Chapter 581 Equity Swap

Speaking of which, Barnier also has his own uniqueness - after all, no matter who it is, no matter what means it uses, it takes some special ability to get a gift of up to 1 billion US dollars from a super-rich man.

Barnier can be regarded as a master in the social scene, and he can always easily win the favor of big people.

It is said that on his long list of friends, there are French President Mitterrand, Sagan, the author of "Bonjour", Dali, Beckett, the author of "Waiting for Godot", the Princess of Monaco, etc.

Johnny Depp, who played in "Pirates of the Caribbean", is known to the media for being difficult to deal with, but he commented on Barnier: "The photos he took are the most honest photos of me, without posing and without defense."

Johnny Depp also asked Barnier to be the godfather of his beloved daughter, and his wife even allowed Barnier to take photos of her breastfeeding her daughter...

In addition, Barnier is also the "companion" of many French ladies.

Among them, there are famous female artists who helped him to become famous, and the most famous female art patron in the 20th century.

In the salon culture prevalent in France, almost all the famous salon hostesses know Barnier - Lillian Bettencourt is one of them.

Since she met Barnier, Lillian has generously given him many things: Picasso paintings hanging on the walls of her living room, a private tropical island, a huge insurance with Barnier as the beneficiary, and real estate around the world.

Finally, Lillian even said that except for the shares of L'Oreal and Nestle that she had promised to leave to her only daughter, everything else can be left to Barnier.

This also shows that Lillian loves Barnier very much.

Although this scandal is a trouble for the Bettencourt family, it is a good opportunity for Gucci-Hermès Group to take control of L'Oreal Group for Barron.

You should know that in the agreement signed between L'Oreal Group and Nestlé Group, Nestlé Group could not freely sell its shares in L'Oreal Group before 2014 - because during this period, the Bettencourt family and Nestlé Group had the priority to sell their shares in L'Oreal Group.

Therefore, if Gucci-Hermès Group wanted to acquire the L'Oreal Group shares owned by Nestlé Group before then, the Bettencourt family would have the priority to buy the L'Oreal shares of Nestlé Group first - unless the other party gave up this right.

For Lillian Bettencourt, although her mental state seemed to be worrying, since she was able to reach such an agreement with Nestlé Group in 2004, it also showed that it was almost impossible for her to buy the shares of L'Oreal Group.

But Lillian's daughter Francoise Bettencourt is different, because it is obvious that her main focus is not on the L'Oreal Group - in fact, since Lillian's father passed away, the operation of the L'Oreal Group has been mainly responsible for its management, and the Bettencourt family only holds the largest part of the shares to ensure the family's ownership of L'Oreal.

But compared to Lillian, Francoise is more likely to compromise on this.

If you take into account that Barron remembers that in his previous life, from this time, Francoise asked the court for custody of Lillian Bettencourt on the grounds that her mother's mental health was poor and she was easily influenced by others, and she got it in 2011 - this means that from that time on, Francoise controlled the decision-making power of the Bettencourt family's shares in the L'Oreal Group.

Then after that, given that Francoise was not very interested in business, the Gucci-Hermès Group still had a great chance of gaining control of the L'Oreal Group.

But it seems that the earliest will be after 2011...

"We can use equity swap to lock in the shares held by Nestlé Group in advance, provided that we can convince Nestlé Group to agree..."

Ashley Weber, head of William Weber Capital, said this to Barron on the phone.

The last acquisition of Hermès Group was carried out through Ashley, and she is very familiar with some of the methods in this regard.

The so-called equity swap is translated as equity swap. In fact, in the original time and space, LVMH Group used this method to acquire Hermès.

At that time, LVMH Group and three investment banks signed equity swap contracts for Hermès Group.

The content is that if the stock price of Hermès Group reaches a certain price when the date specified in this contract arrives, then LVMH Group can buy the stocks held by these investment banks; if it does not reach this price, it will not buy it, but it will pay a certain handling fee.

However, the reason why LVMH Group used this method to acquire the shares of Hermès Group at that time was mainly to avoid alerting the enemy and circumventing the requirement that it must publicly raise its stake if it holds more than 5% of the shares of Hermès Group.

Therefore, because of LVMH's acquisition of shares, Hermès Group later filed a complaint with the Paris Public Prosecutor's Office, accusing LVMH of increasing its 12% stake in Hermès through unconventional means such as "insider trading", "collusion" and "manipulating stock prices", and requiring LVMH to sell off the shares it has already acquired.

Now Barron and his team can use the equity swap agreement to lock in the L'Oréal Group shares held by Nestlé Group in advance - they can sign an agreement with Nestlé Group and have the right to acquire the L'Oréal Group shares held by Nestlé Group at a specified price after a certain period of time.

In this way, if Barron waits until the Bettencourt family is dealt with, or directly waits until after 2014, he can exercise this right and directly purchase the L'Oréal Group shares held by Nestlé Group.

Of course, he also has the right to regret and can give up the purchase at that time, but he needs to pay a certain fee to Nestlé Group.

To put it bluntly, this is also a kind of agreement similar to a bet.

The question now is, how can we make Nestlé Group agree to sign such an agreement with them?

And even if the other party is willing to reach this agreement, the purchase price and term in the agreement must be determined after some negotiations.

"Okay, you can contact Nestle Group to see what their attitude is."

The subprime mortgage crisis that is about to break out on a large scale now gives Barron a good opportunity. He decided to talk to the other party first.

"Your Highness, this is a list of people in the office who are more proficient in business. You can choose from them..."

After Barron finished talking to Ashley Webb, his personal assistant Wang Wanting handed him a folder and said to him.