My Age of Investment

   Chapter 1182 Economists who don't know how to vote is not a good wolf... Xianping

   October 30.

  Anfield Stadium in Liverpool, located more than 300 kilometers away from London, is in the 10th round of the Premier League, Liverpool at home against Portsmouth.

  In the stadium, more than 50,000 seats are filled with fans in red shirts, looking at it like a red ocean.

   These fans seemed to be tireless, and their cheers like a tsunami, wave after wave, hardly took a breath, which shocked Liu Xiaoduo, who was watching the game at close range for the first time.

   Listening to the fans singing the Liverpool anthem "You'll Never Walk Alone", she muttered to herself: "It's really more shocking than watching football on TV!"

Next to her, a silver-haired old man in a black suit, a red tie, and a red scarf laughed and said, "This is the charm of football! Liverpool is a Premier League giant with a glorious history of 116 years... …

   To be more precise, it should be the first team in the Premier League. We have won the most league titles and Champions League titles among all teams in the Premier League. "

   Xia Jingxing on the side couldn't listen anymore, he coughed dryly and interrupted: "Mr. Gillette, the first team should be the history of the last century!

   It has been almost 20 years since the old League One changed to the Premier League. Liverpool have yet to win a Premier League championship. Fans and friends are waiting anxiously! "

  George Gillette was 70 years old, and being ridiculed by Xia Jingxing, he couldn't hold back his face.

   He adjusted his glasses and said confidently: "Our fans are the best fans in the world, and they have always been loyal to the team.

  This season, we will definitely give them a satisfactory answer. "

  Xia Jingxing watched the players running on the pitch, and stared at Xavi Alonso for a moment.

  Before he came, he asked someone to investigate and found that Liverpool's performance this season was actually very good, and they had the potential to win the league.

   Although the debt pressure of the club is quite serious, as long as there are achievements, the valuation will not be cheap.

  Xia Jingxing said with a smile: "The fans are good, but I don't know if they are rational enough.

  The tragedy of Heysel massacre and Hillsborough massacre was something I didn't want to encounter. .

  I am a businessman with a duty, and I want to do business in Europe, but I don’t want to be boycotted by the whole of Europe. "

  George Gillette was confused by Xia Jingxing and didn't know how to answer the call, why did he keep turning over old accounts!

   But then again, Liverpool fans are as frantic and **** as the red clothes they wear.

  The Heysel massacre that broke out in 1985, Liverpool and Juventus were in the Champions League final, Italy and England fans had serious physical conflicts, resulting in a total of 39 deaths and more than 300 injuries.

  Afterwards, all English teams were banned from participating in the three major European Cups for 5 years, resulting in Liverpool being hostile to all British teams.

  In the Hillsborough Massacre in 1989, due to the negligence of the British police, there was a serious stampede on the stadium, resulting in a total of 96 deaths and more than 200 injuries.

   It has been nearly 20 years since this incident, and the British police have been keeping the truth of the matter hidden and blaming Liverpool fans.

  Now the outside world has always recognized that Liverpool fans are drinking too much, and the on-site drunkenness has led to the chaos and tragedy of the stadium.

  British football hooligans are already notorious, and Liverpool fans are even more stinky, so there is no place to file grievances.

  It will take a few years for the British government to release top-secret investigation documents and Cameron to apologize for the government, and then the Liverpool fans will be cleared of innocence.

  Because of these bad deeds, Liverpool are looked down upon by other teams and fans in the UK, and even by teams and fans in Europe.

   At the same time, the Liverpool team was founded by an American. In terms of blood, it was also looked down upon by other teams founded by local British nobles.

   Maybe also because of the good results in the last century, other teams that have been pressing can't breathe, leading to isolation. After all, even Manchester United sighed at the time: When can they catch up with Liverpool!

However, the feng shui turns. Today's Liverpool is far worse than it was in the past. It was a "miracle in Istanbul" three years ago. After falling behind AC Milan 0-3 in the first half, the second half equalized and ended in extra time. The penalty kick lore, took home a Champions League and barely maintained the last decent of the giants.

   Compared with the glorious history of the ancestors, it can compete with Manchester United.

  Compared to the status quo, this season should be the last afterglow, and it will be difficult to compete for the top four and qualify for the Champions League after that.

   It will take almost ten years before it will regain its momentum, and the club's valuation has also risen again.

Seeing that the partner was stunned by Xia Jingxing, Tom Hicks, another 50% shareholder of Liverpool, thought for a while, but decided to stand up and help: "Mr. Xia, these are all from the last century. The past is a thing of the past, and now the Premier League is very orderly, and it is the football league with the highest commercial value in the world.

   Liverpool's performance is not comparable to the glory days, but in recent years, our league results have all maintained in the top four, and we won the Champions League three years ago.

   This kind of results, in the entire Premier League, Manchester United can be worthy of a fight with us.

  Chelsea controlled by the Russians, Manchester City controlled by the oil tycoons in the Middle East, and Arsenal who only compete for the top four every year are still a little worse than us and Manchester United. "

  Xia Jingxing smiled and praised himself so well, he deserves to be a famous sports businessman.

Tom Hicks and George Gillette both have their own ice hockey and baseball teams in the United States, and they are well-known in the industry, but they are not real tycoons. boss.

   When the two of them bought Liverpool, it was a debt acquisition, which also led to Liverpool's lack of sufficient funds for subsequent development, and finally reduced to the point of selling the star Alonso to Real Madrid.

  Xia Jingxing glanced at the two of them and found that they were both looking at him with a smile.

   According to the information he received, the two had completely broken up half a year ago.

   Gillette didn't want to play anymore, so he found a local oil tycoon - DIC, the Dubai International Capital Company in the United Arab Emirates.

   But his partner Hicks turned down a £400m offer from Dubai International Capital for Liverpool.

   Afterwards, Gillette said that it could sell its stake to Hicks, but the latter could not come up with the money.

   So the two were in a stalemate, looking for a buyer while tearing at each other.

   Now the two seem to be in harmony, but the actual situation should be pretended in front of him, a potential buyer.

  Xia Jingxing felt that his time was very precious, and he did not intend to play Tai Chi with these two people, so he pointed out directly: "In January this year, you borrowed 350 million pounds from the Royal Bank of Scotland to repay your previous debts.

  Now Liverpool does not have enough development funds on the account, and needs to repay 100,000 pounds of interest every day.

   If it goes on like this, by the end of this season, Liverpool will probably be reduced to a fish and belly team, not to mention winning the championship, the top four will not be able to keep. "

   Seeing that Xia Jingxing was so aware of the internal situation of Liverpool, the two of them put away some underestimation.

Doesn't    mean that Chinese people don't play football? How do you know so much?

   With full of doubts, George Gillette said: "Mr. Xia, how much are you willing to offer Liverpool? Don't mention it if it is less than 400 million pounds. Dubai International Capital made this offer, but it was rejected by us."

   "We take on all of Liverpool's existing debts and pay you £10m each."

   Xia Jingxing's words made the two old men in their 60s and 70s stunned for a long time, and then they all laughed together.

  George Gillette said with a smile: "Mr. Xia, today is not April Fool's Day. You must know that a year and a half ago, we paid 435 million pounds to win the Liverpool club."

  Xia Jingxing sneered: "Half of the 435 million pounds is your commitment to build a new stadium, but in fact you only paid half of the purchase price, which is just over 200 million pounds.

   For this money, you borrowed it from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

   The money invested in the transfer later and the interest paid on the previous acquisition loan all came from the second loan of 350 million pounds that you borrowed from the Royal Bank of Scotland. "

   The two old men glanced at each other, and then Tom Hicks spoke on behalf of: "But we have also brought a lot of positive changes to the team in more than a year and introduced several stars."

  Xia Jingxing said with a smile: "I've made it very clear, you haven't invested a cent of your own money for Liverpool. The acquisition of teams and players all came from borrowings, and these debts are all reflected in Liverpool's financial statements.

   The interest on the loan alone will overwhelm the team, and there is no way to recruit, and the team's performance will naturally fail to improve.

  Wait until the team's performance collapses, then the debt will be overwhelmed, and you won't get a penny.

  I'm giving you 10 million pounds each now, at least for this year, your salary is enough to match that of most Fortune 500 CEOs. "

  The two old men thought silently. George Gillette was a little tempted by Xia Jingxing's plan. He patted his **** to get out of Liverpool's heavily indebted quagmire, and he could still take away 10 million pounds.

   But after thinking about it carefully, I am still a little unwilling.

  Why did the Glazer family leveraged to buy Manchester United, not only did they not carry any big burdens, but their development was prosperous?

   It is precisely because of seeing the great success of the Glazer family that the two of them, as well as some American hedge funds and private equity funds, have aggressively attacked the five major European leagues, all wanting to become the next Glazer family.

  Xia Jingxing did not urge, let the two old men think slowly.

   He felt that he was generous enough. Not only did he help the two old men get out of trouble, but he also gave them a pension, so he could live comfortably in his old age.

  The water in football is very muddy, and the two old men can't grasp it.

  Do you really think anyone can replicate the success of the Glazer family?

  The success of the Glazer family is that the club they acquired is called Manchester United. If it is another club with low commercial value, it will be dragged to death by debt.

Because Manchester United's commercialization is too successful, the large annual income can not only help the Glazer family return the loan interest and principal of the leveraged buyout, but even have the remaining money to buy players. The better, the game will naturally go on and on.

   After a long time, the loan was repaid, and the Glazer family changed from negative assets to net assets, successfully completed the empty-handed white wolf, and successfully landed.

   This is a fairly classic case of PE leveraged buyout. One of the most important success criteria is whether the annual cash flow generated by the target can cover the annual debt exposure.

   Obviously, Liverpool can't cover the debt, but the debt is snowballing.

   In more than a year, the debt of more than 200 million pounds at the time of the acquisition of the two has turned into more than 300 million pounds.

  Then the two old men played a lot of Ponzi schemes commonly used in "borrowing the new to repay the old", taking new loans to continuously repay and fill the old loans.

  Unless Liverpool's results take off immediately, win the championship for three consecutive years, and double the commercial value, otherwise the debt vortex will not be able to get rid of, and sooner or later, there will be a thunderstorm.

  Tom Hicks said suddenly: "Mr. Xia, we had contact with a gentleman named Huang Jianhua some time ago. He is a partner of the Houston Rockets in the NBA league, and you are still a compatriot.

   We made him a £600m offer, he and his partners are raising funds recently and will get back to us soon. "

  Xia Jingxing smiled without saying a word, he really didn’t cry without seeing the coffin!

  Thinking of this, he was not in the mood to deal with the two insatiable old men, and let them die by themselves.

  Xia Jingxing began to watch the game attentively.

   Seeing that Xia Jingxing was ignoring them, the two old men did not move forward.

   They thought that they had seen through Xia Jingxing's little trick, didn't they just use the retreat as the price, they had enough patience.

   Off the field, the first half of the game is over, no one scored, 0-0.

   After the start of the second half, the two sides changed sides and fought again. The battle for possession of the ball was fierce, and they all wanted to win the game.

   When the game went to the 75th minute, a Portsmouth player and the Senegal international fouled a handball in their penalty area, and Liverpool won a penalty.

   There are only ten minutes before the end of the game. This kind of crucial ball that decides the outcome, Liverpool naturally sent their general-Steven Gerrard to take a penalty.

   The current Liverpool captain and England national football captain lived up to the fans' hopes. First, he tricked the opponent's goalkeeper to move with a fake move, and then easily kicked the ball into the dead corner of the goal on the other side.

  When the football entered the net, all the more than 50,000 fans stood up, applauded and cheered loudly, and called out the name of Captain Gerrard.

   Ten minutes later, the referee blew the whistle and the game officially ended. Liverpool defeated Portsmouth 1-0 and scored three league points.

Tom Hicks looked at Xia Jingxing with a smile, and said proudly: "Mr. Xia, is this game still interesting? This season, Liverpool are undefeated in ten games, ranking first in the league in points, 3 points ahead of Chelsea in second place! "

  Xia Jingxing smiled, completely ignoring the old man's coercive behavior.

  If you don’t consider the debt problem, Liverpool’s lineup and play style are actually very good.

  Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid have all been beaten by Liverpool this season.

   But this is the last afterglow of the dynasty, and it will sink for ten years.

   Of course, if he reaches out and pulls a hand, Liverpool will at least not be worse than Chelsea and Manchester City, which are financially blessed by Abramovich and Mansour.

   Just as the two Liverpool bosses were complacent about winning the game, there was a sudden commotion from the seats next to the stands, and some scolding could be heard faintly.

  Xia Jingxing was shocked, didn't the Liverpool fans riot again?

   He hurriedly looked in the direction of the noise, and it turned out to be true!

   A group of fans dressed in red held up banners and slogans that read "Americans get out of Liverpool", "club parasites", "liars", "thieves" and more.

   There were also people stepping on chairs, holding loudspeakers and yelling at the two club owners.

  The surrounding people responded with laughter, and followed behind to scold together. The scene was very lively.

   After seeing this scene, Gillette and Hicks' faces turned ashen.

   They really wanted to ask the security guards to chase them away, but they were afraid that they would not be able to chase away the football hooligans, which would cause riots instead.

  Xia Jingxing asked indifferently, "Is this the "Soul of Shankly"?"

   Gillette and Hicks did not expect that Xia Jingxing would even know the name of this extremist fan organization.

   The financial tycoon who made tens of billions of euros must be interested in Liverpool! Otherwise, it won't take so much thought!

  Thinking of this, the two of them took a reassurance pill, and they were not so anxious anymore.

   The two old men sent Xia Jingxing off the court, and kept watching him get into the car before turning around and leaving, which seemed very polite.

   Liu Xiaoduo, who was sitting in the co-pilot, turned his head and asked Xia Jingxing, who was sitting in the back row, "Mr. Xia, I see that the two old men look like they are ready for you."

   "Have you settled for me?" Xia Jingxing pretended to be puzzled.

   "That's right! I think George Gillette was a little tempted by your proposed acquisition, but he didn't seem to be in a hurry afterward.

   He doesn't think you have to buy Liverpool, does he? Think of you as a diehard fan? "

  Xia Jingxing smiled, "You're right, the two old men made it clear that they had decided on me.

  They didn’t have much wealth in the first place. They caught up with the financial crisis and fell into the quagmire of Liverpool’s debts. If they didn’t make a lot of money, they would not stop. "

  Xia Jingxing remembered the DIC and Huang Jianhua, the Dubai International Capital Company in the United Arab Emirates, that the two had just talked about, and the quotation increased from 400 million pounds to 600 million pounds.

  If he was right, Tom Hicks had the bigger appetite of the two, George Gillette was content to sell for £400 million, and the former wanted £600 million.

   This also means that after removing the debt of more than 300 million pounds of Liverpool Club itself, it has to pay more than 200 million pounds of transaction consideration.

   He is not short of that kind of money, but if a dignified financial tycoon is slaughtered as a good child, it would be a complete joke. Maybe even LPs should reconsider their cooperation with Vision Capital.

   British football is not football to play, but finance to play.

   To clean up two stinky fish and rotten shrimp, naturally, we have to return to the means of finance.

   "Call Li Yaozu immediately and ask him to arrange a time. I want to meet the CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland."

  Liu Xiaoduo had just listened to the conversation of the three of them, and he had been with Xia Jingxing for so long. He had accumulated a lot of business knowledge and immediately understood the boss's deep meaning.

   She stared at the boss with wide eyes, is this another free prostitution?

   But then again, the boss likes prostitutes the most!

   To use a phrase he often talks about, an economist who doesn’t prostitute for free is not a good wolf… Xianping.

   It is nothing to spend small money to do big things, but to do big things without spending money is the real deep integration of production, education and research.

   She had never understood the ultimate meaning of these words before, but now she understands.

   Seeing Liu Xiaoduo's sudden realization, Xia Jingxing joked with a smile: "What are you thinking about? Girls, don't think about that word all day!

   Don't the shares of Bank of China still live overseas like a wanderer? Let's talk to the guys at RBS and try to get it back cheaper.

   At the same time, we also reciprocated by helping the Royal Bank of Scotland to dispose of non-performing assets.

   Let's help each other and build a harmonious financial society! "

  Liu Xiaoduo laughed "giggling", he could see the boss's personality clearly, he always said the most honorable words, but he always did the most embarrassing things.

   But these methods are only aimed at the bad guys!

   From her point of view, the two old men were obviously not good people. They tricked Liverpool into their hands. As a result, they didn't have the strength to run the club well, so they came up with the idea of ​​cheating.

   Even the fans recognize the real faces of these two people, and they can't wait to get them out of the way.

   But that's fine, they don't receive much resistance.

   The two chapters have been combined into one chapter, and one chapter has been added to the Sidneyliu helmsman, and there are still two chapters to be added.

   (end of this chapter)