Chapter 1293: An Invitation to Mellon
After reading the information, Xia Yu fell into deep thought, and the direction of the US communications market came to mind.
After the breakup of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the parent company itself, as well as Western Electric Company, were definitely the most core assets, but it was impossible for him to get his hands on them. It would be pretty good if he could acquire a portion of the equity from the stock market.
Peter Lynch was also very pragmatic, so he didn't even mention this, but instead asked directly which of the seven Bell brothers was competing.
According to historical trends, the most promising of the seven Bell brothers was Southwestern Bell. After the new Telecommunications Act was enacted in the United States in 1996, which once again lifted restrictions on the telecommunications industry, Southwestern Bell first merged with Pacific Bell, then with Amerada, then with its parent company, American Telephone and Telegraph, and finally with Southern Bell, becoming the largest telecommunications company in the future.
When Southwestern Bell was first broken up, it only had operations in five southwestern states and ranked last, but it was able to swallow up three of the Bell Seven Brothers and its original parent company.
Inheriting a strong family background, Atlantic Bell and New York Telephone merged in 1997 and eventually evolved into Verizon Communications, the second largest telecommunications company in the United States.
The last of the Bell Seven brothers merged with the broadband company Qwest Communications in 2000.
On the surface, it appears that the company with the most assets is currently Atlantic Bell, followed by New York Telephone, followed by Ameritech, Pacific Bell, Southern Bell, Southwestern Bell and Western Bell.
Atlantic Bell is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
New York Telephone needs no introduction.
Ameritech's headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois.
Pacific Bell's headquarters are in San Francisco, California.
Southern Bell's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia.
Southwest Bell's headquarters are in Houston, Texas.
And finally, Western Bell's headquarters are in Denver, Colorado.
These seven companies are ostensibly ranked according to their assets, but in Xia Yu's eyes, naturally, he is not limited to the superficial things, he can also see the future.
For example, Southwestern Bell inherited the second-lowest ranking assets, but it has Texas, and the surrounding states are not bad.
Another example is Pacific Bell, which owns the local telephone business in California.
The future potential of these two states is huge.
What's more, this split and demarcation of territory is just a new starting point. There is no rule that says you can't go to other states while consolidating your own territory.
Xia Yu knew very well that this time the US government's dismemberment of AT&T would give countless people hope, and at least a thousand telecommunications companies would emerge in the following period to compete for the market.
In the previous life, Southwestern Bell, backed by the Texas consortium, had emerged from the siege.
In this life, it was not impossible for his company to emerge.
The key would be how to operate and how to survive and thrive in the brutal market competition.
After some consideration, Xia Yu still found that the best fit for him was actually Pacific Bell, which he had always had his heart set on.
Pacific Bell's local phone market included California, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington, with the relatively unimportant states of Alaska and Hawaii thrown in for free.
With their current populations and economies, Alaska and Hawaii combined were not even comparable to the state of Utah.
So although it seems to have inherited the business of six states, in reality it can be regarded as five states.
Fortunately, there is still California to support it, so its assets are ranked in the middle of the Bell Seven brothers, which is quite a bit stronger than Southwestern Bell, which has the territory of Texas.
However, with the territory of California and Washington, Pacific Bell is attractive enough to him.
Moreover, Pacific Bell's headquarters was in San Francisco, where Polaris Capital was located, not in Los Angeles, where the California consortium was based.
After making the decision, Xia Yu found an appropriate time and called Peter Lynch.
The call lasted more than 40 minutes.
In addition to instructing him to launch a takeover of TWA as soon as possible and compete for Pacific Bell, he also reminded him about the Canadian and Chicago consortia.
Afterwards, Xia Yu made another phone call to the Jiuding Securities Company in New York, asking the branch president, Toby Moulton, to write an invitation on his behalf. The invitation was sent to Richard King Mellon, the current head of the Mellon family.
On the afternoon of 3 March, the invitation arrived in Richard King Mellon's hands.
The Mellon family's residence is in Pennsylvania, where the family rose to prominence.
Richard King Mellon was very surprised to receive Xia Yu's invitation. He had never imagined that the mysterious Oriental boy, whom he had only met once at the celebration banquet for Reagan's inauguration as president, would contact him a second time and directly invite him to go to Hong Kong!
This behaviour was very abrupt, but the content made him feel tempted.
Not only that, the content of the invitation was also very sincere.
According to the president of New York's Jiuding Securities Company, who personally delivered the invitation, the content of the invitation was Xia Yu's exact words, and he had only acted as a ghostwriter.
However, he still had to think about it carefully. After all, his health was already relatively poor, and his doctor had repeatedly advised him to minimise long-distance travel as much as possible to avoid placing a burden on his body.
That night, after dinner with his family, he stopped the three children who wanted to leave.
His third son Leonard, fourth son Woodrow, and youngest daughter Cindy.
His eldest son, Skeeves, and his second son, Timothy, were not at home. Richard King Mellon had no energy left to cultivate these two sons, who were not interested in the family business.
For the family, these two had been wasted, and the focus should be on the third and fourth sons.
'Father, do you have anything to teach us?'
Leonard, who had won Richard King Mellon's favour, asked after sitting down.
'Today, I received an invitation that completely took me by surprise. Would you all like to take a look?'
Richard King Mellon said, and handed the invitation to Leonard.
Leonard read it with a frown, then passed it to his brother Woodrow, and finally to Cindy.
Cindy was stunned when she saw the name of the sender, and after blinking a few times to make sure she hadn't read it wrong, she read the invitation with great curiosity.
'Dear Mr. Mellon, hello, I'm sorry I can't visit you in person, so I have to send you this invitation in this way. I sincerely invite you to come to my hometown, Xiangjiang. The East holds great wealth and opportunities. Of course, there are some topics I would like to discuss with you the most, such as the capital structure in the United States, and Canada... Xia Yu.'
After reading this puzzling and ambiguous content, Cindy's head raised a small question mark.
But she didn't have time to think about it.
Because she saw that the three children had finished reading it, and Richard King Mellon's kind voice sounded: 'Children, what do you think after reading this invitation?'