Xia Yu opened the first folder and browsed it first.

In addition to the basic information of Polaris Capital, it is the operation of the invested company.

Genentech, Amgen, Home Depot, Abbott...... This is the case for all companies, and each company has financial reports for the first and second quarters, so you can see the operating conditions at a glance.

It's just that because most companies are in the early stage of development, the financial reports are not eye-catching, and even have been putting in no output, but Xia Yu doesn't care, as long as he sees that the money is spent.

After browsing, the situation of Polaris Capital was updated in his mind, and in general he found no problems.

Xia Yu, who was relieved, directly closed the first folder and put it aside, and flipped up the second folder.

After a closer look, I found that the first four pages were all catalogs, and when I looked at the serial number, there were eighty-seven banks, no wonder I opened the folder and found that the files inside were so thick.

If you think about it carefully, it has only been less than two days since Xia Yu called Peter Lynch to do this work when he was about to come to San Francisco in New York, which is too efficient.

If you do a good job, you have to praise, Xia Yu couldn't help but praise: "Peter, your work is very efficient and you have done a good job!"

Peter Lynch said with a smile: "Boss, I have been paying attention to the banking industry before, especially in the first half of this year, the interest rate fluctuation in the banking industry has reached the highest level in nearly a decade, so I have long asked people to collect information on the banking industry to see if there are investment opportunities. ”

Xia Yu suddenly realized that because of the fluctuation of the exchange rate of the US dollar and the impact of inflation, there was indeed a banking crisis in the early 80s in the United States in history, thousands of banks failed, and the core banks of the top ten consortia all failed, and the total number of banks in the United States dropped sharply from more than 70,000 to more than 50,000, and it took more than ten years to reach the number of more than 70,000 again.

This intelligence gathering work seems to be accidental, but in fact it is inevitable.

Xia Yu smiled and said, "Anyway, you did a good job." ”

Peter Lynch smiled and nodded slightly to Xia Yu without saying more.

Lowering his head again, Xia Yu first carefully browsed the catalog, wanting to find a bank that was still well-known in later generations, according to the historical trajectory, a bank that has been able to stand and grow for more than 30 years is definitely the best acquisition target among these banks.

Not to mention, when Xia Yu turned to the third page, he couldn't help but stare when he saw the name of the bank in the first line.

WELLSFARGO！

Translated, it's Wells Fargo!

In later generations, the only AAA-rated bank in the United States, Wells Fargo, which was once known as the first bank in the universe, alternated with Huaxia Industrial and Commercial Bank of China on the throne of the first bank in the universe four times!

Although it was surpassed later, it is still one of the four major banks in the United States, and its market value has always been around 200 billion US dollars, and it was even close to 300 billion US dollars at one time!

The four major banks in the United States in later generations were **** Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citibank Group.

Of course, the **** bank was formed by the merger of the Morgan Company and the Chase Manhattan Bank in 2000, and now the two before the merger are the financial core of the Morgan consortium and the Rockefeller consortium respectively.

The Bank of America was the largest bank in the United States and the second largest in the world, and was the financial core of the California consortium.

Not to mention Citibank Group, the core of the first Citibank consortium, the second largest bank in the United States and the third largest in the world.

So the only one of the four major banks in the United States that still has a chance is Wells Fargo.

Although there are still dozens of banks on the directory of information that I haven't read, but at this time, Xia Yu has no heart to look at it, no matter how brilliant the future is, can it be more brilliant than Wells Fargo?

Since it was put into the information by Peter Lynch, it proves that Wells Fargo has a relatively large possibility of acquisition, even if Xia Yu knows that Wells Fargo should belong to a California consortium, and a sense of expectation rises in his heart.

With expectations, Xia Yu flipped to the location of Wells Fargo according to the page number and read it carefully.

Wells Fargo, founded in 1852, is headquartered in San Francisco......

Because he cared, Xia Yu looked at it quite carefully, a total of ten sides, and after watching it for nearly twenty minutes, he had a clear idea of Wells Fargo at this time in his mind.

At this time, Wells Fargo was really only a medium-sized bank, and its scope of activity was basically in California, and 60% of it was in southern California.

Moreover, Wells Fargo's main business is very distinctive, it is a community bank, it can be said that it is wholeheartedly engaged in retail, and the business of community banks accounts for more than 80% of Wells Fargo, and most of Wells Fargo's savings come from community retail investors, and the cooperation with large enterprises is more based on loans.

Because Wells Fargo is not yet listed, it is not easy to collect information, and the most representative of the data is Wells Fargo's 1979 financial report.

According to the annual report, as of December 1979, Wells Fargo's total assets were $21.4 billion, and the total loans were $15.6 billion, including $4 billion in personal home mortgages.

Although Wells Fargo has total assets of $21.4 billion, it is an out-and-out medium-sized bank in the United States, where the financial industry is developed, and the ownership equity of Wells Fargo is only $830 million.

Owner's equity can be considered as net assets, because in accounting, owner's equity refers to the ownership of the net assets of the business by the investors of the business. This includes the capital invested by the company's investors, as well as the capital reserves, surplus reserves and undistributed profits formed in the company's business activities. It is the source of the acquisition of the assets of the enterprise, and the relationship is expressed by the formula: assets = liabilities + owners' equity.

So don't look at Wells Fargo's total assets of $21.4 billion, but that money is all depositors', and Wells Fargo is just escrow.

For the whole of 1979, Wells Fargo's net profit was $130 million.

At present, the financial industry in the United States is in a recession, and none of the top 10 companies in the United States are financial companies, and the general price-earnings ratio of the banking industry is about 5, which is not enough to reach about 10 times the price-earnings ratio when it was stable in later generations.

At the prevailing five-fold price-to-earnings ratio, the unlisted Wells Fargo would have a market capitalization of $650 million, which is less than Wells Fargo's net worth.

This undoubtedly sounds outrageous, but it is true now, whether it is Bank of America or Citibank, it is almost the same, and the market value is just over $10 billion.

The downturn in the financial sector has been dragged down by the overall environment, and it is also related to the global oil crisis, and now five of the top ten companies in the United States are oil companies.

Having said that, this year, because of the overall environment, inflation in the United States is quite severe, which has led to sharp fluctuations in the federal funds rate, which has triggered a series of bad consequences.

Last year, Wells Fargo's spread was around 4.47%, but Polaris Capital's research team calculated that Wells Fargo's spread this year will be less than 4%, which means that this year's net profit will be lower than last year's.

Not only that, because of the sharp fluctuations in the federal funds rate, Wells Fargo needs to spend a greater cost to absorb deposits from the outside world, but in response to market fluctuations, Wells Fargo's benchmark interest rate has to be adjusted.

For example, the data shows that the preferential interest rate announced by Wells Fargo was 15%, which rose to 20% in April, but fell to 11% at the end of July, but at the end of September, with the start of the Iran-Iraq war, the interest rate rose to 21%!

This interest rate fluctuates in real time, but the interest rate on loans and bonds is fixed.

According to Wells Fargo's financial report last year, the average lending rate on total loans of 15.6 billion yuan was 12.7 percent, of which the lowest interest rate was 9.3 percent for bonds, the second lowest interest rate was 10.3 percent for $5.3 billion for personal home mortgages, and real estate development loans.

Now, with the rise in the federal funds rate, the price of market bonds has fallen, by more than 10 percent, and if these bonds were cleaned up now, Wells Fargo would lose $160 million.

In the end, there are about $9.5 billion in assets maturing in more than one year in various fields, and if all of them are calculated according to the loss of 10 percent of the bonds, and these assets are liquidated at this time, the loss of $9.5 billion will reach $950 million, which will exceed the net assets of the Bank of Wells Fargo of $830 million, and the Bank of Wells Fargo will go bankrupt.

Fortunately, these assets have maturities of more than one year, and as long as the federal funds rate is below 10% before the maturity date, Wells Fargo will not be out of luck.

Even in this case, the analysis also evaluates Wells Fargo as a fairly conservative bank and a potential stock.

One can imagine how much pressure other aggressive banks are under in the face of such a hostile environment.

It is no wonder that in the past few years, more than 10,000 or nearly 20,000 banking institutions have collapsed, and even some of the top 10 consortia have been unable to save their core big banks and have watched it collapse.

At the end of the data, there is also an analysis of the difficulty of Wells Fargo's acquisition.

Although Wells Fargo belongs to the California consortium, the California consortium does not value it, after all, it is only a medium-sized bank that has not yet left California, and the equity ratio belonging to the California consortium is about 43%, which has not reached a relative control.

In addition to Wells Fargo, the California consortium has more than a dozen financial institutions, among which Bank of America, Bank of the West, Safe Pacific Banking Corporation, Wells Fargo Bank, and Crocker National Bank, among others, which one is not bigger than Wells Fargo?

Multinational banks like Bank of America and cross-state regional banks like Western banks are not mentioned in the San Francisco area, but Wells Fargo is inferior to Wells Fargo Bank and Crocker National Bank.

Therefore, the analysis said that the California consortium does not value Wells Fargo, and in the face of the current banking downturn and the huge risk of interest rate fluctuations, the California consortium must be worried about increasing the bank's foundation to resist risks.

But there are too many banks under the California consortium, and there is also huge pressure on Rao with their strength.

So as long as the offer is right, the California consortium will not refuse to sell its stake in Wells Fargo.

However, the analysis also said that although Wells Fargo is a medium-sized bank, it is conservative in investment and relatively stronger in its ability to resist pressure, and the California consortium also knows a certain potential, and if it is to be acquired, it is not excluded that the board of directors of Wells Fargo is suspicious of opening its mouth, and it is conservatively estimated that the purchase price will be more than one billion US dollars.

The figure of one billion dollars not only did not make Xia Yu entangled, but he breathed a sigh of relief and was quite happy.

There is no doubt that the analytics department at Polaris Capital underestimated Wells Fargo's potential, and if it weren't for Xia Yu being a reborn, he would have made a similar judgment.

In his mind, the California consortium's assessment of Wells Fargo would be similar to the one in the current document, which was a great opportunity.

Judging from the situation of later generations, Wells Fargo is undoubtedly quite wise to focus on the development of community banks at this time, and the development model is excellent.

As long as it can adhere to this model and develop, it will still become the top big bank in the United States.

At this time, if it is acquired, then Optimus Prime of the Polaris consortium will have a foothold in the United States, and it will not be cowardly in a confrontation with the California consortium's Bank of America, not to mention that he will also add a golden finger halo to Wells Fargo, and the development speed will be quite amazing.

Therefore, Xia Yu did not hesitate at all, and no longer looked at the information of other banks, and directly handed the information to Peter Lynch, when the latter looked at the information, Xia Yu said solemnly: "Peter, hand over one of your most important tasks, this Wells Fargo Bank, you have to do your best to acquire it." ”

"Don't say it's a billion dollars, even if it's 1.5 billion or even 2 billion dollars, it doesn't matter, I only have one to buy it all!"

"Polaris Capital and all the companies under it need it!"

Peter Lynch flashed a lightning bolt in his mind, and while his heart shook violently, he instantly understood the purpose of his boss Xia Yu.

The boss is preparing to take Wells Fargo as the center and absorb all the companies under Polaris Capital to form a consortium!

He only felt that the blood was flowing faster, and he couldn't help but look at Xia Yu and ask, "Boss, do you want to build a consortium?"

His purpose was immediately seen through by Peter Lynch, but Xia Yu was not surprised.

Peter Lynch has been in the Wall Street with many conglomerates for many years, and he must have done a lot of research on conglomerates, and it is normal to see it.

In the United States, where consortia are rampant, it is normal and common for large and small companies and families to form a consortium for warmth, so Xia Yu did not hide it, nodded and said: "That's right, I have this idea, so you understand the importance of acquiring Wells Fargo, right?"

Although I don't know why the boss fell in love with Wells Fargo at a glance, Peter Lynch didn't ask, he was in high spirits, nodded blatantly and said: "I understand, boss, don't worry, I will definitely buy Wells Fargo." ”

Xia Yu nodded, because he cared, he still uneasily told Peter Lynch again: "Peter, now that the oil crisis has broken out, it has a great impact on the financial industry, we must seize the opportunity to strive to acquire Wells Fargo before the end of this year, it doesn't matter if the price is high, of course, if you can keep the price down, I will not be stingy with bonuses at the end of the year." ”

Peter Lynch replied solemnly, "Boss, I won't let you down. ”

Peter Lynch then hurriedly left the office to build the Wells Fargo acquisition team.

Xia Yu stayed in the company until about 11:10, and then received a notice from the employee, and he immediately called Li Wuming to go downstairs and prepare to go back.

The person he was waiting for had already arrived, and it was time to go back.

PS: Because of work, I can only code words late at night, please forgive me, this chapter is 4200 words