Chapter 825: The Operating System Takes Shape

When Xia Yu came out of San Francisco International Airport, he met Peter Lynch and the others outside the airport.

'Boss, welcome back!'

Peter Lynch said with a smile.

'Peter, I'm sorry for the trouble you've had while I was away!'

Xia Yu looked at Peter Lynch with a kind expression and full of appreciation.

'No, it's not hard work, it's our job!'

Peter Lynch said with a smile, modestly.

During this period of time, Peter Lynch did not disappoint Xia Yu. He arranged some work that was done very well. Although he was not in the United States, he would occasionally call Peter Lynch across the ocean to remotely keep up to date with the company's situation.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, the group got into the car and drove off in the same direction.

After a brief visit to his home to drop off some things, Xia Yu arrived at the company without delay to learn more about the company's achievements and business situation.

Although Peter Lynch had told him some things over the phone, he could not possibly explain everything clearly.

The company's achievements over this period of time could not be read in a short time, especially as Xia Yu also asked Peter Lynch not to forget to list the process for him.

Before he knew it, the day had passed in a flash.

It wasn't until Xia Yu was in the shower at home in the evening and lying in bed that he finished reading all the materials and got a clear picture of the company's situation.

In summary, the whole process was actually just two words – acquisitions!

Although Xia Yu wasn't at the company, Peter Lynch executed Xia Yu's spending plan perfectly, exchanging green US dollars for company stocks one after the other.

One of the biggest results was the successful acquisition of Abbott Laboratories.

When Xia Yu settled the Rothschild family in London, the obstacles to the acquisition of Abbott stock disappeared without a trace, and the rest was plain sailing.

In the end, Polaris Funds acquired Abbott Laboratories as a wholly-owned private subsidiary at a cost of 3.23 billion US dollars.

Then, in terms of retail companies, it acquired a 35% stake in Dayton Hudson, a 17.5% stake in Wal-Mart, becoming the largest shareholder outside the Walton family, and acquired Price Mart in its entirety, spending a total of 270 million US dollars.

Xia Yu also learned that Peter Lynch had followed his instructions and, after acquiring Price Club, reorganized it as Costco Retail Corporation. In addition to Price Club, a Costco Wholesale division was also established under the company.

Jim Singanel became the general manager of Costco Retail Corporation, while Jeff Brotman became the deputy general manager.

The original founder of Price Club took the money and left.

In addition to the retail sector, Peter Lynch followed Xia Yu's instructions and invested in the high-tech sector, spending a total of 43.2 million US dollars and investing in more than 50 companies, with varying shareholdings.

Two of the most eye-catching ones were both located in Silicon Valley.

One was called 'Relational Software Corporation', which may sound unfamiliar, but its founder was well-known to future generations: Ellison.

Therefore, this company was the predecessor of Oracle Corporation and definitely had a bright future.

Northern Star Capital joined the second round of financing and, as the lead investor, took a 10% stake in Relational Software.

The other company was EMC, which was just founded last year. Northern Star Capital's investment was an angel round investment, and Peter Lynch was quite optimistic about the company's founding team and model, and directly invested US$1 million to take a 40% stake.

This company went on to grow to become the world's sixth largest software company, and was eventually acquired in 2015 by Dell for a total price of 67 billion US dollars.

Catching two super-big fish at once meant that even if the investments in the other dozens of companies failed, it didn't matter, as the future returns from these two companies alone would be enough.

Of course, it would be even better if the investments in other companies could make a profit, and Xia Yu also discovered that among the dozens of companies invested in, some were also well-known companies in the future.

Overall, it was definitely a wise move to get Peter Lynch to manage Polaris.

However, Xia Yu was still not satisfied. He felt that the stake in Relational Software was too small, only 10%!

If he had not noticed, it would be fine, but since he had, he would be struck by lightning if he remained indifferent.

The future market value of Oracle could exceed 200 billion US dollars at one point. In other words, if Relational Software does not raise any more capital now, even if Xia Yu holds just 1% of the company's shares now, they will be worth 2 billion US dollars in the future!

Of course, it is unrealistic to expect Relational Software not to raise capital in the future. At the very least, there will be another round of financing for an IPO.

But in any case, getting an extra one percent stake now would be a huge victory. How much better could it get?

Fortunately, Xia Yu had seen many storms and was already able to remain calm in the face of huge wealth. He still had a good night's sleep that night.

The next morning, Xia Yu went to Polaris Capital and called Peter Lynch to his office.

Seeing Peter Lynch waiting quietly for him to give orders, Xia Yu did not hesitate and directly opened the information he saw that night and pushed it in front of Peter Lynch, saying to him, 'Peter, I have read the company's investment results, and you have a very good eye, finding quite a few potential stocks that I also like.'

'The shares of this company, EMC, are not for sale. If it continues to raise capital in the future, we will fully invest alongside it to ensure that our shareholding is not diluted. The more shares we can get, the better. But the prerequisite is that we must not interfere with the company's operations arbitrarily. We will only make financial investments.'

'And this relational software company, 10% of the equity is too little. It's too long to wait for the next round of financing, and you won't get much equity. Go arrange for someone to buy the equity of the other shareholders, and buy as much equity as possible. I'll draw a line for you, and you must increase your shareholding to at least 30% or more!'

Peter Lynch nodded to indicate that he had heard it, looked at the two companies circled on the material with a serious expression, and said solemnly, 'Boss, I remember, I'll go arrange it later.'

...

After spending two days in San Francisco, Xia Yu got everything sorted out at Polaris Capital and boarded a plane for the West Coast. With the time it took to change planes, he arrived in Seattle a day later and went to Seattle Computer Products.

Since Xia Yu had set the tone for developing the operating system, the entire company had been devoting resources to this project.

Before, when Xia Yu was in charge, the development speed was fast and there were few bugs, but unfortunately he left halfway through, which caused the development speed to drop quite a bit.

Fortunately, the entire framework was already in place, so it was relatively easy to perfect it.

So when Xia Yu came to the company again, after learning a bit about the MS-DOS system, he decided that the product was already good enough to be taken to IBM!

After tidying up a bit, Xia Yu took Thyssen-Paterson and a few subordinates, and headed to Boca Raton with a sample of the developed system installed.