Chapter 572 Waiting for the Opportunity

In fact, Barron is not without the idea of ​​investing in the US banking industry, but now is not the right time.

Judging from the choice of Goldman Sachs, the current development of the subprime mortgage crisis has only hit the real estate industry and related loan-issuing financial companies devastatingly, but has not yet expanded to the banking industry.

Although there are reports of losses from big banks from time to time, the common practice of banks is to try to conceal their real losses in the accounts as much as possible, just like Goldman Sachs, in order to be able to turn the crisis around as the crisis passes.

The real large-scale collapse of the banking industry will appear in front of the public until the collapse of Lehman Brothers next year.

At that time, the banking industry began to panic and stock prices plummeted. In order to survive, they either sought government assistance or looked for capital injections everywhere.

It can be said that the market value of banks at that time can be squeezed out of water and start selling off.

The aftermath of the entire subprime mortgage crisis will continue until 2009, or even later, so Barron's funds also need enough patience.

Just like the newly established British Fortune Era (BFT) fund, the 25 billion pounds of funds they obtained have only been converted into US dollar assets after the exchange rate of the pound to the US dollar exceeded 2.11.

It is expected that the 25 billion pounds will be converted into about 52.5 billion US dollars.

Barron will naturally not use these funds regulated by the government to carry out large-scale short selling - and in fact, with such a huge amount of funds, there are certain risks in entering the market for short selling.

And if he uses his own funds to short sell, it can be said that it is understandable, but using funds from the British government to short sell...

No matter how you say it, it is not acceptable to the government...

These funds will be used to buy "discounted" assets in the future, but that will have to wait until next year.

Before that, part of the funds will enter the gold market to buy gold, an excellent safe-haven asset.

The current international gold price is $770 per ounce. By March next year, the gold price will rise to more than $1,000 per ounce.

In addition to the BFT Foundation slowly absorbing gold futures in the futures market, they will also take out a part of the funds to buy spot gold.

In the headquarters of the West African United Bank in Britta, the capital of Kolo, there is a vault with the most complete security facilities in the whole of West Africa.

The BFT Foundation will purchase spot gold from Africa, melt it into standard gold bars, and store it in that vault.

In addition to the gold mines owned by the West African Mining and Energy Group, it also includes gold mines mined by other mining companies.

You should know that according to statistics, it is estimated that the total gold production in Africa this year will exceed 500 tons, accounting for 25% of the world's gold production, second only to Asia, and is the second largest continent in the world in terms of gold production.

Among them, South Africa's gold production ranks first in Africa, followed by Ghana, Mali and Tanzania.

Among them, Ghana itself is a neighboring country of Kolo, and there is only Burkina Faso between Mali and Kolo.

Even in South Africa and Tanzania, which are a little far from Kolo, gold can be transported by air very conveniently.

Moreover, the West African Mining and Energy Group's Kianka gold mine in Burkina Faso is expected to have a reserve of nearly 200 tons. After the official mining, the daily output of the gold mine is gradually increasing.

The gold screening and smelting plant they built near Kianka can easily transport the standard gold nuggets to Kolo.

According to the calculation of US$770 per ounce, one ton of gold costs about US$27 million, which is US$5 billion, which can only buy 185 tons of gold, which is just a little higher than the load capacity of a Boeing 747.

…

The first movie of "Twilight" released in early April today has been released. The movie was released for nearly 150 days and finally won an outstanding box office of US$195 million in North America, US$200 million overseas, and US$395 million worldwide.

After all, the cost of the movie "Twilight" is only 40 million US dollars. It can be said that the box office revenue alone, not counting the subsequent DVD and peripheral income, has made Marvel-MGM Group a lot of money!

This also represents the success of the first "Twilight" movie, which has brought a new series of movie IPs to Marvel-MGM Group.

Inspired by this success, the second part of "Twilight" has begun filming and is expected to be released next year.

"Currently filming is the latest movie in the "007" series, "007: Quantum of Solace", and Marvel Studios' "Iron Man" is still in post-production and will not be released until next year."

Annika Dawson, CEO of Blue Valley Capital, also serves as Executive Director of Marvel-MGM Group.

Prior to this, Blue Valley Capital successively acquired Summit Entertainment, Marvel Entertainment and MGM Pictures. After the three companies merged into Marvel-MGM Group, this was Blue Valley Capital's main investment business. Therefore, at the moment when Blue Valley Capital has not yet started other investments, Annika Dawson's main job is to assist Marvel-MGM Group in the integration after the merger.

It is worth mentioning that as early as 2005, Marvel Pictures, a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, had already launched the "Iron Man" project. It can be said that the progress of this project was not smooth. Even the leading actor Downey Jr., who played Iron Man, only received a salary of 500,000 US dollars in order to get this role, and has been following this project...

After Marvel Entertainment was acquired by Blue Valley Capital, with the blessing of capital and the support of Barron, the "Iron Man" project was finally accelerated.

However, because this is the first movie of Marvel Pictures, and the post-production of the film is very complicated, it still needs to wait until next year for the film to be released.

In addition, Barron also rejected the filming of the movie "The Hulk" - after all, he knew that in his previous life, the investment in the movie "The Hulk" was much higher than that of "Iron Man", but it was a failure in both box office and word of mouth.

The audience wanted to see the image of the Hulk in "The Avengers" more, and it was not easy to depict the two images of the Hulk before and after the transformation in the independent movie of the Hulk.

Therefore, under such consideration, he made a decision to abandon the movie project of "The Hulk" and directly start the "Captain America" ​​series of movies.

Whether it is "Iron Man" or "Captain America", they are paving the way for the subsequent "Avengers". Before launching "Avengers", Barron also hopes to try to recover more Marvel IPs in the subprime mortgage crisis, so that the content of the future "Avengers" can be richer.

However, in reality, whether it is to get back the copyright of Spider-Man from Sony or the copyright of X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. from 20th Century Fox, it is not so easy.

Especially if they wait until "Iron Man" becomes a huge success, even if they are willing to transfer these copyrights, I'm afraid the price will not be cheap.