Rebirth of England

After this conversion, Cavendish Trust will receive approximately 2.726 billion Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch common shares; BFT Fund will receive approximately 1.429 billion Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch common shares.

In this way, Standard Chartered-Merrill Lynch Group's shareholding ratio is approximately 60% held by Cavendish Trust (originally holding 65% of Standard Chartered Bank in the name of DS Holdings, plus 27.26% obtained after the debt-for-equity swap) billion ordinary shares, the shareholding ratio after the merger); BFT Fund holds its 19h23 capital holding 5% of its shares; Caesars Fund holds 0.7% of its shares (from the Caesars Fund’s investment in Merrill Lynch Group, in Standard Chartered When the bank acquired Merrill Lynch Group, it exchanged the proceeds from Merrill Lynch Group shares)...

It can be said that after the debt-for-equity swap, Barron controlled a total of approximately 85.67% of the shares of Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch through various investment companies and funds he controlled, and the remaining 14.33% of the shares belonged to Standard Chartered Bank. The circulating shares in the secondary market, as well as the stock exchange proceeds from the shareholders of the original Merrill Lynch Group.

After this debt-for-equity swap, although the total share capital of Standard Chartered-Merrill Lynch Group has been greatly expanded, most of its debt that needs to pay interest has been successfully converted into its ordinary shares - this does not require any additional It pays interest, so it is a positive for Standard Chartered-Merrill Lynch.

Within the next week, the share price of Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch rose slightly, from about 9.75 pounds to about 10.2 pounds (equivalent to US$18.36). This also made the market value of Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch successfully exceed 131.3 billion US dollars, surpassing Royal Bank of Scotland and becoming the second largest listed bank in the UK after HSBC Holdings.

In fact, because HSBC Holdings suffered considerable losses in the subprime mortgage crisis, its stock price has fallen a lot this year. Its current market value corresponding to its stock price is only less than US$10 billion higher than that of Standard Chartered-Merrill Lynch. Already...

This "debt-for-equity swap" operation for Standard Chartered-Merrill Lynch Group will also be an example of how Barron increased his holdings during the subprime mortgage crisis when the stock prices of the listed companies owned by Barron were at lows. The main method is to use his fund to purchase preferred stocks or corporate bonds of listed companies to provide funds for acquisition and expansion, and then convert them into ordinary stocks when the stock price is low...

The only difference is that before this, the fund he owned reduced its holdings in listed companies including Woaw Technology, SEM Group, O2 Telecom and other companies when their stock prices were relatively high, thus obtaining a lot of funds.

Regarding Standard Chartered Bank, neither DS Holdings (Cavendish Trust) nor Rich23 Capital reduced their holdings.

Because it is obvious that Standard Chartered Bank's acquisition of assets such as Northrock Bank, Merrill Lynch Group and IndyMac Bank in this process is relatively "risky" in the eyes of the outside world, and will contain a lot of " non-performing assets”.

And from Standard Chartered Bank to Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch, it can be said that the scale of its acquisitions is extremely huge.

Therefore, Barron needs to ensure absolute control of Standard Chartered Bank (DS Holdings plus Rich23 Capital controls 80% of Standard Chartered Bank shares), otherwise even if his shareholding ratio exceeds 50%, he will still be involved in the decision-making process of these acquisitions. , affected by the "noise" from the board of directors, more energy is needed to convince the board of directors to make these acquisitions.

Now, after this series of operations, after completing the overall acquisition of Merrill Lynch Group, Barron's is still able to control more than 85% of the shares of Standard Chartered-Merrill Lynch Group. It can be said that this is the third largest company in the UK after HSBC Holdings. It has absolute control among the 2 largest listed banks and the 6th largest listed bank in the world (at this time, after China Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, HSBC Holdings, China Construction Bank, Bank of America and Huaxia Bank).

…

"You bought Valentino?"

Barron came to Paris, and after meeting Beatrice here, the girl asked this question.

"Yes, Gucci-Hermès Group inquired about the price of the Permira Investment Fund brand, and after negotiations, it bought it..."

There is a reason why Beatrice is concerned about Valentino, which Barron has just acquired - after all, his uncle was once the president and chief designer of Valentino, but later he was involved in a tax evasion case. Last year, they The family participated in the sale of Valentino Fashion Group to the British Permira investment fund for 2.6 billion euros.

The reason why Gucci-Hermès Group did not participate in the acquisition of Valentino Fashion Group at that time was mainly because this company at that time, in addition to brands such as Valentino, accounted for a considerable proportion of its assets, which was the German Hugo Boss brand.

It is obvious that Gucci-Hermès Group is not interested in this brand.

But now, the subprime mortgage crisis is coming, and the Permira Investment Fund is not having an easy time in this crisis, so the Gucci-Hermès Group took the opportunity to contact them and prepare to acquire the Valentino brand.

According to the agreement, Gucci-Hermès Group will acquire the operating rights of the Valentino brand and the M Missoni brand at a price of 600 million euros.

Permira Investment Fund will split Valentino Fashion Group, separate German brand Hugo Boss from the group, and then sell the remaining Valentino brand and M Missoni to Gucci-Hermès Group.

Speaking of which, it's not just Beatrice, because of the previous relationship with the Valentino brand, including Beatrice's sisters, the fashion brand they wear most often is Valentino.

Now that the brand was sold by her mother's family, it was finally bought by Barron after a lot of twists and turns, and Beatrice was very happy.

After all, girls are always emotional. In her opinion, this represents a certain connection between her family and her lover.

For quite a long time before this, Barron was mostly in Asia and North America, and he and Beatrice hadn't seen each other for a while - Beatrice was not idle either. She has almost put all her energy on studying during this period. According to her, by next year, she will be able to graduate a year ahead of schedule.

After graduation, Beatrice plans to go to the United States to continue her studies, and Barron is quite supportive of this.

Anyway, the two of them had been apart for a long time. As the saying goes, a short separation is better than a new marriage. After meeting again, Barron also fully felt the girl's enthusiasm...

Well, although this time he came to Paris, he was not just meeting the girl privately, but...

He should first comfort her longing for him.

After checking the girl's learning situation, Barron taught her everything without reservation, so that Beatrice learned a lot of knowledge in the past two days...