Rebirth of England.

Chapter 811 Opportunity
On June 6, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that former British Prime Minister Brown was elected as the organization's new president. His term will begin on July 28 and will last for five years.

As early as the beginning of June, the topic of who would succeed Strauss-Kahn, who resigned as IMF Managing Director due to a "sexual assault incident", had already begun to be hotly debated.

In addition to Brown, another person who has announced his intention to join the competition for the position of IMF Managing Director is Agustín Carstens, President of the Central Bank of Mexico, who is Brown's main competitor.

It is worth mentioning that Christine Lagarde, French Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, who took over this position in the original time and space, did not join the competition this time.

The reasons behind this are quite complicated, but the main reason is that Lagarde did not receive the support of the United States as in her previous life...

Before the International Monetary Fund's executive board meeting on the 28th, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner publicly expressed his support for Brown, leading the outside world to conclude that the former British Prime Minister, who has the support of the United States, is destined to become the new president.

According to Reuters, this selection process for the IMF's new president is the most competitive since its inception.

After the IMF confirmed its new managing director, Brown issued a statement saying:

“I am deeply honored by the confidence that the Executive Board has placed in me, and I will work hard for all members of the IMF…”

British Prime Minister Cameron also called Brown to congratulate him.

Cameron's spokesman said in an interview:
Brown's appointment as IMF managing director is a victory for Britain as well as Europe.

It is worth mentioning that together with Brown's appointment as president, the appointment of the IMF's first deputy managing director was also announced. The current IMF First Deputy Managing Director Lipsky will retire on August 8. He said he will not re-elect his post and will be succeeded by Zhu Min, former deputy governor of the China Central Bank and current special adviser to the IMF president.

This appointment also reflects the increasing voice of emerging countries, including China, in the IMF.

In this regard, Brown said in an exclusive interview on June 6:
"Huaxia's share in the International Monetary Fund will continue to increase in the future. We can see that Asia was the first to recover from the previous economic crisis, which also reflects the economic vitality of Asia. It will be the most active region in the global economy in the future."

Many people believe that Brown will face many challenges during his five-year term as president, the most urgent of which is to launch new aid measures for Greece and deal with the European debt crisis.

Just now, on June 6, the five-year austerity plan proposed by Greek Prime Minister Papandreou won a majority vote in parliament, clearing a major obstacle to obtaining international financing and avoiding default.

The Greek parliament voted 155 to 138 in favor of the plan.

Reducing spending and increasing taxes are the prerequisites put forward by European countries and the IMF for providing aid to Greece.

Now, the focus turns to the second round of voting to be held on the 29th.

The vote was mainly aimed at approving the implementation of the austerity plan.

Against the backdrop of positive results in the first round of voting, the second round of voting is expected to go smoothly.

While Papandreou is running forward, German Finance Ministry officials will meet with the country's banking and insurance industry leaders on Wednesday to discuss Germany's role in Greece's rescue based on the new rescue plan proposed by France.

Although Greek demonstrators are protesting against austerity measures, Lagarde still called on Greece to pass a new austerity plan.

In an interview on the 29th, Brown said:

"In my exchanges with European leaders, I will insist on necessary fairness and will not back down in the face of toughness..."

In this interview, he showed a tough attitude towards Greece: "If difficult choices must be made, I will not be merciful. In order to ensure the sustainable development of public finances and to restore the country's competitiveness, the Greek authorities must make difficult but necessary adjustments. There is no other choice."

……

As soon as Brown was elected as the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Barron called him to congratulate him.

At this time, he had left London and arrived at the Borromean Islands in Italy...

This is the traditional territory of the Borromeo family. This is not the first time that Barron has come here. This time he came here because Beatrice Borromeo was on vacation. She returned to Europe from New York and happened to come back here with Barron.

When Barron arrived here, in order to show respect, the most beautiful "Beautiful Island" in the Borromeo Islands suspended its opening to the public and was specially used to welcome him.

Speaking of which, among the four sisters of the Borromeo family, although the other sisters all married well, Beatrice's eldest sister married an Italian count, who is also the chairman of API Petroleum Group; the second sister married the chairman of Fiat Group; the third sister married a German prince...

It can be said that each of them has an extraordinary status, but I am afraid that the combined wealth of these people is not as good as Barron. Well, he is also a British duke...

Therefore, although Barron and Beatrice have not yet made their relationship public, they were still warmly received when they came to the Borromean family this time.

Of course, Barron had no shortage of topics to talk about with them, whether it was his aristocratic status or the oil, energy and automobile-related industries he owned, he could discuss them with other sons-in-law of the Borromeo family.

"I heard that United Energy Group is planning to acquire shares of Enel?"

Ugo Brascetti Peretti, Beatrice's brother-in-law and chairman of Italy's API oil group, brought up the subject during his conversation with Barron.

"Yes, they are negotiating with the German Rhein Energy Group, but no agreement has been reached yet, mainly on the price..."

Enel SpA is Italy's largest power group, and British Power Distribution, a subsidiary of United Energy Group, intends to enter the Italian market by acquiring shares in the company.

The most important thing is that if the acquisition is completed, then their shares in Enel will be second only to the government's shareholding...

The reason why Rhein Energy is willing to sell its shares in Enel is also related to their previous acquisition intention.

In 2007, RWE joined the competition to acquire Endesa Electricity, Spain's largest power company. At that time, they defeated Spain's local competitor, Natural Gas, with a bid of more than 290 billion euros.

However, at this time, because the Spanish government did not want the country's largest power company to fall into the hands of foreign companies, it imposed certain restrictions on the conditions. Then Rhein Energy Group's competitor appeared. It was the Italian National Electricity Company and the Spanish infrastructure company Acciona that jointly acquired Endesa Power and pushed the acquisition price to more than 400 billion euros.

In order to prevent Enel from participating in the bidding, Rhein Energy Group increased its stake in Enel to 32% of the shares. This shareholding ratio was only 0.4% lower than that of the Italian government, which controlled Enel.

But in the end, their actions did not prevent Rhein Energy Group from failing to acquire Spanish power company Endesa...

Therefore, their high stake in Enel is not that meaningful to RheinEnergy now - not to mention that RheinEnergy also recently hopes to compete with Angola in the country's natural gas pipeline network, which requires capital investment, so it began to consider selling part of Enel.

This is also an opportunity for United Energy Group to enter the Italian market, so they are preparing to take over the shares of Italian National Electricity Company held by Rhein Energy Group.

(End of this chapter)