Rebirth of England

This time, Barron acquired the shares of the Gucci Group in the name of DS Holdings, which holds 75% of the Argos retail group shares, 78.5% of the Woaw technology shares, 31% of the Argent real estate group shares, and A total of 20 million Google shares were pledged to Northroc Bank for a loan of 2.5 billion pounds.

Among them, Argos Retail Group is valued at 1 billion pounds, and 75% of Argos Retail Group shares are valued at 750 million pounds; Woaw Technology is valued at 1 billion pounds, and 78.5% of Woaw Technology shares are valued at 785 million pounds; Argent The real estate group is valued at 1 billion pounds, and 31% of Argent Real Estate Group shares are valued at 310 million pounds; 20 million Google shares are worth approximately 1.15 billion pounds at this time...

This asset with a total value of 3 billion pounds was used as collateral. Colin Hall of Northrock Bank took the initiative and issued a loan of 2.5 billion pounds for DS Holdings, and the interest was only 5%...

It can be said that the conditions of this loan are already the best at present.

It is worth mentioning that up to now, although Barron's industry has been expanding, the debt borne by his DS Capital has also been increasing like a snowball.

Just the relatively large amount of debt includes a 4 billion pound loan from Northrock Bank using O2 Telecom's shares as collateral - this does not include the 2 billion pound corporate bond issued by O2 Telecom in two installments. .

In addition, when acquiring the Manchester United club, the 400 million pounds raised from Goldman Sachs Group was later used as collateral for 60% of the shares of Pioneer Sports Group, and was exchanged from Goldman Sachs Group for an equal-amount loan with a lower interest rate...

There are also US$3 billion in financing from Goldman Sachs Group when acquiring shares of Standard Chartered Bank; and a loan of 1.55 billion pounds from Standard Chartered Bank for the shares of the listed company Summit Media held by DS Holdings.

That is to say, before this mortgage loan from Northrock Bank, all the shares held by DS Holdings including O2 Telecom, Pioneer Sports Group, Standard Chartered Bank and Summit Media were under mortgage.

In addition to the shares pledged to Northrock Bank this time, just on the surface, all the relatively high-value company shares held by Barron's DS Holdings have entered a mortgage state.

Frankly speaking, this situation is still very dangerous for an investment company.

Fortunately, among the mortgage companies held by DS, they are developing well and most of them have not been listed. Otherwise, if there is an economic crisis or the stock price is shorted, then as the "value" of the mortgage assets decreases, banks will usher in the crisis. Collection pressure.

A loan of 2.5 billion pounds, equivalent to approximately 4.5 billion U.S. dollars at an exchange rate of 1.8 pounds to the U.S. dollar.

After signing an agreement with Bernard Arnault's LVMH Group to acquire its 20% stake in the Gucci Group for US$2 billion, Barron also sent someone to contact the management of the Gucci Group.

The current Gucci Group owns Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), Sergio Rossi and other brands. Starting from April this year, the CEO of the Gucci Group, who once led the Gucci Group to resist LVMH De Sol, who acquired the group, had conflicts with PPR Group, the largest shareholder of Gucci Group, due to the decline in Gucci's performance in the past two years.

PPR Group once had the idea of ​​replacing the CEO of Gucci Group. I am afraid that once they control more shares, De Sol's departure will be a certainty.

The relationship between creative director Frida Giannini (Frida Giannini), who has made great contributions to the Gucci Group, and De Sole is a lover. It can be said that they are both forward and backward. In the original time and space, the two were Gucci Group left together.

Therefore, at this time, DS Holdings under the name of Barron purchased 20% of the shares of LVMH Group and acquired 15% of the shares from the secondary market. Its shareholding in Gucci Group reached 35%, which is 42% away from PPR Group. When the difference in shareholdings is not much, it is very important to obtain the support of Gucci Group CEO De Sol.

In fact, in 1999, when LVMH Group acquired 34% of the shares of Gucci Group in one fell swoop and became the major shareholder of Gucci, Gucci Group CEO De Sol once made a request to Bernard Arnault to let LVMH Complete acquisition of Gucci Group.

However, Arnault rejected the proposal at the time. The main reason was that after LVMH made several acquisitions at that time, the remaining funds in its hands were no longer enough to completely acquire the Gucci Group. In this case, Arnault would prefer to control Gucci. The group achieves the goal of killing two birds with one stone——

On the one hand, it controls the Gucci Group at a relatively small cost, thereby inhibiting the other party's strong competition in the field of luxury goods; on the other hand, it obtains considerable returns from this investment.

Arnault's idea is definitely unacceptable to the Gucci Group. It's like the United States to Mexico. It doesn't want you to fully join the United States, but it also wants to cut off your most fertile territory. If you don't have the power to resist, that's it. , if it can resist, the Gucci Group certainly cannot give in.

At that time, they found PPR Group. Before that, PPR Group had not entered the field of luxury goods. Therefore, if PPR Group became a "white knight", it would not be harmful to Gucci Group.

But the problem now is that after acquiring 42% of the shares of Gucci Group, PPR Group has also seen the "money path" in the luxury goods field. Although PPR Group has not been able to increase its shareholding in Gucci Group in the past five years, they have It then turned to support the Gucci Group in acquiring a series of luxury brands including Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga and others. When it received these additional shares, the PPR Group invested a lot of money in the Gucci Group. This also became the acquisition of the Gucci Group. These brands of ammunition.

As the five-year period is approaching, PPR Group is bound to significantly increase its shareholding in Gucci Group.

If no one else appears, even if there are differences in business philosophy with the PPR Group, in the end the Gucci Group can only accept being completely acquired by the PPR Group. For this group, compared with being acquired by the LVMH Group , which is already a better result.

But now, the emergence of DS Holdings has given De Sol another option - you know, Gucci management still holds about 10% of the Gucci Group's shares. They Adding the shares held to DS Holdings' current 35% stake, it already exceeds PPR Group's shareholding.

If DS Holdings can step up its efforts and hold more than 40% of Gucci Group shares, then it will be in an invincible position by cooperating with the management of Gucci Group...

Therefore, in the fight for the Gucci Group, the most important thing, in addition to continuing to absorb the shares of the Gucci Group, is to persuade De Sol to cooperate with him and expel the PPR Group.

DS Capital currently has US$4.5 billion in funds, which can fully support them in achieving this goal.

What Barron didn't expect was that when faced with the representative of DS Holdings, De Sol's request was to meet Barron directly.

So the Gulfstream G450 took off from France and flew to Italy.

After meeting Barron, De Sol asked directly:

"Your Highness the Duke, I just want to know whether you have the strength to completely acquire the Gucci Group."

De Sol also asked Bernard Arnault about the same thing five years ago, but unlike Arnault, Barron gave an affirmative answer without hesitation.

"I can help you complete the acquisition of Gucci Group, but there are two conditions. The first is that you must acquire Gucci wholly; the second is that even if you acquire other luxury brands in the future, the acquisition must be with Gucci Group as the core. .”