My 1999

Xu Liang, who had just received his fourteenth son, was very happy. The second generation of the Xu family had expanded its territory again.

"Mr. Xu, the contract of Guangdong Development Bank has been signed. We have subscribed to 85.588% of the shares of the reorganized Guangdong Development Bank with a bid of 24.267 billion Chinese Yuan.

Standard Chartered Bank holds 20%, Hanhua holds 20.588%, Huayou and Huarun hold 20% respectively, and Italian Milan Bank holds 5%.

In addition, Standard Chartered CEO, Mr. John Humphrey, sent an email. In order to cope with the investment of Guangdong Development Bank and continue to expand business in Southeast Asia, he plans to issue a new share of US$2 billion.

He wants to ask you whether it is a targeted financing, a proportional financing, or a direct sale to the outside world?"

Hongyan now holds 36.7% of Standard Chartered's shares.

If you don't want to be diluted, you can only invest in new shares in proportion.

If you want to increase your holdings in Standard Chartered, then take all the US$2 billion.

"Call Xia Changsheng. Standard Chartered has raised funds. Just invest according to the amount of shares held."

Now is not the time to increase Standard Chartered's equity.

Li Jinling nodded and put a document in front of Xu Liang.

"President Humphrey also faxed a document about 'ABN AMRO', saying that ABN AMRO is now seeking to sell to the outside world. Are you interested?"

"ABN AMRO is for sale?"

Xu Liang was a little surprised. ABN AMRO is not a small company.

As one of the largest commercial banks in Europe, ABN AMRO has a 183-year history, $1.12 trillion in assets and 107,000 employees.

If it is really acquired, it will be another giant merger that shocked the world.

It can be compared with the acquisition of Time Warner by AOL for $182 billion worth of stocks and debts in January 2000; Vodafone's acquisition of Mannesmann for $133 billion.

After flipping through the information in his hand, Xu Liang took out his phone and called Humphrey.

The call was quickly connected.

"Boss."

"Is ABN AMRO going to sell?"

"Yes. Now all the major European banks have started to bid for ABN AMRO. The most dominant banks are the Royal Bank of Scotland, Banco Santander, Fortis Bank of Belgium, and Barclays Bank.

The former bid $81 billion, and 50% of it is in cash.

ABN AMRO shareholders prefer cash, so the three banks are now more dominant.

However, the acquisition amount this time is too large, and who will win will still need to be negotiated continuously."

"Who pushed for the acquisition of ABN AMRO?"

Such a big move always has a leader.

"It's the hedge fund led by TCI."

"TCI? Christopher Horn?"

"That's him."

Xu Liang himself is a hedge fund manager, and he has a certain understanding of the mainstream hedge funds in major markets around the world.

TCI's full name is "Children's Investment Fund".

Christopher Horn pays special attention to children's charities, and donates 0.5% of the fund assets to several children's foundations every year.

Of course, charitable funds in Europe and the United States are basically the same.

On the surface, it is charity, but in fact, it is tax evasion.

TCI is of course selling dog meat under the guise of sheep.

TCI is based in the City of London, with total assets of about 4 billion US dollars, which is only a small name in hedge funds.

The reason why Xu Liang knows it is mainly because this person's investment strategy is different from others.

He likes to actively interfere with the operation of the company, negotiate with the executives of listed companies, and actively seek support from other shareholders, rather than passively staring at financial statements or trading models.

This investment model is called "shareholder activism" in the Western financial industry.

But this kind of person is the most hated by corporate CEOs.

After all, no one wants to have a fly in the media every day, playing against themselves in the board of directors.

The activist investment style makes TCI often appear on the front page of newspapers.

In 2005, it prevented the Deutsche Börse from acquiring the London Stock Exchange and forced the former to carry out strategic restructuring.

Horn calls himself a value investor, but he neither "buys and holds" like Buffett and Xu Liang, nor does he conduct leveraged buyouts like KKR or Blackstone.

With only a few billion dollars in assets, Horn always tends to look for strategic partners and force management to make changes through strong external pressure.

"TCI constantly accuses ABN AMRO of lacking operational efficiency, slow performance growth, and a shareholder return rate that lags behind most European peers.

This has put a lot of pressure on ABN AMRO's management.

And he has persuaded many ABN AMRO shareholders.

Now, whether ABN AMRO is willing or not, banks and investment banks around the world have already participated.

In the end, even if it is not sold, it will definitely have to divest a lot of assets to appease shareholders.

So, I think Standard Chartered can cooperate with Barclays Bank and the two companies will jointly acquire ABN AMRO.

Once successful, Barclays Bank can obtain ABN AMRO's business in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, and we can obtain business in France, Spain, South America and Asia.

While continuing to consolidate Standard Chartered's share in emerging markets around the world, it can also strengthen Standard Chartered's presence in Europe."

Just when Humphrey was fantasizing that Standard Chartered Bank's assets would exceed one trillion and become a top global bank.

"John, it has only been seven years since Standard Chartered entered the East Asian and Southeast Asian markets. In these seven years, Standard Chartered has participated in nearly 20 mergers and acquisitions, and has just acquired China Guangfa Bank.

The most important thing for us now is integration, streamlining the management system and risk control, rather than blindly pursuing scale.

And ABN AMRO is too large.

Standard Chartered does not have the capital to acquire a top bank of this scale, even if Barclays shares the burden."

The subprime mortgage crisis is coming soon, and banks around the world are being screwed by the Americans.

Top banks like ABN AMRO that span the world must have a lot of CDO bonds in their pockets.

Entering the market now means taking over for ABN AMRO shareholders.

He won't do such a stupid thing.

Wouldn't it be nice to pick up a bargain in two years?

"BOSS..."

"Okay, John. Starting from today, Standard Chartered will mainly focus on integration within three years. After three years, I will support you with a sum of money for mergers and acquisitions."

The big boss has said so, and even if Humphrey is dissatisfied, he can only accept it.

Now Hanhua and Hongyan hold more than half of Standard Chartered shares, and if they don't listen, they will get out.

"Okay, Boss."

"Have you started clearing all the CDOs and CDSs related to the United States in the company?"

"We are gradually selling them to the market. It is expected that within two months, all of them will be replaced by national debts of the United States, China, Japan and South Korea."

"Submit a Standard Chartered balance sheet to me every two weeks, in detail."

He was afraid that Humphrey would fool him, so he had to personally monitor this matter.

"Okay."

After chatting for a few more sentences, Xu Liang hung up the phone.

"By the way, there is one more thing."

Stopped Li Jinling who was about to leave.

"Tell the crew to let them stay in Singapore for a week, and then arrange to send my parents to London."

"Okay."

Mo Manniang and Christina were only one month apart in terms of pregnancy and delivery, and later Helen and Lu Hui were only half a month apart, plus Jiang Xiaoyang who was pregnant with her second child.

This year, the third generation of the old Xu family can add eight or nine more children.

After all, Christina has three children in her arms, so she is very fertile.

After waving her hand to let her leave, Xu Liang left the study.

As soon as I got to the first floor, I saw Xu Sanshao running over with a Transformer in his arms.

When she saw him, her eyes lit up and she turned around and rushed over.

"Dad."

She picked him up and kissed his smooth little face.

"Dad doesn't kiss me."

His little hands pushed his father's big face, and his stubble was not comfortable on his little face.

"Where's your mom?"

"My little brother pooped, and mom and aunt are cleaning up."

As she spoke, An Kaiyue, wearing a thick coat, walked out of the children's room on the first floor.

Seeing her husband and son, she walked over with a happy face.

"Mom."

The little guy wanted to hug, but was stopped by Xu Liang.

She had just given birth, and although she recovered well, her body was still weak after all.

"How is Shanshan?"

"He can eat and sleep, and he is much easier to take care of than him."

As she said that, An Kaiyue poked her son's little nose with her right index finger.