When Barron opened the window, he could smell the damp air.
London today is shrouded in drizzle and the sky is a little gloomy.
But I have to say that this kind of London is the most classic.
"Are you ready to go?"
Yulia Moore leaned against the head of the bed, her shoulders and below covered by the quilt, and spoke softly to Barron.
"Yes, there is another meeting later..."
Barron sat on the bed next to Yulia, kissed her, and said softly:
"You can sleep a little longer. By the way, I asked Laura to buy a doll and it will be delivered to you later. It's my birthday present for Ravi."
Ravi is the younger sister of a pair of siblings who were born in Palestine, and her birthday is in a few days.
Maybe because of her own reasons, Yulia likes children very much. After the children from Kolo International School came to London to study, she often came forward to make arrangements for these children.
Yulia especially liked little Ravi very much and often took them out to dinner together.
This is Yulia's residence in London. When Barron walked downstairs, the convoy that came to pick him up had already arrived.
Wang Wanting held an umbrella for Barron and greeted him at the door.
After getting on the extended version of the Bentley Arnage, the convoy left.
At the upstairs window, Yulia, in her pajamas, looked in the direction where Barron's convoy was going away, her eyes full of tenderness.
…
On November 5, Gucci Group announced that it already held more than 5% of Hermès shares, and that it would continue to acquire its shares to complete its controlling stake in the top luxury brand.
This means that the Gucci Group has officially announced its acquisition of Hermès.
After this news came out, it caused a huge earthquake in the fashion industry.
After all, after Gucci Group was acquired by DS Group, apart from launching its top ready-to-wear series, the Devonshire series, it did not make any other acquisitions and has been very quiet. But this time, they publicly acquired the top fashion brand Hermès, which naturally attracted everyone's attention.
But after the news of Gucci Group's public acquisition of Hermès came out, Hermès CEO Patrick Thomas said in an interview that the Hermès family has no intention of selling the company at present, and they will respond to Gucci Group's acquisition later.
Earlier this year, Jean-Louis Dumay, who reversed the decline of Hermès and brought the company back to glory since the 1970s, resigned as CEO of Hermès due to his deteriorating health and was succeeded by Patrick Thomas.
Patrick Thomas is also the first non-family CEO of Hermès.
Ten days later, the Gucci Group announced again that they had acquired "decisive" shares from some institutions. At this time, they held more than 25% of Hermès shares, becoming the largest shareholder of Hermès.
In fact, Barron learned the lesson from the LVMH Group's acquisition of Hermès in his previous life. At this time, they had filled more than 10 "boxes", which meant that the offshore company controlled by them had secretly bought more than 50% of Hermès' shares.
However, in order to avoid being sued by the Hermès Group for "violating market rules" like the LVMH Group, which was later ruled by the French Financial Markets Authority that its acquisition of Hermès was in violation of regulations, thus failing the acquisition, Barron will patiently "merge" the Hermès shares held by those offshore companies, so as to ultimately control the company.
At the same time, during this process, Gucci Group's CEO Desaulle also arrived in France to contact the Hermès family and the company's management regarding the acquisition.
He will promise that after the acquisition, Hermès will be in a relatively independent position within the group and will still be run by the Hermès family, while the Gucci Group will provide more funds and resources for its future operations.
"It is obvious that you were able to complete the acquisition of more than 25% of Hermès' shares in such a short period of time. You had already made arrangements before that. These are suspected of violating the relevant regulations of our country. We can file a complaint with the regulatory authorities."
Hearing Patrick Thomas' words, Desor still wore an elegant smile and said calmly,
"In any country, whether you are a small shareholder or a large shareholder of a company, no matter how much you hold, you have the right to freely sell your shares. Mr. Thomas, as for your doubts, I can only say that we offered a good price."
"I'm afraid that's not the case, Mr. Desor..."
The person who spoke, with a head full of silver hair, was Bertrand Picchi, the representative of the Hermès family, who was also the chairman of the Hermès company at the time.
Although he was nearly 70 years old, Bertrand's eyes were still sharp. He said to Desor,
"According to our investigation, several months ago, some people contacted members of our family and bought a considerable portion of the shares..."
His meaning was very clear, that is, questioning the Gucci Group's acquisition had been carried out secretly several months ago. If this is true, it can indeed cause certain troubles to the Gucci Group's acquisition.
After all, not only the Gucci Group, but also any of their related companies that have a total shareholding above 5% must raise their stakes.
In fact, after learning that Gucci Group announced its intention to acquire Hermès and that its shareholding had exceeded 25%, some members of the Hermès family held a secret meeting in panic, but what surprised them was that among those family members who supported the Hermès family in maintaining the operation and control of Hermès, after statistics, the company shares they held could not reach a safe proportion of more than 50%.
What makes them even more uneasy is that the shares they can actually gather will be less than 40%!
This makes them feel a strong sense of crisis.
But Desor was not at all flustered by Bertrand Piage's questioning - he was sure that the entire acquisition process was carried out very secretly, and their cautious methods made it impossible for the other party to catch any substantial evidence.
So he said:
"Everything requires evidence, Mr. Pierce, and I hope you understand that although we want to acquire Hermès, we will not take the company away from your family like the LVMH Group did. In fact, the Gucci Group also faced such an acquisition at the beginning. We can fully understand your ideas. Why don't you listen to our ideas?"