Rebirth of England.

Chapter 616 Valentino
Following this conversion, the Cavendish Trust will receive approximately 27.26 billion Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch ordinary shares; and the BFT Fund will receive approximately 14.29 billion Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch ordinary shares.

In this way, the shareholding ratio of Standard Chartered-Merrill Lynch Group is as follows: Cavendish Trust holds about 60% of its shares (originally held 65% of Standard Chartered Bank's shares in the name of DS Holdings, plus 27.26 billion common shares obtained after debt-to-equity swap, the shareholding ratio after the merger); BFT Fund holds 19.97% of its shares; Rich23 Capital holds 5% of its shares; Caesar Fund holds 0.7% of its shares (from the exchange of Merrill Lynch shares when Standard Chartered Bank acquired Merrill Lynch Group after Caesar Fund acquired Merrill Lynch Group)...

It can be said that after the debt-to-equity conversion, Barron controlled approximately 85.67% of the shares of Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch through the various investment companies and funds he controlled. The remaining 14.33% of the shares belonged to the original Standard Chartered Bank's circulating shares in the secondary market and the proceeds from stock swaps by the original Merrill Lynch shareholders.

After this debt-to-equity swap, although the total share capital of Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch has been greatly expanded, it is a good thing for Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch because most of its interest-bearing debts have been successfully converted into its common stock - which no longer requires interest payments.

In the following week, the share price of Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch rose slightly from about 9.75 pounds to about 10.2 pounds (equivalent to 18.36 US dollars), which also made the market value of Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch successfully exceed 1313 billion US dollars, surpassing the Royal Bank of Scotland and becoming the second largest listed bank in the UK after HSBC Holdings.

In fact, because HSBC Holdings suffered heavy losses in the subprime mortgage crisis, its share price has fallen significantly this year. Its current market value is only less than $100 billion higher than that of Standard Chartered-Merrill Lynch...

The "debt-for-equity" operation of Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch will also become the main method for Baron to increase his holdings when the stock prices of listed companies he owns are at a low point during the subprime mortgage crisis - through his fund to purchase the preferred stocks or corporate bonds of listed companies to provide funds for acquisitions and expansions, and then convert them into common stocks when the stock prices are low...

The only difference is that before this, the fund he owned sold its holdings in listed companies including Woaw Technology, SEM Group, O2 Telecom, etc. when their stock prices were relatively high, thereby obtaining a lot of funds.

As for Standard Chartered Bank, neither DS Holdings (Cavendish Trust) nor Rich23 Capital reduced its holdings.

Because it is obvious that Standard Chartered Bank's acquisition of assets such as Northern Rock Bank, Merrill Lynch and IndyMac Bank in this process is relatively "risky" in the eyes of the outside world, and will include a lot of "non-performing assets".

And from Standard Chartered Bank to Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch, it can be said that the scale of its acquisitions is extremely large.

Therefore, Barron needs to ensure absolute control over Standard Chartered Bank (DS Holdings plus Rich23 Capital control 80% of Standard Chartered Bank shares). Otherwise, even if his shareholding ratio exceeds 50%, he will still be affected by the "noise" of the board of directors in the decision-making process of these acquisitions, and he will need to devote more energy to convince the board of directors to make these acquisitions.

Now, after this series of operations and the completion of the overall acquisition of Merrill Lynch, Barron can still control more than 85% of the shares of Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch. It can be said that he has absolute control over this bank, which is the second largest listed bank in the UK after HSBC Holdings and the sixth largest listed bank in the world (now behind China Construction Bank, HSBC Holdings, China Construction Bank, Bank of America and China Huaxia Bank).

……

“You bought Valentino?”

Barron came to Paris and met Beatrice here, and the girl asked this question.

“Yes, the Gucci-Hermès Group asked the Permira Investment Fund about the price of the brand and, after negotiations, bought it…”

Beatrice has her reasons for being concerned about Valentino, which Barron had just acquired. After all, her uncle was once the president and chief designer of Valentino, but he was later involved in a tax evasion case. Last year, his family participated in the sale of Valentino Fashion Group to the British Permira Investment Fund for 26 billion euros. The reason why Gucci-Hermès Group did not participate in the acquisition of Valentino Fashion Group was that at that time, in addition to brands such as Valentino, a considerable proportion of the company's assets were the German Hugo Boss brand.

And it is obvious that the Gucci-Hermès Group is not interested in this brand.

But now, the subprime mortgage crisis has come, and Permira Investment Fund is not having an easy time during this crisis, so the Gucci-Hermès Group took the opportunity to contact them and prepare to acquire the Valentino brand.

According to the agreement, Gucci-Hermès Group will acquire the operating rights of the Valentino and M Missoni brands for 6 million euros.

Permira Investment Fund will spin off Valentino Fashion Group, separate the German brand Hugo Boss from the group, and then sell the remaining Valentino brand and M Missoni to Gucci-Hermès Group.

Speaking of which, it's not just Beatrice. Because of the previous relationship with the Valentino brand, Beatrice's sisters also wear Valentino as the fashion brand they most often wear.

Now that this brand has been sold by her mother's family, it was finally bought by Barron after many twists and turns, and Beatrice is very happy.

After all, girls are always sentimental. In her opinion, this represents some kind of connection between her family and her lover.

For a long time before this, Barron had been mostly in Asia and North America, and he and Beatrice hadn't seen each other for a while - Beatrice was not idle either. She had devoted almost all her energy to studying during this period. According to her, by next year, she would be able to graduate a year early.

After graduation, Beatrice plans to go to the United States to continue her studies, and Barron is quite supportive of this.

Anyway, the two had been separated for a long time. As the saying goes, a short separation is better than a new marriage. After meeting again, Barron also fully felt the girl's enthusiasm...

Well, although I came to Paris this time not just to meet with girls privately, but...

It is better to comfort her lovesickness first.

After checking the girl's learning situation, Barron taught her everything he knew without reservation, so that Beatrice learned a lot in the past two days...

(End of this chapter)