Barron was indeed very impatient with the progress of the England field and MI6.
It has been five months since the "London Star" case, but since the last time the MI6 Director Sir Dearlove met with him, it can be said that there has been no update on the progress of the case.
The question is still under investigation.
Barron also knew that, as Nigel Inkster said, MI6's main focus was now on targeting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Although al-Qaeda suffered a major blow, bin Laden has not yet been captured.
Iraq is the next target of the cooperation between Britain and the United States. It can be said that since the Prime Minister went to the farm of the American president's family in May this year and had a secret conversation, most of his energy has been focused on proving that Iraq possesses "weapons of mass destruction" that need to be destroyed urgently, and he hopes to convince Parliament to agree to Britain sending troops to Iraq.
Under such circumstances, the main work of MI6 naturally revolves around this aspect. Relatively speaking, the effort invested in the "London Star" case is insignificant.
Therefore, after the meeting with Nigel Inkster and Barron, it was decided that he would take the lead and hire the most professional intelligence analysis experts at high salaries to join in the establishment of an "Intelligence Center" funded by Barron. The first task was to collect and analyze relevant information about the "London Star" fraud gang, find those people, and thus maintain the dignity of the Devonshire family.
To this end, Barron met with the director of MI6, Sir Dearlove, again. At his request, the other party agreed to hand over to Barron the information related to the "London Star" case that did not involve other highly confidential information.
"At least within the UK, I don't want you to cross the line. Even abroad, I hope you won't cause trouble, because it is very likely that these people are involved in some 'illegal violent organizations'. Your Highness, this is by no means an exaggeration."
After agreeing to Barron's request, Sir Dearlov said this to Barron with a serious face.
In fact, nothing can be accomplished overnight. Just like the intelligence team that Barron is now forming, all they can do now is to analyze the relevant intelligence handed over to them by MI6, and then look for relevant information from some public materials - at most they can buy valuable intelligence from the international intelligence black market, and they do not have the ability to directly go to areas outside of England to collect intelligence.
But in the beginning, being able to do this is enough, which is better than waiting for news from others.
Later, Barron will gradually strengthen the capabilities of this intelligence team.
…
Two days later, news came from Johannesburg that Amber told Barron's that he had contacted the South African Press. Although he had not yet met the CEO of the South African Press, Kus Becker, he had met Tony Rocks, the head of the South African Press's Internet industry and investment. The investment of its Chinese department in Penguin was finalized with his consent.
It has to be said that as the Duke of England, Barron still has a certain status. After all, at this time, South African Press is a listed company with a market value of tens of billions of dollars. Not to mention the CEO of the group, even those senior executives who are in charge of specific business matters cannot be met whenever they want.
In comparison, DS Capital was relatively unknown at this time. It was only because the boss of this company was the Duke of Devonshire of England that the other party became interested in it. Dukes of England were rarer than billionaires in the world...
The good news is that the South African Press did not reject Amber Sheehan's proposal that DSIIC (DS Industrial Investment Company) acquire the 46.5% stake in Penguin held by South African Press's subsidiary MIH Group at a 50% premium, or 32 million pounds. Although they verbally expressed that they are very optimistic about the future development of Penguin and the prospects of the Internet industry in developing countries, especially China, they did not reject it so flatly, so there is still a possibility of further talks.
Before leaving London, Barron told Amber that he would accept a premium of up to twice the amount for the Penguin shares held by South African newspapers.
But Abel naturally couldn't show his cards right away when he first came into contact with the offer, so he strategically started by talking about a 50% premium - in fact, such a premium was already high enough in Abel's opinion.
It should be noted that South Africa's MIH Group only started buying shares in Penguin last year, and increased its stake to 46.5% in June of this year. After only three or four months, it was able to offer a 50% premium, which is already a huge success for this investment.
What's more, now is a time when related industries have not shown signs of recovery after the Internet bubble crisis. I am afraid that no one else can make this bid at this time except them.
There was nothing wrong with what Amber did, but Barron still reminded him of one thing. He needed to pay attention to the fact that since the other party was willing to take over Penguin and expand its shares after the bursting of the Internet bubble, they must be very optimistic about this company. At least the vice president of the Chinese branch strongly promoted investment in Penguin and finally convinced the key figure in the South African newspaper industry, Tony Rocks, who was in charge of Internet affairs.
If they were to start with its Chinese branch, there would most likely be no results. They could only communicate directly with the South African newspaper headquarters and impress the other party with sufficient profits.
Amber can also see this point. South African Newspaper Group is a listed company. As the CEO of the company, he needs to stabilize or even increase its stock price - in many cases, this is related to their own profits.
According to the data that Amber saw, the large-scale investment in Penguin at this time, at a time when the Internet technology industry is relatively sluggish, did have a certain negative impact on the share price of South African Newspapers. So the question now is, if they can quickly obtain good returns on this investment, or even relatively high returns, then it will definitely have a boosting effect on its share price.
In the negotiation with the other party, Amber needs to judge what the other party can accept the psychological price of selling Penguin Company, so that in their minds, the idea of improving the company's stock price and performance will outweigh the optimism about the future of Penguin Company.
If Amber estimates the price too low, the other party will not agree; if it is too high, then they will be "sucked" - Amber himself believes that the 200% premium mentioned by Barron is really a bit overestimated.
After all, no matter how capable Amber is, he will not be able to "see the future" like Barron. Therefore, according to the current situation, the shares of Penguin Company are not worth more than 60 million pounds anyway...
While waiting for the results of Amber's continued negotiations, Barron reminded him that the ultimate goal was to acquire shares in Penguin. Although a lower price would be better, it was not the primary consideration.