Chapter 184 This is charity!

"In the rich list published by The Sunday Times at the beginning of this year, Barron Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, who is only 23 years old, has a net worth of 1 billion pounds, ranking 35th on the British rich list. , and also became the richest person under the age of 30 in Britain."

"Young and handsome, with the title of Duke, and amazing financial resources. You must know that less than a year ago, the Devonshire family took over the family due to investment failure and the accident of the previous Duke. Barron Cavendish took over the family When I was in business, I was once in financial crisis and on the verge of bankruptcy..."

"It seems that the young Duke's business talent is amazing, but what many people may not have noticed is that after acquiring O2 Telecom for 6 billion pounds, and successively acquiring Manchester United and Argos, , Barron Cavendish saddled himself with high debts of more than 6 billion pounds, and according to our investigation, the interest rates on these debts are much higher than normal levels - their annual interest rates are generally higher than 12%!"

"This means that just in interest, Barron Cavendish needs to pay more than 720 million pounds to those banks every year! And his total net worth is only 1 billion pounds, which is only enough to support him for less than a year. Half... Every day when he wakes up, Barron Cavendish needs to face new interest payments of up to 2 million pounds, so it is doubtful how long he can sustain under such a huge debt."

Barron put down the newspaper in his hand. Well, it was "The Sun" again...

It was rare that they listed so much data this time, which really made Barron a little uncomfortable.

Although these data are not too wrong, if he had not known the investment income of DS Capital, as an outsider, Barron would have thought that his financial situation was very dangerous after seeing such reports...

But the fact is, based on O2 Telecom's current operating conditions and future plans, I believe that even if it is IPOed in one or two years, Barron will only need to sell a small part of his shares to sell the shares. Cleared most of the debt.

Even if other measures are not taken into consideration, if the business is carried out step by step in the original time and space, after more than a year, the value of O2 Telecom will be between 15 billion and 20 billion pounds.

Although he doesn't pay much attention to this report in the "Sun", Barron still agrees with one thing, that is, he should also find ways to reduce his debt interest.

The first is that O2 Telecom issued 1 billion pounds of corporate bonds with an annual interest rate of 3.5%. These funds will be used to repay the debts when he purchased O2 Telecom, that is, to reduce its debts in Barclays Bank and Goldman Sachs Group. 500 million pounds.

And in the UK, O2 Telecom conducted a pre-recharge promotion for users.

Users who recharge their tariffs with O2 Telecom in advance will receive a huge discount. Users who recharge more than 1,000 pounds at a time can even get an equal amount of phone charges refunded.

Regarding this event of O2 Telecom, other operators including Vodafone and BT were naturally affected. Some media even pointed out that this event of O2 Telecom is tantamount to drinking poison to quench thirst. After all, although it can achieve huge gains in one go The funds are actually an advance of the company's future profits and a disguised price reduction. I am afraid that if the business does not go smoothly, it will be very easy to collapse.

Barron didn't care at all.

It seems that this statement makes sense, but is it really so?

If users' mobile call needs are always met, then it seems that the higher the tariff, the higher the profits for telecom operators.

But this is not the case at all. Calculated based on Vodafone’s information standards at this time, their monthly package of 15 pounds only includes 20 minutes of free call time per month. After that, additional minutes will need to be billed—— At this time, British mobile operators did not charge one-way charges, that is, any calls received or received were counted as part of the 20 minutes of free calls.

The billing of calls is also different. Calls to landline and Vodafone users are about 0.5 pounds per minute, while calls to users of other operators are as high as 0.8 pounds per minute!

Higher plans include a £30-per-month plan with 200 minutes of free calls, and a £99-per-month plan with 1,100 minutes of free calls...

You know, at this time, the average monthly income in England is less than 2,000 pounds. Such tariffs, especially two-way charges, are still a bit burdensome for ordinary people.

If you join O2 Telecom's family package, the call cost will be lower than Vodafone - the most important thing is that calls between O2 Telecom's family packages are free!

This has attracted many British families to join O2 Telecom's family packages. Their home broadband and mobile communications for family members can be included in the package.

Moreover, among the same O2 Telecom users, the call charges are extremely low during leisure hours every day, and only return to normal charges when busy, which is only 0.3 pounds per minute.

If you participate in this pre-recharge offer, the communication cost is even equivalent to that of Vodafone, which is only 1/3-1/4 of Vodafone!

This is great news for the British people whose phone bills are relatively high at this time.

According to the statistics behind O2 Telecom, it also proves Barron's point of view - that is, the reduction of tariffs will greatly stimulate users' enthusiasm for using mobile communications, rather than advance the subsequent turnover of O2 Telecom.

After O2 Telecom launched this pre-recharge activity, their users’ average daily mobile phone call time increased by more than 100%!

This is normal. British people don’t have any habit of saving money. They all have cheaper options and will double their consumption...

As expected, Barron was not disappointed.

Through this pre-recharge activity, O2 Telecom has received more than 1 billion pounds in pre-recharge fees in less than a month...

Don't think this amount is too exaggerated. You must know that O2 Telecom's mobile communication users at this time are second only to Vodafone, ranking second in the UK.

At this time, the number of mobile phone users in the UK has exceeded 50 million. Among the more than 15 million users of O2 Telecom, if only one tenth has a pre-recharge of 1,000 pounds, that would be 1.5 billion pounds...

With this pre-recharge fund of 1 billion pounds, O2 Telecom will carry out large-scale equipment upgrades in the UK and increase the deployment of mobile communication equipment in France and Germany, two new markets where O2 Telecom has entered, to provide users with better services in both countries. Good mobile communication service.

Speaking of O2 Telecom's business in France and Germany, if O2 Telecom's user share in the UK is not low, their "price war" has been somewhat "converged".

So in the markets of France and Germany, where they are "new", O2 Telecom is not polite.

After all, in these two markets, O2 Telecom is stealing users from its original "local snakes", so there is no need to worry too much.

The mobile tariffs in France and Germany are even higher than those in the UK...

Taking D1, the most important operator in Germany, as an example, the monthly rental fee is 14.9 euros. This does not seem to be as high as the monthly rental fee in England, but what you need to know is that their monthly rental fee is simply a monthly rental fee. Give away free airtime...

They charge 0.59 euros per minute for fixed network calls, and 0.89 to 0.99 euros per minute for calls to users on different networks.

These costs are higher than those in England...

Therefore, after O2 Telecom entered the German market, they immediately launched their famous "Family Package". The monthly rental fee for the entire family package is only 19.99 euros, and members are given a total of 100 minutes of free call time, and calls between members are free!

And each family package can be joined by up to 4 members!

In this way, the average monthly rental fee for each member is less than 5 euros!

What is this behavior? This is simply charity!