Chapter 541 Obstacles to Acquisition

In addition, in Barron's previous life, after Thomson Group acquired Reuters Group, Richard Harrington, president and CEO of Thomson Group, retired, and the current CEO of Reuters Group, Tom Gloser, became the CEO of Thomson-Reuters Group.

So it is obvious that in this merger competition between SEM Group and Thomson Group for Reuters Group, Reuters Group CEO Tom Gloser would be more inclined to choose Thomson Group from his own perspective.

After all, if Thomson Group completes the acquisition, then Tom Gloser will become the head of a group with a market share exceeding Bloomberg and ranking first in the industry.

Although SEM Group will guarantee the independence of Reuters Group, the temptation is naturally not as good as being acquired by Thomson Group.

That is why Barron not only used his influence to launch an antitrust investigation by the British Competition and Markets Authority against Thomson Group's acquisition, but also had a call with Michael Bloomberg.

I first met Bloomberg when Barron accompanied Brown on his last visit to the United States. On the streets of New York, I ate hot dogs with Bloomberg, who was the mayor of New York...

Bloomberg also has another identity, that is, the owner of Bloomberg.

If Thomson Group completes the merger with Reuters Group, then their market share will exceed Bloomberg and become a powerful rival of Bloomberg.

In this way, Bloomberg naturally hopes that SEM Group will acquire Reuters Group more.

Therefore, under the tacit understanding of the two, Bloomberg also exerted his influence, and the relevant antitrust agencies in the United States investigated the acquisition of Thomson Group.

Facing the investigation of antitrust agencies in the United Kingdom and the United States, it can be imagined that Thomson Group's acquisition will definitely be hindered-after all, Thomson is a Canadian company, and there is no stronger competitor in the original time and space. They finally completed the acquisition of Reuters Group after many compromises, but now, it is not so easy.

"If Reuters is acquired by Thomson, they will inevitably reduce the number of employees in the UK, lay off a large number of people, and may even move the headquarters to Canada. This is unacceptable to the UK..."

The public relations team funded by Barron's family office conducted public relations with the British government related to the review of this acquisition, striving to veto this acquisition at the relevant departments.

Although what they said has not happened yet, it is not false. In Barron's previous life, Thomson did the same after acquiring Reuters.

For example, in 2008, the year when Thomson-Reuters completed the merger in the original time and space, they merged the London offices from 24 to 10, and the number of layoffs worldwide was 1,500, most of which were employees in the UK.

Later, they even moved their headquarters out of England, sold the former Reuters headquarters building in Canary Wharf, and finally delisted from the London Stock Exchange...

Of course, this is also related to the global economic recession caused by the subprime mortgage crisis after their merger, but it also shows that after Thomson Group acquired Reuters, as British shareholders held a very small share of the new group, they had shifted their focus from England.

Currently, the public relations team funded by Barron's family office is very large, including the functions of some American lobbying groups - this team has hundreds of people, a considerable number of whom have served in the British government, and some may also serve in the British government in the future.

The public relations focus of this public relations team is directed to the most core civil service group in England - if you have watched the British dramas "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" series, I am afraid you can also feel some of the logic of the British government's operation from them.

It can be said that the British government can be divided into two types: political officials and administrative officials. For example, political officials are mainly determined by parties, that is, the party that wins the election appoints political officials. Many of these political officials may have been so-called "political stars" before. They do not have much experience in the specific affairs of various departments, so they need the help of administrative officials who have been working here for many years.

Administrative officials have an independent set of promotion rules. No matter which party is in power, it will not have much impact on them. It can be said that they are the "natives" rooted in various departments in Britain. Even if the chiefs appointed by the "new government" have any sudden ideas, the final formulation of policy provisions must be done by administrative officials. It can be said that if they unite to fight against political officials, the other party may not be able to do anything.

In Barron's public relations team, there are many people with many years of experience as administrative officials. They know very well how to deal with those administrative officials who are really handling various policies and provisions, and can also convey Barron's demands to the other party in a friendly manner.

It is not an exaggeration to say that every department of the British government has a corresponding group in Barron’s public relations team to carry out the work…

The funds of this entire public relations team come mostly from the "consulting fees" or "public relations fees" of various companies under Barron's name. United Energy Group, O2 Telecom, SEM Group, Argos Retail Group, etc., all of these groups will have this part of the obvious expenditure to support this public relations team.

Then the most obvious result of Thomson Group's acquisition of Reuters Group is that this acquisition was soon subject to strict review by relevant British institutions - in the name of preventing monopoly and unfair competition.

After all, in terms of national interests, they cannot accept that because of this acquisition, a well-known company like Reuters Group will leave Britain and lay off a large number of employees.

If there were no other competitors, it would be fine. Now that there is Britain's own SEM Group to compete, then Thomson Group needs to be arranged clearly...

And in itself, in terms of the acquisition price alone, the proposal proposed by SEM Group is not inferior.

SEM Group also proposed to acquire Reuters Group in the form of cash and stock, and interestingly, before Thomson officially announced the conditions for the acquisition of Reuters Group, SEM Group already held 30% of Reuters Group's shares.

Therefore, because Reuters Group was affected by the high-priced bidding of Thomson Group and SEM Group, their stock price rose sharply...

And SEM Group, which holds more than 30% of Reuters Group's shares, also saw its stock price rise, which led to the fact that at this time, according to the stock price corresponding to SEM Group's acquisition plan, SEM Group's acquisition price for Reuters Group was even higher than Thomson Group's 8.6 billion pounds...

Because of the development of performance and the victory in the previous competition for Premier League broadcasting rights, it is expected to bring huge growth in paid users to ITV Sports Channel under SEM Group. Therefore, at this time, SEM Group's stock price has exceeded 40 pounds, and its market value has exceeded 8.5 billion pounds.

But to be honest, SEM Group's market value is not as good as Thomson Group, and is even a little lower than their acquisition bid for Reuters Group.

However, this time SEM Group's acquisition of Reuters Group is also mainly in cash, plus some stock swaps. Therefore, if the acquisition is completed, it will eventually still be able to become the major shareholder of the merged company.