Chapter 549 William Weber Capital

"The gambling agreement between us and NM Rothschild Bank has brought us more than 1 billion euros in income so far, and they already hope to withdraw this agreement..."

After Barron arrived in Paris, Ashley Webber met Barron in the Duke's Suite at the Devonshire Hotel and introduced him to investments in France.

The bet against NM Rothschild Bank in France was conducted through William Weber Capital Investment Company.

The predecessor of William Weber Capital is Weber Capital Advisers, a company called Elite Boutique.

Generally speaking, the business of so-called boutique investment banks focuses more on financial services in a narrow sense, that is, "mergers and acquisitions" and "reorganizations", and less on capital market activities, such as when Barron's acquired Hermès. , that is through Weber Consulting...

After completing the acquisition of Hermès, Barron injected capital into Weber Capital Consulting Company through overseas trusts and multiple levels of offshore companies, renamed it William Weber Capital Investment Company, and held the company More than 80% of the shares.

The remaining shares are in the hands of Eilish Weber's family and her partners.

Speaking of which, Barron's choice of the Weber family, where Eilish belongs, as his investment partner in France was not a casual decision.

Although the previous Weber Capital Consulting Company was not very strong, Ellie Weber is still very capable - this can be seen from her ability to lead the acquisition of Hermès.

You must know that in the previous life, a group as powerful as LVMH also failed in the acquisition of Hermès.

Moreover, Eilish Weber's connections in France are not simple. Her maternal grandfather once served as a French minister, and her father's line is also quite powerful in the French financial world.

Therefore, through William Weber Capital, a high-value gambling agreement was entered into with NM Rothschild Bank, a subsidiary of the LCF Rothschild Group, on subprime loan bonds.

By the way, it was named William Webb Capital because the first member of the Cavendish family to be named Duke of Devonshire was named William Cavendish.

In fact, the LCF Rothschild Group has investments in many areas, including some French banks, companies and wineries, which have their shareholdings.

NM Rothschild Bank is mainly an investment bank, which can be understood as a larger boutique bank. Its main business includes mergers and acquisitions consulting and helping customers with investment and financial management.

The main customers of NM Rothschild Bank are from Europe, and North America is their main investment market.

Therefore, it is natural that NM Rothschild Bank is also deeply involved in the business of American subprime loan bonds. When William Webb Capital bet against them, it owned a large number of subprime loan bonds (to be precise, NM Rothschild Bank, which purchased it for their clients, readily accepted the bet.

In their view, this is an additional opportunity to make money.

But obviously, this is not the case. In these gambling agreements, so far, NM Rothschild Bank has lost at least more than 1 billion euros to William Weber Capital!

Barron also has many shortcomings, one of which is that he is very vindictive.

He still remembered the incident when Benjamin Rothschild and Colin Hall colluded against him.

Although the Hall family has paid part of the price, Benjamin Rothschild, or the Rothschild family, still needs to settle the cause and effect...

Even if the Rothschild family is not as exaggerated as described in street literature, how can they control the Federal Reserve or even control global finance...

But at least in Europe, they can be regarded as a high-ranking family, so of course Barron will not act rashly, but if he has the opportunity, he will not be stingy in teaching them a little lesson.

Well, it is indeed a "little lesson". After all, the assets managed by the entire LCF Rothschild Group exceed 80 billion euros, and the loss of more than one billion euros is not a high proportion.

"What do you think? Ashley."

Barron asked with interest.

"Now NM Rothschild Bank prefers to resolve this matter privately. After all, such a loss, especially at the moment, will have an impact on their reputation..."

Ashley Weber said:

"And the Rothschilds are not stupid, on the contrary, they are very shrewd. Once they look back, they will quickly think that if this gambling agreement continues, it will only cause greater losses, like a deep If the wound is left unattended, it will only continue to bleed. The wisest thing to do is to bandage it immediately to stop the bleeding. "

"Your Highness, after your reminder, I found that many banks in France are involved in the subprime loan bond business, and their performance will definitely be affected. Therefore, I think that after obtaining the funds from NM Rothschild Bank, we can Shorting these banks can continue to increase profits.”

In fact, William Weber Capital was just a tool used by Barron to "bet" with NM Rothschild Bank in France. The funds for these previous bets also came from him, so Ashley Weber initially Although he was not sure about it, he had no objection to it and carried it out anyway.

Now that the bet is successful, she can see the short-selling opportunities facing the relevant banks later, which also reflects her own ability.

Indeed, French banks were also affected by the subprime mortgage crisis, but their losses were disclosed relatively late.

After the outbreak of the subprime mortgage crisis, the French government and financial circles have always claimed that the French banking industry has not been greatly affected.

However, it was only in the second half of 2008 that the major French banks began to expose their actual losses to the public in their semi-annual financial reports.

According to disclosures at the time, the four major French commercial banks suffered losses totaling nearly 17 billion euros due to the subprime mortgage crisis (in fact, they would be more).

Among them, Credit Agricole Bank, which suffered the most heavy losses, had total asset writedowns of up to 5.5 billion euros, Société Générale also suffered losses of 4.9 billion euros, Natixis Bank suffered losses of 3.9 billion euros, and BNP Paribas, which suffered smaller losses, also reached 2.3 billion euros.

However, the stock prices of these banks had entered a downward trend earlier due to the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Within a year from now, the market value of BNP Paribas will shrink by more than 37%, the market value of Société Générale will decrease by nearly 50%, the market value of Credit Agricole will decrease by nearly 60%, and the market value of Natixis Bank will drop by more than 60%.

During the same period, the Paris CAC40 stock index fell only about 22%.

Therefore, it is true that if you start shorting these banks now, you will have good profits.