Rebirth of England.

But since they are now willing to sell 20% of Electricite de France's shares to ease the government's financial pressure, it is not impossible to sell the shares of these two companies in advance.

Sure enough, when Barron expressed his intention to invest in these two companies, Hollande was a little surprised and looked thoughtful, but he did not directly refuse. He just said that he needed to give Barron a reply after the relevant government agencies conducted an evaluation.

"Are you really going to invest a large sum of money in these companies? They are all basic livelihood industries. If they are managed properly, they can provide stable profits."

After Hollande left, Ashley Webb sat next to Barron and said to him:

“But one thing is that even if the shares of these companies are eventually allowed to be sold, it is basically impossible to allow them to be purchased as a whole, and they can only be used as financial investments…”

"These are companies that can generate stable profits. Investing in them is fine even as a financial investment..."

Barron specifically explained this to Ashley. Perhaps it was because most of the companies Barron had acquired before were wholly-owned, and some of them were even split and reorganized. It was rare for him to just buy shares. This gave Ashley the illusion that the companies he was interested in needed to be wholly-owned, or at least controlled...

"By the way, how is the Italian bank acquired by Eurobank?"

"Not bad, everything is going according to plan. We first divested and sold the bad mortgage assets held by these banks, then injected funds into them to provide liquidity. Now these measures have been effective..."

By acquiring the two Italian banks, Granger, a housing rental company under Cavendish Asset Management, also entered the Italian market - the banks' non-performing assets involving housing mortgages were sold to Cavendish Asset Management.

They are already familiar with such operations in the non-performing assets of banks from Britain to France and Germany.

So far, through Standard Chartered Bank and Eurobank, Barron has penetrated his financial business into the four core countries of the European Union - Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

Of course, although Standard Chartered Bank's business in the UK and the US is growing, its main source of profits is still emerging markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America. By participating in China's "Belt and Road" plan, it will also perform well in these emerging markets.

As for Eurobank, it will naturally be based in the European market. After its business in Italy stabilizes, it will begin to expand its market to other neighboring countries.

In this process, acquisition is a method that can produce immediate results, but one needs to be vigilant that the banks that can be acquired often have considerable non-performing assets - otherwise the difficulty of the acquisition will increase greatly, and a considerable premium will need to be given.

Therefore, the accumulation of these non-performing assets may easily leave hidden dangers for Eurobank. Acquisition-absorption-re-acquisition, insisting on implementing such a process, rather than blindly and rapidly expanding, is the right rhythm.

……

"Tiffany's board of directors did not reject our offer, but only said that it needed to be discussed..."

Domenico De Sole shrugged and said to Barron:

"I think they are probably waiting to see whether other companies will bid for them. That's why they took the initiative to spread the news. I think it's very likely that Bernard Arnault has already sent someone to America..."

During this period, the GHL Group (Gucci-Hermès-L'Oréal Group) did not stop its expansion. Its largest acquisition was the French high-end jewelry brand Boucheron last year.

Founded in 1858, Boucheron is known for its high-end jewelry, watches and perfumes.

Through this acquisition, GHL Group further consolidates its position in the high-end jewelry market and competes with its rival LVMH Group.

In the original time and space, Boucheron was acquired by Kering Group in 2018. However, because Baron entered the luxury industry relatively late, many high-end luxury brands have been acquired one after another. So he naturally cannot miss the opportunity to acquire the remaining high-end luxury brands, and he will definitely snatch them from the luxury groups of the original time and space first.

Now, GHL Group has once again set its sights on acquiring the famous American jeweler Tiffany & Co.

Tiffany, founded in 1837 on Broadway in New York, is famous for its high-end jewelry, diamonds, perfumes and other products.

When talking about this brand, the first thing that comes to mind is "Tiffany Blue" - a color derived from robin eggs...

And the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" starring the legendary Hollywood actress Audrey Hepburn. In the movie, Audrey Hepburn's image is closely linked to Tiffany's jewelry, especially the scene where she wears a little black dress and Tiffany jewelry, which has become a classic scene in film history.

Among the Tiffany jewelry she wore was a famous yellow diamond necklace. The yellow diamond on this necklace weighed 128.54 carats and was one of Tiffany's treasures.

Currently, Tiffany's stock price is nearly $65, with a market value of about $78 billion. In order to acquire this well-known American jeweler, thereby strengthening GHL Group's position in the jewelry field and further expanding its business in the United States, they offered to Tiffany to acquire the company for $93.5 billion, a premium of nearly 20%.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

But just as Domenico De Sole said, after they made an offer to Tiffany, the news that the well-known luxury group GHL Group was interested in acquiring Tiffany soon appeared in the newspapers...

Tiffany's board of directors did not reject this, but did not respond too positively either. It just said that it needed to be discussed and used this as an excuse to delay the process temporarily.

This tactic is very obvious. They are a little tempted by the offer from GHL Group, but they still can’t help but quietly announce - they are going to acquire me, other luxury groups, take a look, are there any competitors?

Of course, before acquiring Tiffany, the GHL Group had already considered the current situation, and their biggest competitor must be the LVMH Group.

This is why Desaule joked that LVMH boss Bernard Arnault may have sent people to America to contact Tiffany's board of directors...

However, they were not unprepared for this.

If LVMH were to join the acquisition of Tiffany...

Then the GHL Group will respond by acquiring shares in Christian Dior!