Vol 2 Chapter 749 Merrill Lynch’s Big Change (Part 1)

Chapter 749: The Great Change of Merrill Lynch (1)

…

“Bruce!”

Seeing Guo Shouyun who pushed in the door, Stan O’Neal strode up to greet him with a smile. Looking at his open arms, Guo Shouyun also smiled and hugged him.

“We haven’t seen each other for almost a year?” Stan O’Neal laughed.

“I remember the last time we met at the annual meeting of entrepreneurs organized by the Ministry of Finance.” Guo Shouyun nodded and said.

“After so long, you’re still so handsome. But you’ve become more mature and stable.”

“Haha, such a compliment makes me a little embarrassed!”

After Stan O’Neal smiled, he pointed his left hand towards the reception area next to him.

“Please sit down!”

“Please!”

After the two sat down, O’Neal’s assistant Jack had brought the tea prepared in advance.

“Knowing that you are coming, I specially prepared the ‘Dahongpao’ from Huaxia, I hope you like it.”

“Of course! The super Dahongpao is the top black tea in China. It’s rare that you buy it to entertain me.”

“As long as you are satisfied! Come!”

After holding up the teacup and signaling to O’Neal, the two took a sip each.

“To be honest, I still prefer to drink coffee. It has a mellow taste and sweetness in the bitterness. It can also make me more energetic throughout the day and ensure high work efficiency.”

“Everyone has their own different tastes, that’s normal.”

“Then why do you like tea?”

“Maybe it’s because of drinking it for a long time! My mouth is used to the softness of tea soup! Coffee is too intense for me.” Guo Shouyun pointed at his lips casually.

Stan O’Neal nodded knowingly.

“Sure enough, each has its own advantages! But for Merrill, we seem to like it.”

“The second largest investment bank in the United States and the largest securities broker in the world. No one can dislike it.” Guo Shouyun said.

“Don’t you already have a Phoenix? Why do you still want Merrill?”

Facing Stan O’Neal’s staring eyes at him, Guo Shouyun calmly took a sip from the teacup, “Who told you that I plan to buy Merrill?”

“Bruce, there’s no need to hide things now. Your ambitions for Merrill started as early as when you entered Merrill’s board of directors three years ago. I can guess, it’s just to win over a big client like you and improve Merrill’s reputation. To make a profit, and then to ensure that my transformation of Merrill can be carried out smoothly, I have to endure. Now the appearance of Phoenix has given you a better choice. And my transformation of Merrill has been completed, it is time for you to leave Merrill , to keep this great company out of your hands.”

“O’Neill, I have always invested in Merrill Lynch, but I never thought of **** it from you!” Guo Shouyun continued.

“If it wasn’t for Merrill Lynch, how could you covertly acquire close to 13% of it in three years?”

Looking at O’Neal’s mocking and winning eyes, Guo Shouyun’s eyes jumped violently. His acquisition of Merrill Lynch is undoubtedly a top secret among top secrets. From the beginning to the present, the number of people who know about this is definitely no more than the number of palms. So who exactly leaked the news?

“Bruce, aren’t you going to admit it?”

“O’Neal, I don’t know where you got the news from. But I’m sure the initiator of it intends to alienate our partnership. Don’t be fooled!”

Guo Shouyun would not easily let go just because the other party said a few words. And he also wants to know the source of the news from the other party’s mouth, and then find out the spy buried beside him.

However, Stan O’Neal is obviously more sophisticated, and although he is proud, he has not lost his mind. In addition, Guo Shouyun’s always calm performance made him inexplicably uneasy.

“Bruce, I trust my judgment. So, I am going to issue new shares!”

When it came to the last few words, O’Neal stared at the look of the guy opposite, but unfortunately, apart from the usual calm, he couldn’t see the slightest panic.

This made his heart suddenly hang.

“Issue new shares?” Guo Shouyun smiled lightly, “Why? Is it just to dilute my equity in Merrill Lynch?”

“That’s one reason we also need to expand Merrill Lynch’s real estate investment.”

“O’Neal, Merrill should have their own investment strategy. It’s not a good thing to keep up with Goldman Sachs and Lehman.”

Stan O’Neal’s pupils shrank. The other party is criticizing his business strategy for Merrill Lynch.

After he became the CEO of Merrill Lynch, he won ‘Maura O’Neill’ for himself through merciless layoffs, and made the Merrill Lynch management team centered on him a ‘Ta-Lee-Ban Organization’ in the mouths of employees. At the same time. In terms of specific business operations, he chose to keep an eye on Goldman Sachs, followed in Goldman’s footsteps, and used his own account funds to conduct high-risk and high-return risk transactions. In just a few years, he has become a big player in private equity investment. Merrill Lynch has brought huge benefits.

But this did not satisfy O’Neal. Driven by greed, he took a fancy to Lehman, who made a fortune through mortgage investment. Then it began to follow Lehman’s footsteps into the mortgage field. In just two years, Merrill Lynch became Wall Street’s largest issuer of CDOs by poaching the mortgage-backed securitization star ‘Christopher Liciardi’ from Credit Suisse.

Like other banks, structuring and issuing CDOs has brought Merrill lucrative benefits. But the money poured in further whetted O’Neal’s appetite. Merrill began to hope that it could become a full-line manufacturer: the business included issuing mortgage loans, packaging the loans into securities, and then splitting them up to generate CDOs, etc., and began to acquire mortgage servicers and commercial real estate companies on a large scale. .

Merrill’s increasingly aggressive strategy in the real estate field finally made Guo Shouyun, who originally planned to wait, wait until he had a better grasp of Merrill, and couldn’t help it.

Now Merrill’s exposure to real estate and related fields has reached 12 billion US dollars, and it is still expanding rapidly. If it is delayed, he is afraid that Merrill’s disaster will be out of control.

“Bruce, what you think is the wrong business strategy has brought Merrill Lynch $14 billion in revenue over the past three years. Also, the Thunder Fund has been making high-risk investments under your auspices, and the exposure is the United States Lin’s several times. As long as you can choose a better deal for yourself, can’t the Merrill I lead?”

Looking at O’Neal’s eyes and expressions, Guo Shouyun knew that he couldn’t convince him at all. Of course, this is also expected. If O’Neal was that easy to persuade, he wouldn’t have to wait until now to buy Merrill.

“It seems that it is still the same as before, none of us can submit to the other’s opinions!” Guo Shouyun shrugged.

“If it wasn’t for work, we could have been good friends!” Stan O’Neill also sighed.

“It’s a pity that God’s arrangement is like this. We all have no other choice, don’t we?”

Looking at the man opposite, after a long silence, Stan O’Neal suddenly asked, “If I choose to issue new shares, will you continue to acquire Merrill Lynch’s equity?”

“No!” Guo Shouyun shook his head, “My interest in Merrill is just investment!”

“Even now, are you still not letting go?”

“O’Neill, from the beginning to the end, my interest in Merrill was just investment, and I didn’t intend to acquire it. Don’t be used by outsiders.” Guo Shouyun smiled.

As long as the dust doesn’t settle, he won’t take the initiative to solve the mystery.

“Okay, I respect your persistence to the end.” O’Neal looked at the watch on his left hand. “It’s almost time, and the other members of the board should have arrived. Let’s go.”

“OK!”

After Guo Shouyun responded, he stood up after him.

Stan O’Neal, who was always watching his expression, felt dull in his heart. Because he did not see the slightest panic and loss in Guo Shouyun. This is really abnormal for a person who “is about to usher in three years of painstaking planning, but fails in the end”. He didn’t believe that Guo Shouyun had such a good psychological quality, and he could achieve ‘Taishan collapsed in front of him without changing his face’.

“Maybe he still thinks I’m testing his bottom line!”

This is what Stan O’Neill thinks is the most plausible explanation. He was always reluctant to believe that the other party had already mastered the absolute control of Merrill Lynch. Or he subconsciously wanted to avoid this possibility.

As the two got closer to the conference room, Guo Shouyun’s calm expression made Stan O’Neal feel the pressure.

“Squeak…!”

With the slightly hoarse sound of the door opening, the whispering voices in the conference room suddenly stopped.

Facing everyone’s attention, Guo Shouyun and Stan O’Neal strode in.

As Merrill Lynch’s chairman and chief executive, the middle seat undoubtedly belongs to him. Guo Shouyun rarely participates in Merrill Lynch’s board of directors, and basically sends representatives to participate through the Bruce Foundation. So after a brief look at the situation, I chose a vacant seat at the end and sat down.

Merrill Lynch’s board of directors has 23 people, except for two people who have not arrived, the rest have basically arrived.

“Why didn’t the representatives from the Morgan family fund and Fidelity show up?”

Looking at the vacant seat, Stan O’Neal asked with a slight frown.

“I’ve called to ask, and they said they’re not participating in today’s board of directors!”

Assistant Jack Brown replied quickly.

“Not participating, why?”

“The Morgan Family Fund and Fidelity have no answer!”

Hearing this, Stan O’Neal subconsciously glanced at Guo Shouyun who was sitting at the end.

“Keep calling and be sure to ask why.”

“Yes!”

The assistant hurriedly went out to make a call. Stan O’Neill looked at the eyes of everyone focused on himself, and suddenly became uneasy.

Taking a deep breath, he suppressed the extra complicated emotions in his heart, and now he has no choice but to shoot.

“Everyone, since Merrill Lynch experienced a downturn in the early 2000s~www.readmtl.com~In the three years from 2002 to 2004, we have achieved remarkable results. Not only has Merrill been consolidated as the largest securities dealer on Wall Street, And also achieved an average annual growth of 28.3%. This shows that our reform of Merrill Lynch is very effective and successful!”

“Clap…!”

The applause ranged from sparse to strong, and O’Neal was very satisfied with the initiative of board member Ahmes Fakahani. The board member he had hand-picked to manage Merrill’s exposure was undoubtedly a direct descendant of his trust.

After smiling and waving to calm everyone down, Stan O’Neill continued: “Merrill Lynch’s success is largely due to our investment in real estate. But in the current market, in real estate mortgages and derivative bonds, we It’s still behind Lehman and Bear Stearns. We should try to change that. So I decided to issue a 150 million share, raise $5.3 billion, and put it into real estate mortgages and derivatives.”

After he finished speaking, he still saw Guo Shouyun at first glance, but the latter seemed to be none of his business. What he planned so hard was to destroy the other party’s plan for more than three years in public, and to use the other party’s panic, anger, and despair to satisfy his inner desire for power.

This wasn’t the script he wanted to see.