My Age of Investment

After hearing Xia Jingxing's words, Li Yaozu immediately called up a set of ppt files and started playing them on the large projection screen.

"This is the stock price trend chart of Volkswagen in the past three years. The Porsche family began to covet the control of the Volkswagen Group as early as three years ago, and then launched the Shetunxiang acquisition when no one was optimistic. .”

Speaking of this, Li Yaozu smiled, showing his big white teeth, "I have to say that the Porsche family really has a bit of a foolish old man's spirit of moving mountains!

They had been engaged in the acquisition for more than three years. Faced with so many difficulties and obstacles, most people would have given up long ago, but they were not discouraged.

Like ants moving, all means are used, and the balance of victory is gradually tilting towards the Porsche family.

In 2005, they acquired 18.53% of public shares;

In 2006, the equity stake was further increased to 27.3%, becoming Volkswagen's largest shareholder.

However, this is not enough to control the Volkswagen Group, because the German Company Law clearly stipulates that one needs to hold 75% or more of the shares of a company in order to gain control of the company.

As a national car brand established under the call of the head of state, Volkswagen is uniquely treated in Germany.

In order to prevent outsiders from acquiring Volkswagen, the German government specially promulgated a "Volkswagen Law".

It clearly stipulates: When holding less than 20% of the shares of Volkswagen, the voting rights will be calculated based on the actual shareholding ratio; when the shareholding ratio exceeds 20%, its voting rights will not increase.

In other words, although the Porsche family holds 27.3% of the shares and is the largest shareholder, its voting rights are only 20%.

This means that after two years of hard work, the Porsche family still cannot substantially control Volkswagen and is only the largest financial investment shareholder.

If you want to completely solve this problem and truly control the public, you must increase your shareholding to more than 80%.

If you hold 80.1% of the shares, your voting rights are still only 20%.

However, only 19.9% ​​of the external circulating shares remain, and the corresponding voting rights are only 19.9%.

20% to 19.9%, the Porsche family wins!

But can Porsche acquire 80% of Volkswagen’s shares?

Obviously not! Because the Lower Saxony state government, where Volkswagen’s headquarters is located, holds 20.1% of Volkswagen’s shares.

No matter how hard Porsche works and how much it pays to buy shares in the market, it can theoretically only acquire 79.9% of Volkswagen's shares and cannot reach the 80% control line.

Even so, it failed to defeat Porsche's determination to acquire Volkswagen.

In 2007, Porsche filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice, saying that the Volkswagen Law violated the EU's Fair Trading Law, and that this commercial law was higher than the economic-related laws of EU countries and was not conducive to market competition. This was an attack on the liberal spirit. of trampling and so on.

Other EU member states have long been dissatisfied with the "Popular Law", so they all pushed it. Although Germany also argued hard during the period, the EU Court of Justice ultimately ruled that the "Public Law" was invalid.

This clears all the obstacles for Porsche to acquire Volkswagen. It only needs to reach the 75% holding line like a normal German company.

But is Porsche really capable of acquiring the Volkswagen Group? "

At this time, Li Yaozu changed a set of ppt pictures, pointed to several histograms and said: "This is a comparison picture of the sales revenue and net profit of the two companies in recent years.

It can be clearly seen that in 2005, Volkswagen's annual sales revenue was equivalent to 30 times that of Porsche.

However, as a luxury car brand, Porsche has very high profit margins. Last year's net profit reached a record high of 6.4 billion euros.

Perhaps it was this confidence that strengthened the Porsche family's determination to acquire Volkswagen.

In 2007, Porsche's shareholding ratio in Volkswagen further increased to 31%.

This year, Porsche leveraged billions of euros in debt to increase its shareholding in Volkswagen to 51% at the end of June, including some shares and some options.

By this time, all of Europe believed that Porsche was serious about acquiring Volkswagen.

Porsche's large-scale acquisitions this year have also caused Volkswagen's stock price to rise. Last month, the stock price reached 200 euros.

Then the global financial tsunami broke out, which failed to stop its stock price from rising. At the beginning of this month, the stock price rose to 400 euros, and its market value exceeded 100 billion euros.

In the past half month, various short sellers have been shorting Volkswagen's stock and spreading various news that is unfavorable to Volkswagen. They all believe that its stock price is too abnormal and has far exceeded the actual value of the Volkswagen brand. "

Xia Jingxing smiled slightly, "Actually, they are right, the current Volkswagen is not worth more than 100 billion euros, and shorting it is also a normal behavior.

Nowadays, European countries and even the whole world have banned short selling of financial stocks. The stock price of Volkswagen has risen so ridiculously, which naturally attracts the attention of various hedge funds.

Wherever there is profit, there are hedge funds. "

Li Yaozu smiled and spread his hands, "With the outbreak of the financial crisis, everyone thought that Porsche might temporarily stop acquiring Volkswagen, and its shareholding ratio would stop at 51%.

If it weren't for Xia Sheng's repeated warnings, I might not be able to help but take advantage. "

Xia Jingxing smiled and shook his head, "How can we still have money to take advantage? All the bullets have been used up."

Li Yaozu smiled and said: "Didn't the American team support us with another $1 billion?

These days, as short sellers have been shorting Volkswagen, the stock price has fallen from 400 euros to 210 euros.

We used all the US$1 billion, approximately 742 million euros, to subscribe for 3.53 million Volkswagen call options, accounting for approximately 1% of Volkswagen's total share capital.

Including the underlying shares and options of Volkswagen that we have purchased previously, we currently hold a total of 3% of Volkswagen’s total share capital. "

Xia Jingxing frowned slightly. He only had so few stocks, which felt a bit small!

However, considering the current situation, it is really not suitable for large-scale operations.

Whether it alarms the long side of Porsche or the short side of a group of hedge funds, unpredictable things may happen, causing the final action to fail.

Xia Jingxing asked: "Besides us, is anyone else buying Volkswagen's options?"

Li Yaozu shook his head and said: "According to the regulations of the Frankfurt Exchange, if the purchaser of stock options is willing to pay the full premium based on the stock price, he can decide by himself when to announce the number of options he holds.

Whether the Porsche family has substantial purchase options is anyone's guess.

If the proportion of underlying shares held exceeds 30%, changes in positions for each transaction must be disclosed.

According to previous information disclosures, the proportion of Volkswagen's shares held by Porsche has remained at 42.6% and has never increased since then. "

Xia Jingxing nodded lightly, this option was actually a bug.

The premiums for individual stock options in the United States are very cheap, with stock prices as high as tens or hundreds of dollars. The premiums or option premiums are usually only a few dollars, or even cents.

And what Li Yaozu said "to pay the premium in full according to the stock price" means to pay the premium at the current price of the stock.

For example, the 3.53 million options purchased by Vision Capital this time are the option premiums paid at the current price of 210 euros per share.

This option is a bit useless!

It is equivalent to spending 210 euros to purchase the right to purchase the Volkswagen stock held by the option seller, that is, the counterparty, at a fixed price of 210 euros in the future.

There is no doubt that the risks and returns are somewhat disproportionate, and there is almost no room for arbitrage - of course, this refers to general circumstances.

If Volkswagen's stock price falls below 210 euros and the option is abandoned, the entire investment of 210 euros times 3.53 million shares will be in vain, and the options will become useless paper.

If you choose to exercise the option, the option fee will not be refunded, and additional exercise costs will be added. For example, if you buy a stock at a price of 210 euros whose stock price has dropped to 200 euros, you will lose even more!

The only chance to make money is if the stock price rises sharply and continues to rise on the basis of 210 euros.

Considering that although the market value of Volkswagen has fallen a bit, it is still close to 80 billion euros, the possibility of the stock price rising again is very small.

Selling call options is actually short selling the public using options tools.

"Tell me, what would happen if the Porsche family purchased options that accounted for more than 30% of Volkswagen's total share capital?"

Xia Jingxing's words made Li Yaozu stunned for a moment, and then he reacted with a look of shock, "You mean..."

Xia Jingxing smiled and nodded, "This is called building a plank road openly and secretly building a plank road! Do you think it is possible for members of the Porsche family to have learned the Chinese art of war?"

Li Yaozu didn't respond to his boss's joke. He was now concentrating on speculating on the Porsche family's actions. His heart was pounding and he even felt short of breath.

Because he smells the aroma of euros!