America's Road to Fame

Chapter 184 The Hermes Family

After completing the cooperation with Softbank in Japan, I went directly to France after a little tenderness with Nozomi Sasaki.

When Chen William came to Japan for the first time, he got a local special prop - [Language Amplification Wind Chime].

After William Chen used this prop at that time, he chose to learn Japanese. It was also because of this that he met Nozomi Sasaki, who was his Japanese teacher at the time.

After that time, the prop entered a state of exhaustion and recharging. Finally, not long ago, it showed that the energy grid was full again, which meant that it could be used again and learn a new language.

At the beginning, William Chen didn't decide which language he would use this prop to learn this time.However, after deciding that he wanted to acquire the shares of Hermès, he used the [Language Boosting Wind Chime] again to learn French.

Therefore, when he first arrived in France, he met the employee of Goldman Sachs here and entrusted him to find a suitable French teacher for him.

Uh, in order to prevent the other party from misunderstanding his meaning like the manager of the Hilton Hotel in Japan last time, or making his own claim, he made a special statement that he was only learning French and had no other meaning.

Since Fan Bingbing needed to complete some work before coming to France, William Chen arrived here first this time, and she will come to France to join him in a few days.

William Chen first learned about Goldman Sachs' acquisition of shares in Hermes.

"At present, the shares of Hermes International that we have acquired in the secondary market are about 2230 million shares, accounting for nearly 20% of the total share capital of Hermes International, with an average price of around 65 euros, using about 14.5 billion euros, which is equivalent to about 19.5 billion U.S. dollars. more than a dollar."

"Through our continuous acquisitions in the secondary market during this period, the current share price of Hermes International has risen from 56.5 euros to above 77 euros, with a cumulative increase of more than 36%. Now in the French stock market, because of the reversal of Hermes International The trend is rising, and many funds have noticed that this stock has generated a lot of follow suit."

"Moreover, the current stock holders, seeing the price rise of this stock, already have the psychology of selling it. If they continue to buy, it will be difficult to get too many bargaining chips, which will push up the stock price significantly. Therefore, we have suspended Absorption in the secondary market."

Chen William heard the explanation of the person in charge of Goldman Sachs, and also knew the current situation of Hermes International stock in the secondary market. At present, he already holds nearly 20.00% of the shares of Hermes International.

However, because Goldman Sachs used means to hold these stocks separately through multiple institutional accounts, it escaped the French stock market's regulations that when buying more than 5% of listed company shares, it is necessary to raise a placard to explain the purpose of the acquisition.

So he went on to ask:
"What about the acquisition of shares held by members of the Hermès family?"

"We first investigated the economic situation of 72 adult shareholders of the Hermès family, and then in the first stage, we chose to contact the members with the most difficult financial situation - most of them were affected by this. Because of the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis, there are relatively large losses in related investments, and the number of these people is about 20."

"The result this time is quite gratifying. We have reached an acquisition agreement with 15 of them. The average acquisition price is around 70 euros. The number of shares involved is about 1338.6 million shares, accounting for about 12% of the total share capital. The other 5 People are also continuing to negotiate prices, which are looking promising at the moment."

"The next phase of our plan is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the situation of the remaining 52 members of the Hermès family, make a judgment based on their current investment direction and contact with Hermès, and select one of them who is most likely to be sold. People who are interested in shares will be contacted."

At present, Goldman Sachs has already helped itself to buy a 30.00% stake in Hermès, and has used more than 32 billion US dollars so far.

He is quite satisfied with the work of Goldman Sachs, William Chen continued:

"Just make the acquisition according to your ideas. I support your work, but now the Hermes family has noticed my acquisition, right?"

"Yes, Mr. William, this is not difficult to detect. After all, when we start to contact the members of the Hermes family to acquire their shares, there will inevitably be news revealed to other family members. And from the current Hermes international stock It can also detect the behavior of someone absorbing shares in the secondary market.”

This is indeed the case. Regarding the situation of Hermès, it is impossible to secretly acquire it. After all, their family members hold more than 70% of the shares. It is definitely not enough to acquire less than 30.00% of the outstanding shares in the primary market, and it is necessary to acquire a part of the shares from their family members.

But once such an action is taken, it is impossible to keep the news secret, and it will always be disclosed to other family members, and finally let the family members who currently control the Hermès company know about the situation.

Therefore, in William Chen's plan from the very beginning, he did not intend to complete the acquisition of Hermès once and for all through a blitzkrieg.

After he holds a certain percentage of shares in Hermes, he needs to face the Hermes family and communicate with them to determine the next move.

The current CEO of Hermes is Patrick Thomas, who is also the only CEO outside the Hermes family.

However, although the Hermes company was in charge of him at this time, the Hermes family has not lost control of the company.

Although Hermes is a listed company, it has an unbreakable family culture like a castle.

Specifically, Hermès has a family executive committee composed of 11 members, responsible for selecting new CEOs, presidents and other key positions from the next generation of family members.

In order to pursue the principle of democratic centralism, there are usually 4-5 non-family members in the executive committee to maintain fairness and justice.

But according to former employees, if there are 3-5 people discussing a matter, as long as the family members say "yes", no one dares to object.Executives who are not members of the family rarely make strategic or brand decisions without the involvement of any descendant of the Hermès family.

Therefore, Patrick Thomas obviously chose an excessive candidate when the previous CEO of the Hermès family, Jean-Louis Dumas, was very old and the family had not yet selected a suitable next successor.

But what is interesting about the Hermes family is that there are no members of the family with Hermes as their surname.

Hermes Group was established by Thierry Hermes in 1837. It was originally a manufacturer of special carriage accessories for European nobles. In the Paris World Expo in 1867, Hermès won the first-class honorary award for its exquisite craftsmanship, and has since become famous.

But when the company developed to the third-generation successor Emile Maurice Hermes, because he had no sons and only four daughters, in the 20s, Emile Maurice Hermes took over the Hermes company. Passed on to his son-in-law, Robert Dumas.

From this time on, members of the Hermes family no longer have Hermes as their surname.At the same time, the Hermes family began to have members of three branches - Dumas, Piez and Grande, descendants of the daughters of Emile Maurice Hermes.

And from then on, the family members of the Hermès family who acted as heirs all began to have the surname Dumas.

Therefore, what Chen William needs to meet now is the CEO of Hermes, Patrick Thomas, and representatives of the Hermes family members.

However, William Chen was not in a hurry about this. He had just arrived in France, and if he was in a hurry to meet the Hermès family immediately, it would appear that he cared too much about it.

Negotiations are often a psychological warfare, so William Chen believes that it is necessary to learn more about the other party before making the right strategy.

Before that, William Chen first met the French teacher that Goldman Sachs had found for him, but after seeing him, William Chen was a little skeptical. Was there something wrong with his order at that time?

(End of this chapter)