Chapter 147 Family Office

It's just that apart from making dumplings, something seems to be missing…

That is the Spring Festival Gala that most Chinese families watch on New Year's Eve. Baron also thought that SDTV could contact China's CCTV. If the copyright fee required by the other party is not high, then they can also broadcast their Spring Festival Gala every year during the Spring Festival.

There are currently about 400,000 Chinese people in the whole of Britain, and 150,000 in London alone.

This group of people is not small at all.

"It's quite late. You can stay here tonight, Laura."

It was almost half past eight when they finished their meal, Barron said to Wang Wanting.

"ah?!"

"Well, I mean I have plenty of guest rooms here, and we have to go to work early tomorrow morning, so you don't have to go home."

After hearing Barron's explanation, the blush on Wang Wanting's face did not fade away, but an ambiguous emotion flashed across her eyes.

…

On February 1, 2003, the American space shuttle Columbia exploded over Texas while returning to Earth, killing all seven astronauts on board.

On February 5, U.S. troops deployed in areas surrounding Iraq entered attack positions. At this time, the number of U.S. troops stationed on the border between Kuwait and Iraq had reached 35,000. The United States had three aircraft carrier battle groups in position to strike Iraq, and the fourth aircraft carrier battle group will also arrive at the designated waters.

On February 10, France, Belgium and Germany formally vetoed NATO's military deployment to increase Turkey's defense before the Iraq War at NATO headquarters in Brussels, further deepening NATO's divisions on the Iraq issue.

It can be said that in the current NATO, although the United States is the "leader", the European Union has not yet followed its lead, especially on the issue of Iraq. Germany and France are opposed to the use of force against Iraq - this is also because Iraq's relationship with the European Union is still good. Many of their weapons are imported from France. France has always been one of the more "rebellious" ones in NATO.

It was also because before, the European Union announced the launch of the euro when it was at its peak, and Iraq was sanctioned by the United States, which cut off its channel for dollar settlement. Therefore, Saddam placed his bets on the euro and could not wait to announce that Iraq's oil transactions would be settled in euros.

As a result, a series of demonstration effects occurred. Countries such as Iran, Russia, and Venezuela announced that their own oil settlements would also be settled in euros. Such behavior is naturally intolerable to the United States.

Therefore, in the final analysis, the main reason why the United States chose to use force against Iraq was probably to "kill the chicken to scare the monkey". By defeating Iraq, it would let other countries that followed suit see what the consequences would be, and it would also hit the EU's euro plan. Iraq's oil was just their "incidental" benefit.

On February 14, the Chairman of the UN Monitoring and Verification Commission and the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency made a second-phase report on the inspection of Iraq at a case meeting, claiming that so far the weapons inspection team had not found any prohibited weapons in Iraq, and only found a small amount of "chemicals that should be disclosed and destroyed." He said that "there is no evidence that Iraq is developing nuclear weapons."

On February 15, the largest anti-war march since the Vietnam War broke out around the world. Nearly 10 million peace-loving people held anti-war marches simultaneously in about 600 cities around the world to oppose the US attempt to launch a war against Iraq.

In London, more than 500,000 people took to the streets to protest against the US and Britain's preparations for a military strike on Iraq.

Barron's SDTV broadcast and reported the anti-war march live, and the Independent Newspapers also published special reports and comments in The Independent and London Evening Standard.

Afterwards, a rather secretive conversation took place in a house next to Barron's residence. The two parties in the conversation were Tim Allan, a liaison adviser from the Prime Minister's Office at 10 Downing Street, and Annabella Nolan, a public relations adviser from the Cavendish Office.

Barron is also in the recently established family office - Cavendish Family Office, which includes public relations as well as talents in finance, law, investment and intelligence, and will be an institution specifically responsible for Barron personally.

For example, Nigel Inkster, the head of the previously formed intelligence team, became the intelligence consultant of the Cavendish family office.

Annabella Nolan is a professional public relations expert and has deep roots with the Devonshire family. She was hired by Barron as a public relations consultant for the Cavendish Family Office.

In late February, a team commissioned by DS Capital, with participation from Goldman Sachs and Barclays Bank, officially began contacting O2 to negotiate the acquisition of the company.

Their first offer for O2 was £4.5 billion to acquire all of its businesses, including mobile communications and personal broadband.

This news immediately became the most watched merger and acquisition event in the UK. After all, DS Capital was not well-known before, and O2 is one of the top telecommunications companies in the UK. Many reports doubted whether DS Capital had the strength to acquire O2, and some even directly mocked its "wishful thinking."

However, when the media revealed that the owner of DS Capital was the youngest duke in England, the Duke of Devonshire, Barron Cavendish's name once again made headlines in many newspapers.

This young man, who just inherited the dukedom and family business last year, is now preparing to buy O2, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the UK. No matter which point, it is easy to attract attention.

"The board of O2 was quite interested in our all-cash offer, but the price was quite different. They were willing to sell O2, but the price they offered was as high as £6.5 billion."

Amber Sheehan is the general manager of DS Industrial Investment Company, responsible for connecting with the acquisition team and carrying out the acquisition of O2.

It can be said that he is very excited about this large-scale acquisition by DS Capital. The final acquisition price is likely to exceed 5 billion pounds. There are not many opportunities to be directly responsible for such an acquisition. Going back to a year ago, he would never have thought that he would be able to handle an acquisition of this scale.

"Our acquisition was not without resistance. After the news of our acquisition was announced, Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange all announced that they were ready to join the acquisition of O2, which may have raised our acquisition price."

After hearing what Amber said, Barron thought for a while and said:

"Don't even think about Vodafone. They want to acquire O2, but there is no way they can pass the antitrust investigation. As for T-Mobile and Orange, they won't stand a chance either. However, the board of O2 will definitely not give up the idea of ​​raising the price based on this news."

"Indeed, although their asking price of 6.5 billion pounds can certainly be lowered, the final transaction price will probably not be less than 5.5 billion pounds!"

Barron had already anticipated Amber's concerns.

However, it is still a good deal to acquire O2 now.

Currently, O2's main business is still in the UK, but it has plans to enter the French and German markets. It's just that many people are not optimistic about it.

But in Baron's previous life, in 2005, when Telefónica acquired O2, they already had subnets and a large number of users in Britain, France and Germany, and their development was very smooth. At that time, Telefónica offered a premium of 22% of its market value, spending a full 17.7 billion euros to buy the company.