After spending a week in the UK and making stops in Finland and Italy, Simon returned to New York on July 11.
American Online would officially list on the Nasdaq exchange the following day, July 12.
During the two-week IPO roadshow, AOL had generated overwhelming interest among investors across North America. Total subscriptions exceeded 210 million shares, 9.5 times the number of new shares being offered.
To coincide with the July 12 listing, AOL had released its second-quarter 1991 financial report ahead of schedule on July 10.
As of June 30, the company had 3.63 million paying subscribers across the most prosperous regions on America's East and West Coasts, a 56% increase from the previous quarter. Revenue for the three months from April 1 to June 30 reached $270 million, a staggering 137% jump from the first quarter.
Although the quarter showed a $160 million loss, no one could ignore AOL's explosive growth.
At six o'clock in the morning, Simon woke up on schedule inside the estate villa in the northern suburbs of Greenwich.
The woman in his arms opened her eyes at his movement. After a brief moment of drowsiness, a faint blush appeared on her face.
Simon couldn't resist pinching Sophia Fache's rosy cheek as she first woke and asked, "Want to come to Manhattan with me?"
Sophia didn't dodge his hand. She simply pressed it gently and replied, "I need to go home later."
She had flown back from Italy with Simon the day before. Because they had been too caught up in each other, she hadn't gone to see her two children right away. That was why she felt a little embarrassed now.
Simon just smiled. "In that case, you can sleep a little longer."
Sophia turned her head on the pillow and watched the man get dressed. She got up as well. The sheet slipped down, revealing an enticing stretch of bare skin. When she noticed Simon looking, she instinctively raised a hand to cover herself, then deliberately let it drop again under his expectant gaze and slowly began searching for her own clothes.
After washing up, Simon went downstairs. Housekeeper Alice and the C girl Claire had already led the other girls in preparing breakfast.
Both women would attend today's bell-ringing ceremony with Simon, marking their official public debut.
The outside world had long speculated about Simon's increasingly low-key private life, including the beautiful girls around him. Their appearance on stage today would inevitably spark discussion, but it was an experience they had to face. Better to let the public get used to certain things early than to have everything explode at the last moment.
After breakfast and saying goodbye to Sophia, Simon and his group set off for Manhattan.
Having already experienced the bell-ringing for Blockbuster's listing, the process felt familiar.
This time, however, there would be far more arranged activities than simply showing his face. Before the ceremony, Simon would personally give a live media interview.
AOL's IPO had clearly drawn even greater media attention.
The moment Simon's car appeared outside Nasdaq's headquarters in midtown Manhattan, a large crowd of reporters surged forward. Several television station live-interview vans were already parked nearby.
Bodyguards exited first, forming tight groups of four to surround Simon and the two women who stepped out with him. Another four bodyguards pushed through the crowd, forcibly clearing a path so Simon could enter the exchange.
Reporters shouted questions from all sides. When they received no answers, they quickly switched tactics and frantically snapped photos, especially focusing on the two women accompanying him today.
Some had already begun guessing the women's identities and were even spinning wild theories about marital trouble.
Of course, they could only think such things.
Publishing anything without solid evidence would probably just mean waiting to be sued into bankruptcy by Westeros.
The super tycoon had recently bankrupted several hot-headed young men in court. Although Janet had handled most of the actual work, the public naturally credited everything to Simon.
Once inside the exchange hall, James Rebould, Steve Case, Jeff Bezos, Carol Bartz, John Chambers, Raymond Smith, and other senior Westeros system executives who were attending the bell-ringing ceremony all came forward to greet him.
Although Steve Case was nominally the chairman and CEO of AOL and therefore the official star of today's event, everyone understood that the real center of attention was the young man before them.
As the internet industry continued its explosive growth, more and more people had begun to recognize the exquisitely timed moves Simon had made in this emerging high-tech sector over just a few short years.
Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Cisco, American Online, Ygritte, and even Bell Atlantic (now officially renamed Verizon) were all part of it.
Among them, Cisco, AOL, and Ygritte had formed a complete internet industry chain: equipment provider, service provider, and content provider. The World Wide Web standard the three companies had jointly pioneered and popularized had achieved overwhelming adoption in less than two years. Other companies of the same type simply could not catch up or compete.
Many people predicted that Cisco, AOL, and Ygritte would each become colossal giants once the internet era fully arrived.
Therefore, AOL's listing attracted far more attention than Blockbuster's IPO the previous year.
There was no time for small talk. It was already eight o'clock. After brief greetings, everyone went about their respective tasks.
Simon was led by staff to the interview area inside the exchange. Today's interview would be broadcast live on morning news programs of major networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS, and local New York stations.
The interview would last only ten minutes. Each reporter was allowed just one question.
Because this was one of Simon Westeros's extremely rare public interviews, everyone was fully focused.
Two sofas had been placed in the interview area. Simon sat on one while Nasdaq vice president Richard Seaman, who was personally hosting, sat on the other.
After quick preparations, the vice president took the microphone first with a "using public office for private gain" smile. "Simon, this is a truly rare opportunity. So, how about giving me the first question?"
Simon smiled and nodded. "Of course. But you've already asked it, so next."
Everyone present froze for a second, then burst out laughing.
It was obviously just a joke.
Richard Seaman didn't take it seriously either. He kept holding the microphone and continued, "This should be your second time at Nasdaq. Last time it was Blockbuster, this time American Online. What I want to ask, well, of course isn't which company will be next, although I really would like to know. What I want to ask is, what do you think of the current state of the U.S. stock market and its trend over the next few years? If possible, could you also give everyone some investment advice?"
It was clearly a very broad question.
However, with Simon's current status, he was fully qualified to comment on the national economic outlook.
Although it strayed somewhat from today's AOL IPO theme, Simon thought for a moment and answered, "As everyone knows, the federal stock market experienced several months of strong rebound in the first half of the year. Because the real economy remains weak, many people feel this rebound is full of hot air. I don't see it that way. In recent years, or if we count from 1987, the United States has gone through two major crises: the stock market bubble burst and the bond market collapse. Those two collapses squeezed out the bubble components in the federal economy. Therefore, I believe this year marks the beginning of another bull market for U.S. stocks."
Everyone listening to Simon's analysis nodded slightly. Seeing that he seemed finished and had no intention of continuing, Richard pressed, "What about investment advice?"
Simon had no choice but to add, "In a market that has bottomed out and is about to rebound, it's very easy for any investment to profit. The key is patience. Of course, if we're being more specific, I recommend that everyone consider tech stocks over the next few years. For example, American Online, which is listing today."
Richard got the answer he wanted and smoothly passed the microphone to an eager reporter in the audience.
The reporter from The New York Times grabbed the mic and asked rapidly, "Simon, AOL's offering price is $21 per share, which values the company at $3.15 billion. However, AOL's revenue last quarter was only $270 million, and full-year revenue may only reach the $1 billion level. The industry estimates that a $21 share price equates to roughly 35 times earnings. Isn't this valuation too high? How do you think AOL can support such a valuation?"
Simon had anticipated this question and answered smoothly, "For a newly listed company, the share price should represent the future more than the present. This is especially true for AOL. The company's high growth potential is well known, so I don't believe the IPO price is too high. In fact, I think it's actually a little low."
Simon's answer was somewhat of a safe, all-purpose response.
Anyone who had seriously analyzed AOL could see that the company not only represented high growth but also possessed strong monopoly characteristics.
Because the World Wide Web technology patents were held by the Westeros system, AOL itself enjoyed exclusive agreements in the operating regions of the three major carriers. Moreover, both the upstream internet equipment provider Cisco and the downstream internet content provider Ygritte could use numerous methods to protect AOL's industry advantage.
Over the past six months, the two carriers on the West Coast (Pacific Bell) and East Coast (NYNEX) had not completely broken with AOL. The contracts were one reason, but the lack of upstream and downstream technical and content support was another.
If those two companies tore up the original exclusive agreements to enter the ISP field, they obviously could not obtain support from Cisco and Ygritte, nor could they receive authorization for World Wide Web technology.
If breaching the contract only required compensation according to the agreement, then forcibly infringing on World Wide Web technology without authorization could even lead to bankruptcy lawsuits from the Westeros system. No company with even the slightest sense of business ethics would dare do so.
However, these relatively sensitive advantages were something Simon could never openly and thoroughly explain.
Doing so would hand others a weapon.
Warren Buffett had a very famous "toll bridge" theory: if a company possesses strong monopoly power in a certain region, it essentially holds absolute pricing power.
When he first proposed the theory, it was meant as a reference for Berkshire's investment targets. But because Buffett had said it publicly in the media, the theory later became a target of attack in some corporate lawsuits, with people claiming Berkshire intended to manipulate markets at will.
In this world, which company does not want to be the "only one" or to possess monopoly advantages?
The point is, many things can be done, but they must never be spoken aloud.
Therefore, Simon's answers to certain questions might be dismissed as empty or even mocked by those who considered themselves shrewd. Yet even entrepreneurs who liked to lecture the public on success in the media would probably not bare their souls unless their brains had completely stopped working.
Of course, even while deliberately holding back, Simon had still revealed more than enough information during the ten-minute interview.
Over the past few years, the market had developed an almost blind faith in Simon, who had created a series of wealth miracles in such a short time. AOL was also an undisputed core company of the Westeros system. Therefore, when the bell-ringing ceremony ended and pre-market price discovery began, AOL's share price started climbing steadily.
This continued until 10:30 a.m. After more than an hour of five consecutive rounds of price discovery, AOL finally opened for trading at $32.75 per share.
At $32.75, the price was already up 56% from the $21 offering price.
Yet this was only the beginning.
In the following trading sessions, AOL's share price kept surging. The gains were so strong that some early investors who had secured shares at the offering price began to feel the urge to sell.
Finally, at the 3:30 p.m. close, AOL's stock settled at a high of $43.25.
On its first day of trading after the IPO, the stock rose 106% overall, closing with a market capitalization of $7.46 billion.
After the IPO, Westeros Company's ownership in AOL dropped to 65.4%.
Suddenly, many people realized that American Online, which had barely registered in Simon Westeros's asset statistics the previous year, had in just twelve short months added $4.9 billion in paper wealth to the young man.
That $4.9 billion alone already exceeded the entire net worth of most people on both the U.S. and global rich lists.
Yet it could not be denied that AOL was still only one part of the thriving Westeros system.
Over the following weekend, while the media continued discussing AOL's stock performance for the coming week, they also began focusing on Simon's current personal net worth.
There was no exaggeration in saying that over the past year the Westeros system had completed a leapfrog development, primarily through the acquisitions of MCA and Bell Atlantic. Even more astonishing to the industry was that just when everyone thought the massive debt from those two deals would drag down the entire system, the first half of 1991 brought a strong stock market rebound.
Although MCA and Bell Atlantic had both delisted, no one could deny that Simon Westeros had executed a perfectly timed bottom-fishing operation.
Even if the two acquisitions had been delayed by just one or two months, once the Gulf War began its unstoppable advance, the Westeros system could never have secured those companies at the original prices.
Therefore, based on current market conditions, the two companies were now worth far more than the original $14 billion.