Rebirth of England

At this time, Activision Blizzard not only had a series of stand-alone game IPs with excellent reputations, but also its subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment's online game "World of Warcraft" released in 2004 was once one of the most profitable online games in the world.

Now, although this online game has been launched for nearly five years, it is still very popular. According to the official data of "World of Warcraft", the global online active users of this online game have exceeded 13 million, which is a cash cow.

It is also worth mentioning that the contract of "World of Warcraft" in China with the previous agent Jiucheng expired this year, and a new agent, Wangyi Company, was replaced, which had a certain impact on its operations.

However, Barron knew that when Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard later, among its many game IPs, the most important one was "Call of Duty". It was also because of the popularity of the "Chicken Eating" game that this type of game achieved great success, especially among game console players. It can be said that these users' choice of Sony's PS series game consoles or Microsoft's Xbox was also affected by some aspects.

"We have already taken action in advance. We have acquired some shares of Activision Blizzard by absorbing stocks in the secondary market, and have also contacted some holding institutions. But by comparison, directly acquiring Vivendi Group's shares is the fastest way to acquire Activision Blizzard..."

Pate Friedman said on the phone:

"We are now in two rounds of negotiations with them, and we will continue. Once we can reach this deal, we can directly start the privatization and delisting of this company."

Barron certainly understands that after Activision and Vivendi Games, including Blizzard Entertainment, merged, Vivendi Group held about 61% of Activision Blizzard's shares - in Barron's previous life, Vivendi Group was constantly reducing its holdings of Activision Blizzard's shares. Finally, when Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard, they owned less than 20% of the company's shares.

It was also because Vivendi Group did not have the idea of ​​selling all the Activision Blizzard shares it held at that time, but it was in the period of global economic recession after the subprime mortgage crisis, and Vivendi Group's offer for these stocks scared everyone away, so it could only slowly sell them to get cash.

In this way, Vivendi Group obtained much higher returns than the one-time sale of shares in the process of selling Activision Blizzard, which can be regarded as an unintentional success.

Now, since Barron has already set his sights on this company, even if the price seems to be slightly higher than the current market value of Activision Blizzard, he would rather take the shares of this company at one time, rather than buying it like squeezing toothpaste.

In fact, before this, Digital Future Investment Company under Caesar Fund also invested in several game companies, two of which were start-ups in London Science City.

However, these companies are more like game studios, and their scale is not large.

They mainly make some small games similar to "Happy Farm" released on Woaw.com.

This acquisition of Activision Blizzard was also Barron's first time to be involved in a game company of this scale. For him, it was more about the future.

...

In September, Defense Minister Kolo and representatives of the Kolo Corps visited England together.

If we say that when the new Kolo government was first established, the team led by Jammeh Bongo came to visit England...

For the British side, they were only a delegation from a small country that was insignificant in Africa - not even ordinary British people. Many government officials who received them probably didn't know where Kolo was in Africa...

But now, the situation is completely different.

Although Kolo can only be regarded as a small country in terms of area and population.

But because of the discovery of rich offshore oil fields there, in addition to bringing huge benefits to Kolo, as an important fossil energy, coupled with the increasing gap in energy demand in Britain, Kolo has received more and more attention.

And considering that Kolo, as a member of the Commonwealth, has a good relationship with Britain, their reception standards have also been improved.

This time it is obviously a delegation from the Kolo military. Came to England for a visit.

Its main purpose is to inspect some of the British Navy's ships - Kolo intends to purchase at least two warships to expand their defense forces at sea.

This is not difficult to understand.

If Kolo was just an underdeveloped country in the world before - at that time they had no need to pay too much attention to the construction of maritime defense, just a few speedboats would be enough.

But now, because of the need for interests, Kolo has to consider strengthening its defense forces at sea.

First of all, it is aimed at Kolo's offshore oil fields.

As Kolo's major interests, their offshore oil fields need to be protected.

After all, it is well known that there are still many pirates of all sizes in Africa, and there are often news of their appearance.

In addition, after discovering oil resources in Kolo's sea, it is inevitable that it will face the coveting of neighboring countries, and it is necessary to strengthen its defense forces.

In addition, because Kolo has the best port in West Africa, Loti Port, port transit trade is also an important way of trade for Kolo, which can bring huge benefits to it.

Then, in contrast, in the chaotic waters of West Africa, protecting their nearby sea routes is also something that the Kolo government needs to focus on.

It is also for these reasons that they need to strengthen their maritime defense.

This time, the Kolo military delegation came to England in the hope of inspecting some of the British Navy's ships and choosing suitable ones to buy.

"The British Navy's ships are relatively old and the price is very high..."

After Barron returned to London, he met one of the members of the Kolo delegation this time, Errol Brut, the commander of the Kolo Corps. He was promoted by Barron from within the Corps after the previous commander retired last year, and naturally Barron is trustworthy.

He said helplessly:

"Of course, the advantage is that we can absorb some retired naval personnel, who will be more likely to receive equipment, but the corresponding personnel salary expenditure will be higher..."

As the commander of the Kolo Corps, of course, he only needs to consider the cost-effectiveness of the equipment and military issues.

But another member of the delegation, Kolo's Minister of Defense, has more things to consider...