Chereads / I Become A Noble in England / Chapter 239 - Chapter 239 Middle East Stock God

Chapter 239 - Chapter 239 Middle East Stock God

 Although Eden Evans had passed away long ago, he was only a baron in terms of title.

  But the Evans family did have some talent in business, so they accumulated a lot of wealth...

  Lady Emma's estate alone, 1.5% of Northern Gas shares, is currently worth around £30 million.

  Currently, the two largest natural gas pipeline companies in the UK are Cadent and Northern Gas. The current market value of this company is around 2 billion pounds. Baron Evans bought shares in Northern Gas after Mrs. Thatcher carried out privatization reforms.

  It is also worth mentioning that in the original time and space, two years later, Hong Kong's Li Chaoren used 2.4 billion pounds to purchase 88% of the shares of Northern Gas Company. Based on this calculation, the market value of Northern Gas Company at that time was close to 2.8 billion pounds.

  The other two estates, located in England and France, and two properties, are worth 30 million pounds.

  "Has Lady Emma been buried?"

  "Yes, Your Highness. Since she has no children, she has been buried in the Evans family cemetery according to her will. Her lawyer will come to London soon to complete the estate handover procedures with you."

  If Barron accepts Lady Emma's inheritance, he will also need to bear the corresponding inheritance tax.

  However, these inheritance taxes are not a problem for Barron at this time.

  Among these inheritances, what Barron values ​​most is the 1.5% stake in Northern Natural Gas Company.

  Although this proportion of shares seems small, it means that Barron has already penetrated into the company. If he has the chance next time, he will be able to control this large British natural gas company before Li Chaoren.

  Although this kind of business usually does not have such high growth potential, it is stable. After all, with the terrible weather in England, using natural gas for heating is essential. It is an enterprise that is essential to people's livelihood and has stable profits.

  This is why, since the last century, Superman Li has been aggressively purchasing water, electricity and gas companies in Europe, especially in Britain.

  Now Barron has captured all the members of the "Raphael" organization, except for the three who "died accidentally".

  Judging from the results of their interrogation, Lady Emma had no previous connection with them.

  As for why Lady Emma took the initiative to introduce the old Duke of the Devonshire family to invest in the "London Star" project, now that both of them have passed away, I'm afraid no one knows the inside story.

  Perhaps Lady Emma really thought that "London Star" was a good investment project at the beginning. After all, from the investment records of "London Star", it can be found that Lady Emma invested 5 million pounds in it - perhaps this is also the reason why Lady Emma did not leave much cash after her death.

  And now that she has left all her property to herself, Barron sees no need to pursue the matter further.

  "Tell me where she is buried. I think it is worthy of me to go and see it."

  Barron said to Nigel calmly.

  …

  The Duke of Westminster kept his promise and brought Barron to a party he hosted at his home a week after their last meeting.

  During the banquet, he also introduced to Barron the protagonist of the banquet, a wealthy man from Saudi Arabia.  

  Barron did not expect that the rich man introduced to him by the Duke of Westminster was actually Prince Walid, known as the "Arab Buffett" and the "Stock God of the Middle East".

  Although Walid is a Saudi prince, in fact, he has long lost the opportunity to enter Saudi Arabia's upper political circles.

  The reason is that Walid's father is the 21st son of Abdullah Aziz ibn Saud, the founding monarch of Saudi Arabia...

  Well, this founding king had 38 wives, not including his lovers...

  Then his wives gave birth to a total of 127 children for him, including 58 sons...

  To this day, his sons continue to multiply, so the Saudi royal family now has more than 5,000 princes!

  Prince Walid's father was once the Saudi ambassador to France. When Walid was 5 years old, his father sympathized with Nasser, who later became the president of Egypt, and fell out with the Saudi king and other members of the royal family, and was exiled to Egypt.

  There, he, his father and his family lived a hard life. Although Walit and his father were later allowed to return to Saudi Arabia, his father and his descendants had lost the opportunity to enter Saudi Arabia's upper political circles forever.

  This may be the reason why Prince Waleed focused on making money and became the richest man in the Middle East.

  The reason why Barron heard of this prince in his previous life was because in 2011, the Forbes ranking ranked him 26th among the world's richest people with a net worth of 20 billion US dollars.

  Prince Alwaleed believed that the other party underestimated his wealth and understated his wealth by $9.6 billion. In anger, he even took Forbes magazine to court...

  However, Walid is indeed unique in investment. His initial starting capital for his business was only 15,000 US dollars, but he accumulated his later wealth through investment.

  His most famous move was investing in Citibank.

  He had been buying Citigroup shares since the 1980s. In the fall of 1990, the then largest bank in the United States ran into trouble. It suffered heavy losses in a series of real estate loans and was in urgent need of funds. The Federal Reserve urged it to increase its reserves, but Citigroup's efforts to find more than $1 billion in investment were fruitless.

  Fearing that Citigroup might go bankrupt, people sold its shares, causing the stock price to plummet.

  After learning that Citibank was in trouble, Prince Alwaleed bought 4.9% of Citibank's common stock at the end of that year for $207 million ($12.46 per share) - the maximum amount of his shares that he was required to disclose according to the law.

  In February 1991, when the US military entered Saudi Arabia to prepare for war with Iraq, using his special relationship with the government, Valet bought new Citibank preferred shares for $590 million, which allowed him to exchange them for common stock at $16 per share.

  This portion of shares accounts for 10% of Citigroup's total shares, so Valet's total shares in Citigroup also increased to 14.9%.

  Through continuous purchases, the value of Citibank shares in Walid's hands has increased 10 times compared to when he bought them, and he now owns approximately US$8 billion in assets of Citibank.

  Compared with Walid, what interested Barron more was the youngest of the princes who came to London with him this time. During the introduction, Barron learned that his name was Mohammed bin Salman.