America's Road to Wealth

Abel stayed at Crawford Farm for only one night.

The next day, George seemed to have really caught a cold, and it seemed quite serious.

Abel smiled and left the Crawford farm in Ms. Wales' motherly complaining tone.

He had planned to stay at Smith Farm for another week.

This meeting with George broke his plan.

Entering the first day of December.

After returning to Smith Farm.

Abel then planned to return to New York.

He planned to go back and integrate the Pacific Bank of Commerce and American Express first.

Boost their market value before joining forces with the Texas consortium.

That way, when the time comes to exchange shares, you can have a little more advantage.

He left Smith Farm that same day.

In the reluctant farewell eyes of mother and Charlize, they set off for the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

At two o'clock in the afternoon US East Coast time.

Abel's figure has appeared in Manhattan.

He rushed to Lower Manhattan without stopping. At Charlie Brown's Pizza, Abel met American Express shareholder Jim Walton, who had recently loudly attacked him in the media.

Charlie Brown's Pizza.

Jim Walton looked at Abel, who was feasting on a plate of chicken pizza in front of him. While eating, he drank Coke from time to time to relieve his tiredness.

"Didn't eat lunch, was on the plane. I didn't have much appetite. I still like the pizza here better. Jim, you really should try it. The pizza here tastes good."

Jim Walton smiled at Abel:

"I just had lunch two hours ago and had two big steaks. I'm really not hungry now. But I will come here more often, it looks good."

Here, it naturally refers to old man Charlie Brown’s most proud chicken pizza.

It’s also Abel’s favorite.

Abel smiled and said nothing. Instead, under Jim Walton's watchful eyes, one man finished off a fourteen-inch chicken pizza.

This amount of food made Jim Walton's eyelids jump, and it even frightened him.

You must know that normally, a 13- to 14-inch pizza can feed four or five people.

One person can eat a seven-inch or eight-inch pizza, even if he has a good appetite.

If a person eats such a large portion of pizza, he can participate in the Big Eater Competition.

This would be fine if you were a manual worker.

But Abel is a super rich man, the richest man in the world who is richer than himself.

He actually still has such an appetite. Seeing Abel's strong and tall body, Jim Walton was very envious.

Being rich and in good health is the best combination for rich people.

After eating and drinking, Abel took the towel Edward handed over to wash his face and wipe his hands.

After wiping his face, Abel calmed down and looked at the son of the founder of the Wal-Mart supermarket opposite.

"Honestly, Jim. I didn't expect you to contact me first. I thought it would be Fisher Group and the others."

"You must know a few days ago. You were still scolding me in the media, saying that my invasion by a barbarian would definitely cause the brand value of American Express to drop."

"Haha~" Jim Walton laughed, "It is precisely because I have this understanding that I made an appointment with you today. Mr. Smith, it is precisely because of this that I want to advance the stock of American Express." Sell ​​it. It's safest to keep the money in your pocket."

Here's the thing.

After the comprehensive tender offer for Express Company, it reached 48.9%.

The resistance to Abel's acquisition of American Express's stock suddenly became significantly greater.

Those institutions didn't want American Express to fall completely under his control so quickly.

They held a small meeting to exclude Abel and passed a decision--no stock could be sold to Smith and he could not have complete control of American Express.

They formed what was barely an alliance.

But within this alliance, it is riddled with holes, and internal relations are very bad.

The key is that there are many people within this alliance who are willing to sell this news to Abel.

After Abel learned about these people's plans, he remained calm.

He waited until Soros represented him and attended the shareholders' meeting on the 20th of last month.

At the shareholders' meeting, Abel was elected as independent chairman.

Abel secretly took advantage of the month before the comprehensive acquisition offer was over.

He secretly contacted those institutional shareholders and the remaining shareholders.

Not even Jim Walton was spared.

If only the remaining shareholders could really work together.

Of course, Abel's connection was useless.

But among the remaining shareholders, no one can work together under the temptation of high prices.

Many people were secretly in contact with Abel. Most people want to get a good price.

Now that Abel has controlled 48.9% of the shares, he only needs a small number of shares to achieve safe control of American Express.

After exceeding the 50% security holding line, American Express is almost owned by Abel Smith.

So those people Abel contacted all had very high quotes.

Some are even exaggeratedly expensive, so high that Abel had to pay almost twice the price to buy them.

For example, those five financial institutions have been secretly collaborating with Abel and are the most active in disclosing information about American Express.

But it was Jim Walton who finally contacted Abel and asked for the lowest price.

"I know that now that you are here, Mr. Smith, it is inevitable."

"Then I am naturally willing to sell the stocks to you first. Otherwise, if I wait for others to sell first, I think the remaining stocks I have will be in trouble."

"In that case. Then I might as well earn less."

Jim Walton's stance is clear.

Just like he said.

Jim Walton has had some conflicts with Abel over American Express.

He had previously spoken in several media about Abel's hostile takeover of American Express.

After he thought about it, Abel really took full control of American Express after taking over. The first one who might take action is to target him.

In this case, if Abel is still willing to buy his own stock.

Jim Walton doesn't care about the offensive and defensive alliance or the shareholder alliance.

In order to ensure that his own interests were maximized, he directly contacted Abel in private.

Sell ​​the stock to Abel, and he will stop playing at American Express.

Walk faster than anyone else.

"Haha~" Abel said to Jim Walton with a smile:

"I have to say, Mr. Walton, you made a wise choice. And very quickly. Otherwise, I would have gone to see Caleder of Fisher Asset Management tonight."

Of course, there is no need to elaborate on what Kalide did.

Jim Walton shrugged.

He knew that he was definitely not the only one willing to betray the shareholder alliance.

It was just a private verbal agreement to prevent Abel from completely privatizing American Express.

Not to mention it is just a private verbal agreement, when it is profitable.

Even if you sign a contract, you can still tear it up at will even if you have to pay the contract fee at the worst.

Sometimes the contract money may not even be compensated, and the two parties will argue and directly litigate to see who can outspend the other.

"Then it will be as we agreed before. US$700 million."

Going round and round, the price at which Jim Walton sold his 1.5% stake has not changed much, and is even a little cheaper.

Jim Walton agreed.

If he doesn't sell it, Abel will really hold more than 50% of it safely.

If Abel wants to retaliate against him, then his stocks will be in trouble.

Anyway, at this price, he has already made more than double.

Naturally, Jim Walton was happy to sell.

In the evening, American Pacific Bank of Commerce issued an announcement.

Announced the acquisition of a total of 720.09 million American Express shares.

Accounting for 50.4% of the total issued share capital of American Express, it has reached the target of this comprehensive tender offer.

Therefore, this general tender offer was officially a complete success.

As soon as this news came out.

Abel and Jim Walton's business phone calls were filled with calls.

It is estimated that most of the people who called Abel were the shareholders of Express Company who he had contacted before, but they all wanted to wait for the price and raised the price very high.

They were probably the same people who called Jim Walton.

Everyone is probably condemning him and Jim for contacting Abel privately despite the agreement of the shareholders' offensive and defensive alliance.

But what's the use?

What Jim Walton did was not illegal.

The time for Pacific Commercial Bank’s comprehensive takeover bid is not over yet.

It won't end until the fifth of this month.

Everything was reasonable and legal, at most it was just Jim Walton reneging on their verbal agreement.

These people didn't even think about it. Among the shareholders, Jim Walton was the one who had the most serious confrontation with Abel in the media.

He was actually the first to betray everyone.

Jim Walton's decisiveness can only be said to be that of the son of a top businessman who created the world-class enterprise Wal-Mart.

The first day of December passed like this.

The next day.

December 2nd.

Early morning is the purest time of the day.

This was also the time when Abel was at his most energetic.

Like many things, doing them in the morning is of great benefit to the body.

For example, exercising in the morning, eating fast food, etc.

A harmonious and beautiful morning exercise.

It cheered up Abel's mood for the day.

As for Avril, who had suffered from a serious lack of sleep last night, she once again had the most beautiful and colorful morning.

The price is that I am tired and sleepy, and I will probably have to sleep until after noon today.

Now Abel is at the pinnacle of the Woolworth Building.

Xiao Tiantian ran away after signing a short-term employee agreement.

She regained her "freedom."

It is approaching the end of the year, and as a top pop idol, Britney can be said to be very busy.

Coupled with her mental problems, after experiencing a series of incidents with Abel.

He was actually declared cured, and many top psychiatrists were amazed by this.

Abel didn't expect it either. If I give her an injection in that area, I can still get this effect.

Britney, who had recovered mentally and had a good rest physically, had her strong work ethic back.

When she was at Sony, she had such a hard-working attitude and only slept three or four hours a day.

Sixty percent of the time, Sony wants to take advantage of her popularity, so it can exploit her like crazy.

The remaining reason is that Britney is a natural workaholic in this regard and does not reject that level of work.

Otherwise, Sony even wants to squeeze it. Even if most people can bear that level of work intensity physically, they cannot bear it mentally.

At most half a year, both body and mind will collapse.

And Britney, before she had mental problems. She has maintained this intensity of work for two or three years.

I only slept three or four hours a day, all year round, for two or three years.

If she didn't have her own workaholic attitude, she wouldn't be able to handle it.

Just wait until she feels tired and wants to rest for a while.

Sony refused.

Capitalists are addicted to exploitation. In addition, the newcomer's contract is about to expire. If you want to continue to squeeze, you must use a big contract. The cost of continuing to squeeze is very high.

Sony certainly wants to take the opportunity to squeeze as much profit as possible before signing a big contract.

When Bryony herself started to feel tired. In order to squeeze out more profits, Sony naturally rejected her request for a break.

Coupled with emotional disputes, as well as constant attacks from idiot fans, some media, and some black fans.

Britney's mental state gradually began to have problems last year, and this year it began to appear.

In parallel time and space, next year she will start to really go crazy.

After being separated and reunited with his first love many times and being completely dumped, he gave up on himself.

In a short period of two years, I had six boyfriends and got married twice.

She is fine now. Abel's injection has successfully cured her mental internal disorder.

The employee agreement that Abel asked her to sign. It also gave Xiao Tiantian, who has a typical dependent personality, a psychological support.

That workaholic Britney, full of energy, is back again.

While Abel was away in New York, she went to work.

Let Avril stay alone in the top mansion.

Facing the returning Abel, the punk girl was helpless and was severely conquered.

Not even this morning.

Abel, whistling happily, turned off the shower and grabbed a towel.

He first wiped his wet hair, and then wiped his body casually a few times, then took the bathrobe from the side and put it on, and walked out of the bathroom.

In the master bedroom, the petite punk girl was still sleeping soundly.

During this period of time, to be precise, it was after singing at the National Performing Arts Conference on September 11th.

Avril Lavigne has already begun preparations for her first album under the preparation of David Geffen.

New York itself is one of the important cores of the American music and recording industry.

Even the Grammy Awards are held alternately in New York and Los Angeles.

Avril's workplace has always been in New York.

After looking at Avril, who probably didn't wake up so early, Abel turned and walked out of the bedroom.

On the table in the living room, a cup of steaming, extremely fragrant coffee and a stack of newspapers have been placed.

After Abel walked to the sofa and sat down, he took the coffee and took a sip with great joy. He smashed it in his mouth a few times. The coffee was brewed well. It should have been brewed by Edward or Tony.

These people who were close to him gradually learned the art of making coffee from him.

Who told the boss to like drinking coffee?

He nodded with satisfaction, put down the coffee cup, picked up a newspaper, opened it and read it.

The one on top, of course, is Abel's own newspaper.

With the launch of Smith's newspaper group plan, since June this year.

Smith Newspaper Group has made more than a dozen moves across the United States.

A large number of influential regional newspapers were acquired across the country.

Newspapers such as the "Indiana Star", "Utah Daily News", "Kansas Daily Independent", etc., which sell hundreds of thousands of copies per day locally but have very low sales nationwide, have become the acquisition targets of Smith Newspaper Group. .

Over the past six months, the results have been pretty good.

Smith Newspapers has acquired six newspapers across the country with daily sales of more than 200,000 copies, and 11 newspapers with daily sales of 100,000 copies.

The number of newspapers with a daily sales volume of more than 50,000 copies and less than 100,000 copies is even greater.

Last month, Forbes launched a ranking of national newspaper groups.

Smith Newspaper Group jumped on the bandwagon. It has become one of the top ten American newspaper groups, just behind Gannett Newspaper Group, Tribune Newspaper Group, Chicago Newspaper Group and other established giants.

But at present, Smith Media Newspaper Group's national newspapers are mainly the "New York Observer" and "The American Sun".

Among them, "The New York Observer" is a biweekly magazine and is published only once every two weeks.

The current average sales per issue has reached the critical line of about 100,000 copies.

If it is any higher, it will be in the top three.

It has only been less than two years since it was acquired by Abel.

This achievement is really a blessing to Abel.

Many people bought it specifically because they saw Abel's interview on it.

After all, Abel's authorization was there, even if Abel was not interviewed sometimes.

As long as the content of the magazine has been approved by Smith Intelligent Group.

The New York Observer itself can fabricate some of Abel's views and put them in its bi-weekly publication to attract readers.

Like the last time American Express had a hostile takeover battle.

Abel just wanted to warn the leeks to pay attention to the risks when investing.

The New York Observer used its collective wisdom to turn his words into a wonderful interview.

This exclusive interview directly increased the sales of that issue of "The New York Observer" by more than 100%.

It can only be said that now that Abel's influence is increasing day by day.

Whether it is entertainment newspapers or financial, fashion, and current affairs newspapers.

For American readers, the name Abel Smith is the main attraction that makes them spend money to buy newspapers and read them.

This also makes the name Abel Smith become the wealth code of most newspapers and media in the United States.

When other media reported on him.

Also be careful not to cross the line, lest you attract the gleeful and frenzied attacks of some of the most terrifying lawyers in the United States.

But Abel's own media has no such scruples.

In addition to not smearing him, their various reports on Abel are the most detailed.

Those subsidiaries within Smith Media that have mastered this unique wealth code have at least relied on this to increase their ratings by 10% and sales by 12% on average!

We can only talk about traffic, even in this era when Internet rules are not yet perfect.

It can also turn traffic into real profits.

As the first-generation super-traffic king, Abel is the first person to benefit from such Internet celebrity.

As a biweekly, the last issue of the New York Observer was released on November 16.

So it released the latest issue yesterday.

The top newspaper at the moment was naturally the New York Observer.

It was what Abel took advantage of.

Even like the previous issue, the cover photo of this magazine is again a "beautiful picture" of Abel.

This series of "beautiful pictures" are all of Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of the American version of "VOGUE" magazine, the world's first fashion festival.

She personally brought her magazine's best photographer to take a series of photos of Abel.

The fashion guru even did the composition himself.

Abel still remembered this editor-in-chief and made many appointments with him in private.

But he rejected them all.

Although he probably looked pretty good when he was young.

But Anna Wintour’s daughter is now almost as old as Abel.

He has no interest in old grass.

Only part of the photos taken at that time were used by "VOGUE" magazine.

They can't take away the remaining copyright. Now only Smith Media can be used by myself.

If other people and companies want to use these photos, they have to pay copyright fees to Abel.

And most of the time, even if you want to pay copyright fees, you can't get the right to use these photos.

Abel is not short of this little money.

So much so that as a code of wealth, Abel’s cover photo appears most often in the New York Observer.

Like this issue, the last issue, the last issue, the last issue, the four issues of the "New York Observer", the cover photos of the three issues all used Abel's "beautiful photos".

As you can imagine, this frequency is extremely frequent.

So certain newspapers and competitors of the New York Observer.

To put it mildly, the name of "The New York Observer" should be changed to "The Smith Observer"!

After all, there is no cover character, the same person is used for several issues in a row.

Readers will be bored!

But the problem is, the New York Observer has discovered it.

Every time the boss's photo is used as the cover character, the sales volume of the current newspaper will increase by more than 10%.

This is already the real code of wealth.

Since you can use it freely, you only need to pay a very low copyright fee.

Of course, the editors of Smith Newspaper Group are happy to use it.

The sour words from other newspapers were only regarded by them as jealousy.

Who says they can't freely use this wealth code?

Open this issue of "Smith's Observer", ah, no, it's "New York Observer".

Abel looked at the catalog first.

Sure enough, there is another "exclusive interview" of his own ahead.

Abel didn't remember that he had been interviewed by them recently.

He couldn't help but shook his head, intending to make Dylan restrain himself.

Don’t do it like this all the time. If you do it too often, readers are not fools, and they will know that these interviews are all made up by them!

Abel is now familiar with the general content of these interviews.

Except for at most a few words that Abel said himself or he said to the Smith Brain and were then written down.

The rest of the content was basically compiled by the elite editors of the New York Observer themselves based on Abel’s words.

For example, Abel said, buy me a mansion in New York tomorrow.

Then they would beautify it and make Abel's words as grand as possible.

Another issue of professional news related to New York luxury homes and real estate industry.

This issue of the magazine also contains a real interview with Soros.

Abel had always been serious about shearing wool.

Soros joined Smith Capital.

Abel asked people from the "New York Observer" to rush to interview.

Correspondingly, big names such as Buffett, Bloomberg, Robert Morgenthau, Sullivanston, etc. have all been interviewed.

Abel also plans to have the magazine interview Bloomberg again in the next issue.

Who said that after the release of the next magazine, Bloomberg would be the new mayor in half a month?

Apart from these, it is all normal business content.

There was something about American Express, but it was a magazine that was printed yesterday morning.

Therefore, the new news developments of American Express that just happened last night are not available above.

Abel therefore put it down and picked up the American Sun, which was ranked second on the pile of newspapers.

In the American Sun, there was news about American Express, which has been controlled by Abel for 50.4% of its shares.

As always, the newspaper’s headlines and content are very “New York Post” style.

Basically, they are using the UC style, saying that their boss, Abel, is very awesome, and that American Express is already owned by Abel, and so on.

Licking Abel.

The New York Observer should more or less pay attention to the style of an elite magazine.

But the entertainment-oriented and public-oriented "American Sun" has no such scruples.

Readers like to read it anyway, so of course they will catch the boss bragging about it.

It can flatter the boss and attract readers to increase sales. It is the best of both worlds for them.

So much so that when Abel reads his own newspaper now, he doesn't take it too seriously.

Because they are basically glorifying and boasting, some people who encourage arrogance like him can't stand it.

What he really knows how to read is those relatively neutral newspapers.

Like the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, things like that.

Drinking hot coffee and reading the newspaper, the huge floor-to-ceiling window next to me shows the morning view of Manhattan with fine snowflakes.

This morning and this kind of life made Abel feel more comfortable.