Chapter 785: The bank's takeover was blocked

The more Jacob Rothschild listened, the more sullen his face became, but his mind kept on reasoning.

After a long while, he shook his head and said, 'We missed the best opportunity to control him, unless he makes a big mistake later or we create a trap to lure him in.'

'His ability to defend himself will be at its strongest until his funds are exhausted.'

Evelyn Jacob nodded in agreement: 'That's right, so are we going to continue looking for opportunities?'

Without hesitation, Jacob Rothschild nodded: 'Of course, it's rare to find someone like this, so we can't give up easily.'

'Isn't his Polaris Capital company in the process of acquiring companies in the United States? It seems to have its sights set on Abbott, a company with a market value of 2.8 billion US dollars. If he wants to acquire it, it will cost at least 3 billion US dollars.'

'We don't know his capital situation, but a conservative estimate is 6 billion U.S. dollars. According to his habits, he doesn't like leveraged buyouts. If he pays for the entire deal with his own money, just the acquisition of Abbott will use up half of his capital!'

'If there are a few more like this, then his funds will be depleted and his threat will be reduced.'

Evelyn Rothschild smiled and said, 'According to his current trend, he will definitely attract the attention of those American consortia. A yellow man dares to massively grab the cake in the United States. I believe those two traitors will not tolerate it.'

'If those two traitors can get the European consortium families to join forces against us, we can certainly get him to create trouble for them. If he wins, that's even better, because it will cause chaos within the United States. Of course, the probability of him winning is almost zero, and at that time, we will lend him a helping hand again. I believe he won't refuse.'

The two men had good intentions, but they didn't know that Xia Yu wasn't someone who just sat around doing nothing. Just the two funds, Tiger Fund and Bridgewater Fund, were very secretive, and Xia Yu tried not to go there if he could avoid it. Even if he did go, he was very careful, so the Rothschild family had never discovered his connection to them.

As for the amount of Xia Yu's capital, they had underestimated it even further.

Not to mention them, no one in the world would believe that Xia Yu could have more than 20 billion US dollars in liquid capital.

Jacob Rothschild smiled and said, 'Evelyn, this plan is quite complicated. We will refine it in due course. Before that, we must first disrupt his plans. We can't wait any longer, even if it causes him to resent us.'

'The capital pyramid in the United States is already taking shape. As long as he wants to establish himself in the United States, the higher he goes, the more attention he will attract, and conflict with the old American conglomerates is inevitable.'

'He is a smart man, and smart people naturally know how to choose between emotions and interests. On the verge of falling into the abyss, even if he hates us, he will hide his emotions and beg us to save him!'

Evelyn Rothschild nodded in agreement, and after thinking for a moment, asked, 'If we want to disrupt his plans, there are three places in the UK where we can do it: the Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Chartered Bank, and Jaguar Cars. Which one should we go after? Or should we go after all three?'

Jacob Rothschild thought about it for a while, and directly ruled out Jaguar Cars: 'We can't stop Jaguar Cars from doing anything, and now that the Leland Motors Group has been acquired, and Sir William Lyons has been persuaded by the Duke of Howard, our chances of stopping it are too slim.'

After saying this, he paused for a moment, and then said, 'Moreover, this acquisition was approved by Lady Margaret, and the parliament has already passed it. The Duke of Howard is also a shareholder of the Rolls-Royce Motors Group, so there is no point in offending either of them.'

Although the Rothschild family is at the top of British capital, in reality they are under a lot of pressure.

Although the Rothschild family is also aristocratic, they only own the title of a baron at the lowest level and are not members of the ancient aristocratic alliance. Coupled with the actions of the Rothschild family at the peak of their power, the ancient British families are very wary of the Rothschild family.

Although the Rothschild family has cooperated with some large families, it is limited to business only, and there is more competition and confrontation.

In the modern business environment, cooperation and competition coexist, and covert clashes never cease.

The Howard family is one of the top British ducal families, with great strength and at the top of the ancient aristocratic alliance. Although the Rothschild family is not afraid of the Howard family, there is really no need to offend them for no reason.

Evelyn Rothschild nodded and said with a smile, 'He is really very impressive. During the election campaign, he gained the friendship of Lady Margaret and also won the approval of the Duke of Howard.'

Jacob Rothschild nodded slightly, and said with emotion, 'So he has an unusual degree of maturity. Even if he were an elite member of a large family fully cultivated, he simply could not have reached this level at this age.'

After his emotion, Jacob Rothschild continued with business: 'Okay, let's get down to business.'

'The Bright Foundation is registered in the UK. The Banking Act introduced last year was unable to prevent it from acquiring the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered Bank. However, both banks have the right to issue banknotes, and the Bank of England has the right to intervene. They have already smoothed over their relationships and secretly acquired a large number of shares. We must stop them if we want to succeed in one go!'

The Banking Act mentioned by Jacob Rothschild is called the Banking Act 1979. The enactment of this law can be said to be an important turning point in the history of financial regulation in the UK, and it is the first complete banking law in the UK.

The reason for enacting such a banking law is that between 1973 and 1975, the financial crisis broke out, which dealt a heavy blow to the UK financial industry. Among other things, foreign banks aggressively acquired UK banks, so the UK had to step in to protect its own banks and strengthen banking supervision.

Fortunately, this was only the first complete banking law. If the UK had passed the Banking Act 1987 in 1987, it would have stipulated that 'any investor intending to acquire more than 15% of the equity of a UK bank must obtain the approval of the Bank of England'.

By that time, Guangming Fund would not have been able to acquire banks as recklessly as it did now.

That said, the banks acquired by Guangming Fund are also special. Standard Chartered Bank is better, as it has the right to issue Hong Kong dollars, which is less important.

But the Royal Bank of Scotland has the right to issue pounds, and the Bank of England can then intervene with justification. Whether it is willing to intervene or not depends on the strength and connections of the acquirer.

George Berkeley had already done his best to smooth things over, and Elena had also used the Howard family's connections, so there was already very little risk.

But now if the Rothschild family wanted to get in the way, it would be a piece of cake.

However, Evelyn Rothschild did not agree with Jacob Rothschild's idea of stopping.

He shook his head and questioned, 'Jacob, I don't think we need to stop it at the beginning. This is a good opportunity to infiltrate his business. If he is willing to accept it, then we can take the next step and test it.'

Jacob Rothschild was stunned and instantly understood his cousin Evelyn Rothschild's plan. He nodded and said, 'Your idea is better. Now he has a fatal grip on the two banks, but we are not afraid of the risk. We can rush to acquire a portion of the equity and become his partner.'

'But we also need to show our strength.'

'Standard Chartered Bank's shares have now been almost entirely acquired by Bright Fund, and it must have exceeded the absolute control line. We can buy as many as we can, and I believe that as long as he is sensible, he will not compete with us for capital injection.'

'For RBS, we'll take at least 40% of the shares. We'll see what he chooses to do and test his attitude!'

'If he doesn't know how to share with us, then let his takeover fail again!'

...

That day, Jacob Rothschild and Evelyn Rothschild conferred for several hours, perfecting the plan down to the finest detail.

That afternoon, the Rothschild family moved.

The top management of Barclays Bank, the UK's largest bank, approached the shareholders of RBS and Standard Chartered Bank.

Of the two options, Bright Funds and Barclays Bank, there was no doubt that all the shareholders who had not sold their shares had chosen Barclays Bank.

George Berkeley, who had been going well, immediately realised that something must have gone wrong after being rejected a few times.

When he made some inquiries, the news he got made his face turn pale. Not daring to take any chances, he immediately called Xia Yu across the ocean.