Chapter 331 The situation is improving

Although Barron himself left London and went to China.

However, Global Industrial Investment Fund's takeover bid for the London Stock Exchange still attracts attention in the UK.

At this time, with further acquisitions, the GII Fund's holdings of London Stock Exchange stocks have exceeded 35%, and it is still in contact and negotiation with more London Stock Exchange shareholders.

As for the London Stock Exchange, after rejecting their first offer of a 25% premium, the GII Fund once again raised its offer and prepared to acquire the London Stock Exchange at a price of 1.5 billion pounds.

And in an interview with reporters, GII Fund CEO Finn Hudson claimed that this acquisition offer for a 50% premium on the London Stock Exchange is "unique" and will also be the final result of their acquisition. Quotation.

Just as the GII Fund's acquisition battle for the London Stock Exchange was in full swing, British political circles also had different reactions to the acquisition.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone said in an interview that the GII Fund's acquisition of the London Stock Exchange was "unusual" and that the British authorities should evaluate the impact of the London Stock Exchange on companies listed in London after it was completely acquired by such an investment institution. What adverse impact will it have on the company, and whether it will damage London's status as a major overseas company listing location and an international financial center.

However, Ed Balls, an important staff member of British Finance Minister Gordon Brown and known as "Brown's Adjutant", hinted to the media in early October that he was not opposed to the GII Fund's acquisition of the London Stock Exchange.

Boles said: "I think the prosperity of London's financial market is due to internationalization initiatives. We allow foreign capital to enter our banks, our brokerage companies and our trading markets. I don't think the London Stock Exchange has What an exception.”

In response to these statements, GII Fund CEO Finn Hudson said in a subsequent interview:

"Even if the GII Fund successfully acquires the London Stock Exchange, it will not interfere with the operation of the London Stock Exchange. The London Stock Exchange will still be independently supervised by the British Financial Services Authority (FSA)."

As the GII Fund once again issued an offer to acquire the London Stock Exchange at a premium of 50%, the stocks of the London Stock Exchange also rose in response. Compared with before the acquisition by the GII Fund, the stock price has increased by more than 45%...

In this regard, the London Stock Exchange has been taking action. Their management and shareholders stated that they will decide whether to accept the acquisition offer of the GII Fund before October 20.

At the same time, the London Stock Exchange has not given up its efforts to find more buyers to compete with the GII Fund. According to media disclosures, the London Stock Exchange once contacted the British ICAP financial market brokerage company, and the two parties also discussed merger issues several times. Negotiations were held.

However, because ICAP was always worried that the stock price of the London Stock Exchange was "too frothy", no agreement was reached.

Relevant people from ICAP told the media that the merger between the two parties can only be carried out "when the stock price of the London Stock Exchange is lower."

In addition to ICAP, Deutsche Börse, which has always had thoughts on the London Stock Exchange, was also involved in the acquisition of the London Stock Exchange by the GII Fund. According to media reports, the German Stock Exchange sent personnel to discuss the acquisition of the London Stock Exchange. The matter came to London for a meeting with the management of Tone.

However, after this report was passed to Germany, the German Stock Exchange did not deny it, but stated that at the current price, the German Stock Exchange needed to convince the board of directors to accept such a high premium...

A local newspaper claimed that sources from Deutsche Börse had revealed that its board of directors was "impossible to accept the London Stock Exchange's price of 1.5 billion pounds." Some people even directly said "this is robbery" on the board of directors...

Next, British Under-Secretary of the Treasury Bowles stated in a public speech on the 11th that the British government will maintain a neutral position in this merger and acquisition case and will not obstruct the GII Fund’s merger and acquisition of the London Stock Exchange. The premise is that The acquisition should not affect the London Stock Exchange's regulatory framework and ensure that the FSA has veto power over any changes to the rules of its home stock exchange.

By this time, GII Fund has become more and more advantageous in acquiring the London Stock Exchange...

…

After shooting enough material, Bonnie took the camera crew back to London on the Devonshire. She will use the fastest time to complete the post-production of the first issue of "The Shining Life".

And Barron is also very busy...

After sending Bonnie Stuart away, he was finally able to bring Tamaran Ecclestone, who was still in the Magic City, to the Yan family garden to "compensate" for the person who had been expelled before. The neglected rich young lady.

However, it was not a good time to travel during the National Day Golden Week in China, so he waited until October 8th before taking Tamaran to Hangzhou for some fun, and by the way he met with Ali Company’s staff. Boss Ma.

In June this year, Taobao launched "Taobao Wangwang" to link instant messaging tools with online shopping.

As a segmented instant chat tool, Taobao Wangwang integrates multiple functions such as communication, transaction management, etc. Its predecessor is Alibaba's Tradelink.

It can be said that up to now, the development of Taobao is still quite satisfactory to Boss Ma.

In fact, Taobao's most difficult moment was at the end of last year.

At that time, eBay, which was backed by eBay, the major financial backer, as the top domestic C2C e-commerce company in China, was extremely wary of the rapidly developing Taobao.

Not only in terms of business, Taobao is blocked - in advertising and some marketing activities, eBay has signed exclusive advertising contracts with major portal websites, resulting in a situation where Taobao cannot advertise even if it has money.

What’s even more interesting is that when I searched for Taobao on Google, eBay ads appeared…

In addition, in December last year, Taobao was investigated by the Hangcheng City Industrial and Commercial Bureau for alleged unfair competition, and Taobao's owner Alibaba was also implicated.

The reason why this is called the "Big Prize Event" is that Taobao launched an event called "Alipay" from November 14th to December 14th. The highest prize is a POLO 1.4 car. The lottery draw will be at 9pm on December 15th.

The Hangzhou City Industrial and Commercial Bureau received a report from a "senior netizen" at that time, saying that the one-time grand prizes provided by Alibaba's two commercial websites exceeded the limit of 5,000 yuan, and unfair competition was used in the sales process.

At that time, Taobao suspected that this "report" was planned by its competitor eBay...

However, as DS Capital invested US$50 million in Taobao in its last financing, and after obtaining a large amount of funds, Taobao became more confident, and eBay could not continue to maintain its dominance over Taobao in terms of advertising. block".

After that, with the increased publicity, Taobao's development also entered the fast lane.

In this regard, Boss Ma is still very grateful to Barron, the "big financier". After all, in the beginning, eBay was a strong opponent in the C2C field. He himself was not sure whether Taobao could succeed in this field. Lack of confidence, which is why Taobao was started independently outside the Alibaba system at that time...

The exchange of 33.3% of the shares for 50 million U.S. dollars from DS Capital was equivalent to the valuation they gave Taobao at that time of 150 million U.S. dollars. This valuation can no longer be said to be low, and is even somewhat higher than that of Ma. boss’s expectations.

In Boss Ma's opinion, this amount of funds can be said to be a key factor in Taobao's current situation.