$35 billion!
This was the personal net worth figure given by Forbes magazine for Simon Westeros in 1991.
Careful people would easily discover that compared to last year's $21 billion, the $14 billion wealth increase exactly matched the total $14 billion acquisition price Simon had paid for MCA and Bell Atlantic previously.
However, the explanation given by Forbes magazine was not like this.
The $14 billion wealth increase mainly came from the stock price growth over the past year for technology companies in which Westeros Company held shares, such as Microsoft, Intel, Oracle and SUN, as well as the personal wealth brought to Simon by America Online and Cisco, the two companies that had just gone public in recent months.
Among them, America Online with a 65.4 percent post-IPO stake and Cisco with a 50.1 percent stake contributed a full $10.3 billion in wealth to Simon alone, based on their market caps during the Forbes statistics period.
Because of the hot sales of the Windows 3.0 system, Microsoft's stock price had exactly doubled over the past year.
Westeros Company's stake in Microsoft had also risen from about 10 percent last year to 21.3 percent. Based on Forbes' valuation of Microsoft's $12.5 billion market cap, this portion of stock contributed another $2.6 billion in wealth to Simon.
Westeros Company's stake in Intel had similarly increased to 15.6 percent. With Forbes valuing Intel at $10.5 billion, this portion of stock contributed $1.6 billion in wealth to Simon.
Taken together, the total value of Westeros Company's holdings in America Online, Cisco, Microsoft and Intel stocks had already reached $14.6 billion. For other technology companies such as Oracle, SUN and Silicon Graphics, the total book market value of Westeros Company's holdings also exceeded $2 billion.
Subtracting last year's baseline from this stock wealth gave the growth rate over the past year.
As for MCA and Bell Atlantic, which Simon had already pocketed, they basically offset the entire debt of the Westeros System.
Anyone with discerning eyes could see that, taking the Gulf War at the beginning of the year as the dividing line, the American stock market had experienced a very obvious bottom rebound. Simon's precise purchase of MCA and Bell Atlantic before the Gulf War could be said to be a very exquisite bottom-fishing move.
Even though both companies had now delisted, the intrinsic value of MCA and Bell Atlantic was definitely not limited to the $14 billion from the beginning of the year.
Moreover, according to Forbes' calculations, the growth statistics for Westeros System enterprises in other areas such as fashion and technology appeared very vague.
Finally, there was Cersei Capital, which was hard to bypass.
According to some industry rumors, Cersei Capital had once again earned billions of dollars in profits through operations in oil futures and stock index futures around the time of the Gulf War.
Although Simon Westeros's ownership share in the Cersei Fund Management Company, the hedge fund under Cersei Capital, had already dropped to only one-third, it was still a very considerable fortune.
In addition, the most crucial one was Daenerys Entertainment.
Forbes magazine had valued Daenerys Entertainment at $8 billion last year. This year, following the merger of Danneelis Entertainment with MCA, the company's net assets alone were no less than $15 billion. Although the acquisition last year had added several billion dollars in liabilities, Daenerys Entertainment, with its healthy financial condition, was obviously different from the debt-ridden Time Warner.
Even with a conservative estimate, Daenerys Entertainment's market value would not be lower than its net asset figure.
All in all, unlike the controversies of previous years, when Forbes released the new annual America's 400 Richest list, mainstream media in North America and overseas generally believed that this time Simon Westeros's personal net worth had clearly been underestimated.
Some even suspected whether Simon Westeros had reached some agreement with the Forbes Group in order to make his personal wealth seem less glaring.
Although $35 billion itself was already very glaring.
Many Western rich people actually liked to keep a low profile. However, when it came to personal wealth, everyone was relatively open about it and believed that wealth represented a kind of glory.
Under normal circumstances, no one would communicate with the media to reduce their own wealth estimates.
This was only under normal circumstances.
Simon Westeros himself could not be considered a normal guy.
Facing media questioning, Forbes magazine issued a firm denial and claimed that this wealth statistics might be controversial because Simon Westeros's personal asset portfolio was overly complex, but overall it was relatively accurate.
Forbes had operated its list for so many years and its credibility was still sufficient. Other media such as Fortune magazine had also released similar statistics, none of which posed any threat to Forbes' list.
Therefore, even if there was controversy, since the number had already been released, Forbes definitely would not revise it. The media and the public would only use this number as a reference.
Probably many years later, when someone reviewed Forbes' past lists and checked the 1991 data, they would only see the figure of $35 billion for Simon Westeros's personal wealth. The controversies of that year would definitely have been long forgotten.
After Simon's undisputed top spot, the changes in the subsequent rankings this year were also very significant.
John Kluge, also a media tycoon, still held onto second place on the list with a personal wealth of $5.9 billion, basically the same as last year.
Bill Gates took third place on this year's list with a personal wealth of $5 billion.
Forbes magazine specially commented on this. After transferring 5 percent of his Microsoft shares to Westeros Company last year and receiving a huge sum of cash, Mr. Gates had purchased mansions in New York and San Francisco and even added a Gulfstream private jet, finally having the air of a super rich person.
However, Forbes' commentators noted that the stocks Mr. Gates sold last year had increased in value by more than $300 million in just one year.
In other words, Mr. Gates had actually lost $300 million.
If Microsoft's stock price continued to rise, this 5 percent loss might become even more in the future.
Paul Allen, who had also transferred 5 percent of Microsoft shares back then, was in the same situation.
Following Bill Gates, from fourth to eighth place, all five positions were occupied by the Walton family, whose wealth had been equally divided. Sam Walton and his four children each had $4.4 billion in wealth.
In the previous two years, some media had claimed that America's true richest was actually the Walton family. Starting this year, the media no longer had similar arguments. The total wealth of the five Walton family members was only $22 billion, a full $13 billion less than Simon.
Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett ranked ninth this year with $4.2 billion in personal wealth.
Pittsburgh steel tycoon Henry Hillman ranked tenth, but his personal wealth had directly dropped to $3.3 billion.
Looking at this list as a whole, it was not hard to discover that except for Simon and Gates, most of the top ten on this year's Forbes rich list were traditional rich people known for stable industries. Even John Kluge had accumulated his current wealth over many years.
Affected by the economic downturn and ongoing debt crisis in recent years, tycoons like Sumner Redstone and Ron Perelman, who were skilled in high-debt operations and had appeared on the list in previous years, had all fallen out of the top ten.
However, on the other hand, the total wealth of America's 400 richest people still showed a growth trend.
The 400 richest people had a total wealth of $317.3 billion this year.
This made another point very clear: of the $317.3 billion total wealth of the 400 richest, Simon Westeros alone accounted for $35 billion, a proportion reaching 11 percent.
Compared to the other rich people on the list, Simon's personal wealth, whether in asset amount or growth speed, clearly showed an unparalleled posture.
Because Simon's personal wealth was mainly concentrated in media and technology, with the release of this list, the media and technology sectors in the US stock market clearly experienced a wave of upward movement.
In the previous few years, many investors had already been eager to put capital into the film industry because of Simon's meteoric rise in Hollywood.
The landscape of Hollywood's major studios had even changed because of Simon alone.
However, Hollywood's threshold was ultimately not something anyone could easily cross.
The successive emergence and collapse of a large batch of Hollywood second- and third-tier film companies in the 1980s had already proven this point.
However.
In the technology field, particularly the emerging internet industry, the threshold was no longer so high.
Just a few days after the Forbes list was released, the White House also responded to the Information Superhighway Act secretly promoted by the Westeros System. The White House spokesperson stated at a regular press conference that the president had reviewed the relevant bill and held a special meeting with cabinet members to discuss the feasibility of the bill.
Although the White House did not have legislative power, the president could sign executive orders that also had legal effect.
Moreover, if it could receive assistance from the White House, particularly from the Bush family, which had deep roots in Congress, many bills would pass congressional review more smoothly.
However, the media also understood that the White House would not help Democrats push an important bill involving hundreds of billions in output value. If Bush and his team behind him were optimistic about the prospects of the internet industry, it was more likely they would introduce a similar bill drafted by themselves.
George Bush had already faced too many attacks for not caring about domestic affairs and himself needed to push out some bills closely related to the domestic economy.
In any case, the White House's response to the Information Superhighway Act was a very positive signal.
The investment trajectory of the Westeros System in new technology fields was also simple and clear. Therefore, within a very short time, countless capital began to rub their hands in anticipation and target the internet industry.
When this year's Forbes list was announced, Simon was far away in Italy.
However, on the North American side, because of the wealth list announcement, it still did not calm down.
Over these years, many media had marveled at Simon's sudden emergence and there had never been a shortage of news criticizing and questioning this young super rich man.
However, just like how the weak ripples previously stirred by Matthew Broderick and others had not affected Simon at all, Simon actually did not know about most of the media's criticisms of him, nor did he bother to pay attention.
With the release of the new annual list, the corresponding questioning and criticism naturally increased again.
The most frequent criticism should still be the question of how Simon Westeros should spend such a massive amount of accumulated wealth.
In recent years, the operations of the Simon & Janet Westeros Foundation had been very active.
However, because Simon's personal wealth was really too huge, some media believed that Simon's investment in charity was still too low. There were even the usual remarks that Simon's Twenty of billions in personal wealth should belong to the entire society.
Many rich people had humbly stated in the media that they were just "custodians of wealth" or similar.
Probably because similar views had been said too much, some people believed it, and thus began calling in newspapers for Simon Westeros to "return society's wealth to society."
Simon did not even want to look at similar news.
It was a waste of time.
Janet, as the housekeeper, had the additional private job of maintaining her man's public image.
Therefore, the woman basically collected all negative news about Simon and would occasionally have George Norman send out some lawyer letters or lawsuits.
However, when Janet saw similar news, she would habitually roll her eyes.
In addition to those persuading Simon to repay society, there was also a large batch persuading for donations.
In the days after the Forbes list was released, Janet in Los Angeles received a huge pile of similar donation invitations every day.
Most were definitely ignored.
Finally, what probably troubled Janet the most was the family recognition claims.
For several consecutive years, Simon's background had always been a focus of media attention.
There were even some people with ulterior motives who specially formed investigation teams to help Simon find relatives, obviously trying to make a big profit after helping Simon find his parents.
Over the years, there had indeed been several couples suspected to be Simon Westeros's parents repeatedly hyped by the media. These people generally had not given up on the idea of claiming Simon as their son.
With the release of the Forbes list, another couple jumped out again, appearing in the media with tears and snot, hoping to get Simon's recognition. They spoke earnestly, saying they had no demands and only hoped to find their son.
The media also feared the world would not be chaotic.
For handling such matters, Simon and Janet had long had a plan: turn the matter into a farce.
When someone demanded family recognition, Janet would privately arrange for people to do the same thing.
The people's eyes were sharp.
Suddenly a bunch of people jumping out wanting to be Simon Westeros's dad and mom, if that wasn't a farce, what was?
Therefore, once such a situation appeared, things would basically calm down.
This year, however, it did not calm down.
Because a couple arranged by Janet suddenly publicly admitted that they had been paid to do so.
Janet of course would not be stupid enough to personally arrange it. Everything was done through intermediaries. Even the couple who jumped out could not possibly know whose money they had received.
However, this kind of thing obviously could not stump the media with rich imagination.
If someone received money, there naturally had to be someone who paid the money.
If certain people paid money to make a couple become Westeros's parents and then profit from it... Simon Westeros was not a fool. Doing it this way would be too easy to expose.
So, people who wanted to profit from it would not use such a stupid method.
Everything had a motive.
What remained.
Who else would have such a motive?
This had become a very interesting question worth studying.