Chapter 240: Always Leading

 Mohammed bin Salman is the youngest of the three Saudi princes who came to the party for the Duke of Westminster. He is only 19 years old and came with his two older brothers.

  The reason why Barron paid special attention to him was that this young man in front of him would later become the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Unlike other crown princes, he still held power in Saudi Arabia and was called the "Arab Tyrant" because of his radical policies after he took power in Saudi Arabia.

  In Barron's previous life, Mohammed bin Salman became the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, which also caused an uproar at the time.

  Why?

  As mentioned earlier, Saudi Arabia's founding monarch, Abdullah Aziz ibn Saud, had 58 sons. However, before Mohammed bin Salman became the crown prince, the succession to the Saudi throne followed the principle of "the eldest brother succeeds the younger brother."

  The current Saudi King is Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. He is the sixth son of the founding monarch Abdullah and the fifth Saudi monarch. The four kings before him, except the founding monarch Abdullah, were all Fahd's brothers, namely Abdullah's second son, fourth son and fifth son.

  As can be seen from Mohammed bin Salman's name, his father's name is Salman. Yes, Salman is the 25th son of Abdullah, the founding monarch of Saudi Arabia. In the original time and space, it was in 2015 that he succeeded his brother Abdullah (who has the same name as the founding monarch, which is very common in Arab countries) - the 10th son of the founding monarch Abdullah - and became the seventh king of Saudi Arabia.

  The situation in Saudi Arabia where the elder brother passes the throne to his younger brother is not unique. This kind of inheritance of the throne is very common among nomadic peoples - Saudi Arabia was originally composed of various tribes and was originally a nomadic people. For example, the ancient Huns, Mongols and other tribes often inherited the throne in this way.

  The reason for this is that agricultural feudal dynasties often have stable ruling structures, and therefore pay more attention to the inheritance of bloodlines, from father to son. Even if the new monarch is young, he often has loyal ministers to assist him.

  It is different for nomadic peoples. Their populations move more frequently, and they often respect the strong. Their leaders need to have rich ruling experience. If a young ruler appears, he can be easily overthrown, so the throne is often passed on to the younger brother.

  However, in modern society, Saudi Arabia is no longer a nomadic people and has become a wealthy country. It used to follow the rule of "succession from elder brother to younger brother", but there will definitely be a time when a king will want to pass the throne to his son - especially more than 90 years after the establishment of the kingdom, the sons of the founding monarchs are already quite old, and if a king thinks it is more appropriate to pass the throne to his son, it is only a matter of time before this rule is changed.

  "I didn't expect you could speak Arabic, Your Highness, the Duke of Cavendish."

  During the conversation with these Saudi princes, Barron also showed off his Arabic, which surprised the three princes. After all, although Barron could only have simple conversations in Arabic, his pronunciation was still very authentic.

  "Because my assistant is an Arab, and I like learning languages, I learned some Arabic from her."

  When he was still in New York, Barron had already prepared to expand the size of his team so that he could reduce some of Wang Wanting's workload. One of the items was his personal assistant, but he never found a suitable candidate - after all, as someone close to him, he still needed to be relatively reliable.

  Now, the job that Barron gave to Alia Bindi Hussein was to be his personal assistant - although Alia was still a little lacking in trust, his control over her was still sufficient.

  Before giving her this job, Barron had already stated that once she chose this job, it would probably be impossible for her to leave his control in the short term.

  But this is also what Alia wanted. She wanted to be protected, and where could she be safer than being with Barron?

  Barron also learned Arabic from Alia during this period. After knowing that there would be an opportunity to obtain funds from the Saudi tycoons, Barron also made special preparations for it.

  Although the Saudi princes who came to London can communicate in fluent English - many of them have studied abroad - communication is only one aspect, and being able to communicate directly in their native language will definitely bring the two sides closer together more quickly.

  Sure enough, after Barron communicated with them in Arabic, it was obvious that the other party's attitude towards him had become much closer.

  During this gathering, Baron simply introduced his own industries and did not discuss investment with the Saudi princes including Walid. After all, they also needed time to digest these and conduct some investigations on Baron's industries. It was impossible for them to talk about cooperation right away.

  However, Barron later invited these people to a dinner at his home, and the time was set for two days later, so as to give the other party enough time to understand the situation.  

  …

  During this time, Barron met Phillips and Mark, the two founders of Asmodee, who came to London again.

  Last year, in order to promote "Werewolf", Baron invested in this French board game company - also because Baron knew that in his previous life, Asmodee would grow into a board game giant in 20 years, with a company valuation of more than 3 billion euros.

  So Barron invested 4 million pounds and acquired 40% of the company's shares.

  This time, Phillips and Mark, the founders of Asmodee, came to London to raise funds for their company.

  This year, Asmodee obtained the distribution rights for the French version of the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG). Combined with the global distribution rights for the Werewolf board game they had previously obtained, Asmodee has grown rapidly in just one year.

  At this time, the Asmodee team was ready to acquire other board game teams to increase the variety of board games owned by Asmodee and expand the scale of Asmodee.

  However, the 4 million pounds received last year has been spent. They have carried out large-scale pre-marketing in the two games "Werewolf" and "Pokemon", and the current income will offset these expenses.

  Therefore, Asmodee is also preparing to raise funds again. And because Asmodee already has a high reputation in the field of board games, the French private equity fund Naxicap also found them, hoping to make equity investment in Asmodee.

  However, when the investment agreement was initially signed with DS Capital, there was a relevant clause that DS Capital had priority in Asmodee's subsequent financing under the same conditions. Therefore, the two founders of the company came to London this time to determine whether DS Capital was willing to continue to participate in their company's financing.

  French private equity fund Naxicap is willing to invest 7.2 million euros in exchange for an 18% stake in Asmodee.

  This means that their post-investment valuation of Asmodee is €40 million and the pre-investment valuation is €32.8 million, equivalent to £22.4 million.

  This price has increased by more than 120% compared to the valuation when Baron invested last year.

  If Barron is willing to participate in the financing at this valuation, then DS Capital has priority, so Naxicap Fund will be out, otherwise Asmodee will choose the other party for financing.

  "How much funding do you need?"

  "We need at least 7 million euros so that we can complete the acquisition of the two board game development teams and keep the company running."

  Mark heard Barron's question and replied,

  "But if we have more funds, we can acquire all the teams we are currently optimistic about, and we don't need to continue raising funds for a relatively long period of time."

  At this time, the Asmodee team has already realized that the future board game market will be more of a capital game, and they will expand the company's scale and maintain their leading position through continuous mergers and acquisitions.

  After all, no team can guarantee that they will have continuous creativity and be welcomed by the market.

  Therefore, they would rather be the leader than the one being eliminated, even if they need to sell most of the company's shares. But as long as they stay ahead, their remaining shares, although the proportion will decrease, will continue to increase in value.

  Besides, in the field of board games, as long as they can succeed, investors will still trust them and will not interfere with the company's operations and management.