America's Road to Fame

Chapter 171 Acquisition or Investment?

Although it will be more difficult to control the Hermes family through the acquisition of shares, it does not mean that there is no opportunity at all.Moreover, the reason why the Hermès family is so resistant to Bernard Arnault and the LVMH group is also because what they have done to the acquired brand families before makes them feel cold.

Just like when the LVMH Group acquired Givenchy in the same way, when they held 5% of the stock, they claimed that they had no ambition to acquire Givenchy, but only hoped to invest.Then he secretly expanded his shareholding to more than 30% quickly, thus becoming the largest shareholder of Givenchy and controlling the company.

The founder of Givenchy, Baird Givenchy, was still the chief designer of Givenchy after the company was acquired by LVMH, but he was ruthlessly dismissed by Bernard after just 7 years, and had to announce his retirement.

More than half of the LVMH Group's brands come from the acquisition of family businesses.However, Bernard's mergers and acquisitions are not in a good situation for the members of the business family. Most of the family members will be swept out, or eventually deprived of their management positions in the company, and only retain some honorary titles.

That's why the Hermes family is so resistant to the acquisition of LVMH Group, but William Chen is different. He acquired luxury brands solely to help Hilton-Chen fashion company improve its standards, so it will not interfere too much with the company's operations—— And judging from the memory of the previous life, the Hermès family managed the brand very successfully.

Then there is no need for him to use such a drastic way to make an acquisition. He can reach a tacit agreement with the Hermès family as an investor in the early stage without making the other party feel threatened.

There is another advantage of doing this, that is, if Mr. Bernard of the LVMH Group in the future still wants to use that method to try to acquire Hermès, the Hermès family may also choose him as the white knight with William Chen’s early release of goodwill , to resist the acquisition of the other party.

That is to say, when the other party made a hostile takeover, the Bentley family chose William Chen, who was in the benevolent camp, to issue additional shares to him, so that the total shareholding of both parties would be within a safe ratio.

This kind of thing is not without precedent. In 1999, Bernard, who was also the LVMH Group, bought a 5% stake in the Gucci Group. The group shares amounted to 34%.

Gucci Group chose the White Knight to fight against Bernard's acquisition. By expanding its share capital, it sold 42% of its share capital to Kering Group, a competitor of LVMH Group, which led to Bernard's shares being diluted to 20%, so Gucci Group finally He took refuge in Kering Group and became the main brand of the latter.

After William Chen talked about his thoughts to Camillo Hagen, the other party said:

"If this is the case, you can also try to make a good faith acquisition first. Even if it is unsuccessful, you can still make a long-term investment in Hermès as a major shareholder. For the acquisition of Hermès shares in the secondary market, if you want to break through the 5% limit, you don't It is not difficult to be noticed by the other party..."

Through Camillo Hagen's explanation, Chen William also knew their operating ideas, and he didn't need to be as troublesome as Bernard Arnault. He obtained the shares of Hermes International from the institution through gambling at the time. Or he doesn't trust other collaborators very much. Although that method is ingenious, it is also his choice in desperation.

If you cooperate with Goldman Sachs, you can completely avoid the corresponding regulations by holding less than 5% of the shares of related parties.Of course, this also needs to be carefully arranged, because the requirement that more than 5% of the purchase intention must be disclosed is not for individuals, but for parties of mutual interest. That is to say, even if you buy 4.99%, and then let your relatives or friends Buying another 0.01% of the shares also needs to be disclosed, because if the funds are all from you or your allies, then you will be regarded as parties of common interest, and your shareholdings should not exceed 5% on a combined basis.

However, for Goldman Sachs, find a few more cooperative institutions, and each institution will buy no more than 5%. As long as this matter can be kept secret, then when it is necessary to merge the shares in the end, it only needs to raise a placard once to explain the purpose.Anyway, for those other institutions, you can also say that it is your own investment behavior, and the final willingness to sell the shares to you is also a decision of the market.

It seems that Goldman Sachs has done a lot of this kind of thing, and it is very experienced.

Thinking of this, Chen William found that this matter can really be done. Hermes family members hold more than 70% of the shares, which means that Hermes International shares in the secondary market account for nearly 30%. If it is undervalued, you can still buy some shares.

Of course, it is almost impossible to buy all the shares in circulation, because as the number of shares purchased in the secondary market increases, it means that the circulation will decrease, so if you buy and continue to buy, the stock price will rise. The higher the speed, the faster it will be. If you want to buy all the tradable shares, the final stock price will go to the sky.

Unless a member of the Hermès family sees that the stock price has reached a price that satisfies him, he sells his shares.This is also possible. After all, there are currently more than 70 adult members of the Hermès family. Their respective financial situations are not the same. There must be some who are in financial difficulties during the economic crisis and hope to cash out stocks to escape the predicament.

Well, this thing can be done. If you buy the shares of Hermès Group now, even if you can’t complete the acquisition, it’s all an investment, and the return will be good.If you don't look at Bernard, you didn't succeed in acquiring the Hermès Group, and you ended up earning 10 billion pounds.

Moreover, buying as many Hermès international tradable shares as possible in advance is equivalent to directly cutting off Bernard's way to acquire Hermès. If he wants to buy again at that time, there will not be many stocks left for him.

Of course, some people may say that if you have this money, if you invest it in Hermès, you will earn four or five times in the next ten years at most.Compared with investing in technology stocks, it is far behind.

Indeed, if you only look at it from the perspective of making money, investing in technology stocks will increase even more.But do you really need to make money so blindly?What is the nature of wealth?For ordinary people, wealth is the guarantee for them to maintain a good quality of life, but when the assets reach a certain scale, money is more of a tool. Use this tool to increase your influence and complete I hope to accomplish things to change the world according to my own ideas.

How much money can a person spend even if he spends money and enjoys it crazily every day?billion?Ten billion?For a person, no matter how high the number is, it is just a number. Only by making good use of wealth can wealth be more powerful.Otherwise, with a huge number, after a hundred years, you still don't know who it will be.

And even if you look at it purely from the perspective of making money, the current size of those companies that will have high returns in the future will not be too large. You can invest a few hundred million in it, but most of that size cannot bear the scale of tens of billions.

From this point of view, but in terms of making money, the best investment target at present is Apple.

For those other companies that are large in size, their future earnings will not be so high, and they will be ten times more.And those with high returns are relatively small in size, let alone tens of billions, even with hundreds of millions of funds, it is estimated that they can become major shareholders.

Now that it has been decided, Goldman Sachs is very proactive in providing strategies for William Chen.

At present, the stock price of Hermès is below 60 euros, so based on 60 euros, less than 30% of the outstanding shares outside the Hermès family have a market value of more than 20 billion euros, which is almost more than 27 billion US dollars. If it is absorbed in the primary market, the stock price will definitely rise as the stock is increased.

Therefore, Chen William first prepared 30 billion US dollars to increase his shares in Hermès in the secondary market, and slowly absorbed them over a longer period of time to see how many shares he could eventually get.

In addition, you can contact members of the Hermès family to see if you can reach an agreement to acquire shares with some people.

Of course, doing so will inevitably leak the news and make the other party alert.After that, you can express a good-faith acquisition request to them. Even if you are rejected in the end, you can hold the stock as a long-term investment.

Under such an arrangement, it was relatively safe. After the discussion was made, Camillo Hagen began to arrange for his men to carry it out.Goldman Sachs' strength in Europe is not weak, so they are fully able to carry out this plan through their partners.

(End of this chapter)