Although Barron himself left London and went to China.
However, the Global Industrial Investment Fund's acquisition offer for the London Stock Exchange is still attracting much attention in the UK.
At this time, with further acquisitions, GII Fund's shareholding in the London Stock Exchange has exceeded 35%, and it is still in contact and negotiation with more London Stock Exchange shareholders.
As for the London Stock Exchange, after rejecting their first offer with a 25% premium, the GII Fund raised its offer again and prepared to acquire the London Stock Exchange for 1.5 billion pounds.
And in an interview with reporters, Finn Hudson, CEO of GII Fund, declared that this acquisition offer for the London Stock Exchange at a 50% premium was "unique" and would be their final offer for this acquisition.
While the GII Fund's takeover battle against the London Stock Exchange was in full swing, British politicians also responded differently to the takeover.
In an interview, London Mayor Ken Livingstone said that the GII Fund's acquisition of the London Stock Exchange was "unusual" and that the British authorities should evaluate the adverse impact on companies listed in London after the London Stock Exchange was fully acquired by such an investment institution, and whether it would damage London's status as a major overseas company listing location and an international financial center.
However, Ed Balls, an important aide to British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and known as "Brown's Deputy", hinted to the media in early October that he did not oppose the GII Fund's acquisition of the London Stock Exchange.
"I think the prosperity of London's financial markets has come from our move towards internationalisation, allowing foreign capital into our banks, our brokerage firms and our trading markets, and I don't think the London Stock Exchange is any exception," Powles said.
In response to these statements, Finn Hudson, CEO of the GII Foundation, said in a subsequent interview:
"Even if the GII fund successfully acquires the London Stock Exchange, it will not interfere with the operation of the London Stock Exchange. The London Stock Exchange will still be independently regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) of the United Kingdom."
As GII Fund once again made an offer to acquire the London Stock Exchange at a 50% premium, the London Stock Exchange's stock price also rose. Compared with before the GII Fund's acquisition, it has accumulated a rise of more than 45%...
In response to this, the London Stock Exchange has also been taking action. Their management and shareholders said that they will decide whether to accept the acquisition offer from the GII Fund before October 20.
At the same time, the London Stock Exchange has not given up its efforts to find more buyers to compete with the GII Fund. According to media reports, the London Stock Exchange once contacted the British ICAP financial market brokerage company, and the two sides negotiated on the merger issue several times.
However, the deal fell through because ICAP was always worried that the London Stock Exchange's stock price was "too bubbled."
A person from ICAP told the media that the merger between the two parties can only take place "when the share price of the London Stock Exchange is lower."
In addition to ICAP, the German Stock Exchange, which has always had ideas about the London Stock Exchange, was also involved in the GII Fund's acquisition of the London Stock Exchange. Some media reported that the German Stock Exchange sent personnel to London to meet with the management of the London Stock Exchange regarding the acquisition of the London Stock Exchange.
However, after this report was passed to Germany, the German Stock Exchange did not deny it in the end, but said that at the current price, the German Stock Exchange needs to convince the board of directors to accept such a high premium...
A local newspaper claimed that a source from the German Stock Exchange had revealed that its board of directors "could not accept the 1.5 billion pounds price of the London Stock Exchange" and that someone in the board of directors even said directly "this is robbery"...
Next, British Treasury Secretary Balls said in a public speech on the 11th that the British government will maintain a neutral position in this merger and acquisition case and will not obstruct the GII Fund's merger and acquisition actions against the London Stock Exchange, provided that the acquisition should not affect the London Stock Exchange's regulatory framework and ensure that the FSA has a veto over any changes to the rules of its domestic stock exchange.
At this point, GII Fund has become increasingly advantageous in acquiring the London Stock Exchange...
…
After shooting enough material, Bonnie took the crew back to London on the Devonshire. She will complete the post-production of the first episode of "Shining Life" as quickly as possible.
And Barron is busy too…
After sending Bonnie Stuart away, he could finally bring Tamaran Ecclestone, who was still in the Magic City, to the Yan family garden to "compensate" this previously neglected young lady.
However, it was China's National Day Golden Week, which was not a good time for travel. Therefore, he waited until October 8th to take Tamaran to Hangzhou for a trip and meet Alibaba's boss Ma.
In June of this year, Taobao launched "Taobao Wangwang", which combines instant messaging tools with online shopping.
Taobao Wangwang is a segmented instant messaging tool that integrates multiple functions such as communication, transaction management, etc. Its predecessor is Alibaba's Trade Link.
It can be said that up to now, the development of Taobao has made Mr. Ma quite satisfied.
In fact, Taobao's most difficult time was at the end of last year.
At that time, Eachnet, which was backed by its big money sponsor eBay and was the leading C2C e-commerce company in China, was extremely wary of the rapid development of Taobao.
Not only was Taobao banned in terms of business - in terms of advertising and some marketing activities, EachNet signed exclusive advertising contracts with major portals, resulting in a situation where Taobao could not advertise even though it had money.
What's even more interesting is that when you search for Taobao on Google, an ad for eBay will appear…
In addition, in December last year, Taobao was investigated by the Hangcheng Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce for suspected unfair competition, and Taobao's owner Alibaba was also implicated.
The reason for this so-called "huge prize event" is that Taobao launched an event called "Alipay" from November 14 to December 14. The highest prize is a POLO 1.4 car, and the prize draw time is 9 pm on December 15.
The Hangzhou Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce received a report from a "senior netizen" at the time, claiming that the one-time grand prize offered by Alibaba's two commercial websites had exceeded the prescribed amount of 5,000 yuan and that unfair competition had been employed during the sales process.
At that time, Taobao suspected that this "report" was planned by its competitor eBay...
However, with DS Capital investing US$50 million in Taobao in its last round of financing, Taobao has gained more confidence after receiving a large amount of funds, and Eachnet can no longer continue to "ban" Taobao in terms of advertising.
After that, with the increase in publicity efforts, Taobao's development entered the fast lane.
For this, Mr. Ma is still very grateful to Barron, the "big money sponsor". After all, at the beginning, Eachnet was indeed a strong competitor in the C2C field. He himself lacked confidence in whether Taobao could succeed in this field. That is why Taobao started its own business outside the Alibaba system at that time...
The 33.3% stake in exchange for US$50 million in funding from DS Capital was equivalent to the US$150 million valuation they gave to Taobao at the time. This valuation was really not low, and was even somewhat higher than Boss Ma's expectations.
In Mr. Ma's opinion, this sum of money is the key factor in Taobao's current situation.