"Your Highness, I hope you understand that Standard Chartered Bank once thwarted Lloyds Bank's hostile takeover of us. We can still do it again."
After Barron returned to London, he met Davis, the manager of Standard Chartered Bank at the time.
Davis, 51, has been chief executive of Standard Chartered since 2001 and most recently took over as chairman of the bank from the retiring Sanderson.
"Mr. Davis, my acquisition of Standard Chartered Bank's shares is not a hostile takeover. Compared with the acquisition of Standard Chartered Bank by Lloyds Bank that you mentioned earlier, if I am able to successfully acquire Standard Chartered Bank, it will not change the business strategy of Standard Chartered Bank. On the contrary, I will give your management more support to ensure your development in emerging markets."
The acquisition of an influential bank like Standard Chartered Bank is not a simple matter. At the beginning of the acquisition, Barron's DS Group had already formed an acquisition-related team together with Goldman Sachs Group. In addition to the acquisition of its shares, there were also personnel specifically responsible for public relations who began to persuade the governments of relevant regions such as the UK and Hong Kong.
After all, they need to ensure that after acquiring the company, they will not make too many changes to Standard Chartered Bank's operations so as to affect the economy of the relevant regions.
As for Standard Chartered Bank, Barron personally returned to London to meet with their management, hoping that the other party would support his acquisition of Standard Chartered Bank.
At this time, DS Group's stake in Standard Chartered Bank exceeded 30%.
At the same time, after completing the acquisition of Avago, Rich23 Capital still had a total of 857 million pounds in funds, equivalent to approximately 1.5 billion US dollars.
After deciding to locate a very important semiconductor company like Avago Technologies in Lijiaopo, they also conducted a series of negotiations with Lijiaopo. One of them was to hope that Temasek would sell their shares in Standard Chartered Bank to Rich23 Capital.
Prior to this, Temasek had also acquired some shares of Standard Chartered Bank, especially after DS Group's holdings of Standard Chartered Bank's shares exceeded the 5% quota, they also rushed to buy its shares.
Temasek currently holds approximately 5% of Standard Chartered Bank's shares, and they finally agreed to sell them to Rich23 Capital at US$7 per share.
In this way, Rich23 Capital paid nearly US$400 million and obtained 5% of Standard Chartered Bank's shares.
They continued to buy Standard Chartered Bank shares in the capital market with the remaining funds in their hands.
Therefore, up to now, DS Group and its affiliates have collectively held more than 35% of Standard Chartered Bank shares. They only need to buy another 16% of shares, and their total shareholding ratio will exceed 51%, thus completing the relative controlling stake in Standard Chartered Bank.
For a listed company, holding more than 30% of the shares has reached the takeover offer line and can make a takeover offer for the company.
This is what DS Capital is doing now. Their takeover offer has been submitted to the London Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for review. If there are no problems, the shareholders will then vote on their takeover offer. If passed, DS Group will be able to complete the acquisition of Standard Chartered Bank.
Among them, Barron hopes that both the British side, China's HK side and the company's management can support his acquisition.
"I admire your management of Standard Chartered Bank in recent years. I can promise that after the acquisition of Standard Chartered Bank is completed, you will continue to serve as the chairman of the bank, Mr. Davis, and the current management will continue to stay. I will also increase my support for Standard Chartered Bank and continue to deepen its business in emerging markets."
The conversation between Barron and Davis was very effective. At least after that, Davis' attitude improved a lot, and he also said that he would continue to seek the opinions of the bank's management to ultimately decide whether to accept Barron's acquisition of Standard Chartered Bank.
…
It has to be said that DS Group's acquisition of Standard Chartered Bank is a remarkable news both in the banking industry and globally.
After all, on one side is Standard Chartered Bank, which is extremely well-known in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and on the other side is the youngest duke in England and also a well-known wealthy man in England.
The combination of these two factors makes this news particularly eye-catching.
After returning to London, he immediately began to keep a low profile, rarely appearing in public and spending most of his time in his residence.
"Your Highness, we have already established the Kolo Corps in Kolo. All soldiers who have undergone training will join the Kolo Corps..."
Nigel Inkster, who had just returned to London from Colo, reported to Barron on Colo's current situation.
In their plan, the original Protector Military Company will only exist to protect the Munger base and nearby mines, and will retain a total of about 500 personnel.
Most of the armed forces in Kolo, including former government soldiers who have been screened, will all join the Kolo Corps under the Protector Military Company.
In the future, Kolo will not retain standing armed forces, and their national defense will be outsourced to the Kolo Corps, which will be responsible for guarding the country.
Anyway, Colo is a small country and extremely underdeveloped. It is not wise to retain too large a standing armed force. It would be better to use more funds to develop the domestic economy.
In London, Barron registered an organization called the Anglo-Africa Foundation, which has hired many experts in economics, diplomacy, finance and other fields to form the Anglo-Africa Institute. Currently, these people are analyzing and studying the country's economy, society and other aspects based on Colo's actual situation in order to formulate relevant policies for the future.
It can be said that on the surface, many policies will be formulated by the future elected government of Colo, but in fact, these policies originally came from the British Africa Institute.
"Kolo is a traditional agricultural country in West Africa. Its general situation is similar to that of its neighboring countries Benin and Burkina Faso. They are all very poor and backward African countries with weak industrial bases, backward economic development, and lack of self-sufficiency in food. Agriculture is the pillar of the national economy."
"In addition, agriculture in Colo contributes 60% of the jobs in Colo and more than 40% of GDP. The country's main crops are corn, sorghum, cassava and rice, which account for 67% of the agricultural output value. Cash crops account for about 20%, mainly cotton, coffee and cocoa. 42.2% of the country's population is engaged in agricultural production activities. In addition to agriculture, Colo's pillar industries also include mining - mainly phosphates, and re-export trade..."
At the Anglo-African Institute, Barron listened to the expert in front of him explaining:
"Through our research, we believe that the future development of Kolo needs to first consolidate the three existing pillar industries. Agriculture needs to be further improved, and we can start by improving its domestic water conservancy infrastructure. Because Kolo's climate is relatively special, due to its narrow and long land area, the central part of Kolo has abundant rainfall, while the southern coastal areas experience severe droughts every year. It is very important to improve the water conservancy system so that its water resources can be evenly distributed in the country..."
"The other thing is mining..."
Speaking of mining, Kolo has proven phosphate reserves of up to 1.26 billion tons, making it the third largest phosphate producer in sub-Saharan Africa, and iron ore reserves of about 500 million tons. In addition, the reserves of limestone, barite, dolomite, kyanite, garnet, quartz sand, uranium, manganese, bauxite and other minerals are also considerable.
However, most of the phosphate mines currently being mined are held by French companies, and even the shares held by Colo's companies were previously "intercepted" by the ruling class headed by former head of state Nassin Dema, resulting in the wealth converted from these natural resources being unable to be provided for the country's development...
Therefore, according to the institute's opinion, the next government should negotiate with those French companies to take back part of the mining shares, so that more of the wealth converted from these resources can be retained in Colo.
Barron also supports this. Don't think that this will anger the French side - you know, up to now, they have a lot of evidence of collusion between those French companies and Nassin Dema. As long as they are not too harsh, such as nationalizing all of them without saying anything like Iraq or Libya, but taking back some shares through negotiations, there should be no big problem.
After all, Colonel Kamagra was in a good time. The Soviet Union and the United States were competing for hegemony. At that time, he took back shares of Western oil companies. With the support of the Soviet Union, the other party was cautious and did not really do anything to him...
But now it's different, we still need to pay attention to methods and approaches.
In this case, even if France is concerned about international perception, it will not be too upset as it has a way out. At most, French capital will withdraw from Cologne... If this is the case, Barron will be even happier.