Rise of the Argentine Empire

As April arrived, Saint Heceda spent most of his time focusing on the bank acquisition. The Americans were already here, and nothing could change that. Playing a few minor tricks was about the most he could do.

Even if the sky fell, there were people from the radical party and the national oil company to hold it up. If things really got out of hand, he could always flip the table.

The time to form a consortium had arrived; any further delay would truly be too late.

Saint Heceda was a man of quick decisions. Acquiring a bank was beneficial for developing an Argentine consortium, and he now had the confidence to start a development bank, with American Sequoia as a significant source of support.

All he needed to do was acquire it and develop it according to plan. It wasn't that Argentine banks were bad, but rather that they were quite unimpressive.

Mainly, the Argentine financial market was underdeveloped, hindering the growth of banks. The lack of comprehensive regulations led to so-called 'wild growth'.

With the rapid expansion of various factories, partnering with other banks wouldn't guarantee security or risk management. Having his own bank would be much better.

As the core of the consortium, the bank could help him connect and control major companies and factories. It could also handle foreign exchange and truly help his companies go multinational, as well as provide loans to itself to inject funds during crises.

He sent his capable subordinates to negotiate the acquisition of Barron Commercial Bank with the Johnson family in Bu City.

Barron Commercial Bank was a private family bank in Bu City, founded in 1890. It was one of the oldest banks in Argentina, even older than many American banks, and had developed step by step to its current state.

Currently, it had 570 million pesos in deposits, 300 million pesos in loans, 120 million pesos in debt, and a high bad debt rate of 70 million pesos. It had over 110,000 customers and 13 branch offices in the city, making it a standard family bank in Argentina.

Barron Bank didn't have a large number of employees, only over 600. In terms of bank size in Argentina, it ranked around 25th, far below several other private banks, most of which had deposit scales of over 5 billion pesos.

The Johnson family came from Italy and immigrated to Argentina as a whole in 1850, starting from the retail industry and later establishing their own bank. They were now considered the fourth generation of the banking family. Their fourth-generation heir, Bernard Johnson, was not skilled in banking and had no other heirs. Coupled with the worsening external environment for banks in Argentina and intense competition, they simply put it up for sale. Overall, the bank was still considered quite high-quality.

Barron Commercial Bank was founded in 1890, with a considerable history, even more so than many American banks.

Initially, many Italian immigrants had two choices: immigrate to America or immigrate to Argentina. The Johnson family chose Argentina; it's hard to say if it was the wrong choice.

It's estimated that if the Johnson family had immigrated to the United States, they might have created a mid-sized consortium. There are actually quite a few Italian-American consortiums in the United States, and they are also first-rate at running the mafia.

The external development environment of a family is also very important. Even if a generation improves just a little, the gap over several generations becomes enormous.

In the past two years or so, the situation of Barron Commercial Bank has not been very optimistic.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to develop new customers, and with less capital than other banks, its ability to resist risks during the economic crisis was poor. There had been several bank runs last year, and it was fortunate that the situation gradually became clear, allowing it to continue to exist, but it also lost a large number of deposits and customers.

This acquisition went very smoothly. The Johnson family planned to move to the United States, completely disappointed with Argentina, and it now seemed that Argentina would continue to decline into chaos.

Saint Heceda expressed regret for the Johnson family's plight, mourning them for a second.

Saint Heceda eventually established a new company—Barron Finance—to wholly own 100% of Buenos Aires Barron Commercial Bank.

Whether or not to change the name didn't matter; the name was decent enough, so he continued to use it.

However, to display his ambition for a full-scale financial presence, Saint Heceda renamed Buenos Aires Barron Commercial Bank to Barron Bank, removing 'Commercial' and the city name, and prepared to add many new businesses.

Then, according to Saint Heceda's intentions, he reorganized it. Suitable employees were retained, unsuitable ones were fired, and new employees were hired to expand the branch network.

He directly reorganized Barron Bank, turning it into a company rather than just a bank. Rosa's financial center was directly merged into Barron Bank, immediately adding 300 employees.

Rosa herself also served as the first deputy general manager and director of the debt center, still responsible for some financial business, but with a comprehensive upgrade plan, specifically responsible for controlling the bank.

He introduced some digital banking management experience, including paying salaries by issuing instructions, which the bank then disbursed.

He specifically had someone from the Radical Party introduce him to a reliable person, hiring a 66-year-old veteran banker for Barron Bank's general manager and president position, named Sisoro Sorreguieta.

This person was also a member of an old-brand commercial and political family, but only a collateral branch, and did not inherit the family business, having already left the family.

The Sorreguieta family was also of Italian descent, but their development in the banking industry was not deep. They mainly engaged in politics, trade, and farming, owning some large trading companies and beef companies in Argentina, a typical caudillo family, not very large, and a medium-sized family in Argentina.

Saint Heceda carefully sorted out the bank's business lines and carried out reforms.

Saint Heceda trained his bank employees in a military-style manner, while also providing the most competitive salaries in the entire Argentine banking industry, being quite generous. He recruited and trained new employees, calling it a 'wolf pack team' to establish Barron Bank's corporate culture.

"Our Barron Bank needs strong execution, creativity, and obedience. Then you can get everything Barron Bank offers you: learning, innovation, benefits, and unity. In terms of wolf pack culture, learning and innovation represent a keen sense of smell, benefits represent a spirit of aggression, and unity represents a spirit of collective struggle."

Saint Heceda directly applied some so-called corporate culture from later generations, firmly uniting the company's employees.

"We must have lofty pursuits, which is to become the strongest private bank in Argentina, and we must also have a pragmatic style, taking one step at a time."

Saint Heceda called this "Barron Culture," which was also the first bank in Argentina to have a corporate culture.

Saint Heceda also established an internal employee university for the bank, called "Barron Financial School," where they could receive sufficient training. He also specially wrote a booklet called "Barron Basic Law."

At the same time, in order to improve employees' sense of belonging, he directly spent money to buy a 14-story commercial building on Roma Avenue in the Madero district outside LA Street, renaming it Barron Financial Building, to create a comfortable office environment.

He directly set up the new headquarters here, and had the building team redecorate the interior and exterior.

The top floor of the building was reserved for several offices for Saint Heceda's exclusive use. Currently, there were not many high-rise buildings in Argentina, and more skyscrapers originated in the United States, appearing in major American cities around the 1930s, especially during Roosevelt's New Deal, which built a bunch of high-rise buildings.

Currently, there are few buildings in Argentina exceeding 20 floors, and the Barron Financial Building is considered high. The famous Barolo Palace is only 22 floors.

Barron Bank will establish several branches in cities with Saint Heceda's factories: Maria City Branch, Cordoba Branch, La Plata City Branch, Rosario Branch, Oran City Branch, and Potassium Triangle Branch. Establish a few branches in the early stage, and then prepare to establish a branch in each provincial capital, with the branch as the center, and then build business departments.

Acquire the provinces that can't be entered. Anyway, there are quite a few small local banks in Argentina.

Saint Hérissé invests funds on a large scale, opening branches like opening milk tea shops in later generations, selecting some excellent employees to be stationed, and combining market recruitment.

The remaining thing is to train employees to attract deposits and open accounts.

This is advertising bragging. Barron Bank has a long history.

Several simple slogans were immediately released, and super-long advertising copy was continuously bombarded with information from the New A Media's major newspapers, magazines, and radio stations.

Even pioneeringly filmed TV commercials and put them on TV shows.

"Protecting customers' property with heart is a trustworthy bank around you."

"Saving is an effective way to fight risks."

"Choose Barron Bank, serving you for 63 years."

"The bank around you, a trustworthy bank, Barron Bank has branches in major cities across the country."

Saint Hérissé is not idle either, mobilizing his network of contacts, Buda and even the army, the farmers of the Future Farm, and all places that can generate deposit accounts, to mobilize account openings, and engage in small gift giveaways such as giving away eggs for opening an account, so that they can get the deposits into this account.

Soon, the number of accounts at Barron Commercial Bank directly exceeded 200,000, becoming a medium-sized bank in Argentina, and the deposit business also slowly increased to 5.6 billion pesos.

The other thing to do simultaneously is to apply to the Central Bank of Argentina for a foreign exchange processing license to do foreign exchange business.

International remittances are stored in this bank, and the amount of international remittances has increased by 8 million US dollars, including some other foreign exchange.

The third thing to do is to acquire or establish insurance companies and wealth management companies. This is Saint Hérissé's own experience. Selling insurance, especially commercial insurance, is a way to significantly increase profits, and wealth management can increase the amount of funds that the bank can control.

Establish a Barron Insurance Company.

Jointly invest in wealth management with Redwood Securities, issue new bonds to Saint Hérissé's factories, and expand their development scale.

… …

On the 14th floor of the Lumba Financial Building, all the employees of Lumba Bank combined can only fill the bottom 5 floors, and most of the other floors are vacant.

Saint Hérissé, Andrew, Rosa, and other important confidants are chatting.

"Andrew, what do you think of our bank's development plan?"

Guerrero is still in the United States. He appointed Guerrero as the permanent deputy director, with a higher position than the other two deputy directors.

"I think it's very good. The scale of Barron Bank can already fit into the top ranks in Argentina, right? Like Garcia Bank?"

Garcia Bank is currently the largest private bank in Argentina.

"The deposit scale is about the same now, but the other aspects are far behind."

Rosa is capable. After experiencing the financial center, she is already qualified to hold the position of president of Barron Bank, but now it is the 1950s, not the 21st century.

So he has no way to introduce a woman to be the president, not that he can't, but it's too high-profile. Although the title of vice president is already high-profile enough.

This is also the reason why Saint Hérissé recruited the retired Sisolo, a mascot without much threat, giving a considerable salary, and sometimes he can solve some small problems through Sisolo's network.

Currently, Argentina's largest Garcia Bank has five to six thousand employees, and it can be said to be all over Argentina.

Saint Hérissé is recruiting a large number of people for Barron Bank. Now there are only more than 1,800 people, including the people from Rosa's financial center. New employees still need at least 2 weeks of training and integration.

"Even so, the development of Barron Bank is extremely amazing, it can simply be said to be very crazy."

Unlike Saint Hérissé's grand goals and pragmatic style in Barron, Barron Bank's expansion speed is extremely impressive. Often, buying a floor and then stuffing 10 employees is a business department.

Guerrero has made great progress now and is one of the few people who can access Saint Hérissé's huge wealth empire.

It can almost be named the Cohen Consortium now. It is still relatively low-key, and many of its companies and factories are not affiliated.

Forming small, competitive companies and factories, they are also beginning to fully release their vitality and combat effectiveness.

"Yes, boss, our Barron Bank still needs to continue to rectify."

Rosa said calmly, not surprised by the current achievements. After all, most of the deposits come from the funds of major factories, as well as accounts receivable and the like.

"Yes, we are far behind Garcia Bank. We need to continue to develop our customers."

For Saint Hérissé, the current development is indeed not good. Even 10 billion pesos in deposits is only equivalent to a little more than 100 million US dollars. In front of the huge American consortium, it is just a younger brother, not even in the top 20, and there is nothing to be proud of.

Having 1 billion US dollars is almost the same, fully sharing the development dividend of Argentina. Only when Argentina can reach one-fifth of the strength of the United States can it be called a world power, which is not a simple matter.

"Everyone still needs to work hard."

A group of people chatted about some other things again before leaving the office. Rosa did not leave. The two stood on the high floor and looked at the distant Buda.

Buenos Aires at sunset is beautiful.

… …

Saint Hérissé began to prepare for his senior year courses. Saint Hérissé, who had been taking classes for more than a month, directly skipped a grade and became Powell's senior. He also published several excellent legal papers and published them in academic newspapers.

And passed the school's basic review, you can wait for the second half of the year to graduate directly with the students of the Class of 49, even if not many students actually graduate normally in the Class of 49, less than half.

He has also been honestly attending classes during this time. After all, some basic class hours still have to be taken. Relying on his excellent memory, he often goes to the Buda Court for internships and listening. With the radical party boss covering him, the internships are basically all A+, and Saint Hérissé is even more experienced than many old fritters.

He is proficient in various legal provisions and can find specific regulations at the fastest speed. The judges also think this kid is good, and he is very confident in dealing with people.

Saint Hérissé has almost become a legend in Buda. It is very difficult to graduate normally from the Faculty of Law, and the New Youth League's publicity for Saint Hérissé, the president, has never stopped.

The New Youth League has become one of the most influential university associations in Argentina, spreading a great influence through football cup competitions, student newspapers, various branches, and the like.

This has also brushed a lot of goodwill for Saint Hérissé. Saint Hérissé has replaced the old batch of students and became a celebrity in Buda, even his former seniors can't compare.

… …

Saint Hérissé plans to form a think tank team, a team independent of the Falcon Bureau.

The Radical Party has already given him a promise to help him seek a city councilor position in an important city in the province of Buenos Aires, most likely the provincial capital, La Plata, after all, there is also a steel factory, and there is also a foundation.

It is also possible that it is Bahia Blanca, one of Argentina's largest port cities, where industrial development is not satisfactory, exporting wheat and beef and mutton ports.