In addition to not exposing his partnership with Cao Mo prematurely, Banco Nacional Ultramarino's investment in West Africa Cement Group is not under Sturgeon's jurisdiction, and it is impossible for him to directly stand up and promote the merger of West Africa Cement and Conero Cement.

However, the fact that Sturgeon cannot step up does not mean that he cannot find a replacement.

In the early days, the West Africa Cement Group was developed on the basis of the Stanning family's successor to the military junta's Ogun state-owned cement plant in eastern Draculamo, and the subsequent rapid expansion brought in external investors such as financial investment institutions such as Banco Nacional Ultramarino and private investment companies.

At least before the subprime mortgage crisis swept the world, the building materials market in the Gulf of Guinea was still like an attractive gold mine, and the Stanning family had offended too many people before and was forced to accept the participation of some investors, who would have thought that the situation would change so quickly?

Financial investment institutions such as Banco Nacional Ultramarino, as well as trust funds that take money from other investors, are more calm, and perhaps have the patience to expect the market to turn around.

However, for those investors who bet their main net worth or even their bankruptcies on West African Cement Group, the anxiety or difficulties they face at this time are like Sturgeon when Avena first arrived in Draculamo, and she was in a state of panic all day long.

Federal Councillor Bertich Gehry is one such person.

His family owns a 4% stake in West Africa Cement Group, and Bertić himself is a direct director of West Africa Cement Group.

The economic crisis that has swept the world has caused the Gehry family to lose a lot of money in other fields, and there are even many holes to be filled, and the shareholding in the West African Cement Group is the core asset that the Gehry family has placed their hopes on for the last time.

No one dared to imagine what kind of predicament the Gehry family would find themselves in after the collapse of the West African Cement Group.

Just as when the Ding family and Dongsheng fell into a debt crisis, there will always be people like Dong Chengpeng who can't wait to find a way out like a drowning man, and Bertich Gehry is also anxiously looking forward to the appearance of a turnaround during this time.

Sturgeon Forster issued a trust fund in the name of Banco Nacional Ultramarino to support the development of Vulkov's investments, and the Gehry family also participated in the investment of the trust fund, so Sturgeon and Bertic had a good personal relationship.

Sturgeon approached him and said that he could introduce him to the main investor behind Conero Cement, and Bertich Gehry couldn't wait to follow Sturgeon the next day to secretly rush to the lakeside wooden house of the Ibogu tribe to meet Cao Mo.

Bertich Gehry, as a member of the Federal Parliament and a member of parliament from Draculamo, has witnessed the miracle of development that is taking place on the shores of Lake Conero and knows more than the average person.

However, Cornello Cement and West Africa Cement Group have always been in direct competition, and Bertich Gehry belongs to different political parties with Blake, Ojosan and others, so they have always kept their distance and have no contact.

Hearing Sturgeon mention the planned merger of Conero Cement and West African Cement, Bertić Gehry was eager to sell his family's stake directly to Tianyue Investment.

Of course, the Gehry family only holds a 4% stake in the West Africa Cement Group, and Cao Mo will not be interested, what he needs is Berdych's help to make the entire merger plan land as quickly as possible.

Otherwise, it's pointless.

Cao Mo doesn't think that it must be a good thing for Conero Cement to defeat the West African Cement Group simply from the market.

If they really want to do that, the Stanning family, who are not willing to be captured, together with other investors who have suffered heavy losses, must try to create more and bigger trouble for them, and Tianyue will be forced to fight on multiple fronts in West Africa.

Draculamo's investment circle is actually very narrow, and the investors of West African Cement Group, even if no one is a member of the board of directors of the Evans Foundation or other high-level officials, are indirectly or directly implicated.

Even the Stanning family had approached the Evans Foundation, but the Evans Foundation was not interested in investing in Africa.

Merge and turn a strong enemy into an ally, even if the allies will have many evil intentions, but it can also further strengthen Tianyue's foundation in Kanem.

In front of Bertic, the "drowning man" who regarded Tianyue as the last straw, Cao Mo and Sturgeon did not hide many facts that Tianyue and Volkov Investment had already secretly reached a cooperation to fight the Evans Foundation.

They also stressed to Bertic that in order to avoid the possibility of the Evans Foundation stepping in to disrupt the situation, the board of directors and investors of West Africa Cement Group need to come up with a concrete plan that meets the interests of both parties as soon as possible.

Considering that Draculamore's circle of investors is so narrow, and even West Africa Cement Group has some investors, it must also be taken into account that even if West Africa Cement Group only discusses the merger plan internally, the news may still leak out in advance.

Cao Mo discussed with Sturgeon and Bertic that it would be better for them to find two or three "opponents" from the investors of the West African Cement Group to stand up and disturb the eyes, so that even if the Evans Foundation heard some rumors, it would not immediately pay attention to it......

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Bertić actively mediates and coordinates with other board members and investors as an investor and director, and Sturgeon also actively influences investors who have been in contact with him and do business with him.

By the end of November, the board of directors of West Africa Cement Group had agreed on a merger and reorganization, which was largely in line with Sturgeon's original plan, which was for the Stanling family to relinquish operational control of West Africa Cement Group and merge it into Conero Cement.

The Stanling family is quite resistant to the valuation of Conero Cement at $1.5 billion and the valuation of West Africa Cement Group at $500 million, but investors are still quite aware of the reality, and they even know very well that the assets of West Africa Cement Group can only reflect the valuation they should have if they are merged into Conero Cement for integration, otherwise they are negative equity - at least with normal market means can no longer compete with Conero Cement.

In order to cooperate with the promotion of the merger plan, Conero Cement distributed new plant construction plans in Cotonou, Benin, and Dahomey, Akwa, respectively, and did not merge, and faced with the new plant construction plan of four million tons in two years, the Stannin family, which had been hit hard politically, finally chose to succumb.

On the last Sunday of November, Quinn Stanning, chairman of the board of directors of West Africa Cement Group, visited the Ibogu tribe to meet with Cao Mo, and the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding to promote the merger and reorganization of the two cement groups.

After the merger, Tianyue Investment's shareholding will be adjusted to 52.5%, the management headed by Yang Deshan and Wendy Scarfe, plus the four major families of Felician and Sika, will be adjusted to 22.5%, and the shareholding of the Stanning family and the investors of the former West Africa Cement Group will be adjusted to 25%.

The total production capacity is the same, the investment in building the plant is the same, and the valuation of West African cement at the time of the merger is only one-third of that of Conero Cement.

In order for the New Cement Group to meet the requirements for a direct listing in Draculamo, and also to increase its equity interest in the New Cement Group, the Stanning family and investors need to prepare additional funds to form a trust investment fund to acquire a 22.5% stake in the New Cement Group from Tianyue Investment.

The disagreement is the price of this part of the equity.

Cao Mo's bottom line is that this part of the shares cannot be less than 500 million US dollars when converted, but whether it is a cash acquisition, or a replacement with corresponding assets, or cash plus assets, Cao Mo does not care much, and it is acceptable.

By the end of November, the global economy was showing no signs of recovery, and the Stanling family and other investors had very limited cash in their hands and were unwilling to burn up much cash flow at this critical juncture.

Under the mediation of Bertic and Sturgeon, the Stanning family and investors finally agreed to merge a total of $200 million in Vrkov's investment into a new trust investment fund for $190 million in cash, plus a 12% stake in Banco Nacional Ultramarino, and a total of $200 million in Vrkov's investment.

The parties also agreed that these shares have priority over the company's assets, profit distribution and listing exit, but need to give up voting rights on the company's affairs - so as to ensure that the company's decision-making power is always in the hands of Tianyue Investment, that is, Cao Mo.

The two parties agreed that if the new cement group could not be successfully listed within five years, the major shareholder Tianyue Investment would need to repurchase this part of the shares with interest to protect the interests of investors.

In order to reinforce the concept that the new cement group is a national enterprise of Kanem, the final company name was adopted as West African United Cement Group, which weakened the traces of the "Conero" system.

As for Sturgeon Foster personally, he is more concerned about the latter two trading chips.

Tianyue Investment has acquired 12 percent of the shares of Banco Nacional Ultramarino from other investors, and will become the second largest shareholder of Banco Nacional Nacional after the Foster family without capital injection.

What's more critical is that Volkov invested about $200 million in debt, which was transferred to Tianyue Investment through a swap, and the last mine under Sturgeon's feet was unloaded.

Draculamo's circle of investors is very small, and a small number of the investors in the expansion of the West African Cement Group were also involved in the trust fund issued by Sturgeon in the name of Banco Nacional Ultramarino and actually invested in Furkov Investments, and many more investors on both sides have other indirect or direct relationships.

Sturgeon Forster, as a senior executive of Banco Nacional Ultramarino, issued a trust fund to invest in companies that he secretly controlled, which was of course a shady operation.

Once his position at Banco Nacional Ultramarino was stripped and the matter was revealed, the Folkov investment he had worked so hard to build would collapse.

This is a sword of Damocles that can take control of the Falkov Investment Company away from him at any time.

During this period of time, Sturgeon was more active than Bertic in the dark, and he wanted to transfer most of the debts to Tianyue Investment through layer by layer replacement; in addition, he also persuaded some investors to replace the investment in the trust fund or take out another part of the funds, so that he could finally settle all these shady trust funds.

At this time, even if Avena completely comes to her senses, she will have nothing to do with him.

After Tianyue Investment gets these debts, it will not continue to hold them, but will directly convert them into shares in Volkov Investment in exchange for 35% of the equity of Volkov Investment, and the other part of the investors will also hold 15% of the equity of Volkov Investment through replacement.

Although the Oppenheimer family's previous shareholding in Volkov Investment was as high as 20%, the company's asset structure was hugely indebted, and most of the debt-to-equity swaps were directly reduced to 6%.

At the same time, Sturgeon will personally transfer a 20% stake to the Conero Lake Industrial Park to offset the $120 million that the Conero Lake Industrial Park had secretly lent him through a trust fund, and he will eventually maintain a 24% stake in Volkov Investments.

In order to ensure that Volkov Investment has more cash and strengthen its investment in Xingang City and Petrochemical Group, Cao Mo also plans to invest US$80 million in the name of Tianyue Investment to acquire 8% of the shares held by Volkov Investment in Conero Energy.

All the agreements were signed before the end of December, and Tianyue Investment's shareholding in the new West Africa United Cement Group was adjusted to 30%, but it held 52.5% and 67% of the voting rights with the four major families including the Felician family, maintaining absolute control over the operation - in the end, only the Stanning family and Berdych won two seats on the board of directors of West Africa United Cement Group.

Tianyue Investment directly holds 8% of Conero Energy, while Tianyue Industrial, a listed company, holds 60% of Conero Energy - in the end, Tianyue Investment's actual shareholding in Conero Energy is 26%, but it also has absolute control.

Tianyue Investment directly holds 35% of the shares of Furkov Investment, and Conero Industrial Park holds 20% of Vorkov Investment, and in the end, Tianyue Investment actually holds 42% of the shares of Vorkov Investment, and also takes over absolute control from Sturgeon Foster.

Tianyue Investment has a direct 12% stake in Banco Nacional Ultramarino.

Tianyue Investment directly holds 70% of the shares of Yibogu Mining.

In the name of Banco Nacional Ultramarino, Sturgeon officially issued a part of the trust fund to gather a group of small and medium-sized investors, and acquired a part of the shares of Conero Foods and the Gulf of Guinea Shipping Company from Tianyue Investment, reducing Tianyue Investment's shareholding in these two companies to 50%.

In the past two months, a series of equity transfers have resulted in a net cash of US$300 million in Tianyue Investment's account.

Before West Africa Cement Group officially threw out the merger plan, Cao Mo suddenly took out $150 million in cash from Conero Cement's account for dividends, and Tianyue Investment received $100 million in cash.

In addition, Ibogu Mining has $700 million in cash and gold in its accounts.

After a series of agreements were signed, the partnership between Cao Mo and Sturgeon was officially revealed.

Because it involves the debt-to-equity swap of Volkov's investment, Niz Oppenheimer and Nsäsäger, as the main shareholders of Volkov's investment, naturally knew all this in advance of the official news.

However, even if the Oppenheimer family's stake in Volkov's investment is greatly reduced this time, they have no more pragmatic choice than to show a gesture of acceptance.

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Guo Jian also delayed his return to China until mid-November, and stayed in China for a month, in addition to reporting on the construction and trial production of Vorkov Petrochemical Industry, he mainly acted as a lobbyist for Liang Yuan, persuading Han Shaorong and the senior management of the New Iron and Steel Union to cooperate with the Evans Foundation and Lekki Mining.

The construction of the Boesso-Catro railway is a major project, and the focus of the early cooperation is Lekki Mining's acquisition of the Boesso iron ore mine and the construction of a concentrator plant that has been stalled for 20 years, and the Catelo Iron and Steel Plant will sign a long-term purchase agreement with it to ensure that the refined iron ore produced by the Boso iron ore mine can be supplied to the Catelo steel plant at a price slightly higher than the cost.

The cost of transportation cannot be reduced, the ore grade is slightly worse, and the agreed price is certainly higher than the refined iron ore from the Akwa Mamba area that is transported to the furnace of the Catro steel plant through the iron-sea link, but the problem at hand is that if there is no compromise, the Catro steel plant will not be able to operate normally.

Of course, when the construction of the Bote-Catro railway is successful in the future, the transportation cost will be greatly reduced, and the grade of Boso iron ore will be slightly worse, and the final cost will be quite limited than that of Mamba refined iron ore.

Yu Jinjie knew the situation of Boso Iron Mine very well, and finally under the persuasion of Han Shaorong, he agreed to this plan and let Catro Iron and Steel Plant operate first.

There is no second large or medium-sized steel plant in the Gulf of Guinea, and the nearest large steel plant is located in South Africa, which also means that Catro Steel Works can use Boiso iron ore concentrate at a high price, and if it is properly managed, it can squeeze out some profit margins.

With such a result, Guo Jian happily returned to Draculamo, thinking that it was difficult for him to do other private work, and he did not have enough capital, so he planned to register a mechanical and electrical equipment and parts import and export trading company in Draculamo.

The Catelo Iron Works and the Boso Iron Mine are huge, and there are so many mechanical and electrical equipment that need to be repaired and replaced every year that he thinks that he can take a small bite of fat from them, which will be enough for the night club.

He didn't expect that as soon as he arrived in Draculamo, the news of the merger of Conero Cement and West Africa Cement Group to form West Africa United Cement, Tianyue Investment's shareholding in Banco Nacional Ultramarino, and the acquisition of a controlling stake in Volkov Investment through a debt-to-equity swap followed.

Volkov Investment holds 85% of the shares of Volkov Petrochemical, and Cao Mo either directly or indirectly controls Jolkov Investment, which actually tightens the control of Volkov Petrochemical.

At the same time, Volkov Investment also holds 25% of the shares of Conero Newport City, and merges 35% of the shares held by Conero Lake Industrial Park, which also means that Cao Mo officially grabbed the shares of Newport City.

Guo Jian hesitated for two days before reporting this information to Han Shaorong.

"You're fucking shitty in your eyes, or you've been fucking eating shit all day! Haven't known anything, now tell me you're a fucking ......"

Han Shaorong's angry voice roared out of the microphone, Liang Yuan sat on the sofa opposite, silently looking at Guo Jian's face that was flushed by Han Shaorong's training on the phone, but he didn't dare to refute a word.

Although it is still unclear why Sturgeon ceded control of Volkov's investment to Cao Mo, one thing is clear now, that is, Sturgeon has long been secretly in collusion with Cao Mo.

Liang Yuan was also full of regret at this moment:

In retrospect at this time, Huang Hebin and Yan Zhicheng returned to Draculamo, Sturgeon was the actual controller of the Volkov Petrochemical Group at that time, but he accepted Huang Hebin to be responsible for the continuation and subsequent operation of the Volkov Petrochemical Group, and even did not install people in the follow-up, and entered Huang Hebin to check and balance, he should have guessed that there was something wrong with Sturgeon.

He knew that Yan Zhicheng had a problem before, why didn't he think about it further?

Of course, it's too late to say anything now, Liang Yuan saw Guo Jian hang up the phone in frustration, patted him on the shoulder comfortingly, and said: "Neither Ryan Fortis nor we expected that Sturgeon would have defected to Cao Mo a long time ago, but this further confirms that the Calero incident that happened in Akwa in October was Cao Mo's troublemaker—Sturgeon was extremely active in Akwa as a senior vice president of Banco Nacional Ultramarino from July to October, and he also approached Badinah Savei Jr. in this capacity many times. Cao Mo is now successful for a while, but he doesn't know what the consequences will be if he offends the Saweiyi family who hold the Akwa regime, and this time the senior management of the Evans Foundation has also completely sobered up, and is extremely angry about this, and I believe that he will give Les Fortis greater support in the future - let's see how many more days he can bounce around!"

"That being said, it is possible that the construction plan of the Bosso-Catelo railway will be implemented sooner than expected, but ......" Guo Jian's heart seemed to be stuffed with a ball of thatch, sat back on the sofa in frustration, and said, "Mr. Han was promoting on the phone just now, Dong Chengpeng will go to Draculamo to take over the office next, in addition to the directors of Volkov Petrochemical and Conero Newport City, and at the same time, after Mr. Han also communicated with the new iron and steel, Xihai Iron and Steel and Catro Iron and Steel Plant will add a new director, and Dong Chengpeng will serve as the ......"

Liang Yuan personally holds 22% of the equity of Xihai Iron and Steel, and his position in Xihai Iron and Steel and Catro Iron and Steel Plant will not be deprived.

Liang Yuan will not forget that Guo Jian said that Huang Hebin's return to Draculamo was originally proposed by Dong Chengpeng to Han Shaorong, and he was curious if Han Shaorong still hadn't thought that Huang Hebin had a problem?

Of course, Liang Yuan also knew that Han Shaorong was just using him at first, and he didn't really trust him, thinking that maybe when Dong Chengpeng went to Draculamo and got the real evidence of Dong Chengpeng's secret collusion with Cao Mo, maybe he could really convince Han Shaorong to believe that Dong Chengpeng defected to Huamao, which was Cao Mo's counter-plot at all!

Liang Yuan's mind wandered, and Guo Jian didn't notice what he was thinking, but he felt painful about the loss of his hands in an instant:

Han Shaorong didn't say that he would be called back, but after Dong Chengpeng arrived in Draculamo, he could only be regarded as Dong Chengpeng's assistant at best.

Huang Lingli, who has never taken him seriously, is afraid that she will ride on his head to and pee in the future, right?

And in this situation, even if Liang Yuan's promise to him remains unchanged, how can he register a private trading company and take over the private work of the Catelo Iron and Steel Plant?