"This place... is so spectacular."
The Rolls-Royce Phantom drove into the manor through the open wrought iron gate along the straight driveway. When the car stopped at the door of the white palace-like building, Fan Bingbing got out of the car. As far as the eye could see was the magnificent garden and the palace that was a completely miniature version of the Louvre. He couldn't help but exclaim.
Last time, he bought the manor after just a quick look - well, Barron's decisions can sometimes be so "hasty"...
The main reason was that he had heard of this mansion in his previous life. After all, it was one of the top ten most expensive mansions in the world. So when Barron happened to see it ready for sale, he decisively bought it.
The facilities of the manor are still very complete. After all, the space is large enough. The three huge gas tanks owned by the Barron family in King's Cross originally covered a total area of only 6 hectares, while this manor covers an area of more than 5 hectares. To put it more intuitively, it is larger than the area of 7 standard football fields.
Here, Barron can just run around the manor in the morning...
"You can just live here. The environment here is good and suitable for taking care of your pregnancy. I will assign you some servants and bodyguards when the time comes."
"Really?"
Not to mention that before this, although Fan Bingbing had become one of the most famous actresses in China, the Chinese film and television industry had not yet begun to receive large-scale capital, and the actors' pay was not as high as it was later. Compared with ordinary people, her income was very high, but it was completely incomparable with those wealthy people.
Even the wealthy people in China are mostly very low-key, and it is impossible for them to enjoy the same open luxury in China as they do overseas.
Therefore, let alone living in such a luxurious manor, it was difficult for her to imagine living in such a luxurious mansion with a group of servants.
So it's hard to believe that Barron would live in this luxurious manor during her stay in Los Angeles.
"Yes, I know it won't be convenient for your mother to come and take care of you, but don't worry, I will make arrangements for you when the time comes."
She is a little different from Barron's other women. On the one hand, in his previous life, Barron was very fond of Fan Bingbing's appearance; on the other hand, Fan Bingbing's identity and Tianhe Capital founded with her identity play a very important role in Barron's future layout. Therefore, Barron will use various methods to tie her firmly to his side and form a close connection based on interests.
Fan Bingbing also told her family about her pregnancy, but her younger brother is just 6 years old and will soon go to primary school in Yanjing, so her parents need to stay in Yanjing to take care of the child. Fan's mother can only spare time to come and accompany her for a while. Most of the time, Fan Bingbing has to stay here by herself.
Therefore, Barron would arrange a maid and a bodyguard for her - she said she was going to Hollywood for further studies, but it was not entirely an excuse. Just like Rebecca before, she really wanted to take advantage of this time to study systematically in Los Angeles and learn some advanced experience in Hollywood.
Soon, a full-time English teacher will be by her side to help her overcome the language barrier.
After Fan Bingbing gives birth and recovers, Barron will be able to arrange several roles for her in Hollywood movies. On the one hand, this will help her open up the international market, increase her popularity overseas, and take over the title of Gucci brand ambassador. On the other hand, it will also make up for her previous excuse of "further study in Hollywood", and her disappearance from the Chinese film and television industry during this period will be a natural consequence.
"Isn't this place too big? After you leave, it will feel weird for me to live here alone..."
Fan Bingbing was right. The Flower of Lis estate includes the main house and the ancillary buildings next to it, with a total of more than 100 rooms, including 12 bedroom suites, 15 bathrooms, a staff dormitory that can accommodate 10 people, two kitchens, a screening room that can accommodate 50 people, 3 guard bedrooms, a garage with 9 parking spaces, etc.
Such a large manor may not be a big deal for a British duke like Barron, who is used to the more than 300 rooms in Chatsworth House.
But Fan Bingbing is not used to living like this. In China, the villas that ordinary people live in are big enough, but they are only about 300 to 500 square meters...
"It's okay, baby, you'll get used to it."
…
Before Barron left Los Angeles, he met with Chen Fuyang who had come to visit.
It has been more than two and a half years since Rich23 Capital acquired Agilent's semiconductor business and renamed it Avago. During this period, under the leadership of Chen Fuyang, Avago's business performance has become increasingly good.
In Baron's previous life, Avago completed the acquisition of Avago at the end of 2005, and then in 2009, Chen Fuyang led Avago to go public in the United States.
Now, Chen Fuyang expressed the hope that Avago could attempt an IPO in the near future, because Avago's performance has fully met the requirements for listing.
The gap comes from the completely different acquisition and operating methods of Rich23 Capital and its previous private equity funds KKR and Silver Lake Capital towards Avago.
Rich23 Capital's acquisition of Avago was an all-cash acquisition without any financing - at the time, Rich23 Capital had ample funds and did not need to use a leveraged buyout, so after the acquisition, Avago, that is, Agilent's semiconductor business, was fully retained, which also allowed them to get on track more quickly in their subsequent business development.
To put it bluntly, the acquisition of Avago by the former Space-Time Private Equity Fund KKR and Silver Lake Capital was a "barbarian at the gate" type of acquisition. After the acquisition through leveraged financing, they restructured the company's assets, sold off unimportant businesses, and then tried their best to complete the re-listing, and finally sold off the shares or sold the whole company again to make a profit.
In 2005, in Baron's previous life, KKR teamed up with Silver Lake Capital to lead the acquisition of Agilent's semiconductor division. The total transaction cost at the time was US$2.715 billion and the transaction price was US$2.66 billion.
They are a consortium led by KKR and Silver Lake Capital, plus some other institutions, which directly invested $1.3 billion in acquisition capital - $1.05 billion in common stock and $250 million in convertible preferred stock.
In addition to direct investment, the remaining funds came from debt financing, including the issuance of US$1 billion in bonds in the U.S. market with a term of 8-10 years. The interest rate level was also very high, with the floating rate increasing by 5.5 percentage points based on the Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) at the time.
The Libor US dollar interest rate in the second half of 2005 was between 4-4.8%. Therefore, the interest rate of the bonds issued by KKR and Silver Lake Capital to acquire Avago was as high as about 10%, and the financing cost was not cheap.
In addition, they obtained a $750 million, 7-year long-term loan and a $250 million, 6-year revolving loan facility from the bank - only $475 million of long-term loans were used during the acquisition process.
Then, during and after the acquisition, the board of directors controlled by KKR and Silver Lake Capital quickly reorganized and divested Avago's assets, selling assets that had little to do with its next development positioning and quickly recovering funds.
For example, in October 2005, when the acquisition of Avago was not yet completed (closed on December 1), an agreement was reached to sell the storage business to PMC. The transaction was completed at the end of February 2006, and the company received US$420 million after deducting costs.
In February 2006, the company sold its printer chip business to Marvell. The transaction was completed in May 2006, and the company earned $245 million after deducting costs. The transaction also included a clause for sharing excess profits. If the business segment sold achieved the set revenue target, the transferee Marvell would pay an additional transfer fee of no more than $35 million.
In November 2006, the image sensor business was sold to Micron for US$53 million, and it was agreed that if the performance indicators reached the expected targets, Micron would pay an additional performance share of no more than US$17 million.
In addition, Avago also sold a package of intellectual property related to its image sensing business to another company for $12 million.
Then in October 2007, the infrared light business was sold for US$20 million.
Then during this period, Avago continued to reduce its financial costs and the interest on bonds and loans it had to bear through its sophisticated capital operation techniques.
Through rapid asset divestiture and debt restructuring, Avago's financial cost expenditure pressure has continued to improve, with interest/debt interest expenses falling from US$143 million in 2006 to US$34 million in 2010, a very significant decrease.
Such operations demonstrate the management team and the acquirer's superb capital operation skills.
Of course, Avago also needs to "pay for knowledge" for these capital operations - that is, pay high service fees to KKR and Silver Lake Capital. From the implementation of mergers and acquisitions to Avago's public listing, the two funds collected approximately US$120 million in various consulting fees and advisory fees from Avago.
Finally, after Avago's IPO, the two funds began their "profitable exit". The acquisition was completed in December 2005, and it took less than four years to complete the restructuring and listing. The two funds' expected returns exceeded 12 times, and by 2012, the two funds had basically exited Avago.
Unlike them who just wanted to "make a quick buck and leave", Baron bought Avago because he was more concerned about the synergy between this semiconductor company, which will rank among the top five in the future, and some of the industries he had laid out. Therefore, not only did he not cut its business after the acquisition, he also made targeted acquisitions and strengthened related businesses such as future mobile phones and automotive sensors.
As for Chen Fuyang's hope that Avago will go public in the near future...
In fact, Baron didn't really want Avago to go public so early because it was about to face the subprime mortgage crisis. More than a year later, the subprime mortgage crisis broke out and Avago would definitely be affected.
However, he himself does not have much experience in the semiconductor business. In the original time and space, Chen Fuyang also led Avago to go public, through step-by-step capital operations, and finally swallowed up the semiconductor giant Broadcom...
Therefore, he decided to trust Chen Fuyang's judgment in this regard.