Rebirth of England.

Chapter 922 Not Impossible

"It seems that Macna III has been in a bit of a mess lately... Your Highness."

"Facilitating Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox could help him recover from his decline."

While in New York, Barron also took time to meet with Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase.

What Jamie Dimon mentioned was the loss of Vanguard Group in the Gold Trust ETF...

In addition to his defeat in the initial confrontation with the Sinclair Group, McKenna III was criticized a lot on the board of directors of the Vanguard Group...and this was because the representatives of the DS Group on its board of directors did not openly attack McKenna III.

However, if Disney can successfully acquire 21st Century Fox, then at least McKenna III can keep his position.

Currently, Vanguard Group has withdrawn a large number of its gold trust ETFs, which means that they finally chose to admit defeat rather than engage in a head-on confrontation with the short sellers on the international gold price - the funds and investment companies controlled by Baron are a major force in this regard.

After all, Vanguard Group is not stupid. Just recently, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted at a business gathering that it is close to time to reduce the scale of "quantitative easing policy."

His remarks have caused many investors to become pessimistic about some securities, stock markets and gold prices.

At a time like this, Vanguard Group will naturally not go against the trend.

Of course, Barron knows that it may take until the end of this year for the United States to really start taking action to reduce the scale of bond purchases in its "quantitative easing program."

But this is how the market works. Public sentiment will influence the balance of power between bulls and bears. Even if there is no concrete action yet, when such expectations are likely to occur, the market will have already begun to react to it.

"What do you think of Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox? Your Highness..."

"It can only be said that Murdoch is old, and his children do not have enough talent to inherit his media empire. Therefore, the sale of 21st Century Fox is not only forced by the major shareholders, but also a last resort for him. Otherwise, when he can no longer control the situation, the consequences of his industries will be even worse..."

Although Barron owns Marvel-MGM Group, one of Hollywood's leading production companies, it can be said that it is a competitor of Disney and 20th Century Fox.

After Disney acquires 21st Century Fox, including 20th Century Fox Film, its scale will be even larger. From a competitive perspective, this is not a good thing for Marvel-MGM Pictures...

However, Barron also understood that even if he was willing to pay more, he might not be able to buy 21st Century Fox.

Yes, this is not just a matter of money, but also an integration of the industries controlled by some behind-the-scenes capital.

For example, Vanguard Group, which has an active attitude in this acquisition, is the largest shareholder of both Disney and 20th Century Fox.

It is also worth mentioning that ETF funds under JPMorgan Chase and Standard Chartered-Merrill Lynch also hold some shares of the two companies, but their number is completely incomparable to that of Vanguard Group, and even less than that of BlackRock Group...

In this case, the only thing Barron can do is to use this opportunity to get something that he is more interested in.

For example, it allowed Sinclair Group to acquire Forum Media Group and at the same time drove Vanguard Group out of the company.

For example... "I heard that in addition to Forum Media Group, Disney is also not interested in Sky TV and is looking for a buyer for it?"

Before this, Murdoch's News Corporation had always been the largest shareholder in Sky TV in the UK. Later, after 21st Century Fox was spun off from News Corporation, the shares in Sky TV belonged to 21st Century Fox. Murdoch had always intended to acquire Sky TV as a whole and had been negotiating with the British side for a long time.

However, with the outbreak of the "phone-hacking scandal", he had to postpone the acquisition of Sky TV.

Of course, after acquiring ITV, Barron's SEM Group took the opportunity after the reform of the Premier League broadcasting rights to seize the broadcasting rights for relatively better events in the Premier League, causing Sky TV's market share in the UK to begin to decline.

In the end, Murdoch completed the overall acquisition of Sky TV through 21st Century Fox.

Hearing what Barron said, Jamie Dimon looked at him deeply and said with a smile:

"Are you interested in Sky TV?"

This time, Disney acquired the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox. As for Sky TV...

"I heard that Comcast offered Murdoch $280 billion to acquire Sky TV as a whole. This offer is a big premium compared to the price Murdoch paid for Sky TV before."

Before completing the overall acquisition of Sky TV, Murdoch owned 39% of Sky TV.

He acquired the remaining 61% of Sky TV shares for US$150 billion more than a year ago. Based on this calculation, the overall consideration for Sky TV at that time was around US$246 billion.

Now Comcast is willing to pay $280 billion to acquire Sky TV, which is a premium of more than 13.8% compared to the price more than a year ago.

After all, Sky TV is no longer the king of TV stations with the most paying subscribers in the UK...

After many setbacks, Sky TV's overall performance can only be said to be at the bottom among the three major TV stations BBC, ITV and BSkyB...

"I'm afraid that's almost impossible..."

Barron shook his head and said:
"After all, the British government will not allow me to own both ITV and Sky TV... But if other competitors emerge, it will be very interesting, right?"

Just as Barron said, no matter what, the British government would not want to see him take over both ITV and Sky TV at the same time. That would almost mean that he has formed a near monopoly in the field of television media, and then Barron's influence on television media would be unprecedented.

At least on the surface, this seems impossible.

Of course, what if it was a fight among American capital over Sky TV?
Since Sky TV could be sold to Comcast, it could also be sold to other American companies, such as...IC Capital.

As for whether Murdoch is willing to give IC Capital a chance...

After all, Murdoch is 82 years old and his health is not good. He has not divorced Wendi Deng yet. Ivanta, who manages IC Capital, is a very good friend of Wendi.

(End of this chapter)