Cao Mo grabbed Zhou Han's hand as she was about to leave, hugged her slender and soft waist, and rested his chin on her shoulder. He looked at this flawless and beautiful face up close, and her fair skin was like suet.
She was like jade, showing a healthy luster, straight nose bridge, bright red lips, and long and dense eyelashes. Her eyes were so deep and clear. He clasped his hands around her waist and said,
"Let's go back to the tribe and stay there for a few days, where we don't have to worry about anything?"
During this period of time, the situation in Akwa was secretly induced to evolve, and all clues must be wiped out as much as possible. The nerves were very tight, and they could not relax for a moment.
Although Cao Mo could steal some meat from Zhou Han and Stari whether in Benin or Akwa, Song Yuqing also visited Africa during this period and spent some time with him, but things were temporarily
After it was over, Cao Mo still longed to take a few days off, not caring about anything, and completely relax.
"Okay!" Zhou Han stretched and looked at Cao Mo's chiseled face. He thought about living by the lake of the Yibogu tribe for a few days, not having to worry about anything, sleeping until he woke up naturally, swimming, and riding horses every day.
Hunting in the woods, and drinking and eating barbecue around the campfire at night are really wonderful to think about.
Then the next moment, the beautiful dream was shattered by reality.
"..."
The cell phone that Cao Mo usually used for work communication vibrated on his desk.
Cao Mo glanced at the phone, ignored it, and said with a smile: "Why don't you throw that phone away..." His face was buried in Zhou Han's chest willfully.
After letting Cao Mo be willful for a while, Zhou Han gently patted his cheek and helped him take the still vibrating mobile phone over and saw that the screen displayed an encrypted number:
"I don't know what's going on, but you still can't be lazy!"
Cao Mo answered the phone, but it was Sturgeon Foster's voice who said, "I happen to have something to contact you. Have you returned to Draculamore?"
"There is a meeting at the headquarters in the morning, so hurry back to Draculamore - what are you doing there?" Sturgeon Foster asked curiously.
"...Ryan Fortis and Evans Foundation board member Moberly may push Lekki Mining to acquire the Bosso Iron Mine, but to cooperate with Cateroe Steel Plant..." Cao Mo briefly mentioned the Evans Fund
He would tell Sturgeon about the latest situation with Liang Yuan, and asked him curiously if he had anything to do, so he wanted to use an encrypted phone to contact him.
Even at this moment, if the relationship between Tianyue and Fulkov Investment can continue to be hidden under the water, it will definitely bring benefits and no disadvantages.
At this time, Cao Mo had only completed the indirect shareholding and capital injection into Fulco Investment in the form of a secret trust fund; he was not in a hurry to implement the capital injection into Atlantic Bank for the time being.
Sturgeon’s current main job is still senior vice president of Bank Atlantic.
The staff around him, even bodyguards and drivers, are all employed by Bank Atlantic and cannot guarantee absolute loyalty to Sturgeon personally.
In order not to alert others, Sturgeon has no intention of making any adjustments to the staff around him for the time being. Therefore, he and Cao Mo usually use encrypted emails to communicate as much as possible and rarely use encrypted phone calls to avoid hearings through the walls.
"The West African Cement Group's performance in the first three quarters of this year was very poor. It expanded too fast before and its cash flow was about to run out. Most investors have lost their patience and are worried that if it continues to delay, the situation will get worse - Cornero
Has Cement ever thought about the possibility of merging with West African Cement Group? If you have this idea, I will take the information of West African Cement Group and find a place to meet with you..." Sturgeon said.
"Are you still at the Bank of Atlantic headquarters? Then you walk out of the Bank of Atlantic headquarters alone in half an hour. I will arrange a car to pick you up - we will meet at the Ibogu tribe!" Cao Mo said.
…………
…………
A few years have passed, and the wooden buildings by the lake are no longer as new as they were originally. The wooden roof eaves have left traces of wind and rain erosion, and the base of the walls are covered with moss. However, the trees are growing more and more lush on this fertile land, making it more and more quiet.
There are more and more flowers.
Cao Mo and Zhou Han hurried back to the tribe. The old chief Felician and Overmar were sitting by the lake fishing. He sat on the stone ground and discussed the secret of fishing for a while. It soon became dark.
Abacha, Brahm and Cornero Cement CEO Wendy Scarfe arrived separately from Sturgeon only after sunset.
After the new plant of Cornero Cement in Cotonou was put into operation, the annual production capacity exceeded six million tons in one fell swoop, and the expansion speed can be described as jaw-dropping.
However, the West African Cement Group controlled by the Stanning family has not been slow in its expansion in recent years, and its current annual production capacity has reached 6 million tons.
Currently, Cornero Cement and West African Cement Group account for almost 40% of the total cement market capacity in the Gulf of Guinea and Central Africa; while the third largest cement manufacturer in West Africa, Crown Cement Group controlled by the Atesa family, is expanding at a slightly slower pace.
But it also occupies about 12% of the Central and West African market.
To be honest, Cao Mo thought that Atsa Crown Cement Group would be the first to fail, but he did not expect that the investors behind the West African Cement Group would lose their patience at this time.
Atlantic Bank also holds a small stake in the West African Cement Group. Sturgeon brought over the relevant detailed materials. After Cao Mo and others had read them, it was not difficult to understand why the West African Cement Group could no longer hold on.
To be honest, the predicament of the West African Cement Group at this time has a lot to do with Cornero Cement.
Cornero Cement has deployed its production base on the shores of Lake Cornero. In addition to competing for the building materials market of Draculamo nearby, the pace of expansion is also to conquer the coastline of the Gulf of Guinea; and the strategy of the West African Cement Group is also to enter Guinea.
The coastal areas along the Gulf coast are laid out, and the two sides form the most direct competitive relationship.
Benefiting from the rise in crude oil prices in the past three or four years, demand for building materials has surged along the Gulf of Guinea. Faced with the aggressive expansion of Cornero Cement, the West African Cement Group has not slowed down its construction speed in recent years in order to maintain its market share.
The construction period of the West African Cement Group's ton capacity is twice as long as that of Cornero Cement. In addition to the sharp increase in the amortized construction costs, the production start-up period is delayed, which directly greatly reduces the profit accumulation during the market boom period.
Cornero's subsequent production capacity expansion mainly relies on profits, while the West African Cement Group's production capacity expansion mainly relies on capital injections from investors and loans from major financial institutions.
In addition to high financial costs, the West African Cement Group does not have its own power plant and can only compete with other industrial and mining companies for the limited local power supply. Not only is production difficult to stabilize, the energy consumption cost per ton of finished cement is even higher than that of Cornero.
Cement is twice as high.
Not to mention the gap in operational management between the two parties.
In summary, when the price of finished cement in major coastal cities along the Gulf of Guinea such as Draculamo is less than US$120, Cornero Cement can still maintain an ultra-high gross profit margin of over 50%, while West African Cement Group
It is no longer profitable.
However, in December last year, the price of ordinary finished cement along the Gulf of Guinea dropped to US$100 per ton, and from the second quarter of this year it dropped to US$80 per ton.
In such a bleak market, Cornero Cement can maintain a net cash inflow of more than US$20 million per month, while the West African Cement Group's accumulated losses in the first three quarters of this year have exceeded US$160 million.
The West African Cement Group's cash reserves are only enough to maintain production and operations for the next two months. The management has warned the Stanning family and other investors of emergency bailouts very early, but the Stanning family and other investors responded immediately.
But it is the corruption and incompetence of the management that have fatal erosion on the West African Cement Group.
Therefore, for quite some time before, the Stanning family hired a group of professional managers from outside to reorganize the management of the West African Cement Group and launch an internal "rectification" movement.
Although the actions of the Stanning family had some positive effects, cleaning up some moths and sending more than a dozen management members to the "inhumane" prison of Dracula Moor, the accounting firm hired from the outside had no doubts about West African Cement.
The results of a thorough audit of the group's finances are not encouraging.
The production and sales costs of the West African Cement Group are much higher than those of Cornero Cement. Without systematic upgrading and transformation, no matter how low the production cost is, it will be difficult to achieve less than 90 US dollars per ton.
It is no longer a question of when the global economy will emerge from the shadow of the crisis. Investors are more worried that maintaining the current expansion rate of Cornero Cement will cause a serious oversupply of cement in the entire West and Central African building materials market.
It is possible to keep the price of finished cement below US$100 per ton in the long term.
This also means that West African Cement Group will never see the dawn of turning losses into profits.
In contrast, Crown Cement Group, controlled by the Atesa family, occupies an absolute leading position in the inland market with unfavorable transportation and far away from the coast. It is much less threatened by Cornero Cement - distance has become the natural advantage of Crown Cement Group.
Protective wall.
The Stanning family introduced a ban on cement imports, which offended too many people. Two federal congressmen who had good relations with them fell because of this. Investors could not see the possibility of politically overturning Cornero Cement, which was in full swing.
The idea of a merger between West African Cement Group and Cornero Cement has been mooted.
After this idea was put forward, except for the Stanning family who resisted, other investors actively supported it.
Whether it is holding shares or lending, Bank Atlantic's interest in the West African Cement Group is not very high. The senior management delayed the meeting until this morning, and finally decided to support the merger and reorganization.
Sturgeon attended a high-level meeting within Bank Atlantic this morning. After learning about this, she immediately came over to inform Cao Mo.
The benefits of the merger are clear to all major investors.
The merger of the two major cement groups will occupy 40% of the production capacity of the building materials and cement market in Central and West Africa. Especially in the coastal area of the Gulf of Guinea, they will directly occupy a monopoly. Market competition will no longer exist, and there is no need for both parties to continue to expand in the coastal area.
There is vicious competition for production capacity.
This will ultimately not only prevent the cement market price in the Binhai area from completely collapsing, but can even cause cement prices in the Binhai area to rise steadily.
In addition, after the merger of West African Cement Group and Cornero Cement, the power supply will be able to bypass Draculamo Power Group and be directly supplied by Cornero Energy through the construction of dedicated routes.
By then, the West African Cement Group's production base in Dasla will not only be able to get rid of the troubles of occasional power outages and completely stabilize its production operations, but the energy consumption cost per ton of finished cement will also be significantly reduced.
"No problem! I'll wait for them to come to my door now!" Cao Mo is open to the merger of Cornero Cement and West Africa Cement. The key is to look at the conditions for the merger.
The pressure Tianyue will bear along the Gulf of Guinea coast in the future will not be small.
If there were suitable conditions to form an alliance with the Stanning family and other investors behind the West African Cement Group, it would be much better to force them to cooperate with the Evans Foundation.
Although in the finished cement market in the coastal area of the Gulf of Guinea, Cornero Cement will not be afraid of the West African Cement Group in the slightest and is confident of completely defeating it. However, in this continent, market problems will never be simply limited to the market.
field.
"I also have the same idea," Sturgeon said. "I attended an internal meeting of Atlantic Bank today and got the relevant information. I spent time at noon to do a little research - I have considered that Cornero Cement wants to be 'appropriate'
It is difficult to directly acquire the West African Cement Group at the right price. The difficulty lies in how to determine the "appropriate" price. The two parties will inevitably have great differences. However, once the merger and reorganization negotiations are started, it is impossible to avoid the news spreading.
At this time, we must avoid asking the Evans Foundation to find opportunities to intervene or sabotage, and we must negotiate cooperation as soon as possible without delaying it for too long..."
Sturgeon hurried over to meet with Cao Mo. In addition to informing Cao Mo, more importantly, he hoped that there would be a relatively clear plan or expectation here.
Then he used his status as a director and senior vice president of Atlantic Bank to push the West African Cement Group investors to comply with Tianyue's wishes as directly as possible when discussing the merger plan internally.
In this way, the two sides can avoid repeated back-and-forth negotiations and indefinite delays to the greatest extent.
"I only have one principle, which is that the operational leadership and actual control of the final merger and reorganization of the cement group cannot be left in the hands of others; and in the process of merger and reorganization, it doesn't matter whether some benefits are properly let go, after all, things have to be done
If it is done, everyone must be happy," Cao Mo looked at Sturgeon and said, "Since you have come here, you must have a preliminary plan, just tell us..."
"..." Sturgeon said, "Investors are mainly afraid of suffering heavy losses. If they can be given enough benefits, they will not be interested in the operating rights of the company; and as long as the majority of investors support it, Stan
No matter how unwilling the Ning family is, it will no longer be an obstacle—"
Before Sturgeon came over, she had indeed considered the merger plan, but this had to be approved by Cao Mo first.
Although the Draculamore Securities Market is not large in scale, dozens of companies are listed publicly every year.
However, in addition to the fact that Cornero Cement is controlled by overseas capital, its excessive size is also an obstacle to its direct listing in Draculamo.
After the merger of Cornero Cement and West African Cement Group, the scale will be larger, but the force behind its listing will also become stronger. The initial investors who participated in the investment of West African Cement Group were mainly to promote the listing of West African Cement.
Then I cashed out from public securities, but I didn't expect Cornero Cement to suddenly emerge.
At this time of the merger, in addition to the respective valuations of both parties, the more important thing is to adjust the proportion of overseas capital in the newly formed cement group after the merger to a level that meets the legal regulatory requirements of Kanem, that is, Tianyue Investment
As overseas capital, the shareholding in the new cement group cannot exceed 30%.
West African Cement and Cornero Cement have similar production capacity, but their profitability is very different, and there will inevitably be a huge gap in valuation.
"In such a bleak market environment, it is commendable that Cornero Cement can still guarantee an annual net profit of US$200 million. However, after merging with the West African Cement Group, its monopoly advantage in the Gulf of Guinea coast has been determined. Even if profitability will be further improved,
The capital market will not believe that the merged cement group still has much potential that can be tapped. This will also directly limit the imagination of the market value of the merged cement group after its listing. At the same time, the capacity of the Draculamo securities market is too limited.
.I have considered that after the listing, the market value of the assets of Cornero Cement should be between 1.5 billion U.S. dollars, and the market value of the assets of West African Cement should be around 500 million U.S. dollars. The two parties will use the corresponding market value
A proportional merger will be carried out to establish a new cement group. Tianyue Investment will hold 52.5% of the shares of the merged cement group. At this time, 22.5% of the shares will need to be transferred out in order to comply with Kanem's overseas capital shareholding in the company to be listed.
Regulatory requirements. The corresponding market value of this part of the shares is US$450 million. I can persuade investors to form a trust fund to take over this part of the shares, and I can also persuade them to promise not to interfere with the operations of the merged cement group, but they must think
If Tianyue Investment wants to give up more profit space, I estimate that they can offer a price of up to US$300 million..." Sturgeon said.
Sturgeon is now quite clear about the shareholding situation of Ibogu Mining and Cornero Cement. The plan he envisaged is for Tianyue Investment to hold shares in the cement group after the merger and resale of part of the shares. Although according to Kanem’s plan
The regulatory requirements have been reduced to 30%, but the joint management shareholding and the shareholdings of the Felician family, the Sika family, the Rupert family, the Blake family, etc., and the control rights are just right, will not cause the control rights to be lost.
This should be the lower limit of the merger plan that Cao Mo can accept.
"I think your forecast of the global economic situation is a bit pessimistic," Cao Mo said, rubbing his forehead. "China has invested very heavily in the heavy chemical industry this year, and it is likely that it will increase its investment in the global crude oil market next year.
Strong demand - this will have a direct stimulus to the economic recovery of the countries along the Gulf of Guinea, and the demand for building materials market will also recover strongly by then. And even if the market in the coastal areas along the Gulf of Guinea is limited, it will be difficult for us to increase too much.
As for the share, how difficult is it to penetrate the coastal markets of South-West Africa and North-West Africa via sea transportation from Draculamo? I don’t really care whether the West African Cement Group can make a profit, but Cornero Cement has an annual output of two million
The new plant with tons of tons will be laid at any time to meet the new market demand from the expansion of the Gulf of Guinea and its two wings to Southwest Africa and Northwest Africa. I don't care whether cement prices will rebound, but I firmly believe in the profitability of Cornero Cement.
As the market expands, there will definitely be a corresponding increase. Therefore, the valuation of this part of the shares is only US$300 million, which is really too cheap.”
Cao Mo can understand that Sturgeon is trying hard to facilitate this, mainly because he wants to give up his interests so that he can unite more powerful allies in the Gulf of Guinea.
Cao Mo has never been a stingy person, but the question is whether he gained friendship by generously giving up his interests or gained more greedy covetousness. This needs to be carefully weighed.
"The economic situation is so bad, the funds that investors related to the West African Cement Group can put out at this time are very limited - I have estimated it as high as possible, and US$300 million is almost the limit of the funds they can put out at the moment. ." Sturgeon said.
"A maximum of 300 million US dollars can be exchanged for 12.5% of the shares. I can even give these investors a promise. If the new cement group is listed on Draculamo, this part of the shares will be reduced in cash from the open market within three years. Less than US$400 million, I am responsible for making up for the shortfall - cooperation. In addition to this part of the income, they mainly want to maintain their investment income in West African Cement. They cannot imagine taking advantage of all the advantages, and we cannot be too weak," Cao Mo said, "Of course, even if I personally need to reduce my holdings by 10% to meet Kanem's regulatory requirements, these shares do not need to be replaced with cash. The shares of Falkov Petrochemical Group, Atlantic As long as the asking prices for bank shares are quite different, I don’t mind..."