Soros was not wrong in his guess, and there were indeed institutions that showed enough interest in the Kaminari brothers. Unlike the Bank of America, which was forcibly "apportioned" by the government, this consortium has long had the intention and ambition to expand the US market, and entering the US investment banking industry is only a small step in their strategy.

That's how the Kaminmen brothers came into the sights of Barclays.

As the oldest bank in the UK, Barclays has been established for more than 300 years to date, and it is the third largest commercial bank in the UK, behind HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland; It is also one of the largest commercial banks in the world, with total assets of $1,956.7 billion in 2007, only below Swiss banks in the world, surpassing American consortia such as Citigroup, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase.

As the oldest bank in the world, Barclays is conservative and slightly archaic, and generally has a group culture of more than enough to be more than enough to develop. However, it is precisely because of this conservative style that they have not been implicated too much after the subprime mortgage crisis. The Royal Bank of Scotland, which is also one of the four largest banks in the United Kingdom, is in deep debt crisis at this time.

The market fluctuated violently, and people were panicked.

In this environment, Barclays' executives realized that perhaps they had an opportunity to expand into the U.S. market, especially investment banking, and the U.S. investment banking giants came into their sights.

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Barclays Bank has its own investment banking business: Barclays Capital. But whether it is in Europe, the Americas, or the thriving Asian market, Barclays Capital cannot compare with any American investment bank, and even some European investment banks. In this case, if you want to expand your investment banking business as much as possible. Buying an established investment bank is the fastest, most straightforward and most efficient option.

Bob. Dimon, a director at Barclays, is a grassroots banker and current CEO. Wally has a very different background. Wally was a pure banker, an aristocrat, and a complete gentleman. And Bob. Dimon came from the grassroots and rose to the top with opportunity and ability. His style was radical and bold, and although Wally and other conservatives disliked him, the board of directors valued his ability and even offered him a salary several times higher than that of Wally.

Of the two, Bob. Dimon and John. Although Wally cannot be said to complement each other's advantages and complement each other, they will not tear each other down, fight infighting, and everyone will get along for so many years. Working together for the company.

In April, Bob. Dimon had already moved on the idea of buying Kamina Brothers, and he spent more than two months conducting a thorough assessment of Kaminari Brothers' financial situation, and in June he presented the board of directors with a complete acquisition plan. Unfortunately, Barclays' board of directors did not approve the acquisition because the price was too high. However, the board of directors did not completely close the door to the Kaminari brothers, and their condition was "if they (Kaminarimon) can be sold cheaply".

Naturally, Bob. Dimon's team also attended the Kaminari Brothers' financial conference. However, in order not to attract the attention of the market, they used fake names and institutions to register and log in. After listening to the Kaminari brothers' financial figures. Bob. Dimon was ecstatic, so distraught that he almost screamed.

"Wally, maybe it's time for you to reconsider my previous mention!"

He immediately dialed John. Wally's call, "$3.9 billion quarterly loss, $10 per share net loss, that's a crazy number." Trust us as long as the premium is 20%. It would be easy to take the Kaminmen brothers, and the entire deal is estimated to be no more than $4 billion. ”

Just three months ago, when Barclays discussed the same acquisition, the budget was a full $10 billion.

"I need to think about it!" Although the number of these varies greatly, John. Wally remained calm enough. "I need to have an emergency board meeting. Bob, this is a great opportunity for you to convince the board. ”

"I understand!" Bob. Confidently hanging up the phone and booking a non-stop flight to London, he was now in New York and was looking around for news about the Kaminmons, specifically potential buyers in the market.

Despite these months Bob. Dimon has been following the news of the Kaminmen Brothers, but the London market and the American market still have some information flow smoothly, not only because of geographical reasons, but also because of mutual precautions among peers. After arriving in New York, Bob . When Dimon learned that Bank of America was going to buy Kaminari Brothers, he also knew that Ken. Lewis is reluctant and is currently haggling with Fed officials and other secrets.

It seems that there are only American banks in the market and they are in competition with Bob. Dimon was delighted and ready to bring the news back to convince the board.

Not to mention the reaction from Barclays' side. At the venue, Jiang Shan and others were puzzled by Zhong Shi's sale of British bank assets.

"So far, there have been crises of all sizes in the banking sector across Europe, but with the exception of Northern Rock, the others have proved to be false alarms, at least so far." Jiang Shan recalled the market news of the past year or so in his mind, and said with his fingers crossed, "BNP Paribas, Northern Rock Bank, UBS, German State Bank, Japan's Mizuho, Deutsche and other institutions have had bad news. But so far, nothing worse has happened in Europe, except for the nationalization of Northern Rock and the takeover of the banking system by German state banks. It can be said that although the subprime crisis spread to Europe, the damage and consequences caused by subprime loans were far less than those of the United States. In such a situation, I really can't understand that I want to go to the other side of the ocean thousands of miles away by ignoring the large number of short selling opportunities here. ”

"You're wrong!" Zhong Shi's face suddenly gloomy, "It's not that Europe's problems are smaller than those of the United States, but that Europe's problems haven't broken out yet." Believe me, Europe's problems are far worse than America's. ”

As he spoke, Zhong Shi's eyes swept around the audience again, and found that the person wearing sunglasses mentioned when he was talking and laughing with Jiang Shan when he entered the arena turned his head in a hurry. If once is a coincidence, two or three times obviously not. Zhong Shi was immediately vigilant, and looked coldly in the direction of the man in sunglasses for a long time, secretly making a gesture of holding an umbrella. When he turned his head again, his palm quietly rested on his chin.

"What's at stake?" Jiang Shan didn't notice this qiē at all, and still insisted on asking Zhong Shi.

Zhong Shi put his finger to his lips, looking like he was rubbing the hawthorn, but the palm of his hand was just right to cover the shape of his mouth, "I think we are being targeted." Maybe the other party still understands the vernacular. ”

"Who? Who? Who? Jiang Shan and the other two immediately became nervous, and looked around, where could they still find suspicious people. At least what they saw was that the vast majority of people were listening carefully to the high-level Kaminari brothers on stage.

"Okay, I'm just skeptical." Zhong Shi stared at the stage with his eyes, but kept saying, "Gentlemen, if you still have an impression, you should remember the banking merger and acquisition case that caused a sensation all over the world last year, right?" ”

October 2007. In the world banking sector, a consortium of Royal Bank of Scotland, Banco Nacional de España and Belgian Fortis Bank bought ABN AMRO for $101 billion worth of cash and shares. The more than $100 billion merger and acquisition is the first in seven years to exceed $100 billion in the world, the others being Vodafone's acquisition of Mannesman and AOL's acquisition of Time Warner.

In this acquisition, Barclays of the United Kingdom was one of the bidders, and RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) and other three consortiums were the other parties to the bidding, and the two sides began a wheel-like quotation war in February, but after several rounds of quotations, Barclays, as the "white knight" of the Dutch bank, could not obtain the support of shareholders. In the end, he had to leave the field gloomily and admit defeat.

"Of course I do!" After thinking about it for a while, Jiang Shan recalled all the details. After covering his mouth and whispering, he asked puzzledly, "But what does this have to do with our dumping of bank assets in the UK?" ”

"It's a big deal!" Zhong Shi stilted Erlang's legs, supported his chin with his hands, continued to cover his lips, and leaned forward slightly. It seems to be listening carefully to the Kamison Brothers' top management, but in fact, what they said is something else: "If you carefully review this acquisition, you will find that in the process of several rounds of bidding, both sides used ABN AMRO's American asset LaSalle Bank as an important bargaining chip." ”

What does this mean? This shows that it is not Barclays. Or the Royal Bank of Scotland, both salivating over the US market. Moreover, in the current situation, all commercial banks are shifting from linear development to matrix development, that is, diversifying their business. So when an investment bank like Remman Brothers or Bear Stearns goes into trouble, it's hard to imagine a British or European consortium trying to get into the U.S. market pass up such a good opportunity. ”

Although ABN AMRO eventually sold LASALLE, the RBS consortium stubbornly ate ABN AMRO. I feel like they made a fatal mistake and that this acquisition deviated from their original intentions. Putting that aside from that, let's talk about the post-acquisition integration, at least so far, I haven't seen a significant boost in RBS's business, and they've issued more than £15 billion in new shares to raise capital, which has caused displeasure among other shareholders. ”

"If at this time, a sensational global market news, such as the bankruptcy of Kaminari Brothers, would have that impact? Not to mention anything else, because of the digestion of the acquisition of ABN AMRO's assets, the financial statements of the basic RBS will not look good this year, and they have borrowed too much. And once the market confidence collapses, what kind of situation do you say the RBS will face at that time? ”

"Will it go bankrupt too?" Jiang Shan quickly figured out the stakes, and his face turned extremely pale at the moment, "If RBS goes bankrupt, it will cause a more violent reaction, and even the entire British banking industry may collapse." Oh my God, it's the end of the world! ”

"You're right!" Zhong Shi's expression has never been as serious as this moment, "But you are also wrong, the British government cannot let this happen, they will inevitably bail out the banking system, this is the so-called too big to fail." Although it is still far from reaching such a strict level, it is believed that the UK Treasury and the Bank of England have noticed this qiē in the United States, so they must maintain a high level of attention to the banking industry in the near future. ”

"So?" Jiang Shan was confused again.

"So if there is a British or European consortium interested in Kaminmon, the regulators in their country will not necessarily agree to the takeover at such a time." Zhong Shi smiled, "And what we have to do is to sell aggressively in the market, put some pressure on the market, and then let this pressure be transferred to the regulators to help them make the 'right' decisions faster and better." ”

"Is that so? That's exactly what happened! Jiang Shan slowly lowered his head, thoughtful. (To be continued......)

ps:ps: The author wrote some views on the recent stock market today, which have been published in the relevant part of the public chapter work, welcome all book friends to have time and interest to take a look~~ By the way, thank you for the flying leaves in the flight of the book friends for the monthly ticket! Thank you book friends for the really annoying evaluation votes! We hope you will continue to support us! R1292