Rebirth of England

In the end, the German team won the penalty shootout 4-2 and advanced to the semi-finals with a total score of 5-3.

After watching the game, Barron received an invitation from Wolfsburg, the headquarters of Volkswagen, also known as Wolfsburg.

In fact, Wolfsburg is roughly between Bremerhaven and Berlin. It’s just that after leaving the A\u0026R shipyard in Bremerhaven last time, Barron and Fan Bingbing went west to visit the Netherlands, so Didn’t pass by Wolfsburg.

Currently, the Volkswagen Group ranks fourth behind General Motors, Toyota and Ford in the global car sales rankings.

But in five years, the Volkswagen Group will surpass the previous three and become the world's largest car company.

When visiting the headquarters of the Volkswagen Group, Barron tentatively asked Dr. Perred, the current CEO of the Volkswagen Group, if he was interested in selling the Bentley brand owned by Volkswagen. He could invest 2 billion pounds in cash to purchase it.

You know, in 1998, the Volkswagen Group purchased the Bentley brand for only 640 million pounds. Eight years later, Barron increased its price to more than three times the previous price.

"Sorry, Your Highness the Duke, the Bentley brand has been integrated into the Volkswagen Group and is an important part of our strategy. We have never thought of selling it."

After hearing Dr. Perred's words, Barron glanced at him and said:

"However, I heard that investors in the Volkswagen Group have strongly requested you to reduce costs, but your restructuring plan has been resisted by the labor unions... With all due respect, Bentley's profitability is not high, and now, I'm afraid it is not good for you. The importance of the Volkswagen Group is decreasing, and selling Bentley will give Volkswagen more capital to make adjustments."

In fact, Volkswagen's profits have been declining in recent years - their profits in 2004 have dropped from 2.9 billion pounds in 2001 to 697 million pounds, so investors are increasingly calling for cost reductions at its base in Germany.

Most of Volkswagen's workers are in Germany, and hourly wages are among the highest in the automaking industry.

Perred's restructuring plan to implement cost reductions met with resistance from employees.

Barron captured that after he said these words, there was some movement in Perred's eyes, but in the end he still said:

"I need to discuss this with the board, Your Highness."

"I'll wait for your answer."

Barron knows that Perred's hesitation is that this year is the last year of his CEO term, and it has not yet been decided whether he will renew his contract with the Volkswagen Group - because as the current CEO, Perred is also the chairman of the Supervisory Committee of the Volkswagen Group. The relationship between the group’s former CEO Piech was relatively tense.

It was when Piech was the CEO of Volkswagen Group that he led the acquisition of Rolls-Royce-Bentley. However, Rolls-Royce only lasted for five years before it was taken away by BMW. However, Piech advocated at that time. It is the high-end brand strategy of the Volkswagen Group.

However, due to the decline in profits of the Volkswagen Group, Perred is more inclined to increase the group's profits. For example, high-end brands that cannot increase sales and cannot contribute much profit to the group, Perred actually does not attach much importance to, and this is also the case. For one thing, Piëch was dissatisfied with Perred's abandonment of the high-end brand strategy he advocated during his tenure.

Previously, Barron was not willing to give in, and still sent someone to make a bid for BMW, preparing to take back the Rolls-Royce brand from them at a price of 500 million pounds, which was more than ten times the price of the original purchase of the Rolls-Royce brand by BMW. times.

But not surprisingly, his willingness to acquire was rejected by BMW without hesitation.

So now Barron can only focus on Bentley, a British luxury car brand, and wants to acquire Bentley from the Volkswagen Group. At present, it seems that he can only succeed when Perred is in charge of the Volkswagen Group.

If according to the original process of time and space, Audi CEO Martin Winterkorn will take over the position of CEO of Volkswagen Group next year, after that, I am afraid that Volkswagen Group will not have the idea of ​​selling the Bentley brand...

…

At 8 pm on July 9, the final of this World Cup was held at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, and Barron and the others were still watching the game in the box where they had watched Germany VS Argentina.

The final is between France and Italy - before this World Cup, the "telephone scandal" broke out in Italian football that several clubs led by Juventus were suspected of illegal contact with referees.

Suddenly, many old accounts about referee misjudgments and misjudgments were uncovered, and the Italian judicial department quickly launched an investigation. For a while, whether the Italian team could participate in the World Cup in Germany was in doubt.

Of course, in the end, the Italian team was able to participate in this World Cup and performed very... well.

And this World Cup final is also very famous...

"Zidane is too impulsive..."

Seeing that Italian player Materazzi successfully used trash talk to anger Zidane, the "brain" of the French team, Zidane knocked down Materazzi and was then sent off by the referee with a red card. Abramovich shook his head, Said to Barron.

"I'm afraid we have to congratulate the Italian team, the World Cup is theirs."

Zidane, who was sent off with a red card, also "flew" the French team's World Cup championship.

Sure enough, in the end, the Italian team, which was not good at penalty shootouts, finally felt proud, defeating France 5:3, and Italy stood on the podium of the world championship for the fourth time.

After the World Cup, Barron also got the news he hoped for. Volkswagen Group CEO Perred called Barron and expressed that the Volkswagen Group was willing to negotiate with them on the sale of the Bentley brand.

It seems that Barron's offer of 2 billion pounds finally impressed the other party. After all, with these funds, the profits that the Volkswagen Group can earn from investing in other brands will definitely be higher than it is now.

And when it comes to luxury cars, Volkswagen also owns Bugatti and Lamborghini. Although they are both sports car brands, they are also well-known brands - at this time, the Volkswagen Group has not acquired Porsche.

To be honest, the price of 2 billion pounds to buy Bentley is really not low, because since it was acquired by Volkswagen, or it has always been, Bentley's profitability has not been strong, that is, it has the brand image of luxury cars. Volkswagen Group is reluctant to give up, otherwise it would have been sold long ago.

But the automotive industry planned by Barron in the future does require luxury car brands like Rolls-Royce and Bentley - and they are both of British origin. They were acquired by Barron, the British Duke, and are more Symbolic meaning, it is easy to gain support from the British people...

After it was difficult to win Rolls-Royce, he had no choice but to use an attractive price to start with the Volkswagen Group at this time.

Having said that, if Perred was not the CEO of the Volkswagen Group now, I am afraid that even if Barron offered 3 billion pounds, the other party would not sell Bentley.