Chapter 336 London Stock Exchange Changes Ownership

"Your Highness, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Johnson have both arrived at the cigar room..."

  After knocking on the door, Barron heard Dylan Ozdemi's cold voice and replied,

  "Okay, got it."

  "Are you leaving? Your Highness..."

  I have to say that Rosie Huntington is indeed worthy of being a future supermodel. Her proud figure, even when she is naked, is eye-catching.

  "Yes, I'll have someone take you back later."

  The last time Rosie Huntington came here with the Duke of Westminster and the Crown Prince, she was selected by Barron and received corresponding resources. As a new model, she appeared on fashion magazines such as Teen Vogue and ELLE Girl.

  After Barron acquired the Gucci Group, his resources in the fashion industry also began to become richer...

  This time, he still called the woman over.

  "I'm waiting for you..."

  After giving the young Duke a sweet kiss, Rosie Huntington spoke tenderly.

  …

  On November 3, at 3 p.m. American time, Bush Jr. and his wife Laura delivered a speech at the Reagan Center in Washington, announcing his victory in the re-election campaign.

  Two days later, Barron received news that Bush Jr. had again invited him to attend the New Year's Eve banquet at the White House.

  As early as last year, Barron received such an invitation, but he declined it at that time.

  Now, it is obvious that after being re-elected, Bush Jr. will first need to give his "financial backers" some reassurance, and he will definitely meet with Barron to discuss matters at that time.

  So he replied that he was honored to receive the invitation and would attend as scheduled.

  At the same time, Barron also gave instructions to the Protector Military Services Company to continue to expand their armed personnel... uh, the size of their security personnel, and strive to increase the number of employees in Iraq to more than 4,000 by the end of the year.

  "How's the Athena Fund going?"

  "We have already completed the distribution of funds and interest for matured fund products, including funds from Stuart Mining Group and ABF's employee pension funds, which have chosen to continue purchasing and have set the maturity period to more than two years..."

  The Athena Fund is a quantitative investment fund that began operating last year. This fund conducts quantitative trading based on Barron's understanding of the general trend of the securities market, using data models and computers to automatically place orders.

  In the beginning, although Barron attracted a lot of investment for the Athena Fund, because this is still a relatively cutting-edge investment method and DS Capital had no relevant performance before, even in the beginning, Barron gave an agreement to protect the principal, and most of the initial yields were higher than the current financial products, but most of these funds chose a more conservative 1-year lock-up period investment, and now, they have all expired one after another.  

  Over the past year, the Athena Fund's data model has been continuously improved, and its stability and accuracy have been significantly improved compared to the initial stage.

  In addition, with Baron's own grasp of the trend of the entire cycle, the average return rate of funds in the first year reached more than 55%.

  This initial maturity of more than 1 billion US dollars, after delivering fixed returns to users, also brought DS Investment Company more than 400 million US dollars in revenue. Of course, after deducting various operating costs, the net income was also more than 350 million US dollars.

  After the great success of the first investment cycle, the investors gradually increased the amount of funds they purchased for this product, and many of them no longer chose a one-year term, but a longer term. After all, the longer the lock-up period, the higher the fixed income that can be obtained...

  Currently, the total amount of funds in the Athena Fund has exceeded US$3 billion, and the expected return next year will be much higher than this year. This is a very good expectation for DS Investment Company. After all, the risk of the Athena Fund is lower and more stable than that of the Mars Fund, which is determined by the characteristics of quantitative trading.

  …

  As of the end of October, the London Stock Exchange had not found any other buyer willing to accept the acquisition price of 1.5 billion pounds. Ultimately, without further review of the British government's acquisition offer for Global Industrial Investment Fund, the London Stock Exchange agreed to the acquisition price of 50% premium for GII Fund.

  In this regard, after holding more than 35% of the shares of the London Stock Exchange, the GII Fund will acquire the remaining less than 65% of the London Stock Exchange shares at an overall valuation of 1.5 billion pounds, thereby privatizing the oldest stock exchange in the UK and even the world, and completing its 100% acquisition.

  "We will continue to keep the London Stock Exchange under the supervision of relevant British institutions and invest more funds to upgrade its various technologies so that this oldest stock exchange will gain a leading position in future competition."

  After the acquisition was completed, GII Fund CEO Finn Hudson told the media.

  In addition to Barron's, the Saudi Public Investment Fund and Kuwait Investment Authority were even more excited about the GII Fund's completion of the acquisition of the London Stock Exchange.

  After all, the London Stock Exchange has the largest number of oil and energy listed companies in the world, including energy giants such as British Petroleum (BP) and Royal Dutch Shell, which are all listed on the London Stock Exchange. Therefore, it can be said that the London Stock Exchange has a lot of relevant data, which is of great significance to these wealthy Middle Eastern countries that mainly export oil.

  This is also the reason why the Qatar Investment Authority later invested heavily in the London Stock Exchange. However, although they are the main investors of the GII Fund, according to the original agreement, the Saudi Public Investment Fund and the Kuwait Investment Authority only have the final right to profit dividends and have no right to interfere with the companies acquired by the GII Fund...

  Otherwise, the British side would not have said that it "remained neutral" and did not interfere too much in the GII Fund's acquisition of the London Stock Exchange.

  After completing the acquisition of the London Stock Exchange, the GII Fund did not immediately make too many adjustments to the management of the London Stock Exchange. Clara Voss still served as the CEO of the London Stock Exchange, but two management members were replaced.

  The reason for this, of course, was that after Clara Firth saw that it was difficult to stop the GII Fund's acquisition of the London Stock Exchange, she "jumped ship" in time and pledged her loyalty to Barron.

  The management they replaced were also the two who had the toughest attitude towards the acquisition of GII Fund at that time...

  Anyway, for Barron, there is no need to be too urgent to take control of the London Stock Exchange. It can be done step by step. This will also avoid turmoil in the London Stock Exchange and avoid causing dissatisfaction from the government.