On April 20, a piece of news came from the battlefield that lifted the British people.

The cruiser General Belgrano, the lead battleship of the Argentine task force, was sunk by the British attack nuclear submarine "Conqueror" at a distance of 187 nautical miles from the Falklands.

Six more ships were also sunk, and the remaining ships fled back to Port Stanley in a panic.

This result not only excited the British people, but also shocked the rest of the world.

Because this time, the British army created a combat example of a nuclear submarine sinking a surface warship for the first time after World War II.

With a full load displacement of 13,750 tons, the "General Belgrano" was the largest surface ship sunk after World War II.

The Argentine military lost its air supremacy when its air supremacy was suppressed, leaving the Argentine Air Force alone.

The Argentine defenders on the Falklands have become turtles in an urn, waiting for the British to strangle them.

It's just that the British haven't been happy for a day, but there is bad news on the battlefield.

The "Sheffield," a modern and advanced main warship launched by the British Navy in 1971 at a cost of $150 million, was unexpectedly sunk by the Argentine Air Force, and it turned out that it was a French "Exocet" missile worth only $200,000 that sent him to the bottom of the sea!

When this news reached France, I don't know how many French people were shocked, and after the consternation was pride, the French military also paid more and more attention to this air-launched main missile that had just been put into service in 1979, because they knew that this missile would get a large number of orders in the future, which was simply pie in the sky!

The French were happy, but the British were angry, and the huge difference between $200,000 and their $150,000,000 capital ship was a slap in the face.

And the missiles were produced by the French, whom the British hated, so how not to annoy the British?

Xia Yu was also speechless after getting the news, and then he could only sigh at the wonder of fate, the British Navy could not escape this catastrophe after all.

Originally, the British army could have won a perfect victory, but now the main battleship "Sheffield" has been sunk, and it is destined that even if it wins in the end, there will be regrets!

Annoyed and angry, the British military went berserk and decided to launch a general offensive against the Argentine military in an attempt to end the war as soon as possible and save face for the British military.

Late on the night of 23 April, the British Special Air Service Regiment landed by helicopter on Cape Fanning on the Falklands, and then after a night of reconnaissance, vertical landing, and beach landing, more than 1,000 British troops "fell from the sky" and successfully occupied the port of San Carlos, and the 40 Argentine defenders stationed at the port were completely annihilated.

In the early morning of April 24, the British landing operation was in full swing. After the British troops landed, they immediately set up defensive positions and formed an anti-aircraft fire network with naval guns, various anti-aircraft missiles and anti-aircraft machine guns.

The troops then landed in a steady stream through the port of San Carlos, and the troops were divided into two ways to pincer the Argentine port of Stanley, where the Argentine army was concentrated, and the ground war began on the Argentine mainland.

The scales of victory are once again tipped in favor of the British!

And at this very moment.

Xia Yu, who was returning to London from Norfolk, got a message from the United States.

Peter Lynch, president of Polaris Capital, has something he wants to ask him for.

......

In the City of London, the headquarters of the Bright Fund, in Xia Yu's office.

Xia Yu looked at a report in his hand with a satisfied smile on his face.

"Peter Lynch didn't disappoint me!"

Xia Yu said with a chuckle.

Although he hasn't been to the United States for more than a year.

But Peter Lynch carried out every order he gave by remote command flawlessly, and Polaris Capital grew rapidly under his management.

In the last year, Polaris Capital has partnered with the New York branch of Jiuding Securities to complete several extremely important tasks.

The first is to spend $1.9 billion to buy a 14.6 percent stake in General Electric and become one of the majority shareholders of General Electric.

If that's all there is to it, the point is that GE has now begun to come out of the trough after Jack Welch became CEO in April last year, and now its market value has risen from a trough of $13 billion to $25.4 billion.

This also means that the floating profit of this equity held by Polaris Capital has reached as much as 1.8 billion US dollars!

The second result was The Coca-Cola Company.

Thanks to Peter Lynch's efforts, he finally bought 25.4 percent of the shares of Coca-Cola from the Chicago consortium and 21.7 percent from the Morgan consortium, although the total cost was $930 million.

But Coca-Cola was also freed from the struggle between the three major conglomerates.

Coupled with the 38.2% equity held by the British Bright Fund in the open, Xia Yu actually owns 85.3% of the equity of Coca-Cola, and the rest of the equity is scattered.

However, for Xia Yu, who already has actual absolute control, the total 14.7 percent of the shares scattered abroad is very small without preparing to privatize Coca-Cola.

Besides.

The Taiwan branch of Polaris Capital has also grown very rapidly, investing in dozens of potential companies in Taiwan Province, including Hon Hai Company, which was named by Xia Yu, and obtained 45% of the equity.

......

This time, Peter Lynch's report to Xia Yu on the company's development is not the main thing.

The core purpose is to be about an acquisition.

After much deliberation, Coca-Cola's management developed a new long-term strategic development plan, and the most critical one was an acquisition.

Coca-Cola hopes to acquire Columbia Picture Industries, one of the Hollywood giants that is now in a trough, to open up the channel between Coca-Cola and the entertainment business, and use movies to drive Coca-Cola's sales growth, increase Coca-Cola's market exposure and improve its product image.

Donald Robert, the current CEO of The Coca-Cola Company, also gave the example of celebrities drinking Coca-Cola and Pepsi only appearing in the hands of villains......

Columbia Pictures is now worth just over $370 million, but if it were to be taken private, it would take $600 million, or more, to take it private.

And Coca-Cola can't get it out of it itself, so it definitely needs to issue additional shares for mergers and acquisitions, and it also needs a lot of money.

Because Xia Yu attaches great importance to Coca-Cola, and Polaris Capital already has a MGM Pictures company in Hollywood, Peter Lynch is not easy to decide, so he reports the situation to Xia Yu, hoping that he will make a decision.

"Boom... Boom... Knock ......"

Looking at the information in his hand, Xia Yu smiled lightly, his fingers tapped the desktop rhythmically, and the information about the Coca-Cola Company in his previous life came to his mind.

In the previous life, Coca-Cola also acquired Columbia Film Industries, which was in the hands of Coca-Cola, and many classic films also appeared, and the company also came out of the trough.

It's just that Coca-Cola's strategic plan to use movies to boost Coke sales has failed.

But Coca-Cola did not lose money, because Coca-Cola later sold Columbia Picture Industries to the island nation of Sony for five billion dollars.

So now it's okay for Coca-Cola to be willing to buy Columbia Pictures.

What's more, Xia Yu is indeed not satisfied with only owning a MGM Pictures company, he hopes to occupy half of Hollywood and become the supreme king of Hollywood!

Letting Polaris Capital acquire a Hollywood giant is too direct, too conspicuous, and easy to cause a backlash.

Therefore, it is undoubtedly a good idea to buy Columbia Pictures in the name of Coca-Cola, and the success rate will be even higher than that of Polaris Capital, which already owns a Hollywood giant.

Even if Coca-Cola doesn't need it in the future, it can be left to right.

There are so many benefits, so what is there to hesitate about, of course it is approved!

However, at this time, Xia Yu saw Coca-Cola's plan from the information again, and he subconsciously frowned.

After calculating the time difference and finding that it should be around nine o'clock in the morning in San Francisco, Xia Yu picked up the phone and dialed Peter Lynch's office.

It didn't take long for the phone to go through.

Xia Yu said very simply: "Peter, I am Xia Yu...... The company is very well managed, I am very satisfied, thank you for your hard work......"

"Fully support Coca-Cola's purchase of Columbia Pictures Industries, and strengthen MGM Pictures' cooperation with it after the purchase......"

"Another point, Coca-Cola's decision to change the formula is wrong, I don't agree, Coca-Cola's formula is the company's brand spirit, leading consumer loyalty, changing the formula is to change the habits of all consumers, challenge their consumer beliefs, the consequences are extremely serious, so that the company can increase sales in other ways......"

"Smack!"

After talking for more than ten minutes, Xia Yu hung up the phone.

In later generations, Coca-Cola changed its formula in the eighties and was even called one of the biggest mistakes of American business in the past 100 years by the New York Times.

After only three months of changing the formula, angry consumers resisted and changed back to the original formula, but the damage caused by this process to Coca-Cola was extremely far-reaching, causing Coca-Cola's sales to drop a lot, and giving the market to Pepsi in vain.

Now that Coca-Cola is already his, how could he turn a blind eye to the fact that the management is now making the wrong decisions?

Even if the management doesn't understand and is dissatisfied, Xia Yu doesn't care, and he will be replaced if it's a big deal.

He is the one who is truly in control, and his orders must be carried out!

......

In the next few days, Xia Yu, accompanied by George Berkeley, inspected the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered Bank respectively.

The personnel of the two banks were purged, and all those who belonged to the Rothschild family or related personnel, whether senior or mid-level, were dismissed.

The Rothschild family was still a shareholder before, and Xia Yu couldn't do it if he wanted to, but now that he finally achieved full control of the two banks, he naturally won't be soft.

The purpose of this is to keep it secret.

What's more, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered have been dragging on long enough, and there is one thing that is likely to lose a lot if it is not done quickly.

That is, the sovereign debt to Latin American countries must be cleared as soon as possible!

When Xia Yu was in control of the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered Bank, he asked George Berkeley to make a statistic of the sovereign debt of these two banks to Latin American countries.

Among them, the Royal Bank of Scotland holds more than $2.23 billion in sovereign debt in Latin American countries.

Standard Chartered, on the other hand, holds more than $1.98 billion in sovereign debt to Latin American countries.

It is worth mentioning that Standard Chartered also holds a 39% stake in Standard Chartered Bank, the largest bank in South Africa.

South Africa's Standard Chartered Bank also holds more than $670 million in sovereign debt to Latin American countries.

Previously, Xia Yu asked Duke Carter Howard to trick the Rothschild family and conspired to sell Lloyd's Bank's sovereign debts one after another, and most of them were deliberately transferred to Barclays Bank at a low price.

However, Barclays has always been a shareholder of the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered, so Xia Yu can't do it at all.

Now that the Rothschild family has been cleared out and the employees have been purged, the time bomb of up to $4.2 billion held by the two banks together must be dropped as soon as possible.

Otherwise, once the Latin American sovereign debt crisis breaks out and Latin American countries refuse to repay their debts, then Xia Yu will have to lose more than 4.2 billion US dollars!

Therefore, after Xia Yu returned from inspecting the two banks, he immediately summoned George Berkeley and the presidents of the two banks for a short meeting to clarify the work requirements.

By June, all sovereign debt held by the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered Bank in Latin America will be liquidated and transferred to Barclays Bank if possible, and in addition to other things, to high-quality banks that want to be acquired.

During the meeting, the president of Standard Chartered Bank also raised the question of whether South Africa's Standard Chartered Bank should also transfer its sovereign debt.

After all, Standard Chartered Bank is the largest shareholder of Standard Chartered Bank in South Africa, and if the latter loses more than $670 million, then according to the proportion of equity to Standard Chartered Bank, it is equivalent to a loss of more than $260 million.

That's a lot of money!

However, Xia Yu directly rejected the proposal of the president of Standard Chartered Bank.

One is that having Standard Chartered Bank of South Africa transfer sovereign debt would raise unnecessary risks.

Second, Xia Yu has a calculating plan, and it is not an excellent opportunity to make Standard Chartered Bank, the largest commercial bank in South Africa and Africa, suffer heavy losses!

So after he clarified his idea, the president of Standard Chartered Bank was pleasantly surprised and praised Xia Yu's cleverness.

After arranging the tasks of the two banks, Xia Yu was idle again.

He's still in England and there's only one thing left undone!

......

PS: Two chapters are combined into one big chapter, and there is no update today, so I will know!