Rebirth of England.

Chapter 745 Splitting Alipay

The main reason why Peninsula Oriental Group chose to acquire the Greek Port of Piraeus together with Huaxia's company is, of course, that the port itself had its 35-year operating rights acquired by China COSCO Group last year.

After that, COSCO Group also plans to expand the scale of Piraeus Port and build it into the largest port in the Mediterranean. The advantage of Peninsula Oriental Group is their many years of experience in port operations, and COSCO Group, backed by China, is among the best in the world in terms of human resources and infrastructure capabilities. The cooperation between the two parties can also bring the greatest benefits to each other.

In addition, Barron knew that China would vigorously promote the "Belt and Road" plan in the future. Joining this plan would bring considerable throughput to the Port of Piraeus, and the location of this port was also very important for this plan.

The Asian market itself is a very important market for Peninsula Oriental Group. In this market, it will become increasingly difficult to ignore the influence of China, one of the two superpowers in the future.

Moreover, it is just doing business with China, which does not involve taking sides. Which of the big American companies, including Apple and Microsoft, is not like this?
According to the plan of Peninsula Oriental Group, they are going to acquire all the shares of Piraeus Port together with COSCO Group. COSCO Group will still hold 67% of the shares, and the remaining shares will be held by Peninsula Oriental Group. In this way, if there is a conflict with the United States in the future, then Peninsula Oriental Group, as a "small shareholder" of Piraeus Port, will naturally have no way to deal with China. At that time, Barron can only spread his hands and say so...

"Someone else has contacted me in the past two days, Your Highness the Duke."

"South Koreans?"

“Yes, they are well-informed and are trying to convince me to give them the group’s LNG carrier order…”

Barron was not surprised at all about what Ed Christian mentioned on the phone.

At this time, both Japan and South Korea have deep operations in China, so it is not surprising to hear that the Peninsula Oriental Group is preparing to order LNG ships from Chinese shipyards.

Moreover, since China was able to produce LNG ships, the South Korean-related consortiums that occupy a monopoly position in this field have been keeping a very close eye on China.

They certainly do not want China Shipyard's LNG ship business to receive such a large order, so it is only to be expected that they would want to intercept it.

However, they may be disappointed this time. After all, what the Peninsula Eastern Group wants is not just to order these five LNG ships. In addition, this time it will also involve a package of cooperation projects. For those cooperations, South Korea is definitely not the best target for the Peninsula Eastern Group.

Otherwise, why would they cooperate with South Korea in this matter? Wouldn't it be better to cooperate directly with their suzerain country, the United States?

The problem is that American capital simply wants to use European countries, including Greece, as blood bags and is not willing to invest resources in development, which runs counter to Barron's purpose.

……

Knowing that Barron would stay in Shanghai for a few days and would fly to London immediately after returning to Australia, Fan Bingbing cherished the opportunity to spend time with him. There was nothing he could do about it. It was already April, and England would soon be welcoming an important moment. Although Brown had not yet announced the date for the general election, Barron had privately learned that the time was still the same as in his previous life. Brown would dissolve the cabinet in early May and then hold a general election.

During his time in Shanghai, Barron not only accompanied Fan Bingbing and his two children, but also handled some affairs.

This included meeting Alibaba CEO Ma who came to Shanghai.

"Thank you very much for supporting me on the Alipay issue, Your Highness."

Boss Ma was not surprised that Fan Bingbing was with the British Duke. After all, before this, Fan Bingbing had met him on behalf of Barron. Moreover, this female star, who was once the most famous in China, had powerful resources in Hollywood and gradually moved behind the scenes in China. This also made Boss Ma speculate about this.

Now Barron's behavior, meeting with Boss Ma directly in this villa with Fan Bingbing, made Boss Ma think that he was treating him as a friend.

What Mr. Ma said was that in the second half of last year, at the Alibaba shareholders' meeting, he discussed with Alibaba shareholders and proposed transferring 70% of Alipay's shares to a mainland Chinese company.

The reason given by Mr. Ma for doing this is that China will soon issue the first batch of payment licenses. If Alipay hopes to obtain this license, it must be converted into domestic capital.

Otherwise, if Alipay still belongs to Alibaba, it will be difficult to obtain a payment license because its major shareholders include British, Japanese and American capital.

Baron certainly understood that in addition to the reason that Boss Ma publicly stated, there were other reasons that he did not say, including the fact that the Alibaba founding team, led by Boss Ma, did not hold many shares in Alibaba. After all these years of development, Boss Ma could see the significance of Alipay to the entire Alibaba company. So if Alipay could be separated from Alibaba and by maintaining control over Alipay, Boss Ma would be able to strengthen his control over Alibaba.

Even so, after shareholder representatives including Yahoo and Softbank raised objections, Baron, as Alibaba's major shareholder, still expressed his support for Mr. Ma, something that Mr. Ma was very grateful for.

Of course, Baron was able to do this not only because he knew that in his previous life, although Yahoo, which held a 40% stake in Alibaba at the time, and another major shareholder Softbank did not agree with this decision, they were eventually persuaded by Ma, and also because Ma insisted that Alipay must be controlled by a domestic company. Therefore, DS Holdings and Rich23 Capital's shares in Alipay through their holdings in Alibaba could be completely realized by "selling" them to the domestic company Tianhe Capital.

"It is normal to make such a decision, Jake. As I have always told you, my investment in Alibaba is only a financial investment. I am not interested in the operation of the company. I believe that Alibaba is the right choice under your leadership. This is why we have given you the voting rights of our shares."

Of course, the premise for Baron to say this is that Mr. Ma’s operation of Alibaba cannot harm their interests.

Just like when Boss Ma spun off Alipay from Alibaba, he also promised Alibaba shareholders, including Baron, that they would be compensated for their holdings before Alipay goes public in the future.

(End of this chapter)