After the Oscars, Simon didn't immediately follow his schedule to Australia to oversee the filming of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Cersei Capital's subsidiary, BlackRock Asset Management, had been working since last year to acquire State Street's asset management division. After facing hurdles for over half a year, the deal was finally finalized. The biggest obstacle had been in Washington, but after last year's midterm elections, many of those issues were no longer relevant.
Simon quietly withdrew all his political activities from Florida, and as a return favor, the remaining opposition from the Republican side disappeared.
As for the media and the public, there were virtually no outlets in the U.S. brave enough to openly oppose the Westeros system. Given how long the acquisition process had dragged on, it was no longer news, and the media barely covered it. For the general public, a highly specialized financial merger was too far removed from their everyday lives, and with little media hype, there was hardly any attention on the deal.
On March 29, Simon and Janet flew to Boston to officially sign the acquisition agreement with State Street.
With the development over the past half year and this acquisition, BlackRock's assets under management had reached an unprecedented $3.7 trillion. At this stage, no other fund could rival BlackRock.
Despite the huge amount of assets under management, BlackRock mainly dealt in low-risk, steady-return asset management. After acquiring State Street's asset management division, BlackRock's expected annual revenue from management fees and consulting fees would be around $1.5 billion. Due to the nature of the business, BlackRock's net profit margin was quite high, around 30%, meaning the company's annual profit would be about $450 million.
This profit, however, was less than a tenth of what Cersei Fund Management made last year from its hedge fund business.
In 1994, Cersei Fund Management made a staggering $6.9 billion in profits, thanks to aggressive hedge strategies, particularly from shorting tech stocks in the first half of the year and profiting from the Mexican peso crisis that shook Latin American markets in the second half.
Despite these gains, Simon had been deliberately reducing the fund's scale. At the start of 1994, Cersei Fund had $5 billion under management. By now, through strategic withdrawals, Simon had cut this down to around $3 billion, with plans to shrink it further in the future.
As more capital flowed into the hedge fund industry, according to George Soros' reflexivity theory—where market participants and the market influence each other—uncertainty in the field would increase dramatically.
Hedge funds were ultimately a zero-sum game. For Cersei Fund to have made $6.9 billion last year meant that many others lost an equivalent amount. Unknowingly, the Westeros system was making enemies. The assassination attempt earlier that year, followed by the Woodfield Estate explosion, was ultimately driven by someone who had lost big in the hedge fund market and resorted to desperate measures.
Simon didn't want a repeat of such incidents.
Thus, Simon was considering having Cersei Capital exit the hedge fund space entirely in the near future, at least withdrawing from direct involvement, and redirecting more resources to Apollo Management and BlackRock Asset Management.
Unlike the shrinking hedge fund business, these two subsidiaries were steadily expanding. In the world of finance, they were the "main army."
In the early stages of capital accumulation, it was acceptable to use unconventional methods, as the stakes were low. Even losing everything wouldn't be catastrophic.
But when capital reaches a certain scale, continuing such risky behavior becomes highly irrational.
Moreover, Simon wasn't focused on BlackRock's returns. He was far more interested in BlackRock's control over capital, both in North America and globally. In the coming years, much of the world's power would stem from capital.
When you control capital, you control power. The more capital you control, the greater your power.
In the original timeline, Larry Fink, who controlled BlackRock with $7 trillion in assets under management, was frequently ranked alongside world leaders as one of the most powerful people on the planet.
Now, that hidden power belonged to the Westeros family.
Following this acquisition, Cersei Capital's stake in BlackRock dropped to 32%, but as a show of trust in the Westeros family, State Street handed over the voting rights for its 22% stake to Simon and Janet for five years.
This gave the Westeros family 54% of the voting rights, allowing them to exercise absolute control over BlackRock.
There was no denying that Larry Fink was an outstanding manager in the financial industry, but whether it was State Street selling its asset management division or investors willing to transition their assets to Cersei Capital, it was ultimately the "Westeros" name they valued.
Janet had initiated this acquisition mainly because she noticed Larry Fink's attempts to dilute Cersei Capital's control over BlackRock by issuing new shares. Now that the deal was done, as long as Fink wasn't foolish, he wouldn't try that again. If he did, Simon wouldn't hesitate to remove him.
Small funds managing billions or tens of billions of dollars often couldn't survive without their key figures. However, BlackRock had become a vast capital machine that could operate smoothly without anyone at its helm.
Simon spent a day with Janet in Boston. After signing the acquisition agreement, Janet stayed behind to handle some follow-up matters while Simon flew to New York the next day to deal with a backlog of work.
Their planned trip to Australia was postponed to April 3.
On March 30 and 31, Simon spent two consecutive days in lengthy, professional meetings with teams from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and First Boston to discuss three major topics: Egret's IPO, Nokia's North American listing, and Melisandre's IPO.
Among these, Nokia's listing would happen first, likely in May.
Simon chose to list Nokia on the U.S. stock market mainly to pave the way for the telecom giant's expansion in North America. Only by aligning Nokia's interests with North American investors could the company avoid future issues. This time, Nokia would issue about 10% more shares.
As part of Simon's support for Grace's husband, Bill Sprout, Nokia's listing and stock issuance would be handled primarily by First Boston.
In 1994, global mobile phone shipments continued to explode, reaching 31 million units. Nokia, having surpassed Motorola, held a 41% market share, shipping 12.7 million units. Including its base station equipment and other businesses, Nokia's annual revenue reached $4.31 billion, with a net profit of $460 million.
Thanks to Nokia's rapid growth, the ongoing hype around new technology, and the fact that the company was part of the "Westeros concept," its market capitalization had soared to £21.7 billion on the London Stock Exchange, equivalent to $32.6 billion.
Thus, the 10% share issuance would raise more than $3 billion.
By giving First Boston full responsibility for the deal, Simon was leaving no stone unturned in supporting Bill Sprout's career.
The credentials earned from this transaction would ensure that Bill solidified his position as head of First Boston's securities trading department in the coming years. In the future, it wouldn't be impossible for Bill to fully take control of this investment bank, which was a subsidiary of UBS. However, Simon wasn't hoping for too much beyond that, knowing that the Swiss would never allow an American to take the helm of such a significant institution.
As for Egret and Melisandre, their IPOs would be jointly managed by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, both close allies of the Westeros system.
Following Nokia's stock issuance in May, Egret's IPO would follow the same schedule as Danelys Entertainment's last year. The employee stock ownership plan would be finalized next month, with the IPO slated for July. Lastly, Melisandre's IPO was still in its early stages, with the listing expected early next year.
Nokia and Egret, both tech companies, would be listed on NASDAQ, while the more traditional Melisandre would be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
April 1, April Fool's Day.
It was a Saturday.
Simon was still in New York, while Janet, having finished her work in Boston the day before, returned to Los Angeles. That morning, she would board a flight to Australia with Jennifer and their three children.
Originally, the plan was for Simon and Janet to travel to Australia alone.
A time for just the two of them.
However, when Janet mentioned this to her father, he was furious, saying that if they didn't take his beloved grandchildren with them, they shouldn't bother coming back. Janet feared no one except her father and reluctantly agreed.
Following an unspoken family routine, the two women took the children ahead, flying first-class on a chartered commercial flight.
Simon would follow on Monday as planned.
After two days of meetings, Simon went to the northern suburbs of Greenwich the night before and arranged a morning meeting with Celia Miller.
In the study of the villa.
After providing a detailed update on the recent activities of the Westeros family's three private military companies, Celia brought up another matter: the secret mission in the Yugoslav region involving UFMS mercenaries that had been discussed during their trip to Ukraine.
The truth behind the situation was slowly emerging.
Earlier this month, a mysterious armed group attacked a Serbian oil train, which was being escorted by armed guards. The train was destroyed, two kilometers of railway were irreparably damaged, and more than 30 Serbian government soldiers were killed.
Since Yugoslavia's dissolution in 1992, various ethnic groups in Serbia, supported by different forces, had been in a state of turmoil.
The three-year civil war had just begun to ease at the end of
last year, but now, with this incident, conflict reignited.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack.
However, the flames of war were rekindled.
Even the recently recovering Middle East oil supply routes to Europe suffered once again.
Simon didn't need to know that 200 soldiers had been secretly deployed from UFMS to understand the larger context.
In fact, many people already knew what was going on.
It was simply a matter of power games.
At its core, it was about the petrodollar system.
When people talk about the U.S. causing various conflicts in the Middle East, they often think it's about America wanting to seize oil resources.
But that's not the main reason.
At least, not the most important one.
America's primary goal is to maintain the dollar-based oil settlement system. On a global scale, no commodity has as large a volume as oil. By tying the dollar to oil, the U.S. ensures the dollar's dominance as the world's reserve currency.
Only by securing this can the U.S. continue to control global wealth through dollar issuance. In times of economic crises, the U.S. can shift the burden of losses to the rest of the world.
The 2008 subprime mortgage crisis was a textbook example of how the U.S. shifted its crisis to other countries.
That crisis affected the entire globe, even impacting Africa. Many African nations fell back into turmoil after 2008 due to economic recessions. However, the U.S. economy quickly rebounded in 2009, kicking off a decade of prosperity.
Unlike the U.S., other major capitalist nations—such as the U.K., France, and Germany—fell into long-term economic stagnation after 2008. All of this happened because the U.S. successfully transferred a crisis that should have devastated its economy by leveraging the dollar.
Thus, before and after 2008, to maintain the petrodollar system and dollar hegemony, the U.S. would stop at nothing, even going to war.
The decade-long turmoil in the Balkans during the 1990s stemmed from this.
That region happens to be a critical connection between Europe and the Middle East.
Europe has long sought to build a land-based oil route connecting Europe directly to the Middle East. Once completed, this route would significantly reduce Europe's energy costs. More importantly, it would bypass the dollar settlement system, allowing Europe to conduct direct currency transactions with oil-producing nations like Syria, Iraq, and even Iran.
As the sole superpower following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. wouldn't allow this to happen.
This led to the decade-long chaos in the Balkans.
Thus, starting in 1992, after three years of civil war, just as things seemed to calm down, an oil train was bombed, and the fighting resumed.
In Simon's memory, this conflict wouldn't end until after the millennium.
As for the reason?
Just look at the fates of Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
The remaining Middle Eastern oil producers—Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, and others—no longer dared to mention the idea of a land-based oil route. Once the dust settled in the Balkans, no one dared to stir up trouble. Otherwise, it would mean the destruction of nations.
Despite being led by a soul from across the ocean, Simon understood that the Westeros family's interests were deeply tied to the country he now inhabited.
As an outsider before, Simon had always criticized America's heavy-handed actions.
Now, Simon didn't see anything wrong with Washington's behavior.
This is ultimately a world of survival of the fittest.
No matter how civilized things appear on the surface, the underlying reality is still the law of the jungle. Nations that don't understand or embrace this truth have no future in this world.
Only by maintaining the aggressive instincts hardwired into our DNA can a country or a people survive for the long term.
It's like two individuals—one is physically strong and aggressive, while the other, though also strong, prefers to avoid conflict, believing in peace and compromise. The aggressive one, seeing that the other is always backing down, will naturally keep pushing, and one day, might just kill the other.
In a world without rules to constrain the aggressor, the outcome will be that the bully takes over the good guy's house, sleeps with his wife, and occasionally beats his kids.
That's the inevitable conclusion.
Survival of the fittest, in a competitive world.
The key word is "competition."
In Simon's memory, thanks to various media portrayals, many people had a biased view of Russia, seeing it as inherently aggressive and part of some "evil axis" that needed to be watched.
However.
Many people seem to forget one simple fact: Russian is nowhere near one of the most spoken languages in the world.
The most widely spoken language? English.
And then there's the "beautiful" and "elegant" French, spoken across much of Africa. Spanish dominates Latin America. Even German and Italian are widely spoken.
These languages represent countries that have seized enough resources and gained enough influence to dictate the world's moral high ground, becoming the symbols of civilization. They are the ones who create the rules and continue to plunder under the guise of those rules.
If you disagree with them and don't dare to fight back, then you are uncivilized, evil, and deserving of destruction.
_________________________
[Check out my Patreon for +200 additional chapters in all my fanfics! $5 for all!!]
[w w w . p a t r e o n .com / INNIT]
[+50 PowerStones = +1 Chapter] [+5 Reviews = +1 Chapter]