Chapter 580: Bloody Family Infighting

The sun shines down, and the setting sun is like blood.

A sea of ​​lavender flowers looks even more beautiful under the reflection of the sunset.

The fragrance of the flowers is elegant, which makes people feel relaxed and happy.

The air is filled with the fragrance of lavender, which makes people feel relaxed.

In the sea of ​​flowers, some bees and butterflies are flying among the flowers, adding a vitality.

On the edge of the sea of ​​flowers, a magnificent castle looks peaceful and solemn against the backdrop of the sunset.

This is the largest lavender farm in the Southern Hemisphere, the Bradstowe Lavender Farm, which was purchased by Grace Cultural Tourism Group on the island of Stamania in Australia.

But now it has a new name, called Grace Lavender Manor.

Time entered 2008, when the castle in the manor had been built and decorated.

After returning to Australia from India, Barron brought his wife and others to this island and moved into the castle for the first time.

In January, the lavender in the manor has bloomed. In the castle, you can smell the faint fragrance of flowers, which is refreshing.

It can be said that being in this manor, it is easy to forget all the things happening in other parts of the world, just enjoy the comfortable life here peacefully.

Of course, this is very rare for Barron.

Because even when he is on vacation with his family, many things about his industries need to be handled by the family office headed by Wang Wanting, and many of them need Barron to make the final decision.

"Your Highness, we have made an offer for the L'Oreal shares owned by the Nestlé Group, but they have temporarily rejected our offer..."

"Why?"

"Because according to the agreement signed between Nestlé and L'Oreal in 2004, before 2014, Nestlé Group's sale of L'Oreal shares will be subject to restrictions..."

The reason why Barron wants to acquire the shares of the L'Oreal Group is that he has taken a fancy to the group's market in the cosmetics field. Although it is said that the Gucci-Hermès Group also has some cosmetics business, that size, whether in terms of profitability or scale, cannot be compared with the L'Oreal Group.

However, the L'Oreal Group has always been under the control of the Bettencourt family. It is probably impossible to buy the shares of the L'Oreal Group from them. The person who currently controls the L'Oreal Group shares of the Bettencourt family is Lillian Bettencourt, the daughter of the group's founder Eugene Schueller. She has become the richest person in France and the richest woman in the world.

Then if you want to acquire the L'Oreal Group, you can only start from the second largest shareholder of the group, the Nestlé Group.

Nestle Group, as we all know, is a food manufacturer.

This company, founded by Henri Nestle in 1867 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, is the world's largest food manufacturer.

Currently, Nestle Group has more than 500 factories and 250,000 employees worldwide. In 2005, Nestle's annual sales reached 91 billion Swiss francs, and its net profit also set a record high of 8 billion Swiss francs.

But why is such a company the second largest shareholder of L'Oréal Group?

There is a story behind this...

L'Oréal Group was founded in 1907 by Eugene Schueller.

However, after Eugene Schueller's death, L'Oréal encountered a wave of nationalization of French companies.

In 1972, the French Communist Party and the Republican Party adopted a common government program to prepare to nationalize most companies in order to "break the rule of big capitalists."

In order to avoid the company's fate of being nationalized, Dalle, the president of L'Oreal appointed by Schueller during his lifetime, persuaded Schueller's daughter Lillian Bettencourt (who is also a French politician and the wife of André Bettencourt, who served as a government minister for many years) and other major shareholders to reorganize the company in 1973.

The following year, in 1974, Lillian Bettencourt exchanged half of her L'Oreal shares for shares of the Swiss food giant Nestlé, a non-French company, and obtained 3% of the latter's equity.

After that, the Bettencourt family and the Nestlé Group carried out a number of capital operations on the L'Oreal Group. The Bettencourt family and Nestlé held 31.0% and 29.6% of L'Oreal shares respectively.

Such capital operations not only ensured the independence of L'Oreal, but also cross-holdings allowed the two companies, which were increasingly becoming the world's strongest in their respective fields, to establish a closer connection.

For example, in 2003, L'Oreal Group and Nestlé Group established a joint venture company "INNEOV Laboratory", the product of which is the well-known oral beauty brand "INNEOV".

However, Lillian Bettencourt was born in 1922. In 2004, in order to prevent the transfer of control of L'Oreal, the elderly Lillian Bettencourt signed a 10-year agreement with Nestlé.

The agreement stipulates that neither party may increase its holdings in L'Oréal while Lillian Bettencourt is alive and within six months after her death. After April 29, 2009, both parties can sell L'Oréal shares, and the other party has the right of first refusal.

Therefore, it is necessary to wait until the agreement is terminated on April 29, 2014 before both parties have the right to freely sell L'Oréal shares.

The reason why Barron is ready to take action against the L'Oréal Group at this time is also because the cracks first appeared within the Bettencourt family at this time.

Just last month, the mother and daughter of the Bettencourt family, Lillian Bettencourt and her daughter Francoise Bettencourt, were involved in a lawsuit.

Francoise Bettencourt accused her mother of giving away wealth worth $1 billion, saying that she was "old and confused" and mentally ill.

Lillian Bettencourt refused to accept the evaluation of mental illness and believed that she had the right to control her wealth...

It can be said that the inside story of this story is very bloody.

First of all, Lillian Bettencourt and her husband have a very happy marriage - among the five richest women in the world selected by Forbes, she is the only one who has not divorced.

Their marriage lasted 52 years until last year, when Bettencourt died in 2007.

The Bettencourt family is a French political family, and many family members serve as parliamentarians, mayors and other positions.

Interestingly, when she was young, Bettencourt once joined a radical pro-Nazi organization, often held rallies, and wrote articles in newspapers to promote Nazi ideas.

As the father-in-law, Schueller, the founder of the L'Oreal Group and Lillian Bettencourt's father, provided funding and meeting venues for the organization - at the headquarters of L'Oreal.

Bettencourt once publicly called Jews "hypocritical Pharisees" in the media.

Until 2001, a German woman sued Schueller, accusing him of buying a house that he knew was plundered by the Nazis from Jews - later the German headquarters of L'Oreal.

Bettencourt herself has been active in French politics, and has served as Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Industry, Culture and Foreign Affairs of France.

Their daughter Françoise Bettencourt, although the legal third-generation heir of the L'Oréal Group, is not active in the business world, but is more interested in religious studies. After studying Judaism for more than ten years, she simply married the Jew Meyer.

It is worth mentioning that Meyer's parents both died in Auschwitz...

In addition, the "close friend" accused by daughter Françoise of accepting her mother's wealth of up to $1 billion is the 61-year-old photographer Barnier.

He is an old friend of the Bettencourt couple. This friendship began in 1987. Barnier asked Lillian, who was 65 years old at the time, to appear in his photography works and appear on the cover of the magazine. Since then, he has frequently visited the Bettencourt couple's residence in Paris, and they are close friends.

According to media reports, Lillian once hired a plane from the Seychelles Islands to France just to retrieve Barnier's brushes.

Liliane's gifts to Barnier began when they first met, and her husband Andre never objected to this when he was alive.

In 2007, after Andre Bettencourt passed away, Liliane and Barnier became closer, which made her daughter dissatisfied and she took both parties to court.

Well, it is worth mentioning that Barnier and Liliane Bettencourt may not be the kind of "close friends" you think, because Barnier has already publicly "come out"...