Chapter 922 It’s not impossible
"It seems that McKenna III has been a little worried lately... His Highness the Duke."
"Facilitating Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox can also restore some of his decline."
In New York, Barron also took time to meet with JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon.
What Jamie Dimon mentioned was Vanguard Group’s losses in the Gold Trust ETF...
Coupled with the failure in the initial confrontation with the Sinclair Group, McKenna III was quite criticized in the board of directors of the Pilot Group... This was also the result of the DS Group's representatives on its board of directors not publicly attacking McKenna III.
However, if Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox can be facilitated, then at least McKenna III can keep his position.
At present, Vanguard Group has withdrawn their gold trust ETFs on a large scale, which also means that they finally chose to admit defeat instead of going short on the international gold price - the funds and investment companies controlled by Barron are one of them. The main force - going head-to-head.
After all, Vanguard Group is not stupid. Not long ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted at a business gathering that it was almost time to reduce the scale of the "quantitative easing policy."
His remarks made many investors become pessimistic about some securities, stock markets and gold prices.
At such a time, Linghang Group will naturally not buck the trend.
Of course, Barron knows that it may not be until the end of this year that the United States really starts to take action and reduce the size of its bond purchases under the "quantitative easing program."
But the market is like this. Public sentiment will affect the balance of long and short power. Even if there is no concrete action yet, when this expectation is likely to appear, the market will already start to react to it.
"What do you think of Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox? Your Highness the Duke..."
"It can only be said that Murdoch is old, and his children are not talented enough to inherit his media empire. Therefore, selling Twenty-First Century Fox is not only forced by the major shareholders, but also a last resort for him. , otherwise when he can no longer control the situation, the consequences of his industries will be even worse..."
Although Barron owns Marvel-MGM Group, one of the leading production companies in Hollywood, it can be said that it is a competitor with Disney and 20th Century Fox.
After Disney acquires 21st Century Fox, including 20th Century Fox Pictures, its scale will become even larger. From a competitive perspective, it is not a good thing for Marvel-MGM Pictures...< br>
But Barron also understands that even if he is willing to pay more money, he may not be able to buy 21st Century Fox.
Yes, this is not just a matter of money, but an integration of industries controlled by some behind-the-scenes capital.
For example, Vanguard Group, which took a positive attitude in this acquisition, is the largest holding institution of both Disney and 20th Century Fox.
It is also worth mentioning that the ETF funds under JPMorgan Chase and Standard Chartered Merrill Lynch also hold some shares of the two, but their numbers are completely incomparable to that of Vanguard Group, and even less than BlackRock Group... …
In this case, the only thing Barron can do is to use this opportunity to get something that he is more interested in.
For example, Sinclair Group acquired Forum Media Group and at the same time drove Vanguard Group out of the company.
Another example... "I heard that in addition to Forum Media Group, Disney is also not interested in Sky TV and is looking for a buyer for it?"
Murdoch's News Corporation had been the largest shareholder of Sky TV in the UK before. Later, after 21st Century Fox split from News Corporation, its shareholding in Sky TV belonged to 21st Century Fox. Originally, Murdoch had always intended to acquire Sky TV as a whole, and he had been negotiating with the British side for a long time.
However, with the outbreak of the "eavesdropping scandal", he had to postpone the acquisition of Sky TV.
Of course, after Barron's SEM Group acquired ITV, it took the opportunity to obtain the broadcast rights for relatively better events in the Premier League after the Premier League broadcast rights reform, which caused Sky TV's share of the British market to begin to decline.
In the end, Murdoch completed the overall acquisition of Sky TV through 21st Century Fox.
After hearing what Barron said, Jamie Dimon took a deep look at him and said with a smile:
"Are you interested in Sky?"
What Disney acquired this time was the entertainment assets of Twenty-First Century Fox. As for Sky TV...
"I heard that Comcast made an offer of US$28 billion to Murdoch, hoping to acquire Sky TV as a whole. This offer is a considerable premium compared to the price Murdoch paid for Sky TV."< br>
Before completing the overall acquisition of Sky TV, Murdoch owned 39% of Sky TV.
As for the remaining 61% of Sky TV shares, he acquired it for US$15 billion more than a year ago. Based on this calculation, the overall consideration of Sky TV at that time was about US$24.6 billion.
Now Comcast is willing to spend $28 billion to acquire Sky TV, which is a premium of more than 13.8% compared to the price more than a year ago.
After all, Sky TV is no longer the king of TV stations that once had the largest number of paid subscribers in the UK...
After many blows, the overall performance of Sky TV can only be said to be at the bottom among the three major TV stations BBC, ITV and BSkyB...
"I'm afraid that's almost impossible..."
Barron shook his head and said:
"After all, it is impossible for the British government to allow me to own ITV and Sky TV at the same time... But it would be very interesting if other competitors could emerge, wouldn't it?"
As Barron said, no matter what, the British government would not be willing to see him embrace ITV and Sky TV at the same time. That almost represents the fact that he has formed a near-monopoly in the field of television media, so Barron's influence on television media will be unprecedented.
At least on the surface, this scenario is unlikely.
Of course, what if there is a competition between American capitals for Sky TV?
Since Sky TV is likely to be sold to Comcast, it is also possible to be sold to other American companies, such as... IC Capital.
As for whether Murdoch is willing to give IC Capital a chance...
After all, Murdoch is 82 years old and is not in good health, and he and Wendi Deng have not yet divorced, and Ivanta, who manages IC Capital, is a very close best friend with Wendi.
(End of chapter)