Chapter 736: Full Harvest
The Fukuhara family is worthy of being one of the core families of the Sanwa Consortium. Fukuhara Kazuya's intelligence gathering is highly efficient.
The next day, detailed information about Ito Yokado was sent to Xia Yu.
Seeing the information above, Xia Yu's brows furrowed, and he felt a bit tricky.
The reason is that the shareholders of Ito-Yokado are all difficult to deal with.
There are only three shareholders in total.
The largest shareholder and controlling shareholder is Ito Kogyo, which holds 53% of the shares. This is a company controlled by the Ito family. It was established in 1971 and is a real estate developer with no shortage of money!
The second shareholder is the island's Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, which is the island's second largest life insurance company. It is an unlisted private company controlled by the Yano family.
Although Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company is not controlled by one of the six major island consortia, it is after all in the insurance business, with extremely strong cash flow. It is also a difficult master to deal with, with a 26% shareholding.
The third largest shareholder is Mitsui Life Insurance Company, which is clearly affiliated with the Mitsui consortium, with a 21% shareholding.
In addition, Ito-Yokado's trading bank is Sakura Bank, which is in turn the core bank of the Mitsui consortium.
As for the island country's 7-Eleven retail company, it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ito-Yokado and was established in 1974.
'Knock, knock, knock!'
Xia Yu's brow furrowed slightly as he tapped his fingers unconsciously on the table, pondering his approach.
Ito-Yokado is not listed, and its major shareholders are all wealthy people, so it is impossible for Xia Yu to force his way in.
His original plan was to acquire a portion of Ito-Yokado's shares and then hold it back, so that Ito-Yokado would give up on acquiring Southern United.
Then, after acquiring Southern United, Xia Yu would exchange Ito-Yokado's shares for the shares of its subsidiary, Island 7-Eleven Retail.
In this way, Island 7-Eleven Retail would be acquired.
The original plan was beautiful, but after seeing the three major shareholders of Ito-Yokado, Xia Yu knew that his plan could be declared bankrupt directly.
Ito-Yokado was established in 1920, and it has been 60 years since then. It has more than 30 subsidiaries, and its business involves retail, catering, finance, processing and manufacturing, publishing, etc.
Island 7-Eleven Retail Company is just one of these companies.
In the industries operated by Ito-Yokado, capital flows are very frequent, and since Sakura Bank is the designated trading bank, it obtains significant benefits. The Mitsui Foundation will not sell the equity held by Mitsui Life Insurance, and for the Mitsui Foundation, the long-term benefits of holding the shares are more attractive.
As for Ito Kogyo, the largest shareholder, it is even less likely to sell its equity!
The only one that might be broken through is the second largest shareholder, the island's first life insurance company.
But even if he could get the shares in the hands of the island's first life insurance company, it would be difficult for Xia Yu to move in the face of Mitsui Life Insurance and Ito Kogyo, which were in the same line.
If one of the six major island consortia stepped in, it might be possible to succeed.
After a long time, Xia Yu's eyes narrowed slightly, and he muttered, 'It seems that we still need to take over Southern Company first. As for the island's 7-Eleven retail company, we'll find an opportunity to do it later.'
'Moreover, Ito-Yokado has the backing of the Mitsui Foundation and Dai-ichi Life Insurance, so it is extremely well-funded. It would be uneconomical to fight head-on with money, and we cannot let Southern States reap the rewards.'
'We cannot let Ito-Yokado find out that I am their competitor, or else there will be even more trouble!'
After careful consideration, Xia Yu decided to stay behind the scenes and borrow the tiger's skin of the American overlord for the islanders.
Southern States is not in Texas, so let's find the Texas Consortium to intervene.
He remembered that the Texas Consortium had several major banks, so he approached these banks. As long as the US dollars were in place, he was sure that the problem could be solved.
After making up his mind, Xia Yu gave Julian Robertson a call to make his position clear.
Soon, Julian Robertson took action.
He directly offered high commissions to the First National Bank of Dallas and the Republic National Bank of Dallas, entrusting the two major banks to help acquire American South Corporation.
...
As time passed, the impact of the US halt on gold sales grew, and the international gold price continued to rise.
Xia Yu devoted most of his energy to the gold market and foreign exchange market.
Just then, Gavin Peter took the lead in achieving results and reported the good news to Xia Yu.
He acquired the French Hachette Publishing Group for 6 million pounds.
Yan Wenhan did not disappoint Xia Yu either. With the authorization of the chairman, Yan Wenhan was full of confidence and, on the advice of Rey Dario, offered a high commission to persuade Morgan Stanley Bank.
In those days, Morgan Stanley had the power to dominate the world, and its clients included six of the world's ten largest oil giants and seven of the ten largest companies in the United States.
At that time, the only advertising slogan was 'If God wanted to raise capital, he would also go to Morgan Stanley.'
With Morgan Stanley, the king of finance, on board, nothing can go wrong!
After nearly a month of preparation,
on 9 January, Yan Wenhan acquired the Washington Star, which was in the red, for $15 million.
On 14 January, he acquired the Houston Chronicle for $20 million.
On January 17, Yen Wenhan once again reported good news. At a huge cost of 35 million US dollars, double the premium, he made real estate billionaire Mort Zuckerman gladly offer the New York Daily News, which has a daily circulation of 700,000 copies.
A total of 70 million US dollars, equivalent to 322 million Hong Kong dollars, has laid a solid foundation for Jiuding Newspaper Company in the United States!
Gavin Peter, who was responsible for the acquisition in Europe, became anxious when he heard the news and intensified his efforts to acquire the target.
In Hong Kong, Jiuding Newspaper Company also made gains.
Faced with Jiuding Newspaper Company's carrot and stick approach, the founder of Movie Weekly, despite his reluctance, gave in to reality and sold the magazine to Jiuding Newspaper Company.
After the acquisition, Wu Siyuan immediately sent someone to establish cooperation with Movie Weekly.
Amidst all the chaos, time passed quickly.
The international gold price also rose rapidly.
On January 18, the international gold price broke through the 800 US dollars per ounce mark.
After breaking through, the gold price stopped rising for a while, and then climbed again.
It seems that because the high price of 800 US dollars was broken, it made speculators around the world go crazy, and the gold price rose at an even faster rate.
As soon as the market opened on January 20, the international gold price rose to 830 US dollars per ounce.
Seeing this price, Xia Yu decided not to wait any longer!
He gave the order to harvest all of the London gold, US dollar/pound sterling, and US dollar/Japanese yen!