price plummeting by nearly 80%. This is because an insurance policy it issued called a "credit default swap" completely collapsed.

The "credit default swap" issued by American International Group (AIG) can be seen as a guarantee for subprime mortgage bonds. It can be roughly understood that if the insured subprime mortgage bonds default, AIG will pay the relevant compensation, and even double the amount.

To put it bluntly, this special insurance policy has been turned into a gambling tool by AIG. If it weren't for the subprime mortgage crisis, it could have made a fortune. Unfortunately, with the outbreak of the subprime mortgage crisis, there were widespread defaults on subprime mortgage bonds, involving more than seven trillion dollars. This means that the "credit default swap" insurance policy created by AIG, according to the normal procedures, may have to pay out hundreds of trillions of dollars.

Therefore, in terms of the extent of damage to the US financial system, Bear Stearns' bankruptcy crisis was child's play compared to that of AIG.

Previously, the Federal Reserve's bailout of Bear Stearns could be seen as an indirect rescue measure for AIG, since Bear Stearns held a massive amount of subprime mortgage-backed securities.

The rescue plan for Bear Stearns has only just begun, and the relevant procedures have not yet been completed, while the rescue of AIG has already been put on the agenda. However, this news has not yet been officially announced in the United States.

In fact, there were various voices in the United States regarding the issue of saving Bear Stearns, especially among the public. There was a strong opposition from the beginning to the US government using tax money to save Wall Street, but this voice was deliberately ignored by the mainstream media.

(End of this chapter)