Chapter 117 Negotiation Progress

"Thank you, Your Highness, the Duke. This time, you don't need to..."

Seeing Wang Wanting's expression, Barron realized that there must be a story behind this, but since the other party was not prepared to tell it, he did not continue asking.

Before leaving Hangzhou, Barron told Amber that when discussing financing with Alibaba, he could ask SoftBank whether it had any intention of selling Alibaba shares, and they could buy its shares according to the price of this financing.

Speaking of which, this is also the most likely time to buy Alibaba shares from Sun Zhengyi. The reason has been mentioned before. Last year, Boss Ma wanted to make additional investments, but was rejected by SoftBank. It was not until 2004, after their business improved, that they successfully started the next round of financing.

Moreover, SoftBank invested in many projects in China at one time, with investments of almost 20 million US dollars each. It can be said that due to the Internet winter, the situation of these investments was not very good at the time. If there was a project that could make a profit and successfully exit the investment, Sun Zhengyi would probably agree.

In fact, most of Sun Zhengyi's reputation as an investment "genius" was hyped up after the rise of Alibaba. You know, the profits from the investment in Alibaba accounted for as much as 80% of all SoftBank's investment profits. It can be said that Alibaba's success is very important not only to Boss Ma, but also to Sun Zhengyi.

Otherwise, after the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, it is not certain whether he could use his fame to obtain the $50 billion in funds withdrawn from the United States by the Middle Eastern oil tycoons.

Next, Barron set off back to London. All the matters concerning China had been handed over, and the rest could be left to Abel Sheehan.

…

This trip to China cost a lot of money - Boss Ma needed 20 million US dollars in funds, plus the purchase of Penguin shares, which would cost nearly 53 million pounds.

Even more if SoftBank agrees to sell its Alibaba shares.

Fortunately, the previous short-selling of London copper earned more than 200 million pounds in profits, of which 100 million pounds were used to go long on copper prices.

By October, international copper prices rose again, thanks to expectations of war and the expansion of demand for raw materials in the Chinese market.

The price of copper in London began to rise slowly from less than 1,000 pounds per ton to around 1,150 pounds.

At that time, they used a relatively conservative 20% margin, which is about five times the leverage.

Adding the initial margin of 33 million pounds for shorting London copper, we continue to go long with a margin of 8%.

Adding the two together, the profits obtained are enough to pay for China's investment this time.

Of course, he knew that the price of London copper would continue to rise in the future, so he would not really close all of his positions in London copper. He would only close a part of it to the extent that it was sufficient to pay for these funds.

Although according to the memory of his previous life, Barron now holds shares in Alibaba and Penguin, two future giants. Even if he does nothing and waits for more than ten years, it will be enough to become the world's richest man.

But Barron's goal is naturally not limited to this. And then again, the most dangerous thing is that if you don't have the corresponding strength, how can the other party allow you to occupy such high-quality assets in the future capital game?

Even if Penguin and Alibaba are still weak at this time, if Barron keeps the current situation and cannot provide them with sufficient resources, I am afraid they will be replaced by new investors introduced by him.

Therefore, Barron still needs to continue to strengthen himself.

After returning to London, he and Bonnie had a lively study session... and then Barron returned to Chatsworth House.

Because of the need to film the TV series "Downton Abbey", Chatsworth House has begun large-scale renovations at this time, but the work is currently mainly focused on the interiors of some rooms.

In addition to the overall exterior scenes and gardens, the filming of this TV series actually only used less than a quarter of the rooms. Therefore, the renovation at this time started from the rooms other than those used for filming and where Barron and others lived.

Inside the manor, Barron met Fergal Hayden, the manager of Summit Media, who was discussing the filming of "Downton Abbey" with producer Julian.

"How long will it take to finish filming this TV series?"

After hearing Barron's question, Julian told him:

"The current filming is going very smoothly, so we expect to finish the first season within two months, but we will continue with the second season. It is estimated that it will take about three and a half months to complete the production of the first two seasons."

Well, it seems that "Downton Abbey" will not be able to be broadcast this year. Summit Media and ITV have signed a contract for the broadcast time from 10pm to 11pm until the end of the year, and they will re-tender the broadcast time at that time.

However, if there is progress in the negotiations with ITV and OFCOM and they can get the rights to digital terrestrial television, Summit Media will give up the bid for the broadcast time and focus on operating its own TV channel.

Therefore, after talking with Julian, Barron called Summit Media's manager Fergal to his study alone:

​​"Mr. Hayden, how are the negotiations with ITV Digital going?"

"There has been no significant progress in the negotiations on ITV Digital's three terrestrial digital TV licenses, mainly because the BBC and OFCOM have difficulty reaching an agreement..."

The so-called OFCOM, whose full name is the British Communications Authority, is an agency specifically responsible for the issuance of television program licenses and the management and review of television programs.

At present, the negotiations are mainly focused on OFCOM's requirements for the three terrestrial digital television licenses owned by ITV Digital, including the operating methods of digital TV channels and the funds required for investment.

As for the BBC, they still hope to invest as little as possible in terrestrial satellite TV and hope to receive corresponding subsidies from the government.

In fact, as a public television station, the BBC itself is able to receive some subsidies from the government every year. These subsidies come from direct grants from relevant government departments and the return of part of the funds they have submitted.

However, if they take over the terrestrial digital television license now, they will need to spend a considerable amount of extra money on promotion and construction. Although the BBC has participated in the bidding for the license, it still does not want to pay too much extra.

All of this starts with Britain's original terrestrial digital television plan.

To put it simply, at the end of 1997, Britain issued licenses for six digital terrestrial television multicast channels. These six multicast channels were named mux1, mux2, muxA, muxB, muxC, and mux D.

Three of the six multicast channels (mux1, mux2, muxA) were allocated to the existing analog terrestrial television operators at the time, mainly for digital simulcasting of their existing analog channels and for the development of new digital services.

This includes the BBC getting mux1, ITV and Channel 4 getting mux2, and Channel 5 and S4C getting muxA.

The licenses for the other three multicast channels (muxB, mux C, mux D) were issued through auction.

At that time, Granada Television, Carlton Television and Sky Television jointly bid for the three licenses and established ON Digital - but BSkyB withdrew before the broadcast.

Since the UK is developing terrestrial digital television in the hope of competing with Sky TV, which has a dominant position in satellite TV, it will naturally not allow Sky TV to join the terrestrial digital television plan.

They are also afraid that their own TV station is too useless and they will no longer be able to compete with Sky TV and then be overtaken by it, which would be very embarrassing.

From obtaining the license to broadcasting, OFCOM gave ON Digital one year to prepare.

On November 15, 1998, ON Digital officially went on air, launching 18 channels at once. This was the world's first digital terrestrial television service.

In 2000, ON Digital and SDN launched a pay-per-use service, ONrequest.

However, ON Digital's operation has not been very successful. From the day it was launched, ONdigital has been burning money:

On the one hand, competition from digital satellite TV is very fierce. Sky Digital, the digital satellite TV launched by BSkyB after its withdrawal from ON Digital, has become a strong competitor of ON Digital.

Sky Digital's digital satellite TV provides a free satellite receiving device Digibox, which is pre-installed with about 200 channels, but the subscription fee is the same as ON Digital, and ON Digital's original subscription fee was priced to compete with Sky's 20 analog satellite channels.

In this way, they are at a disadvantage in the competition for users!