Chapter 358 A day’s plan begins in the morning

Abel stayed at Crawford Farm for only one night.

The next day, George seemed to have really caught a cold, and it seemed quite serious.

Abel smiled and left Crawford Farm in the tone of Ms. Welsh's motherly complaint.

He had planned to stay at Smith's Farm for another week.

This meeting with George broke his plan.

Entering the first day of December.

After returning to Smith Farm.

Abel then planned to return to New York.

He plans to go back and integrate Pacific Bank of Commerce and American Express first.

Increase their market value before joining forces with the Texas consortium.

That way, when the time comes to exchange shares, you can have a little more advantage.

He left Smith Farm that same day.

In the reluctant farewell eyes of mother and Charlize, they set off for the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

At two o'clock in the afternoon US East Coast time.

Abel's figure has appeared in Manhattan.

He rushed to lower Manhattan without stopping. At Charlie Brown's Pizza, Abel met Jim Walton, the American Express shareholder who had loudly attacked him in the media not long ago.

Charlie Brown's Pizza.

Jim Walton looked at Abel, who was feasting on a plate of chicken pizza in front of him. While eating, he drank Coke from time to time to relieve his tiredness.

"I didn't eat at noon. I was on the plane. I didn't have much appetite. I still prefer the pizza here. Jim, you really should try it. The pizza here tastes very good."

Jim Walton smiled at Abel:

"I just had lunch two hours ago and ate two big steaks. I'm really not hungry now. But I will come here often in the future. It looks good."

The "it" here naturally refers to old man Charlie Brown's most proud chicken pizza.

It’s also Abel’s favorite.

Abel smiled and said nothing. Instead, under Jim Walton's gaze, he finished off a fourteen-inch chicken pizza alone.

This amount of food made Jim Walton's eyelids jump, and it even frightened him.

You must know that normally, a 13- to 14-inch pizza can feed four or five people.

If one person can eat a seven-inch or eight-inch pizza, he has a good appetite.

If a person eats such a large portion of pizza, he can participate in the Big Eater Competition.

This would be easier to say if you were a manual worker.

But Abel is a super rich man, the richest man in the world who is richer than himself.

He actually still has such an appetite. Seeing Abel's strong and tall body, Jim Walton was very envious.

Being rich and in good health is the best combination for rich people.

After eating and drinking, Abel took the towel Edward handed him to wash his face and wipe his hands.

After wiping his face, Abel calmed down and looked at the son of the founder of the Wal-Mart supermarket opposite.

"To be honest, Jim, I didn't expect you to contact me first. I thought it would be the Fisher Group and others."

"You must know that a few days ago, you were still scolding me in the media, saying that my invasion by a barbarian would definitely cause the brand value of American Express to drop."

"Haha~" Jim Walton laughed, "It is precisely because I have this understanding that I made an appointment with you today. Mr. Smith, it is precisely because of this that I want to advance the stock of American Express."

Sell ​​it and let the money fall into your pocket, that's the safest thing."

Here's the thing.

After the comprehensive tender offer for Express Company, it reached 48.9%.

The resistance to Abel's acquisition of American Express's stock suddenly became significantly greater.

Those institutions didn't want American Express to fall completely under his control so quickly.

They held a small meeting to exclude Abel and passed a decision - none of the stock could be sold to Smith and he could not have complete control of American Express.

They formed what was barely an alliance.

But within this alliance, it is riddled with holes, and internal relations are very bad.

The key is that there are many people within this alliance who are willing to sell this news to Abel.

After Abel learned about these people's plans, he remained calm.

He waited until Soros represented him to attend the shareholders' meeting on the 20th of last month.

At the shareholders' meeting, Abel was elected as independent chairman.

Abel secretly took advantage of the month before the comprehensive takeover offer was over.

He secretly contacted those institutional shareholders and the remaining shareholders.

Even Jim Walton didn't miss it.

If only the remaining shareholders could really work together.

Abel's connection is of course useless.

But among the remaining shareholders, no one can work together under the temptation of high prices.

Many people are secretly contacting Abel. Most of them want to sell it for a good price.

Now that Abel has controlled 48.9% of the shares, he only needs a small number of shares to achieve a safe controlling stake in Express.

After exceeding the 50% security holding line, American Express is almost owned by Abel Smith.

So those people Abel contacted all had very high prices.

Some are even exaggeratedly high, so high that Abel had to pay almost twice the price to buy them.

For example, those five financial institutions have been colluding with Abel and are the most active in disclosing information about American Express.

But in the end, it was Jim Walton who contacted Abel and asked for the lowest price.

"I know that since Mr. Smith takes over, it is inevitable."

"Then I am naturally willing to sell the stocks to you first. Otherwise, if I wait for others to sell first, I think the remaining stocks I have will be in trouble."

"In that case, I might as well earn less."

Jim Walton's stance is clear.

Just like he said.

Jim Walton has had some conflicts with Abel over American Express.

He had previously spoken in several media outlets about Abel's hostile takeover of American Express.

When he thought about it, after Abel took over and truly took control of American Express, the first thing he could do was to target him.

In this case, if Abel is still willing to buy his own stocks.

Jim Walton doesn't care about the offensive and defensive alliance or the shareholder alliance.

In order to maximize his own interests, he directly contacted Abel in private.

Sell ​​the stock to Abel, and he will stop playing at American Express.

Walk faster than anyone else.

"Haha~" Abel said to Jim Walton with a smile:

"I have to say, Mr. Walton, you made a wise choice. And very quickly. Otherwise, I would have gone to see Caleder of Fisher Asset Management tonight."

Of course, there is no need to go into details about what Kalide did.

Jim Walton shrugged.

He knew that he was definitely not the only one willing to betray the shareholder alliance.

It was just a private verbal agreement to prevent Abel from completely privatizing American Express.

Not to mention it's just a private verbal agreement, when it's profitable.

Even if you sign a contract, you can still tear it up at will even if you have to pay the contract fee at the worst.

Sometimes the contract money may not even be compensated, and the two parties will argue and directly litigate to see who can outspend the other.

"Then let's go with the US$70 million we agreed on earlier."

After going round and round, the price at which Jim Walton sold his 1.5% stake has not changed much, and it is even a little cheaper.

Jim Walton agreed.

If he doesn't sell it, Abel will really hold more than 50% of it safely.

If Abel wants to retaliate against him, then his stocks will be in trouble.

Anyway, at this price, he has already made more than double the profit.

Jim Walton is naturally happy to sell.

In the evening, American Pacific Bank of Commerce issued an announcement.

Announced the acquisition of a total of 720.09 million American Express shares.

Accounting for 50.4% of the total issued share capital of American Express, it has reached the target of this comprehensive tender offer.

Therefore, this comprehensive tender offer was officially a complete success.

As soon as this news came out.
To be continued...