Rebirth of England.

On October 10, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced that it would help major financial institutions establish a fund (Super Fund) worth $13 billion to purchase distressed mortgage-backed securities.

At this time, the United States has realized that if the collapse of CDO bonds continues, their investment banks will continue to lose blood, which may eventually have a greater impact.

到了10月23日，美利坚破产协会公布9月申请破产的消费者人数同比增加了23%，接近6.9万人！

As soon as this data was released, the securities market responded immediately, with the Dow Jones Industrial Index and the Nasdaq Index both falling.

The next day, October 10, the world's top brokerage firm, Merrill Lynch, announced that due to the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis, they lost $24 billion in the third quarter of this year!

The day before, Nomura Securities, Japan's largest brokerage, also announced a loss of US$6.2 million for the quarter.

On October 10, Swiss Bank, the largest bank in Europe by assets, announced that due to losses on subprime-related assets, its first quarterly loss in the past five years reached 30 million Swiss francs in the third quarter!

On the same day, Merrill Lynch announced on October 10 that current CEO Stan O'Neill "decided to retire immediately." Obviously, his resignation was due to Merrill Lynch's failure in subprime mortgage-related fields in the third quarter of this year. Asset impairments amounted to US$30 billion, and quarterly losses reached US$79 billion. This was Merrill Lynch's first quarterly loss in six years and the worst performance in the company's 22.4-year history.

What makes Merrill Lynch's shareholders angry, and what makes Barron very happy, is that Merrill Lynch's stock price has shrunk by 30% this year - which means that they have made huge profits from short selling the company's stock.

Of course, it was not just Merrill Lynch but also Thomson Group whose stock prices fell sharply.

Since mid-October, when IE Fund began to increase its short position on Thomson Group, the company's market value has fallen by more than 10% from its previous high, and its stock price has begun to hover around the $20 level.

Initially, the Thomson family thought the company's share price was the result of a correction in the overall stock market after the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its all-time high.

But soon, they discovered that something was wrong. It was obvious that someone was selling Thomson Group's shares in large quantities, causing their stock price to fall much faster than other companies in the same industry.

Thomson Group itself is engaged in the sales of financial information, so after investigation, they quickly learned that the drop in their stock price was deliberately caused by someone.

Now, they are faced with a choice - in fact, they don't have to choose at all. The acquisition of Reuters Group is their most important thing at the moment. Therefore, at this time, Thomson Group certainly does not want to be affected by its own stock being shorted. acquisition.

So Thomson Group quickly issued an announcement, stating that the company's operations were normal and there was no undisclosed news. It also announced that they would use US$5 million in funds to repurchase its shares, and did not rule out additional purchases in the future. The possibility of more funds to stabilize the stock price.

You know, Thomson Group has successively sold their education-related industries and obtained more than 80 billion US dollars in funds.

But the Thomson family will also have concerns when using these funds.

Because first of all, these funds belong to the Thomson Group. If these funds are used to repurchase stocks, then these stocks can only belong to the Thomson Group, not the Thomson family. Often, such companies will repurchase stocks. Destroy to reduce the total share capital of the group. Correspondingly, the value of the reputable Thomson stocks will also increase, which will naturally give the market confidence and stabilize the stock price.

But in this case, not only the Thomson family will benefit, but all shareholders.

On the other hand, these funds were prepared by the Thomson Group to acquire the Reuters Group. If they are used too much and cannot be replenished, it will inevitably affect the acquisition of the Reuters Group.

If the Thomson family buys back shares, they won't be able to come up with so much money at the moment...

Still very confused.

But as the situation continued, the Thomson family no longer had any room to hesitate - you must know that at the beginning, IE Fund had already bought US$10 billion of Thomson Group shares in advance, and before that, it had taken advantage of the overall stock market decline. , all sold out.

Next, IE Fund used the funds obtained from selling stocks to begin to intervene in Thomson Group's stocks from the market and continued to sell them, causing Thomson Group's stock price to continue to fall, and the magnitude of the decline was much greater than those who were optimistic about it. Stocks that appear to have been unaffected by the subprime mortgage crisis...

Similarly, the decline in the share price of Thomson Group has also affected Reuters Group, making the merger between the two parties once again thrown into doubt.

Because Reuters Group was not spared, its stock price also fell by more than 10% during this period. Although its decline was far less severe than that of Thomson Group, it had a negative impact on the cooperation between the two parties.

Many shareholders of Thomson Group, after the stock price of Reuters Group fell sharply, asked Thomson Group to increase its acquisition bid for Reuters Group. After all, the stock price of Reuters Group has fallen sharply, which is equivalent to a cash acquisition. During the stock exchange, the equity they gained suffered a loss.

By the same token, within the Thomson Group, although the Thomson family's holding company holds more than 70% of the Thomson Group's shares, other shareholders have also expressed their hope to reconsider the acquisition of the Reuters Group, because in At present, the group's stock price is unstable, and the stock price of Reuters Group is also falling at the same time. If the merger of the two parties is forcibly promoted, it may even be affected, thus affecting the operating conditions of Thomson Group.

In addition, market regulators in the United States and the United Kingdom have yet to make a final antitrust ruling on the acquisition, which also requires the Thomson Group to focus most of its energy on the acquisition.

So even though the Thomson family used part of their own funds to buy Thomson Group's shares, and later used US$5 million of the group's funds to repurchase the shares, it still did not stop the stock's downward trend. After a slight rebound, it continued to enter the downward channel.

After all, with the overall downturn in the stock market, investors have become more cautious, and many people are also aware of the risks involved. Therefore, not many funds are willing to come in and follow the Thomson family to "support the bottom" - after all, before this, Thomson The group's stock price is already at a high level. Who doesn't worry about being the one to take over the stock at a high level?

On the contrary, many Thomson Group stock holders have even begun to sell their stocks to "take it easy". This has caused that by the end of October, Thomson Group's stock price has fallen from the high point 10 days ago. more than 20%.

But the matter did not end here. On October 10, the day of Halloween, the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that considering that Thomson Group’s acquisition of Reuters Group would affect fair competition in the industry, They decided to reject the acquisition.