Just on July 25, the President of Kolo, Jammeh Bongo, visited the neighboring country of Burkina Faso, and held talks with the military president of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré, in its capital, Ouagadougou, and the two sides finalized a series of economic cooperation agreements.
This includes the West African Mining Group's investment in Burkina Faso, purchasing a large area in Kiaka, which will be explored and developed.
Yes, the president of Burkina Faso at this time is still Compaore, who came to power through a coup in 1987 after assassinating Sankara, the "African Guevara" of Burkina Faso, the "country of gentlemen."
After Compaore came to power, he corrected Sankara's "overly radical" economic policies. His policies were more "moderate and pragmatic" and paid more attention to relations with various countries, especially neighboring countries.
Therefore, President Collo's visit was warmly welcomed by Compaore.
Among the series of cooperation agreements between Kolo and Burkina Faso, it is included that the West African United Bank will be allowed to conduct business in Burkina Faso, and the West African United Bank will provide Burkina Faso with a low-interest loan of US$50 million, which will be repaid by Burkina Faso with relevant mining income.
At the same time, the West African Mining Group obtained exploration and mining rights in the Kiaka area, which is about 50 kilometers southwest of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, and less than 200 kilometers from the northern border of Kolo.
The reason why the West African Mining Group wants to acquire the mining rights in this area is because there is an undiscovered gold mine with extremely high reserves here.
Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of 274,000 square kilometers. It is also the fourth largest gold producer in West Africa.
The Kianka gold mine was later estimated to have a reserve of nearly 200 tons, and the gold here is very shallow, so it can basically be regarded as an open-pit gold mine, and it is not difficult to mine.
At this time, the West African Mining Group has basically completed the integration of Australia's OZ Mining Company. Next, after conducting mineral surveys, they will form a mining team composed of technicians transferred from Australian companies and miners recruited from Kolo to enter the Kiaka area of Burkina Faso to mine gold.
It is also worth mentioning that the most popular occupations among ordinary people in Colo include oil workers, miners, mercenaries and drivers.
As the production of Kolo Oil Company continues to increase, their demand for oil workers is also increasing. The Kolo Oil workers who have passed the training and are able to work on drilling platforms can even earn 10-15 times the local average wage in Loti. They can be said to be the highest-income group among ordinary people.
The second group is the miners - initially, this mainly refers to the miners in the mines under the West African Mining Group and its partner Stuart Mining Group. However, due to competition, the wages of the miners of the original French mining companies had to be increased. Their average salary is more than 5 times the local average salary in Loti, which is similar to the salary of the mercenary soldiers of the Kolo Legion (those sent to Iraq can get double the salary, which can be up to 10 times).
Finally, there are the drivers. Due to the expansion of the Loti Port and the fact that Colo began to strengthen its transportation infrastructure and vigorously develop re-export trade, the demand for transport drivers has increased greatly. Not only have the number of related driving schools begun to increase, but the United Bank of West Africa has also provided special loans to eligible young people in Colo, which can help them pay the fees for learning to drive a driver's license and then repay them in installments after they get a job. This has also helped many people increase their income by learning to drive trucks.
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"Your Highness, through negotiations, we have reached an agreement with Sony Corporation, and they will transfer their shares in MGM Holdings."
Barron received the news through a phone call from Annika Dawson, CEO of Blue Valley Capital.
After acquiring 20% of MGM Holdings shares from the Sinclair Family Trust, they also plan to completely acquire MGM, once one of the eight major film producers in Hollywood.
However, although MGM Holdings, which controls MGM, holds an equal 20% stake in the five companies that participated in the acquisition, it still needs the support of Sony to take this step. After all, they played a leading role in the acquisition before.
Baron also fully understood Sony's concerns. They were not concerned about the future development of MGM as a company. What they valued most were the 4,100 films and 10,600 TV series in MGM's film library.
Therefore, Annika, CEO of Blue Valley Capital, went directly to Sony's headquarters to negotiate with them.
Blue Valley Capital promised that if Sony could sell its shares in MGM Holdings to them and support them in completing the acquisition of MGM Pictures, then MGM Pictures would continue to stand on Sony's side in the competition for the next-generation hard disk format and support their Blu-ray DVD format.
Compared to when MGM was acquired last year, the situation of MGM Pictures has been getting worse and worse, and their losses have continued to expand.
As for the latest 007 movie, "Casino Royale", which is regarded as the "lifeline" of MGM Studios, Sony has already obtained the distribution rights of this movie, and the movie itself was co-produced by Sony and MGM.
Besides, even if this movie can get good box office, so what? You can't release a 007 movie every year. Even so, such a film and television company can't just rely on one IP to survive. What's more, Sony has temporarily suspended all other MGM projects except 007 and the Pink Panther series. It is not optimistic about the future performance of this company - it is afraid that they will lose more money if they shoot more - it is better to shrink the business, at least to reduce losses...
Therefore, the final agreement is that Blue Valley Capital will acquire Sony's 20% stake in MGM Holdings for $500 million. Compared with Sony's investment in acquiring MGM Pictures last year, Sony lost $140 million. But so what? What they care about is the strategic advantage. If they can win the competition for the next generation of video disc formats, then this loss is not worth mentioning compared to the benefits that Sony can get.
After completing this acquisition, Blue Valley Capital will hold 40% of MGM Holdings shares, breaking the original balance and becoming the largest shareholder of the holding company.
Then, they will continue to negotiate with the three holding companies to acquire the remaining 60% of the shares.
Now that Blue Valley Capital has occupied an advantageous position, I believe the other three will eventually give in. Otherwise, MGM will continue to suffer losses. Not only will the initial investment be lost, but MGM Pictures will also have more than 2 billion US dollars in debt. Are you afraid?
Of course, the best strategy is to conduct friendly negotiations without offending those institutions.
For investment itself, it is normal to have gains and losses, and I believe they will definitely be very pragmatic.