Chapter 170： Acquisition or investment?

Although it will be more difficult to control the Hermès family through the acquisition of shares, it does not mean that there is no opportunity at all. And the reason why the Hermès family is so opposed to Bernard Arnault and the LVMH group is because what they have done to the acquired brand families before makes them feel cold.

Just like when the LVMH group acquired Givenchy in the same way, when holding 5% of the stock, they claimed that they had no acquisition ambitions for Givenchy, but just wanted to invest. Then he secretly expanded his shareholding to over 30%, making him the largest shareholder of Givenchy and controlling the company.

The founder of Givenchy, Baird Givenchy, still served as the chief designer of Givenchy at the beginning after the company was acquired by LVMH, but was ruthlessly dismissed by Bernard after just 7 years, and had to announce his retirement.

More than half of LVMH's brands come from the acquisition of family businesses. But Bernard's merger was not a good situation for family members, most of whom would be swept out of the house or eventually stripped of management positions in the company, with only some honorary titles retained.

That's why the Hermès family is so resistant to the acquisition of LVMH Group, but Chen William is different. He acquired luxury brands entirely to help Hilton-fashion company improve its quality, so it will not interfere too much with the company's operations - and From the memory of the previous life, the Hermès family was very successful in the management of this brand.

Then there is no need for him to make acquisitions in such a drastic way. He can reach a tacit understanding with the Hermes family as an investor in the early stage, and will not make the other party feel threatened.

There is another advantage of doing this, that is, if Mr. Bernard of the LVMH Group in the future still wants to use that method to try to acquire Hermes, with the goodwill of William Chen's early release, the Hermes family may also choose him as the white knight. , to resist the acquisition of the other party.

That is, when the other party conducts a hostile takeover, the Bentley family chooses William Chen, who is in the goodwill camp, to issue additional shares to him, so that the shareholdings of both parties add up within a safe ratio.

This kind of thing is not without precedent. In 1999, Bernard, who is also LVMH Group, purchased 5% of the shares of Gui Group. At that time, he vowed that he would not hostilely acquire Gui Group, but he increased his holdings of Gui Group within a month. The group's shares amount to 34%.

Gui Group chose the White Knight to fight against Bernard’s acquisition, and by expanding its share capital, it sold 42% of its share capital to LVMH Group’s rival Kering Group, which resulted in Bernard’s share being diluted to 20%, so Gui Group finally Joined the Kering Group and became the main brand of the latter.

After William Chen talked about his thoughts to Camilo Hagen, the other party said:

"If this is the case, you can also try to make a good-faith acquisition first. Even if it is unsuccessful, you can also make a long-term investment in Hermès as a major shareholder. For the acquisition of Hermès shares in the secondary market, you want to break through the 5% limit. It is not difficult to be noticed by the other party..."

Through Camilo Hagen's explanation, William Chen also knew their operation ideas, and he didn't need to be as troublesome as Bernard Arnault. He obtained the shares of Hermes International from the institution through gambling at that time. Or he doesn't trust other collaborators very much. Although that method is ingenious, it is also his helpless choice.

If you cooperate with Goldman Sachs, you can avoid the corresponding regulations by holding each of the related parties below 5%. Of course, this also needs to be carefully arranged, because the requirement that more than 5% of the purchase intention must be disclosed is not for individuals, but for common interests. That is to say, even if you buy 4.99%, then let your relatives or friends ignore it. Buying another 0.01% of the shares also needs to be disclosed, because if the funds are all from you or your allies, then you will be regarded as common interests, and your shareholding must not exceed 5% in aggregate calculation.

However, for Goldman Sachs, it is necessary to find a few more cooperative institutions, and each institution will buy no more than 5%. As long as this matter can be kept confidential, when the merger of shares is finally required, it only needs to raise a placard once to explain the purpose. Anyway, those other institutions, you can also say that it is your own investment behavior, and the final willingness to sell your shares to you is also the decision of the market.

This kind of thing, it seems that Goldman Sachs has done a lot and is very experienced.

Thinking of this, Chen William found that this thing can really be done. The shares in the hands of members of the Hermès family are more than 70%, which means that the shares of Hermès International in the secondary market account for nearly 30%. With the current share price of Hermès International If it is undervalued, it is still possible to buy some shares.

Gu Ji

Of course, it is almost impossible to buy all the shares in circulation, because with the increase in the number of shares purchased in the secondary market, it also means a decrease in the circulation, so if you continue to buy, the stock price will rise. The higher the speed, the faster it will be. If you want to buy all the tradable shares, the final stock price can go to the sky.

Unless there are members of the Hermès family who see that the stock price has reached a price that satisfies them, they will sell their shares. This is also possible. After all, there are currently more than 70 adult members of the Hermès family. Their respective financial situations are not the same. There must be financial difficulties in the economic crisis.

Well, this thing can be done. If you buy shares in Hermès Group now, even if you can't complete the acquisition, it will be an investment, and the return will be good. If I didn’t see Bernard, I didn’t succeed in acquiring Hermes Group, and finally made a profit of 1 billion pounds.

Moreover, buying as many Hermès international tradable shares as possible in advance is equivalent to directly breaking Bernard's acquisition of Hermès.

Of course, some people may say that with this money, if you invest it in Hermès, you will earn four or five times in the next ten years at most. Compared to investing in technology stocks, it's far worse.

Indeed, if only from the point of view of making money, investing in technology stocks will lead to higher gains. But do you really need to make money so blindly? What is the nature of wealth? For ordinary people, wealth is the guarantee for them to maintain a good quality of life, but after the assets reach a certain scale, money is more of a tool. Use this tool to increase your influence and complete the Hope to do things, to change the world according to their own ideas.

A person, even if he spends money like crazy every day and enjoys it, how much can he spend? billion? Ten billion? For a person, no matter how high the number is, it is just a number. Only by making good use of wealth can wealth be more powerful. Otherwise, you will be subject to a huge number, and you will not know who it will be after a hundred years.

And even if it is purely from the point of view of making money, those companies that will have high returns in the future will not be too big at present. You can invest several hundred million in it, but most of those companies cannot bear the scale of tens of billions.

From this point of view, but from the point of view of making money, the best investment target at present is Apple.

For those other companies with a large volume, the future income will not be so high, and it will only be ten times more. And those with high incomes are relatively small in size, not to mention tens of billions, even with hundreds of millions of funds, it is estimated that they can become major shareholders.

Now that it has been decided, Goldman Sachs has also taken the initiative to provide strategies for William Chen.

At present, the stock price of Hermès is less than 60 euros, then according to 60 euros, less than 30% of the outstanding shares outside the Hermès family have a market value of more than 2 billion euros, which is almost more than 2.7 billion US dollars, but if it is in the second If it is absorbed in the primary market, then the stock price will definitely rise as the holdings of stocks are increased.

Therefore, William Chen first prepared 3 billion US dollars to increase his shares of Hermes in the secondary market, and slowly absorb it over a long period of time to see how many shares he can get in the end.

In addition, you can contact members of the Hermes family to see if you can reach an agreement with some people to buy shares.

Of course, doing so will inevitably leak information and alert the other party. After that, they can express a good faith acquisition request to them, and even if they are ultimately rejected, they can still hold the stock as a long-term investment.

Under this arrangement, it is relatively safe. After the negotiation has been settled, Camilo Hagen began to arrange for his men to execute it. Goldman Sachs' strength in Europe is also not weak, so it is completely able to carry out this plan through their partners.

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