Rebirth of England

Therefore, with the "lessons learned from the past" of LVMH Group, Barron will be more cautious this time.

He will keep a low profile, contact through "agents", and use offshore companies to share shares to avoid reaching the 5% quota.

And he does not need to complete the control of Hermès in the short term. He only needs to achieve the goal within five years before LVMH Group takes action.

The reason why Barron needs to be extremely careful is not only to prevent Hermès from noticing his actions, but also to prevent being discovered by LVMH Group.

After all, France is the home base of the LVMH Group, and when the LVMH Group acquired Hermès shares in the original time and space, the bank they cooperated with was headed by Edmond de Rothschild Bank.

The bank’s founder was Benjamin Rothschild’s father, who now serves as the bank’s chairman.

France is also the home base of the Rothschild family...

Therefore, it is necessary for him to act carefully.

…

Before Barron came to France, the board of directors of Sweden's OMX Group had already made a decision to accept the London Stock Exchange's $3.5 billion cash acquisition offer, which also means that this time the bidding for OMX Group has settled.

Of course, this deal still needs to wait for the approval of relevant EU institutions, but from the current point of view, the problem will not be big - behind this, Barron has also done a lot of work within the EU through the British government.

After completing the merger and acquisition, they will form the LOMX Group (London-OMX Group), and all the businesses of the OMX Group will be integrated into this group.

The combined LOMX Group will become Europe's largest exchange group, with rivals Deutsche Börse and Euronext.

It should be noted that another reason why the London Stock Exchange was able to complete this acquisition of OMX Group was that the Nasdaq Group gave up the competition with the London Stock Exchange and did not continue to increase prices.

But this is not without reason.

On the one hand, the acquisition price of US$3.5 billion has reached the bottom line of Nasdaq Group's valuation of OMX Group.

After all, before this bidding, the market value of OMX Group was approximately US$3 billion, and the acquisition price of US$3.5 billion already represents a considerable premium.

In addition, the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Group have also reached an agreement to hold shares in each other and deepen cooperation.

Therefore, Nasdaq Group did not gain nothing this time.

According to the agreement between the two parties, the merged LOMX Group is valued at US$7.2 billion, and they will issue an additional US$800 million worth of shares to the Nasdaq Group in exchange for an additional issuance of shares of the same value by the Nasdaq Group...

The current market value of Nasdaq Group is approximately US$5 billion, so after the stock exchange, Nasdaq Group holds 10% of the shares of LOMX Group.

LOMX Group holds 13.79% of the shares of Nasdaq Group.

And Nasdaq Group and LOMX Group will also be listed on each other's exchanges.

It is expected that both parties will log on to the corresponding Nasdaq exchange and London Stock Exchange respectively in the first half of next year.

Therefore, after completing these agreements, the shareholding ratio of LOMX Group is: Global Industrial Investment Fund holds 90% of the shares of LOMX Group; Nasdaq Group holds 10% of the shares.

Among the GII Fund's holdings, GII-1 holds 46.25% of the shares, and GII-2 invested US$3.5 billion in the acquisition of OMX Group and holds 43.75% of the shares.

However, after completing the acquisition of OMX Group, if LOMX Group wants to continue to acquire the Italian exchange, it will face more stringent scrutiny from the EU and Italy...

In fact, while waiting for the final decision of the OMX Group board of directors, the acquisition negotiations between the London Stock Exchange and the Italian Exchange have been ongoing.

The price differences between the two parties are getting smaller and smaller... After the London Stock Exchange's second offer, the Italian Exchange has almost agreed to their offer of 1.5 billion euros, equivalent to US$1.8 billion.

Unfortunately, even the funds involved this time were "only" US$1.8 billion, which was far lower than when it acquired the OMX Group. However, because the merged LOMX Group was already the largest exchange group in Europe in terms of scale at this time, so The antitrust review for this acquisition will also be particularly strict.

Usually this kind of review can be as short as three months or as long as 18 months...

Therefore, LOMX Group will first digest the acquired OMX Group as soon as possible and technically upgrade its exchanges such as the London Stock Exchange.

As for the acquisition of the Italian exchange, you need to be prepared to deal with the relevant review agencies of the EU and Italy for a long time...

To this end, LOMX Group has specially formed a team to follow up on this series of reviews.

…

By the time Barron returned to London, it was already December. Soon, 2005 was coming to an end and the new year was about to arrive.

Here, he waited for a group of young guests.

They are the outstanding students from Devonhill International School in Colo Prairie Province.

When he went to this school, he personally promised that he would reward those children with excellent academic performance with the opportunity to study in London. The ten children who have come now are the selected students with the best academic performance.

These students have different skin colors. They came to a developed city like London for the first time, and their eyes were full of surprise and expectation.

Barron hosted a banquet for the children at his home.

"Is your name Rami?"

After finishing the meal, Barron asked a boy and a girl to come to him. Both of them looked very delicate and obviously of Arab descent. He asked the older boy .

"Yes, Your Highness the Duke..."

The boy bowed to Barron respectfully and said:

"My name is Rami and she is my sister Ravi."

Barron stretched out his hand and rubbed the boy's brown curly hair affectionately, and said with a smile:

"I heard that you are very smart. You are only thirteen years old and you have already started studying high school courses, and your grades have always been the first, right?"

Lamy held his head up childishly and spoke fluent English in a clear voice:

"I just think what the teacher taught is not difficult, Your Highness the Duke."

"Very good, Lamy, study hard. I told you just now during the meal that every year I will give the school a certain number of places and rank them based on their results. Those outstanding students can be sent to the best schools in London to study. I Promise you, if you are the first among them, I will allow you to bring your sister to London with you, and I will always support you."

Hearing Barron's words, Lamy's eyes burst into surprise:

"Really? Your Highness the Duke!"

"Yes, I will never lie to others. Do you have confidence? Lamy."

"I will definitely be number one, Your Highness the Duke."

"come on……"

After encouraging the boys, Barron sent someone to take them back to the Cavendish Hotel.

The boy Rami and his sister Ravi who just talked to him were adopted from Lebanon by the Devon Hill Charitable Foundation. Barron had read their information. The brother and sister were born in Palestine, and their family was originally in Palestine. The place was relatively wealthy, but for reasons that are well known, the family fell into decline. Their father took the two siblings to Lebanon, where they fell ill and died...

The brother and sister became orphans and almost starved to death. Fortunately, they were met by Devon Hill Charity Foundation.

After entering Devonhill International School, Lamy showed his talent for learning. In just over a year, he had completed the courses from elementary school to junior high school - he had some basic knowledge of elementary school courses before, but this way His performance is really surprising, which is why the school teacher specifically told Barron about Lamy.

Rami's sister Ravi is three years younger than him. She is just ten years old this year. She is also excellent in studies. Although she is not that exaggerated compared to her brother, one is that she looks cute and is also very well-behaved, so she is also very good at studying. He was loved by the school teachers.

Originally, this time when he came to London, only Rami got a place, but he didn't want to be separated from his sister, so he wanted to refuse at first... After the principal of the school specifically reported this matter to Barron, he was given special treatment. He was allowed to bring his sister with him.

Barron still admires this child very much, but his future development still depends on his own efforts.