Chapter 540 Purchase price of 8.6 billion pounds

"It fits very well and looks great."

Bonnie looked at her husband in front of her, wearing a dark blue velvet robe and a black hat with feathers on her head, and said to him with a smile on her face.

And her son George, who was in her arms, was babbling and seemed to reach out to grab the feathers on the hat.

What Barron is wearing is the Garter robe he will wear when he participates in the Garter Parade to be held in the middle of next month.

The Garter robe that had just been delivered to him was custom-made, so he had to try it on.

At the end of last year, the Queen announced that Barron would be awarded the Order of the Garter, which meant that he became one of the Knights of the Garter with only 25 living members (excluding members of the royal family and foreign monarchs).

On Garter Day next month, he will participate in the parade with the Garter knights and be officially awarded the honor.

Barron and Bonnie's son George just celebrated his first birthday last month. He took his son from his wife, held him in his arms, and let his son grab the ostrich and bluebird on his hat with his little hands. Heron feathers playing...

After Barron had been with his wife and children and went downstairs to get in the car to go to the company, Wang Wanting beside him said:

"His Royal Highness, today the British Competition and Markets Authority stated that if Thomson Group wants to acquire Reuters Group, it needs to pass their antitrust review. In addition, the Antitrust Bureau of the U.S. Department of Justice also stated yesterday that Thomson Group and Reuters The merger of the groups is suspected of being a monopoly..."

Yes, just after SEM Group continued to increase its stake in Reuters Group to more than 30%, it was reported that Thomson Group began to make an offer for Reuters Group, hoping to negotiate with the other party to acquire Reuters Group.

It is believed that Thomson also received news of the relevant actions of the SEM Group and started substantive actions.

It can be said that Thomson Group is coming aggressively. They are preparing to acquire Reuters Group in the form of cash and stock, most of which is cash. According to the current stock price, its total acquisition offer is as high as 8.6 billion pounds. Compared with Reuters Group The market value at this time has a premium of more than 40%.

Of course, after the news of the acquisition came out, and SEM Group was the first to purchase Reuters Group, SEM Group's offer was also very impressive, so Reuters Group's share price rose.

According to the currently disclosed acquisition conditions of Thomson, each Reuters share will receive 3.525 pounds in cash and 0.16 Thomson shares. Calculated at the closing price of the previous trading day, their total purchase price for each share of Reuters Group is 6.86 pounds.

From the information that Barron's assistant Wang Wanting just gave him, we can see that after the stock market opened today, Thomson's stock price was 1.46 Canadian dollars lower than the closing price of the previous trading day, at 45.77 Canadian dollars, and its market value was approximately 29.5 billion. Canadian dollar.

The share price of Reuters Group rose to a nearly five-year high of 6.59 pounds in early trading, and later closed at 6.3 pounds, which was well below the proposed merger price.

Of course, it does not mean that after the other party proposes a purchase price, the stock price of the acquired company will immediately rise to the stock price corresponding to the purchase price. The market also needs to judge whether the acquisition is successful, otherwise investors who take over the offer at a high price will face acquisition failure and the stock price If it falls back, there will definitely be a huge loss.

In fact, after an acquisition intention is announced, the rise in the share price of the acquired company can also show how optimistic the market is about the acquisition.

Just like this time, under the premise that Thomson's acquisition price was as high as 8.6 billion pounds, the share price of Reuters Group rose, but there was still a certain gap between the share price corresponding to the acquisition price, which also showed that the market was worried about this transaction, including SEM The group is involved in a competition that could lead to a lengthy process and the possibility of facing investigations by competition regulators.

As Credit Suisse analysts said in a report: "We expect regulatory scrutiny in the US and UK."

The Thomson family is the 10th richest family in the world. David Thomson, who is currently the chairman of Thomson Group, is the richest man in Canada and the eldest grandson of Roy Thomson, the founder of Thomson Group.

Currently, the family owns 70% of Thomson Group through its Woodbridge holding company.

In fact, speaking of the Thomson family, it does not mean that they have nothing to do with SEM Group, another competitor of Reuters Group...

Before the 1980s, the Thomson family once owned well-known media such as The Times in England, and had the largest circulation of local newspapers.

In 1981, then-chairman Ken Nice Thomson (son of family founder Roy Thomson) decided to sell his The Times and The Sunday Times to Murdoch's News Corporation.

The latter continued its media layout in England through acquisitions and gradually developed the media empire of News Corporation.

The former gradually faded out of the paper media industry in the next 15 years and turned to electronic data products in finance, law, medical and other fields. Although these products did not seem to be eye-catching at the time, they brought great success to Thomson Company. This resulted in huge profits, and Ken Thomson was widely praised for this strategic vision.

Then not long ago, News Corporation sold The Times and The Sunday Times to SEM Group, and SEM Group launched the acquisition of Reuters Group...

After Ken Thomson passed away a few years ago, his son David Thomson inherited the family business and began to turn his strategic focus back to England and to the former President of the United States in 1865, who had a longer history and was the first in Europe to report on it. Reuters Group on Lincoln's Assassination.

Speaking of which, although SEM Group has now acquired more than 30% of Reuters Group's shares, Barron's is still not sure of winning if it competes with Thomson Group head-on.

The first is that when they increased their holdings of Reuters Group shares, they already understood that this method would save them from gaining nothing at most - even if the competition failed, they would at least be able to obtain the premium paid by Thomson Group to acquire Reuters Group...

Because of the existence of "golden shares" in the hands of Reuters Founders AG, the other party can completely require SEM Group to reduce its holdings to less than 15% in the future and prevent SEM Group from controlling Reuters Group.

And looking purely at competition, in fact SEM Group does not have an advantage.

First of all, in terms of synergy after the merger, according to data from Inside Market Data, the current global data business market size is approximately US$12.5 billion, of which Thomson Group has a share of 11%, ranking third. After its merger with Reuters Group, the market will be The market share can reach 34%, slightly ahead of Bloomberg with a market share of 33%, thus surpassing it and becoming the leader.

The deal, if completed, would also combine Reuters' sales and trading strengths with Thomson's client base of fund managers and investment banks, as well as the two companies' respective market strengths in North America and Europe.

According to analysis, it is estimated that after the merger of the two companies, the synergies generated by the merger are expected to save more than US$500 million in annual costs.

For this reason, Numis Securities analysts said in a research report: "Although the possibility of competitive acquisitions including SEM Group is not ruled out, given the scale of synergies generated by this acquisition offer... we believe that Thomson Group Is the best acquirer of Reuters Group.”