Chapter 254 Handover

Before Christmas, Ivanta, far away in America, also completed his investment in MySpace.

  Regardless of Ivanta's abilities, you have to admit that her skills in public relations are indeed remarkable.

  As the number of Woaw website users worldwide exceeded 20 million and its valuation in the media was close to 1 billion US dollars, MySpace, which was on the same track, had a number of venture capitalists interested in it, although its number of users had just exceeded 1 million at this time.

  Therefore, in the beginning, the investment company she led faced fierce competition.

  But in the end, MySpace chose IC Capital as the winner of their Series A financing.

  In addition to the fact that IC Capital's bid was more satisfactory to them, Ivanta was also better at utilizing her resources.

  Ivanta hinted to the other party that if IC Capital could become a shareholder of MySpace, then she and her family could help the company get more media exposure.

  You have to know that her father is closely related to many beauty pageants and is very good at hype. This is also something that MySpace and its parent company value.

  And in terms of attracting media attention, for a "small website" with only one twentieth of the number of users of Woaw, is it more eye-catching for their investor to be a traditional venture capital company, or a 22-year-old college student who is a well-known model and a beautiful woman from a wealthy family?

  Of course, at Barron's instruction, Ivanta gave a valuation of MySpace that was not low. She was willing to invest $10 million at a pre-investment valuation of $15 million, allowing IC Capital to hold a 40% stake in MySpace.

  You have to know that it was 2003 and the Internet industry had just emerged from the bubble crisis. Social networking sites were an emerging track and there was no mature profit model - Silicon Valley venture capital companies were the most interested in this aspect.

  Internet companies with relatively high valuations, including Amazon's e-commerce and Google's search, already have their own profit models.

  Therefore, venture capital companies are still very cautious about the valuation of social networking sites at this time.

  In the past, when the majority of Facebook users were students from major universities and the number of users exceeded 12 million, Yahoo was able to consider acquiring it for $1 billion, and finally lowered the price to $800 million... That was in 2006, and the Internet had recovered again. The successful IPOs of companies such as Google gave venture capitalists great confidence.

  Now, the number of Woaw website users exceeds 20 million, but many media outlets have given a valuation of less than $1 billion. This is because, on the one hand, it is now 2003, and on the other hand, the number of Woaw website users in the United States is less than 10 million, with the rest being users in Europe, Australia and other places - in the eyes of Silicon Valley, American users are the "most valuable."

  In addition to MySpace, Woaw has also faced round B financing.

  In fact, with the strength of both DS Capital and Sequoia Capital, Woaw does not need to rush to raise funds again.

  But the problem is that at that time, Woaw's scale meant that there was a demand for capital to get in on the fun. After Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital personally called to persuade him, Baron decided to start Woaw's second round of financing.

  This time, investors in Woaw include more traditional investment funds such as Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, and Bridgewater, as well as Silicon Valley venture capital giants such as KPCB...

  Of course, Moritz also told Barron that Sequoia Capital would continue to follow up with the investment.

  In this regard, Barron is only prepared to accept one or two new investors and will choose from among these investment companies.

  …

  Similarly, as Christmas approaches, various gatherings begin to increase.

  It can be said that during this period, there were more than a dozen parties taking place simultaneously almost every day throughout London.

  Of course, at this time, Barron couldn't really attend so many parties. He would only choose to attend some of the more important ones.

  This period is also a time for the wealthy to show their love. Various fundraising rallies and "warmth-giving" activities for the homeless and poor are everywhere.  

  Including the Devonshire Charitable Foundation under Barron's name, various activities have been frequently organized during this period.

  It just so happened that after Primark was acquired by him, it would deal with some of its previous clothing.

  In addition to the necessary big Christmas promotions in its stores, many of the more difficult-to-sell styles will also be sold to the Devonshire Charity Foundation at "appropriate" prices to donate clothing to the homeless.

  After all, winters in England are still very cold, and these homeless people also need enough clothes to keep warm.

  It is worth mentioning that after Primark is acquired by Argos, the two will form the Argos Retail Group, with the former Argos CEO Nathan Ellington serving as the CEO of the Argos Retail Group.

  Giles Toledo, former CFO of Argos, takes over as CEO of Argos department store.

  On the Primark side, Barron found Donia Miranda, who previously served as operations director of Zara's French branch, to serve as CEO of the Primark clothing chain through a headhunting company.

  This woman, who is less than 40 years old, has rich work experience and can help Barron transform Primark's brand operations.

  After acquiring Primark, in addition to transferring its main manufacturing center from Ireland to China, the company will also enhance Primark's responsiveness to fast fashion.

  Primark will specifically hire more young designers - those who have sufficient professional abilities but are not big-name designers, and are low-cost "design workers". Their task is to "draw inspiration" from each fashion week every year and pour this "inspiration" into Primark's products as quickly as possible.

  Well, to put it in simpler terms, it means directly "referencing" the most popular fashion styles of this year, or directly making patterns and manufacturing them, so that the general public can enjoy various novel clothing styles at the forefront of fashion at the lowest price.

  This is also the secret to the rapid development of fast fashion clothing brands such as Zara.

  Of course, if it does this, Primark will certainly face a lot of accusations and even direct infringement lawsuits in the future.

  Therefore, they will also hire experienced legal teams to help them avoid being held accountable in substance.

  In this way, Primark's headquarters will be moved from its original location in Dublin, Ireland, to London's King's Cross, utilizing the high-quality talent resources of Central Saint Martins College there to establish Primark's design center.

  "I hope to launch our new clothing as soon as possible and complete the OEM system in China before March next year."

  The task that Barron set for Donia Miranda at the time was quite arduous.

  But this lady still has a lot of confidence:

  "No problem, Your Highness. As long as we can get enough support, I will use all means to achieve these goals."

  After spending Christmas with Bonnie Stuart in London, Barron went to Chatsworth House with Julia Moore and others.

  After all, the closer it gets to Christmas, the busier Bonnie becomes and she has no time to go back with him.

  The reason why he returned to Chatsworth Manor this time was that Barron hoped to welcome the new year there - butler Sean had been in poor health recently, so after discussing with Barron, he was ready to give up his position as butler of Chatsworth Manor, and he would remain in the manor as a consultant, so that he could have more free time.

  Ramos, who had previously served as a butler in a villa in London, will take over Sean's position as butler and become the new butler of Chatsworth House.