Chapter 239 The Stock God of the Middle East
Although Eden Evans, who has passed away long ago, is only a baron in terms of title.
But the Evans family really has some talents in business, so they have accumulated a lot of wealth...
The 1.5% stake in Northern Gas in Lady Emma's estate alone is currently worth about £30 million.
At present, the two largest natural gas pipeline network companies in the UK are Cadent and Northern Gas. The current market value of this company is about 2 billion pounds. Baron Evans was the one who carried out the privatization reform under Mrs. Thatcher. Later, he bought shares of Northern Gas Company.
It is also worth mentioning that in the original time and space, two years later, Li Chaoren of HK spent 2.4 billion pounds to purchase 88% of the shares of Northern Natural Gas Company. Based on this calculation, the market value of Northern Natural Gas Company at that time was close to 2.8 billion GBP.
The other two manors and two real estates located in England and France are also worth 30 million pounds.
"Has Lady Emma been buried?"
"Yes, Your Highness the Duke, since she has no heirs, according to her will, she has been buried in the Evans family cemetery. And her lawyer will also come to London soon to hand over the inheritance with you. formalities."
As for Lady Emma's inheritance, if Barron accepts it, he will also need to bear the corresponding inheritance tax.
However, these inheritance taxes are not a problem for Barron at this time.
Among these legacies, the one that Barron values most is the 1.5% stake in Northern Gas Company.
Although it seems that the proportion of this share is very small, Barron has already penetrated into the company. If there is a chance, he will be able to control this large British natural gas company before Li Chaoren.
Although the growth rate of this kind of business is often not that high, it is better than stability. After all, with the terrible weather in England, using natural gas for heating is indispensable. It is an enterprise necessary for people's livelihood and has stable profits.
This is why since the last century, Li Chaoren has been buying up water, electricity and natural gas companies in Europe, especially in Britain.
Now Barron has captured all the members of the "Raphael" organization, except for the three people who "died accidentally".
Judging from the results of their interrogation, Mrs. Emma had no previous connection with them.
As for why Lady Emma took the initiative to introduce the old Duke of the Devonshire family to invest in the "London Star" project, now that both of them have passed away, I am afraid no one knows the inside story.
Perhaps Mrs. Emma really thought that "London Star" was a good investment project. After all, from the investment records of "London Star", we can also find that Mrs. Emma invested 5 million pounds in it - maybe this This is also the reason why Mrs. Emma did not leave much cash after her death.
And now that she has left all her property to herself, Barron also believes that there is no need to pursue it any further.
"Tell me where she is buried. I think you should see it anyway."
Barron said to Nigel calmly.
…
The Duke of Westminster did not break his promise. A week after the last meeting, he took Barron with him to attend a banquet hosted by him at his home.
During this banquet, he also introduced Barron to the protagonist of the banquet, a rich man from Saudi Arabia.
Barron did not expect that the tycoon introduced to him by the Duke of Westminster turned out to be Prince Walid, known as "Arab Buffett" and "Middle East Stock God".
Although Walid is a Saudi prince, in fact, he has long lost the opportunity to enter the upper echelons of Saudi politics.
The reason is that Walid's father is the 21st son of Abdullah Aziz ibn Saud, the founding monarch of Saudi Arabia...
Well, the founding king married 38 wives alone, not including his lovers...
Then his wives gave him a total of 127 children, including 58 sons...
To this day, his sons continue to multiply, so the Saudi royal family now has more than 5,000 princes!
Prince Walid's father was once the Saudi ambassador to France. When Walid was 5 years old, his father fell out with the Saudi King and other members of the royal family because of his sympathy for Nasser, who later became the president of Egypt, and was exiled to Egypt.
There, he lived a hard life with his father and family. Although Walit and his father were later allowed to return to Saudi Arabia, since then, his father and his descendants have forever lost the opportunity to enter Saudi Arabia's upper political circles.
This may be the reason why Prince Walid focused on making money and became the richest man in the Middle East.
In Barron's previous life, the reason why he heard about this prince was because in 2011, Forbes ranked him 26th among the world's richest people with a net worth of US$20 billion.
Prince Walid believed that the other party had underestimated his wealth, underestimating his wealth by US$9.6 billion. In anger, he actually sued Forbes magazine to court...
But speaking of it, Walid is indeed unique in investment. He initially started his business with only US$15,000 in capital, and through investment, he gained his later wealth.
His most famous move was his investment in Citibank.
He has been buying Citibank shares continuously since the 1980s. In the fall of 1990, the largest bank in the United States at the time was in trouble. It suffered heavy losses in a series of real estate loans and was in urgent need of funds. The Federal Reserve The committee urged it to increase its capital reserves, but Citibank's efforts to find more than a billion dollars in investment went nowhere.
As people feared Citibank would go bankrupt, they sold off its shares, causing the stock price to plummet.
After Prince Walid received news that Citibank was in trouble, at the end of that year Walid bought 4.9% of Citibank's common shares for $207 million ($12.46 per share) - which was not required by law. Publish the maximum limit on his shares.
In February 1991, when the U.S. military was stationed in Saudi Arabia to prepare for war with Iraq, Valit used his special relationship with the government to buy new preferred shares of Citibank for US$590 million, which allowed him to buy new preferred shares of Citibank at US$16 per share. The price is converted into common shares.
This part of the stock accounts for 10% of Citibank's total shares. As a result, Valit's total shares in Citibank have also increased to 14.9%.
Through continuous additional purchases, the value of Citibank's shares in Waleed's hands has been 10 times that of the time of purchase. As a result, he owns Citibank's assets of approximately US$8 billion.
Compared with Walid, what interests Barron even more is the youngest of the princes who came to London with him this time. During the introduction, Barron learned that his name was Mohammed bin Salman.
