Chapter 570 The dust has settled
The final rejection of the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is like the sword of Damocles that has been hanging on this acquisition, finally falling.
What followed was the news that after learning that the merger between Thomson Group and Reuters Group was hopeless, the share price of Thomson Group fell rapidly again, falling by nearly 10% that day!
What is now in front of Thomson Group, in addition to accepting this result, is to stabilize their stock price...
But before them, there was already a fund that started Entering the stock market, they began to silently absorb the stocks being sold.
So under such circumstances, the downward trend of Thomson Group's stock price gradually eased, and there was a certain rebound. Finally, their stock price returned to about $35, and the sharp fluctuations stopped and became stable.
This price has dropped by more than 25% compared to the peak share price of Thomson Group in early October.
There is no doubt that the funds for this stock to "protect the market" ahead of Thomson Group come from IE funds.
They had shorted the Thomson Group’s stock price aggressively before and borrowed a large amount of Thomson Group’s shares from the market. Now that the action is almost completed, they finally need to buy it back from the market at a low price. To the brokers.
In this short-selling operation, the IE Fund used a total of about 10 US dollars of funds. After the final inventory, the profit exceeded 200 million US dollars...
It doesn't seem like much. The main reason is that although the entire market is generally in a downward channel, in order to cause Thomson Group's stock to fall more sharply, IE funds often need to act as the leader, through a large number of Sell stocks and make breakthroughs at some pressured prices, and there are also "protection" funds from the Thomson family and Thomson Group. In the process of these battles and back-and-forth buying and selling, the friction costs are also considerable. of.
But no matter what, at least with the help of the general trend, they made profits and successfully closed their positions, instead of being squeezed out after the Thomson Group entered the market with a larger amount of funds. And even if a loss occurs, the result is still good.
And more importantly, this time's short selling has exercised HK's IE fund team - although they have done similar operations before, they have no experience in operating such a large amount of funds.
After this, the IE Fund can use the existing more than 1.2 billion US dollars to join in the short selling of the entire market.
This time there is no specific task like shorting the Thomson Group. If they need to take on the role of a leader, their profits will also be improved.
...
Just after the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) first rejected Thomson Group’s acquisition of Reuters Group, the relevant agencies in the United States also followed suit the next day, in November. On the 1st, it also rejected this acquisition and determined that Thomson Group’s acquisition of Reuters Group would violate relevant “antitrust” regulations.
So after the merger with Thomson Group was hopeless, Reuters Group had only one option left, and that was SEM Group.
It's not that they can't give up being acquired and continue to maintain independent development.
But the board of directors of Reuters Group also understands that the big reason why the share price of Reuters Group has fallen much lower than that of Thomson Group after the antitrust agency rejected the acquisition is that although the two cannot merge , which hit the market's previous optimism, but the market still understands that Reuters Group and SEM Group have such a choice.
Although being acquired by SEM Group is not as good as choosing Thomson Group in terms of synergies and overall future scale, it is still a wise choice - after all, the market value of SEM Group, although similar to Reuters Group, is far less than that of Thomson Group , but the DS Group behind it is still very powerful.
If Reuters Group continues to reject SEM Group, there is no doubt that they will undermine the market’s last optimism about it and cause a panic drop in Reuters Group’s stock price. Under the current economic situation, this Definitely not a wise choice. You must know that whether the Reuters Group is sold to Thomson Group or SEM Group, since they have accepted the acquisition, the shareholders on the board of directors are most concerned about how to sell their Reuters Group shares at the best price. Rather than the future of Reuters Group or any of their "five core principles" - that is what Reuters Founders AG considers.
The reason why they were more supportive of the Thomson Group’s acquisition plan before was because in addition to cash, they believed that the shares of the new company exchanged for the merged Thomson-Reuters Group would be The stock may just be worth more.
Therefore, after it is no longer possible for Thomson Group to acquire Reuters Group, if they can get a satisfactory bid from SEM Group, they would not mind agreeing to the other party's acquisition.
Under such circumstances, Reuters Group began acquisition negotiations with SEM Group - this was in May of this year. The two parties had contact. Later, after the Thomson Group broke out, the two parties once again touched upon a substantive acquisition. Negotiation of plans.
Before this negotiation between Reuters Group and SEM Group...
On October 31, the British Ministry of Finance, the Bank of England and the British Financial Services Authority were among those interested in acquiring Northron. Among the acquisition plans of banks’ institutions and consortiums, the acquisition plan of a consortium composed of Standard Chartered Bank and DS Group was finally determined and the results were announced.
This also means that Standard Chartered Bank can start the acquisition process of Northen Rock Bank from now on.
According to the acquisition plan submitted by Standard Chartered Bank, they will acquire 100% of the shares of Northrock Bank, whose market value has dropped to less than 300 million pounds at this time, for a total price of 500 million pounds to complete the acquisition. Privatization of this bank.
In addition, Standard Chartered Bank promised that their consortium will return to the Bank of England up to 25 billion pounds of borrowings and interest that they had previously injected into Northrone Bank within one month after completing the acquisition of Northerrode Bank.
It can be said that what enables Standard Chartered Bank to obtain the approval of the British government in the competition with the Virgin Group, the consortium led by Olivant and more than a dozen companies and consortia including Paul Thompson is their This commitment to immediately return all 25 billion pounds and interest will allow the government to immediately withdraw from the Northrock Bank incident without causing subsequent negative consequences.
As for the fact that they acquired all the shares of Northron Rock Bank for 500 million pounds and completed the privatization...
In fact, the board of directors of North Rock Bank at the time was a little bit concerned about this price. Dissatisfied - although the market value of the bank is less than 300 million pounds based on the share price of Northron Rock Bank at this time, their board of directors believes that the current share price of North Rock Bank is completely unable to withdraw their cash at this time. The actual value of the stock was actually affected by the previous run, and the stock price was greatly undervalued.
In particular, the Hall family, the major shareholder of Northrock Bank, once expressed dissatisfaction with this.
But there is no way. The British government is very tough on this. Finance Minister Darling once directly declared to the board of directors of Northrock Bank:
“You have only two choices, one is to accept the acquisition, and the other is to Bank nationalization, unless the country's 25 billion borrowings and interest can be immediately returned, we will not allow it to endanger the entire country's financial order. The bank owners in this order were able to escape punishment after receiving the bailout, and the investigation of this incident is still not over!”
His intention is very clear, return the 25 billion pounds of loans and interest, The board of directors of Northrock Bank will definitely not be able to do this, so whether they are acquired or the bank is nationalized, their outcome will be the same.
On the contrary, if they are acquired, they can still get some money back. If the bank is nationalized, the government will strictly regulate it and convert 25 billion pounds of debt into bank shares. I believe they will not be among them. No matter how much advantage you take, the original shares will be diluted to almost no sense of existence, and you will become a "marginal person"...
To put it bluntly, you have messed up and need us to help you with money. If it still affects the "normalization" of Northron Rock Bank now, then don't think that we were wrong before Northen Rock. Rock Bank has been held accountable for problems in its operations, but our investigation has not yet ended. Do you think we dare not arrest a few people?
Faced with such a situation, what can those shareholders do?
At least Standard Chartered Bank is willing to spend 500 million pounds to acquire their shares...
(End of Chapter)