Chapter 723 Big move
Little Gilbert understood the general meaning of Larry Fink.
To put it bluntly, I am not willing to be a pawn, I want to get on the horse and be the master myself.
If both of them have their own goals, then there is a basis for cooperation. As a result, the two parties temporarily reached an alliance and planned to cooperate sincerely in the next crisis.
The signs of the financial crisis appeared as early as 2007. A few years ago, it can be said that it was a chain reaction caused by the real estate market.
Low interest rates have encouraged a substantial increase in real estate investment and home purchases in the past few years, which has also led to a surge in housing prices and promoted the development of the subprime mortgage market.
However, many financial institutions ignored the high risks of the subprime mortgage market and accelerated the prosperity of the subprime mortgage market.
Before 2006-2007, problems began to arise in the subprime mortgage market. Due to loan defaults and a sharp decline in the real estate market, the value of the subprime mortgage market began to decline, causing turbulence in financial markets.
Many financial institutions found themselves holding large amounts of nonperforming loans and collateralized debt securities and faced significant losses.
Time came to September, and little Gilbert himself was in New York. Although he doesn't know much about financial business, as the boss and main planner, he has to take charge.
On September 7, in order to save the market, Washington announced that some real estate companies would be regulated by FHFA.
But this did not restore market confidence. The Nasdaq index continued to fall, and many stocks began to fall off a cliff.
People began to appear on the rooftop of Wall Street. Although there weren't many people there, we could already foresee the days when it would be overcrowded and jump down.
September 15th became the turning point of this financial crisis. Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in North America, declared bankruptcy, triggering violent shocks in global financial markets.
According to the pre-planned plan, Fruit Fund and Larry Fink's private equity fund began to act. Although Lehman Brothers holds a large amount of bad debt, it also has many high-quality assets.
While the financial market was wailing, the two funds quietly took up most of Lehman Brothers' high-quality assets.
Although things were done secretly, it didn't mean that no one discovered it.
It's just that at this time, everyone can no longer take care of it, not to mention that not only one person is taking advantage of these high-quality assets. Many families ate it, but they couldn't hold it anymore and vomited it out again.
On September 16, AIG, the largest insurance institution in North America, suffered huge losses, and Washington announced a takeover. Later, several companies found Black Rock, which took over AIG.
This was another opportunity for Fruit Fund and Larry Fink to get involved. Many assets were secretly transferred, split 50-50.
On September 19, Washington announced a $700 billion financial stabilization fund designed to purchase bank non-performing assets and provide financial support.
Similarly, these operations are also carried out through Black Rock Company.
This was a good opportunity, so Fruit Fund and Larry Fink took the money from Washington and acquired a large number of high-quality assets from many banks.
The bank went bankrupt and all the high-quality assets were eaten up by others.
In this process, little Gilbert also achieved his set goal and took control of a bank.
What's even more rare is that this bank is a major shareholder of a company called Geode Investment Management, holding 22.74% of the shares.
Geode Investment Management Company holds 2.25% of Raytheon Technologies shares.
Although Raytheon Technologies is not as famous as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, it is also a world-class defense and weapons manufacturer.
Products include missile defense systems, radar systems, space and airborne systems, etc.
Its radar technology and missile technology represent the highest level in the world today. The radars it produces are equipped with most military aircraft, such as the AN/APG77 radar.
The engines manufactured by its subsidiary Pratt & Whitney are world-leading, and the Patriot missiles are also popular in the international market.
For such an important defense company, if Gilbert Jr. comes directly to acquire other people's shares, it is likely to cause a backlash. They are not fools. Going up to buy them with such a big fanfare is simply an act of inciting hatred.
On the contrary, it is a very good choice to take advantage of this opportunity to acquire investment institutions or banks that have shares in defense companies in a roundabout way.
Geode Investment Management Company also suffered heavy losses during the financial crisis, so Gilbert Jr. controlled the newly acquired bank and directly controlled Geode Investment Management Company.
Then he controlled Geode Investment Management Company to seek shares in Raytheon Technologies.
Although Raytheon Technologies is a defense company, it is also a public company. This time it was also affected by the financial crisis, and multiple shareholding institutions in the company were eager to save themselves.
Therefore, this time has become the most turbulent time for Raytheon Technologies, and it is also the time when share transactions are most frequent.
Before Washington could react, Geode Investment Management Company successively acquired a lot of shares.
If anyone pays attention, they will find that Geode Investment Management Company has a lot of extra funds inexplicably. Obviously during this crisis, Geode Investment Management Company also suffered heavy losses.
The methods used by little Gilbert were not clever, and they were not even strictly confidential.
As long as someone calms down and analyzes and observes carefully, they will find that fruit funds are acquiring high-quality assets everywhere during this financial crisis.
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Waving banknotes again, he became a shareholder of many listed companies.
But as mentioned before, this is a chaotic time and everyone is too busy to look after themselves. If someone can calmly observe the movements of Fruit Fund, it means that this person also has ulterior motives.
Through this acquisition, Geode Investment Management surpassed Morgan Stanley and Dodge Cox to become the sixth largest shareholder of Raytheon Technologies, with a stake of 4.23%.
On October 6, the National Bank of Iceland, one of the three largest banks in Iceland, went bankrupt.
At this time, the fruit funds that had been reaped by Wall Street had been transferred overseas and began to take over the assets of overseas financial institutions. There’s no need to buy Scarlett’s Candy Island. An island country in the middle of the Pacific went bankrupt.
Several of the islands were controlled by the Fruit Fund and became little Gilbert's private islands.
In addition, there are some hard assets such as minerals and oil fields, many of which fell into the hands of little Gilbert.
In North America, a large number of farmers went bankrupt due to the financial crisis. Gilbert Jr. acquired these lands at extremely low prices, becoming the second largest private land owner in North America.
The first is Bill Gates. Mr. Gates has an inexplicable obsession with land and has been engaged in land for so many years.
As banks and financial institutions around the world continued to fail, little Gilbert made a fortune wherever he reached.
And he is not the only one, there are many who have the same actions as him.
Crisis, crisis, is a crisis because along with danger there are also a lot of opportunities.
Little Gilbert is not afraid of pushing himself to death now. He will be very sad in the next few years and will have to increase his blood volume.
What is certain is that these high-quality assets acquired today will be repaid in the future.
But this is something that can't be helped. These assets must protect Gilbert's core assets. Once targeted, these assets can be thrown out to attract attention.
The impact of the financial crisis is ongoing and will obviously not end in a few weeks or months.
After leading the Fruit Fund's big move, Gilbert Jr. handed over the responsibility to Ivanka to continue the next move.
I returned to Los Angeles and went about my normal work like a normal person.
(End of chapter)