Chapter 660: The Rothschild Family's Minion

In the blink of an eye, the three days had passed.

Over the past three days, Sotheby's and Eskenazi Limited had finally stopped passively accepting things and had begun buying up the media to confuse the public and dispel rumours.

The effect was there, at least some of the more gullible people believed it.

However, these two companies took action, and neither Xia Yu nor Christie's Auction House were idle bystanders.

Xia Yu and Christie's Auction House did not know of each other's existence, but they took the same attitude, constantly causing trouble for Sotheby's Auction House and Eskenazi Ltd.

The only difference was that Christie's Auction House only targeted Sotheby's Auction House.

In this situation, although public opinion was no longer as fierce as it had been in the first day or two, it was still not to be underestimated.

This caused the stock prices of Sotheby's and Eskenazi Ltd. to continue to fall.

Over the course of three days, George Berkeley kept reporting to Xia Yu on the latest progress of the stock acquisition.

As expected by Xia Yu, those institutions that had a bet with companies controlled by Guangming Fund had no heart to resist when Guangming Fund threw out the chip that could end the bet early, and all of them agreed to sell their shares to Guangming Fund.

Of course, in order to complete the acquisition as quickly as possible, Guangming Fund acquired the shares at the real-time stock price of the day. Those institutions simply agreed after a mild argument, and conditions such as premium acquisition simply did not exist.

After all, Guangming Fund's willingness to end the VAM early was a gift to them. The longer they waited, the greater their losses would be. In the face of losses, where would they care about profits?

Or in their view, saving is earning.

Within three days, most of the staff at Bright Fund were mobilised, and ten acquisition teams were formed. From these VAM institutions, they acquired a total of 21.4% of the shares in Sotheby's Auction House, as well as 18.2% of the shares in Eskenazi Limited.

In addition, Bright Fund also acquired a total of 27.8% of the shares in Sotheby's Auction House, as well as 12.4% of the shares in Eskenazi Limited, from the market, unvetted institutions and individual shareholders.

As a result, Bright Fund now holds a total of 49.2% of Sotheby's and 30.6% of Eskenazi Limited.

The total cost was £112 million.

Because Bright Fund played a trick during the acquisition, and all acquisitions were made using previously prepared front companies, the equity was not concentrated, and the outside world did not know the real situation.

At most, clues could be found from the constant replacement of shareholders.

But at this point, Xia Yu didn't care if it was discovered.

With 49.2% of the shares in Sotheby's, the takeover was a done deal.

That is, Sotheby's, unlike Christie's, has changed hands many times, resulting in a very fragmented shareholding. The current de facto controlling shareholder of Sotheby's has far less control over the company than the Woods family does over Christie's.

As for Eskenazi Ltd., the acquisition of a 30.6% stake is almost the limit. The Eskenazi family's combined shareholding exceeds 50%, and Xia Yu simply cannot take it away.

Fortunately, Xia Yu never intended to acquire the company from the beginning. After all, the ownership of a large number of Chinese cultural relics is in the Eskenazi family, not in the company.

Acquiring these stakes is nothing more than a calculation for later.

...

'Boss, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting.'

At 2:50 pm, at the headquarters of Guangming Foundation, Xia Yu waited in the lobby for less than a minute before George Berkeley hurriedly ran over from the elevator and apologised.

'It's fine, let's go!'

'Okay!'

Then Xia Yu led Li Wuming, Elena, and George Berkeley and the others to the car and headed to the Hilton International Hotel in the western corner of the City of London.

This afternoon, a far-reaching financial gathering will be held here, attended by all the famous and powerful financial companies in London, ranging from banks, investment banks, private equity funds and capital management groups, etc. Not only companies from the UK, but also the UK branches of many international financial giants have been invited to attend.

Although Bright Fund has become much more famous and powerful after acquiring two media companies and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, it is still considered a junior player at this gathering.

Of course, this is after hiding assets such as dark purchase plans and manipulation of London gold. Otherwise, if this were to be exposed, Bright Fund's status would definitely rise a few notches.

Fifteen minutes later, the car arrived at the Hilton London Hotel and was directed to the parking lot by the hotel security.

Li Wuming was left to watch the car, while Xia Yu, Elena and George Berkeley were guided by the waiter to the set-up conference hall.

At this time, quite a few people had already arrived at the venue. Xia Yu didn't know many of them, but George Berkeley greeted people familiar to him and introduced Xia Yu to the crowd.

Xia Yu was a social butterfly and exchanged business cards with many people with an unassuming attitude.

Just then, he caught a glimpse of someone important entering the door. When he looked more closely, he realised it was the Duke of Carter Howard, surrounded by a group of people. He raised his eyebrows slightly, thinking of his position as a director of the second largest shareholder of Lloyds Bank.

'Elena, it's your father. Do you want to go over there first?'

Xia Yu finished talking to the general manager of a private equity fund and walked over to Elena, whispering.

Elena was taken aback. She looked in the direction Xia Yu was looking and saw that it was indeed her father.

After thinking for a moment, she shook her head slightly and said, 'Forget it, there are so many people here. Let's go over when there are fewer people.'

Xia Yu nodded, 'Okay, let's wait a while.'

The arrival of Duke Carter Howard seemed to have lifted the curtain on the arrival of the bigwigs. Within the next ten minutes, one big banker or financial magnate after another entered the room, including the president of Barclays Bank, the president of HSBC Holdings, the general manager of J. P. Morgan Bank's UK branch, the Count of Bahrain from the Bahrain Bank, and West German Monger Warburg from G.S. Warburg & Co.

Of course, Xia Yu also saw the head of the Rothschild family, Jacob Rothschild. Although it was the first time Xia Yu had met him in person, he recognised him immediately, thanks to the memories in his mind.

What's more, Xia Yu also noticed that the white man who accompanied Jacob Rothschild but appeared very low-key and slightly ordinary was none other than the later-famous George Soros.

Xia Yu knew that George Soros was a lackey of the Rothschild family, and as early as 1969, when the company was sent to Europe to develop the securities market, he was noticed by the Rothschild family due to his amazing performance and Jewish identity, and was subsequently recruited.

Xia Yu was able to know such a deep secret about Soros because before his rebirth, Soros, the big shot, also attended the Davos Economic Forum and stayed in that hotel. After Xia Yu was reborn, naturally, he had some of Soros' memories.

It can be said that in this world, Xia Yu is the person who knows Soros best, even better than Soros himself.

Seeing the general attitude and even indifference of the people around him towards Soros, Xia Yu's mouth curled up in a smile.

At the moment, Soros was only a well-known figure on Wall Street, with a net worth of only about 20 million US dollars. The company name had just been changed from Open Society Fund to the Quantum Fund, which would echo around the world in the future.

No one here could have imagined that this unremarkable white man in this setting would grow up to become a financial tycoon who would dominate the world in the future.

It seemed as if he sensed someone paying attention to him, as George Soros's gaze swept the room and he happened to meet Xia Yu's eyes. Xia Yu smiled and nodded, and George Soros was momentarily taken aback, but then he returned the smile and continued looking in another direction.

'What's wrong, Xia Yu? Is there something special about that person?'

Elena noticed Xia Yu's unusual behaviour and asked softly.

'Nothing, I just feel that he looks familiar, but it's not the person I know,'

Xia Yu said with a slight smile.

Elena let out a soft 'oh' and didn't pursue the matter.

The meeting was about to begin, and everyone found a place to sit.