James Rebould arrived at NBC's headquarters in Midtown Manhattan at seven in the morning.
Simon didn't like appearing in front of the media, but some things couldn't be avoided. Today, James would sit for an interview on NBC's morning news program The Today Show, answering recent questions and controversies surrounding Westeros Company.
He spent over half an hour rechecking the interview outline with his assistant, the PR team, and the Today Show producer. At 7:40, guided by staff, James walked to the studio entrance.
"Twenty one billion dollars. A staggering number. That is the latest personal net worth total for Simon Westeros as published on this week's Forbes 400 list released by Forbes magazine on Monday. Compared to last year, this twenty two year old billionaire has increased his net worth by fifteen billion in the past year alone, the equivalent of earning forty one million dollars a day."
"So what is the magic behind Simon Westeros? How did he accumulate such enormous personal wealth so quickly? Today, we've invited Mr. James Rebould, president of Westeros Company, to discuss many of the questions the public has been paying close attention to recently."
After finishing her introduction, the female host, Deborah Norville, stood and shook hands with James as he entered the studio.
On Sunday morning, in front of televisions in countless homes.
Hearing Deborah Norville's introduction, many viewers had assumed Simon Westeros himself would appear, and felt a quick flash of disappointment. Still, few people changed the channel.
After his cameo at Madonna's concert at the end of June, Simon had returned to keeping out of the public eye.
With the media roaring lately over the new Forbes 400, having Westeros's spokesperson appear on TV was enough to satisfy public curiosity.
Inside the studio, after a few polite opening remarks, Deborah Norville cut straight to it. "Jim, let me start with what everyone wants to know most. What has Simon been doing these days?"
"Mostly films," James answered. "Daenerys Entertainment has many projects currently in production, and Simon has spent this week traveling across the country visiting sets."
"Sounds busy," Deborah Norville said with a teasing smile. "So when he found out his ranking on this year's Forbes list, what was his reaction?"
"Very happy. It's an extraordinary achievement."
"It really is extraordinary. From 1986 to now, Simon built all of this in only four short years, and he's still only twenty two," Deborah said. "As president of Westeros Company, Jim, you know him very well. Why do you think he's been able to accomplish this? Or is it true that he's a psychic?"
Her last line carried a light, joking tone.
James smiled along. "Simon often jokes about being a psychic, but he isn't. He once said he genuinely wished he were, because then it would prove ghosts exist. And if ghosts exist, that means death isn't the end of everything, and we wouldn't need to fear it anymore."
Those words were something Jennifer had mentioned while talking with his daughter, and James had remembered them vividly.
Deborah Norville's expression turned thoughtful. "I've never thought about it that way. To be honest, I used to fear death and be afraid of ghosts too. Now it feels like I care less about both."
"Me too," James agreed, then answered her earlier question more directly. "Simon is a very special person. He's exceptionally capable in many areas, and he has an uncommon level of foresight and creativity. I think that's the key to what he's achieved."
"I think a lot of people would agree," Deborah said, then shifted topics. "Jim, according to yesterday's report in The Hollywood Reporter, Daenerys Entertainment will launch a bid to acquire MCA Group, which owns Universal Pictures. Is that true?"
This was one of the crucial topics of the interview. James subtly tightened his focus. "Since the start of the year, there have been many reports about how Simon plans to use his overseas funds. We've been considering that question as well, and we've discussed many targets, but there's no conclusion yet."
Deborah pressed. "But Jim, according to The Hollywood Reporter's report, Westeros has already formed a sixty person acquisition team. How do you explain that?"
James shook his head. "I don't know how The Hollywood Reporter obtained that information. Simon has always emphasized coordination across the Westeros system. Whether it's Cersei Capital, Daenerys Entertainment, or our technology companies, cooperation and communication are very frequent. Someone probably misunderstood because of that."
"So you're saying Simon has no intention of acquiring MCA?" Deborah asked, watching him closely.
James didn't give a definitive answer. He replied carefully, "As I said, we've discussed many targets. MCA has indeed been on the list of possibilities. But everything depends on Simon's final decision. And Simon hasn't even decided whether he will bring that overseas money back into the country. We all know that would mean paying a very steep twenty eight percent capital gains tax."
The Hollywood Reporter breaking the story yesterday that Daenerys was about to acquire MCA had indeed caught Westeros's senior leadership off guard.
Before today's interview, after careful discussion, James and the others had decided to give an uncertain answer. That avoided the trap where silence looked like confirmation, but it also avoided drawing speculators into MCA's stock all at once.
James subtly shifted the topic. Deborah didn't keep pressing. NBC didn't want to lose future interview access, so she followed his lead.
"Speaking of capital gains taxes, the President publicly said last month that he may have to break his campaign promise not to raise taxes, and plans to address the growing federal deficit through tax increases. And because of the rise of the hedge fund industry in the past two years, this Wednesday, Republican Senator Peter Briger of Texas proposed stronger regulation of hedge funds and a new tax framework, to prevent excessive financial speculation from harming the U.S. economy. Jim, what's your view of Briger's proposal?"
Both Simon and James had learned about Briger's proposal the moment it was filed.
Everyone knew Texas was the Bush family's stronghold and the heartland of the Republican Party. The targeting of Briger's proposal was obvious.
And there was an even deeper reason behind it.
This was a critical period for midterm election fundraising. Republicans were clearly at a disadvantage in their struggle for congressional control. At the same time, over the course of this year, the Westeros system had quietly poured twenty million dollars into politics, becoming a significant Democratic donor.
In the 1986 Reagan era tax cuts, the capital gains tax rate had been unified at twenty eight percent, matching income tax, eliminating the old long term versus short term split. That move was controversial from the start. If the Bush administration raised taxes again, it wouldn't just offend Wall Street. It would also severely restrict capital market liquidity and make an already sluggish U.S. economy even worse.
As for raising taxes specifically on hedge funds, setting aside whether it could even work, doing so would only drive hedge funds out of the United States. The enormous overseas gains would never come back, and the one that lost would still be America.
Most importantly, after three major plays, the 1987 crash, Japan's bubble, and crude oil futures, Simon had already completed his original accumulation of capital. He wouldn't rely heavily on Cersei Capital going forward anyway. Even if the Bush administration tightened regulation and raised taxes, the impact on him would be limited.
Simon also wasn't worried about being targeted by the Bush administration over political alignment.
America's two parties checked each other. If Republicans targeted him, Democrats would intervene. If a party couldn't even protect its own major donors, who would ever stand with it again?
In the studio, James Rebould naturally wasn't going to clash head on with the senator for those reasons. He simply offered a measured view focused on the policy itself.
They discussed a few more topics, and the ten minute interview ended quickly.
Leaving NBC headquarters, it still wasn't even eight o'clock.
He had breakfast scheduled with Simon and Janet, so James hurried to the Upper East Side, where his wife Carol had already arrived.
At breakfast, the conversation naturally returned to all the recent chaos.
Because the media had been watching them so closely, and to prevent the Bell Atlantic acquisition plan from leaking, that effort had been temporarily suspended.
America Online's negotiations over the exclusive plan with the three telecom companies had also been clearly affected by the exposure of Simon's wealth. All three companies had become stubbornly rigid on terms. The one line Simon held to was that no matter what, he would not accept their demand to take an equity stake in America Online.
As for MCA, because the Daenerys bidding news had leaked and stirred things up, Simon also began preparing two different approaches.
Even though it was Sunday, after breakfast James still rushed back to Westeros headquarters in Midtown to begin his day.
These days, as Simon's public face, James was moving through endless invitations and spotlight attention, basking in reflected glory, and he was energized by it. And it wasn't just surface level glamour. The "hundred million club" Forbes revealed last month had actually missed James.
Having personally gone through last year and this year's market operations, James wasn't going to miss an opportunity like this. Simon had personally arranged for James to participate as well.
They'd started with only twenty million, but the small size made it easier to maximize benefits. After more than a year of continuous operations, the funds transferred back from overseas, even after taxes, exceeded 160 million.
The last place on this year's Forbes 400, The Washington Post heir Donald Graham, had a personal fortune of only 260 million. With 160 million to his name, James Rebould was already among the very top tier of American wealth for this era.
Under Simon's guidance, the Rebould couple used the market's recent weakness to put all that money into Microsoft and Intel. If Microsoft and Intel could reach their original timeline internet bubble peak market caps again, that one investment alone would eventually be enough to push the Rebould family into the ten billion class.
Of course, that was for later.
Back at the Fifth Avenue apartment, after seeing the Rebould couple out, Simon and Janet didn't go out today.
After returning to New York yesterday, Simon had already sent his Boeing 767 back to Los Angeles. Not many people knew he was in New York, so they could enjoy a rare quiet day.
The apartment rooftop had been renovated into a garden by Janet. The early autumn sun was just right. The two of them sat at a simple wooden table, with stacks of documents Janet had collected and organized over the past week spread across the surface.
"The hedge fund team will probably still post good profits over the next few months," Janet said, leaning close to Simon. "But we'll need to keep some funds overseas. By year end, we can probably bring back about six billion. If we want to complete both acquisitions, using seventy billion for MCA and eighty billion for Bell Atlantic as the purchase funds, then we need to raise nine billion in loans. Getting that money is easy. But even at a ten year term and four point five percent annual interest, total interest reaches 2.19 billion. We'd be repaying about 1.12 billion a year."
Still pressed against him, Janet pulled another file and slid it over. "This is information on Bell Atlantic's current management. Their current chairman and CEO is Raymond Smith. He's an outstanding professional manager, fifty six this year. He started as a low level trainee in the Bell system, climbed step by step to where he is now. Before AT and T was broken up, he'd already reached CFO, and he was once one of the contenders for AT and T's top job."
Simon took the file and carefully read Raymond Smith's profile.
Besides being Bell Atlantic's top executive, Raymond Smith was also a talented poet and playwright with multiple published works. He also served on the boards of several major corporations, and held five doctorates.
Searching his memory, Simon also recalled that in the original timeline, it was Raymond Smith who gradually expanded Bell Atlantic into North America's second largest telecom company, Verizon. By comparison, the other six Baby Bells carved out in 1984 all failed to escape the fate of being acquired or collapsing in one way or another.
Simon had never planned to replace Bell Atlantic's management right after an acquisition, and after reading Raymond Smith's profile, he was even less inclined.
After Simon finished, Janet didn't wait for him to speak. "Impressive, right? But he's also the biggest obstacle to our acquisition. Bell Atlantic's operating condition is far better than neighboring NYNEX, and Smith is ambitious. If we acquire Bell Atlantic, it'll be burdened with massive debt, which is terrible for its future development. Unless we solve that problem, Raymond Smith won't agree to be acquired easily."
Simon stared at the papers for a moment, then picked up the pencil beside him and began listing numbers in the margin as he calculated. "Bell Atlantic's equity is too dispersed. Even if we reach an agreement, we might not end up with one hundred percent of the shares. That lets us save some money for now. And if we buy a tranche of stock at today's price first, we can save more. Let's assume seventy five percent ownership. At an eight billion purchase price, we only need to pay six billion."
Janet watched him calculate. "But to build an ISP business, we'll need to invest heavily in R and D and infrastructure, so we can't really save that remaining twenty billion. Also, it's not necessarily capped at seventy five percent. If we pass ninety percent ownership, under federal securities law, we can force the remaining shareholders to sell and complete a full privatization."
"All right," Simon said, rapidly writing down more figures. "My point is, shift as much of the debt as possible onto Daenerys Entertainment. If necessary, we use loans to buy MCA entirely, so we can reduce the resistance on Bell Atlantic's side as much as possible."
"If we do that, Daenerys Entertainment's future IPO will be seriously affected by the high debt ratio," Janet said.
Simon couldn't help a wry smile.
Trying to have it both ways was truly difficult.
Simon's original plan was to launch Daenerys Entertainment's IPO after Toy Story released next year. But if they acquired MCA, digesting a company like that would take at least two or three years. The IPO would have to be delayed.
Really, Simon wasn't short of money.
Not only the overseas cash, but also the tech stocks held by Westeros Company. Under the three year holding promise, those could be sold next year. If Simon wanted, he could easily cash out more than a billion. Many other assets in the Westeros system were the same.
If he were willing to bring outside shareholders into core Westeros businesses like Daenerys Entertainment, he could raise massive capital at any time.
But whether it was those tech holdings, or Daenerys, Ygritte, Melisandre, and the rest, they all had huge growth potential. Simon didn't want to sell too easily or share those stakes.
After thinking for a moment, Simon decided, "For now, let's redraw the acquisition plan along that line. We'll acquire MCA entirely with debt, and use as much of our own funds as possible for Bell Atlantic. We'll deal with the future when it comes."
Janet nodded, and the two of them continued discussing the finer details of the plan.