Rebirth of England.

Chapter 722: Eastern Peninsula
In fact, even Goldman Sachs' 10 billion euro loan is not impossible to extend, as they can still get interest during the period.

Just like in Barron’s previous life, this loan was extended to 2019, and then further extended to 2037…

After all, credit default is a very serious matter for a country. Once the loan is due and it cannot be repaid, and no extension can be reached through negotiation, it will cause the country's credit default, which will affect their entire national debt system. Not only will the previous national debt face collection, but also no one will be willing to buy new bonds if they want to issue them...

Although Greece has been facing the situation of having no money to repay its debts due since the beginning of next year, I believe that normally they will be able to ensure that they do not default by paying off old debts with new debts and extending the agreement.

It's just that the interest on the new debt is higher...

But this is under normal circumstances. If Barron's cooperates with Wall Street capital including Goldman Sachs to launch an offensive against the CDS underwriter LCR Rothschild Group, then the Rothschild family will inevitably face huge compensation.

Combined with their previous losses, it would be a fatal blow to the Rothschild family.

You know, according to the data held by Baron and others, the total amount of CDS insured by LCR Rothschild Group at this time alone exceeds 100 billion euros, of which more than half will mature within two years.

These CDS will certainly bring them continuous premium income, but once a black swan event occurs and the Greek government is unable to repay its debts, these debts will need to be repaid by the LCR Rothschild Group.

……

Before Christmas, the Global Industrial Investment (GII) Fund finally completed the negotiations with Dubai World Group and finally agreed to purchase the British Rail Group, which they had previously acquired, for US$63 billion.

The price of this transaction caused them to lose $5 million compared to when Dubai World Group acquired the P&O Group. However, in the current economic situation, coupled with Dubai's urgent need for funds to overcome its sovereign debt crisis, it is an acceptable result for them.

This transaction will be completed before February next year. The only thing it needs to do now is to pass the review of the European Union and the United States.

According to Baron and his team's plan, after completing the acquisition, P&O Group will be renamed Peninsula Eastern Group (in fact, its English name has not changed much, it is still P&O, but the Chinese name will be changed from P&O Group to Peninsula Eastern Group).

In addition, they also poached Ed Christian, a senior vice president from Maersk, the world's largest shipping company, to serve as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Peninsula Oriental Group.

The new CEO of Peninsula Oriental Group stated in an interview:
"Next, we will complete the integration of the entire group's business and negotiate with the American side to take over the management of the six port terminals that we had to entrust before..."

Regarding the group’s future development plans, he said confidently:

“GII Fund is very supportive of the future development of Peninsula Oriental. After the capital injection, we will strengthen our shipping business that has been cut back through mergers and acquisitions and new shipbuilding, and strive to make Peninsula Oriental one of the leading global shipping companies.”

Just as Ed Christian said, Peninsula Oriental Group’s main acquisition target is currently locked on Greece’s Costamare Inc.

If we look at the rankings of shipping companies, we can mainly see large shipping companies such as Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM and COSCO, and there seems to be no Greek companies among them... This seems to be inconsistent with the impression that Greece is a major shipping country.

In fact, after years of development in the shipping industry, the division of labor has been refined into shipowners, shipping companies, ship management companies... The difference between them can be simply understood as the relationship between a fleet, and the owners of their own vehicles and small fleets affiliated with it.

The fact is that most Greeks are shipowners, but the shipping companies they run themselves are not very large.

In addition, Greece as a whole owns a lot of ships, but there are also many families that are shipowners, so if you divide the ships owned by each family, they won’t be so scary.

Shipping giants like Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM own their own ships and also charter ships. European shipping companies in particular often charter Greek ships.

Just like Peninsula Oriental Group's acquisition target this time, Gasma Shipping Company, is a leading international container ship owner.

Through its subsidiaries, COSMIC Shipping owns a fleet of 82 container ships with a total capacity of approximately 643000 TEU (TEU is a shipping term referring to a standard container).

At the same time, COSMA Line also serves liner companies that require high standards of safety and reliability and, in most cases, is one of the largest liner companies in the world - COSMA Line and its predecessors draw on more than 48 years of history in maritime cargo transportation, including more than 30 years of container transportation.

Generally speaking, the strategy of GSI Shipping is to time charter its container fleet to a geographically diversified, financially strong and loyal group of leading liner companies.

In fact, most of the large international liner companies are clients of Gao Shimai. Their clients in recent years include Maersk, MSC, Evergreen, Yang Ming, Cosco, Hapag-Lloyd and ZIM.

Therefore, after acquiring Gao Shimai Shipping Company, Peninsula Oriental Group’s maritime shipping capacity can be greatly improved.

At the same time, they will not only be able to increase the number of their own ships, but also gain access to the ship and shipping management experience accumulated by Gao Shimai Shipping Company over the years, thereby improving their service level.

To put it bluntly, the huge shipping companies that are currently at the forefront of the world actually rely mainly on their financial capabilities to operate. Although Greece now has shipowners and crew members, it really has no money, so it cannot become one of the largest shipping groups in the world. They mainly rent ships to those shipping groups to survive.

After the acquisition by GII Fund, with Standard Chartered-Merrill Lynch as its backing, it will certainly not be short of funds. In addition, it is the most appropriate time to expand during the Greek sovereign debt crisis and the relative low point of global shipping.

Speaking of which, the previous China Railway Group has been cutting back on their shipping business, which is not a bad thing for the current Peninsula Oriental Group.

After all, in comparison, the commissions required for British local crew members are very high, and there are also requirements such as holidays. Now when Peninsula Oriental Group expands its shipping business, by hiring cheap crew members from third countries, the expenditure in this regard is only one-quarter to one-third of the previous British employees...

It can be said that their salary expenses have been greatly reduced, and there are not so many requirements...

This means that in this way, the profitability of the shipping business will increase and its competitiveness will be improved.

(End of this chapter)