Chapter 2012 The Telegraph Is Not Bad Either

In the view of the Barclay brothers, the Ritz Hotel in London has an invincible location and good performance on the one hand, and on the other hand it has a long history and irreplaceable celebrity effect.

The Ritz London is located at 150 Piccadilly Street, directly opposite Green Park Underground Station. It is a Grade II listed building in the UK.

From a historical perspective, it is indeed a rare high-quality asset.

On May 24, 1906, César Ritz, founder of the Ritz Hotel in Paris and Swiss hotel tycoon, came to London to establish this hotel.

After its opening, the Ritz Hotel was favored by countless celebrities. Not only did it receive a royal commission from the Prince of Wales, it also became the first hotel in London designated by Prince Charles to receive royal members.

Aga Khan III, Winston Churchill, Paul Getty, and Edward VIII all liked to visit the Ritz Hotel.

The Ritz Hotel also prepared an exclusive cocktail specially for Churchill. The Ritz Hotel specially prepared an exclusive cocktail for Churchill.

Celebrities such as Charlie Chaplin, Noel Coward and Jackie Onassis also compared the Ritz to "paradise".

Iron Lady Thatcher may have grown up in a Grantham grocery store, but she spent her final days in a luxurious suite at the Ritz.

The American star played by Julia Roberts, the heroine of the movie "Notting Hill", also stayed at the Ritz when she came to London to promote her new movie.

In the fantasy world of "Good Omens", the two main characters, the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, also like Liz very much and frequent the hotel.

It is enough to prove the profound history of Ritz London. Today, the Ritz Hotel has a total of 111 rooms and 23 suites. The cheapest room costs 545 pounds a night.

The most expensive suite costs £1,080 a night.

In addition to its long history, the Ritz Hotel is also famous for its excellent service, especially the Ritz Afternoon Tea and the famous Ritz Club, which are popular among tourists.

The Ritz Afternoon Tea, which costs 58 pounds per person, is a must-visit place in the minds of countless Londoners.

However, although afternoon tea is open to everyone, only members of the Ritz Club can enter.

Moreover, in order to enter the Ritz Club, you must first fill out an application form and pay a considerable fee. You must be recommended by an acquaintance and undergo strict review before you can become a member.

Ritz Club members can enjoy a series of personalized services provided by it, such as using VIP boxes at Chelsea's home stadium and Wembley Stadium, arranging a front-row seat at Wimbledon, and even recommending members' children to the UK's top private schools. .

These privileged services have made Ritz London's VIPs more popular, and the hotel has countless loyal fans, which gives the Barclay brothers the confidence to raise prices.

Last year, Ritz's operating income was close to 45 million pounds, ensuring a stable annual growth of more than 2%, and operating profit also increased by 3.5%, approaching 15 million pounds.

While profits are growing, Ritz Hotel's cash flow and net capital value are also rising steadily.

It stands to reason that such a profitable hotel can help the Barclay brothers consolidate their status. Why would they want to sell it?

But in a wealthy family, internal strife is inevitable. If there are too many people, there will inevitably be disagreements, especially when faced with such huge assets.

To put it bluntly, the Barclay family is planning to separate. Since we can't get together, let's not waste time and live our own lives separately without being an eyesore to anyone.

Of course, this news was revealed to Yang Cheng by Old Carson. There are countless upper-class circles in London, and the housekeepers of each family also have their own circles. The source of the information is still very reliable, and this kind of thing cannot be hidden.

Since they want to separate the family, they must each show their talents and find ways to get more. It is definitely not enough for them to rely on themselves. They must ask for funding from external forces.

Now, the Barclay brothers are evaluating the ownership of the family assets, and the news is spreading in upper circles. As one of the most important assets in their name, Liz London will definitely not be able to save it.

Because of such high-quality assets, equity distribution can easily cause dissatisfaction among family members. It is better to sell them directly and get the cash before dividing them.

In addition to the Ritz, assets the Barclays brothers also want to sell include the Daily Telegraph, online retailer Shop Direct, which owns the Littlewoods brand, and delivery company Yodel.

However, judging from the current market situation, potential acquirers are only interested in the Ritz Hotel, because the current conditions of several other assets are not ideal.

The "Daily Telegraph" sounds ridiculous, and it is indeed a famous British newspaper. However, the sales of the Telegraph have declined sharply in recent years, with a daily circulation of only 310,000 copies. In contrast, the top three newspapers in the UK The amount exceeds one million servings per day.

The financial report shows that the "Daily Telegraph" only made a profit of 900,000 pounds last year, which was less than half of the previous year.

Of course, it would be good as a tie-in. After all, the daily sales volume is still over 300,000, and the Telegraph’s stance is right-wing, which makes a lot of sense.

Buckingham Palace Road in central London, adjacent to Victoria Station, is a very lively street.

The Daily Telegraph is located in a large office building at 111 Buckingham Palace Road.

In recent years, British print media have generally faced operating difficulties. Although the sales of the "Daily Telegraph" have declined, it is still outstanding in the British newspaper industry. While ensuring the quality of news reporting, it has maintained good operating conditions. Don't get me wrong, what I'm saying here is Good operating conditions refer to still making profits, although this profit is already negligible.

But as a well-known Western media with a history of more than 160 years, the Daily Telegraph is certainly not worthless.

"Ask the other party if they are willing to package and sell Ritz London and the Daily Telegraph. I am only interested in these two assets~"

After a pause, he asked again, "By the way, who are the competitors we will face?"

"Blackstone, and some sovereign wealth funds."

"No one?"

"No~"

"Who has the greatest interest?"

"It should be the Qatar royal family~"

“As early as 2015, the Qatari royal family spent 1.5 billion pounds to buy the Maybourne Hotel Group held by the Barclay brothers, which owns five-star hotels such as the Berkeley Hotel, Claridge’s Hotel and Connaught Hotel in London. class luxury hotel.

Both parties have a good basis for cooperation~

Then there are some bank capitals in country Z. They have a strong desire to invest overseas. "

Yang Cheng nodded when he heard this, "Go and get in touch. If possible, I hope to visit the Daily Telegraph~"

He wanted to see the current operation of the newspaper. Are the employees lifeless? He still has confidence in the newspaper. If it is the former, he may give up the acquisition.

"Understood~"

. . .

Carson was very efficient and quickly contacted Richard Faber. When the other party heard that it was the owner of the North Sea Manor who wanted to acquire it, he immediately showed 120% enthusiasm. Who knows now, the richest man in London? Lives in Shawson.

This guy can be the son-in-law of the Barclay family, and he is not an ordinary person. He borrowed the family's Rolls-Royce to pick up someone at Beihai Manor early in the morning, and invited Yang Cheng to ride with him. However, Yang Cheng politely declined, and he still preferred to ride on his own. car, but he also invited the other party to sit in the car.

The two chatted all the way about food, wine, and beauties, but they didn't get to the main topic.

Until I walked into this modern office building on Buckingham Palace Road, passed through the spacious and bright lobby, took the elevator to the second floor, and arrived at the door of the "Daily Telegraph". I saw a sign on the ground at the entrance that read "Britain's best-selling "A good, high-quality newspaper," Richard Farber introduced proudly, "Welcome to the UK's largest newspaper, The Daily Telegraph."

Standing here, this sign can give visitors an immediate idea of ​​the newspaper's status in the British newspaper industry.

Richard Farber took Yang Cheng into the central kitchen-like editorial hall. Farber said that all the newspaper's editorial staff worked in this open hall.

When Yang Cheng arrived, it happened to be not long after work started. The interviewing and editing hall was full of interviewing and editing staff, and they were all nervously preparing for the day's reports.

Acquisition and editing staff are arranged in different corners of the hall according to their respective departments. In the center of the hall is a circular area with about 10 computers placed in it. This is the office location of the heads of each acquisition and editing department.

Farber said that the heads of different departments are concentrated in such a small area to help them better communicate, communicate and coordinate.

While walking, Yang Cheng was attracted by some data on the huge screen in the editing hall. These data intuitively displayed the current operating conditions of the "Daily Telegraph".

In addition to displaying the newspaper's current total number of registered users, the large screen also displays the number of newly registered users and subscribers from the previous day.

The screen also displays the number of new users attracted by different editorial departments, as well as some of the reports that have contributed the most to the increase in the number of users. These data allow all editorial staff to clearly see which types of articles are most popular with readers.

During the visit, Yang Cheng was slowly attracted by the advanced editing, management and business concepts of The Daily Telegraph, and he showed his excitement from time to time.

This central kitchen-like editing and editing model is worth learning from his newspaper - the materials obtained from reporters' interviews will be put on a unified platform, and different pages can be used at any time.

In this way, the content collected once can be used multiple times, which effectively improves the efficiency of collection and editing and saves the cost of collection and editing.

On the other hand, the "Daily Telegraph" has always been at the forefront of the British mainstream media in terms of quantitative evaluation of reporting influence and advertising effectiveness.

In a period when major mainstream media websites used page views as their evaluation criteria, The Daily Telegraph was the first to propose the concept of "guaranteed page views".

Later, as its big data team grew, the newspaper proposed more quantitative evaluation indicators, once again leading the trend of mainstream British media. For example, when analyzing users' reading habits of reports, the Daily Telegraph did not use clicks Instead of using quantity as a simple criterion, the concept of “reading retention” is proposed.

When counting ad clicks, the newspaper proposed that if an ad does not stay in front of the user for more than 6 seconds, it cannot be recorded as clicks. Later, this time standard was raised to 10 seconds.

Currently, many British counterparts have introduced this concept.

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