Door-to-door dragon son-in-law

Although this remote sensing satellite company is a special enterprise that is regulated by the national security department and subject to various restrictions, if the buyer is a real American, especially the famous Rothschild family, all control measures can be perfectly circumvented.

In addition, the bosses and shareholders of the company had long been looking forward to cashing out, so when they heard that the second-in-command of the Rothschild family was coming to discuss the acquisition, they immediately organized a vote online.

Without exception, everyone was in favor of selling.

Therefore, the founder and CEO immediately began to discuss the acquisition bottom line with his partners and investors.

While Steve was on his way to Houston, they reached several points of consensus on the acquisition.

If the other party pays the acquisition price in one lump sum, the reserve price can be lowered to 3 billion US dollars. As long as the contract Steve gives is above this amount, the agreement can be signed;

If the purchase price needs to be paid in batches and installments, and the total payment period exceeds one year, but there are no other additional terms, the base price will be increased to US$10 billion. For every additional year of the payment period, the base price will be increased by % based on the US$ billion.

If the acquisition payment needs to be made in batches and installments, and is accompanied by performance bets and non-compete agreements, then the base price will have to start at US$4 billion, and the first installment must be US$2 billion.

After everyone reached a consensus, CEO Carl Lucas suppressed his excitement and waited for Steve to arrive in the office.

After arriving in New York, Steve rushed to Houston almost non-stop.

Originally, he could have asked Carl Lucas to bring the core team to New York to meet him, but in order to learn more about the company and to better win over people's hearts, he decided to come in person. After all, acquiring this company was only Ye Chen's initial request. The most important thing was to allow the company to continue to operate stably and controllably for Ye Chen.

When Steve, accompanied by bodyguards and entourage, arrived at the company's headquarters in Houston, all executives including the CEO were lined up in front of the helipad on the rooftop waiting.

Three helicopters arrived one after another. Since there was only one helipad, the first two helicopters landed and waited for the passengers to get off before taking off again. All the people who got off the two helicopters were bodyguards, nearly twenty in number.

When the third helicopter landed, Steve and several of his assistants got off the helicopter together. CEO Carl Lucas wanted to go forward, but was stopped by several bodyguards a few meters away. After the bodyguards searched him, he was allowed to approach Steve.

Seeing Steve, Carl Lucas said excitedly: "Mr. Rothschild, it's a great honor to meet you. I am the CEO of Skyline, Carl Lucas, you can call me Carl!"

Steve nodded slightly, shook hands with him, and then said, "Hello, Carl, I think you are clear about my intention. Let's find a conference room and have a good talk."

Carl immediately said: "Okay, Mr. Rothschild, please follow me and I will take you to the conference room."

Steve walked out with a smile, and a group of bodyguards immediately surrounded him and Carl and brought them to the top floor conference room of the office building.

After the two men arrived at the conference room, other executives were allowed to enter only after being searched one by one.

In order to avoid chaos due to too many people, Carl only brought two people to the meeting, one was the company's chief technology officer and the other was the company's chief financial officer.

After Steve sat down, he said to Karl, “Karl, please give me a general introduction to your company.”

Carl nodded and said respectfully: "Mr. Rothschild, we have nearly 800 employees in Skyline. The building you are in is our headquarters. There are about 500 employees working here. Our servers are also here. This building is our own property. The current market value is about 70 million US dollars;"

"Skyline currently has a total of 29 satellites in orbit. We have reached a cooperation with SpaceX. Next month, three more Skyline satellites will be launched together with their Starlink satellites. There will be three more in the first quarter of next year. According to our original goal, the number of satellites will be increased to 45 within next year;"

Steve asked him, "How is your revisiting ability now?"

Carl said: "Under normal circumstances, four to five revisits a day are not a big problem. Under special circumstances, we can revisit special targets twenty times a day, but this also depends on the target's illumination time. Our satellites are excellent in the civilian grade, and the accuracy can currently reach the meter level, but the imaging requirements are high. In weak light or even at night, basically nothing valuable can be captured."

Steve nodded and asked, "Are you shooting every day? Is the data updated every day?"

"Yes." Carl said, "Let our chief technology officer give you a detailed introduction."

The chief technology officer pushed up his glasses and explained, "When our satellite orbits the earth, it will take pictures of the places it passes through according to the predetermined orbit. Each area will be numbered, and the pictures will be taken one by one according to the numbered plots, and then handed over to the background for stitching and synthesis. The satellite will choose whether to take pictures based on the lighting, weather, and visibility of the places it passes through. Our CEO just introduced to you that our technology and hardware are not as good as the keyhole of the US military, so generally speaking, if the places it passes through are in the evening or at night, we will not take pictures; we will not take pictures in cloudy or thunderstorm weather; generally, we will only take pictures when the lighting is good and there is no cloud or fog. The pictures taken will be automatically screened, and only those that meet the clarity standards will be allowed to enter the database;"

"After entering the database, the footage will be sealed according to the timestamp. After the time limit set by the security department has passed, the system will automatically replace the previous image footage. However, the earth's surface is very large. Under normal circumstances, we need at least two months to conduct a qualified and comprehensive shooting of the world's land. Therefore, our database can also provide users with any piece of the world's surface changes every few months in the past decade. This is a paid feature in our own software and a source of income for our self-operated business. "

Carl said, “Mr. Rothschild, since we are talking about income, let our chief financial officer tell you about our current financial situation.”

Steve waved his hand: "Don't worry, I want to ask, can you access the data that the security department asked you to seal?"

"Yes." The chief technology officer said, "All data captured by satellites will be directly transmitted from our satellites to the database on our own server as soon as possible. The security department requires that our data be sealed and cannot be made public before the validity period expires."

Steve nodded slightly. If the only requirement was that the information could not be made public, then that would be fine. At least Ye Chen could get the first-hand data as soon as possible.

So Steve asked again: "If I am particularly interested in a certain place and want the satellite to keep a close eye on it, I think it can be done, right?"

The chief technology officer said: "It can be done, but if this demand is frequent, it will have a certain impact on the original shooting mission of the satellite."

Steve felt relieved. After buying this company, he was not going to make money from it. It would be best if Ye Chen could use it conveniently. The main thing was that these satellites had to keep rotating in the sky. Otherwise, he would rather have all the satellites fly over the places that Ye Chen was interested in and take pictures 24 hours a day. As for the company's original business, it was nothing. It was completely acceptable not to make a penny.

Thinking of this, Steve looked at the CFO and said, "Next, let me introduce the financial situation."

The CFO said respectfully, "Mr. Rothschild, Skyline has completed four rounds of financing, with a total financing amount of 670 million US dollars. The most recent round of financing was at the beginning of last year, with a financing amount of 300 million US dollars. Our annual revenue last year was 230 million US dollars, and our net profit was negative 50 million US dollars. This year is not over yet, and our revenue is expected to be around 270 million, and our net profit is expected to be negative 100 million US dollars. This is mainly because this year's hardware investment is relatively large. I will introduce it to you in detail in the fixed assets later. Next, I would like to tell you about our cash reserves, external investments, and equity situation. If you have any other questions, you can also ask me at any time."

Steve waved his hand, looked at Karl, and said seriously: "My time is limited. There are too many detailed contents. Let professionals contact me later. I will tell you my acquisition needs, and then we will set a price and move directly to the core issues. What do you think?"

Karl immediately said: “No problem, we will follow your pace.”

"Okay." Steve nodded and said, "I asked around before I came here. A relatively professional person evaluated the valuation of your company for me. It's probably in the range of 10 billion to billion US dollars. But you also know that valuation is very fictitious. Even if your valuation can reach billion US dollars, it is only the price others pay when they invest in you. I think you have a good prospect. I have million US dollars to invest in you in exchange for your % shares to bet on the future. But you can't put the million US dollars in your pocket. Instead, it will be placed in your company account to develop your business. If you want to put it in your own pocket, it's not an investment, but a private equity transaction. In that case, no one would be willing to pay billion;"

At this point, Steve added: "But I can give you a condition that you can't get anywhere else. I will directly acquire your company for 5 billion US dollars. Of this 5 billion US dollars, I can directly give you 2.5 billion, making you real billionaires immediately;"

"Then, all of you shareholders must stay here and continue to help me run this company. I won't pay you any extra salary, but I will give you the remaining $2.5 billion in the next three years. After the three years, if I still need you to stay here, we will renegotiate the terms. If you can accept it, you can directly enter the acquisition process today. If not, I will go back to New York. This offer is valid for three days. You can call other shareholders to discuss it together. If you change your mind, contact me within three days."