Chapter 293 The Delayed Rubber Crisis
When the European situation experienced the second Moroccan crisis and the Italian-Turkish War, Arthur and the royal consortium also took many actions in Europe.
First of all, because of the tense atmosphere and the upcoming war in Europe during these two incidents, many civilian factories and enterprises in Europe devalued in an instant, and even faced the risk of bankruptcy.
Not only the stock markets in France and Germany, but also in countries such as the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, were not in good condition. After the Italian-Turkish War, the Italian stock market was also added.
Of course, the current devaluation is not too serious, at least compared to war periods in history.
Once a war breaks out, the devaluation faced by these companies will be even more serious. This will also be an opportunity for Arthur, the royal consortium, and even the whole world to bargain.
After the war, a large number of industries in the defeated countries will face the crisis of bankruptcy, and acquisitions will be dozens of times cheaper than now.
At the same time, the royal consortium is also significantly selling some assets in Europe, including stocks in some factories and companies invested by the royal consortium.
If you don't sell them now, you will never have the chance to sell them again. Between now and the end of the war, these enterprises will basically be in a state of depreciation, except for those more important military factories.
But the problem is that military factories are also very important to the great powers. The royal consortium currently does not have the ability to intervene in the important arms factories of the great powers.
What's more, the armaments factories of the defeated countries will also be liquidated after the war, and it will not be too late to buy some of the Krupp arsenal's technologies at bargain prices.
The only thing that is not easy to divest is the joint automobile plant built with the British and German local forces.
Whether it is a car factory in the UK or Germany, the current scale is very large, with tens of thousands of workers, and it is simply impossible to easily divest.
But the good news is that Australasia currently has good relations with Germany and the United Kingdom. For Arthur's sake, neither the British nor the German car factories should be covered by artillery fire.
Of course, occupation should be inevitable, but Australasia will surely be able to get its own interests back after the war.
It is worth mentioning that during the second Moroccan crisis, the rubber crisis that was supposed to break out in 1910 was finally delayed.
The reason for the delayed outbreak is that Benz Automobile has ushered in a more glorious era for the rubber industry. The development of rubber in this world is far more exaggerated than in the history of the parallel world.
How exaggerated is it exactly? Even in just a few months from the end of 1910 to the beginning of 1911, there were as many as 200 rubber companies registered in East Asia.
But the problem is that the quality of these companies varies. Some are indeed serious rubber production companies, but some just bought a piece of vacant land in Southeast Asia and registered a rubber company without shame.
The purpose of registering a rubber company was to list their rubber company's stocks on the East Asian stock market and earn large profits for themselves by selling the stocks.
You know, because cars became popular in the world in advance, the rubber industry developed very rapidly.
This is because the development of automobiles is inseparable from tires, and tires are generally made of rubber.
This has led to the current number of tire factories in various countries. After all, even if they cannot catch up with Benz Automobile Factory in terms of automotive technology, they can still produce tires and earn a lot of profits as tire suppliers to automobile factories.
Take Australasia as an example. The royal consortium in Australasia owns several rubber companies, and there are more than a dozen private tire factories, large and small.
Although the Sydney Stock Exchange in Australasia was established in less than a few months, Australasia's more developed economy and similar culture have also attracted many companies from Europe to register rubber companies here.
However, Arthur attaches great importance to the Sydney Stock Exchange, and companies listed on the Sydney Stock Exchange also need to undergo certain reviews.
At least those companies that want to register a rubber company with only enough land to buy a piece of land will have no chance of successfully listing on the Sydney Stock Exchange.
But stock exchanges in East Asia are different. East Asia's stock exchanges are in the hands of a corrupt state. This also destined the management of this stock exchange to be very backward, with insufficient power to supervise and manage foreign enterprises.
Due to the lack of a unified and mature financial management system, stock exchanges in East Asia have become the main targets for foreign capital and enterprises to make money.
The international price of rubber has also risen from 2 shillings per pound of rubber since the birth of the automobile to an exaggerated 17 shillings per pound of rubber.
This has also caused the stock price of almost every rubber company to rise. The stock price of a newly registered rubber company can quickly increase several times in a short period of time, and even eventually can increase dozens of times.
The rubber company of the royal consortium has indeed made a lot of money from this. Even if the securities company of the royal consortium only helped several companies list rubber stocks on their behalf, it made hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars.
Arthur even secretly supported the establishment of many rubber companies in Southeast Asia, and then went public in East Asia to make large profits.
The real reason why Arthur learned that the rubber crisis was coming was because of the news from Germany. Germany had successfully developed synthetic rubber technology, and the German side hoped that the synthetic rubber factory it created could establish a cooperative relationship with Benz Automobile Factory, and even Become one of the designated tire suppliers of automobile factories.
Historically, it was precisely because of the technology of synthetic rubber and the development of rubber that it was indeed approaching its peak that the rubber crisis broke out in 1910. After learning that Germany had successfully developed synthetic rubber technology, Arthur did not hesitate at all. He directly ordered the Kent steward to order the royal consortium to sell all the rubber company stocks in its hands as quickly as possible, and the Sydney Stock Exchange temporarily suspended the rubber company stocks. of listing.
It's okay not to sell. After the rubber crisis broke out, not only did the price of rubber fall several times in a short period of time, but the stock price of the rubber company also fell directly to the limit in a short period of time.
If you continue to hold rubber company stocks, you may lose as much as you earned in the future rubber crisis.
However, in order to smoothly sell the shares of the rubber company in his hand, Arthur still shamelessly requested Germany in his private name to temporarily postpone the announcement of synthetic rubber technology.
As compensation to Germany, Arthur directly patted his chest and agreed to the German synthetic rubber factory to become one of the tire suppliers of the automobile factory.
Anyway, German rubber factories also supply German automobile factories. It's just a matter of changing the tire factory and letting the Germans worry about it themselves.
In mid-April 1911, the royal consortium finally completed the sale of all rubber company stocks.
A few days later, on April 20, Germany made a high-profile announcement that Germany had successfully developed commercially available synthetic rubber technology and would build a synthetic rubber factory to replace the original rubber company.
As Wilhelm II happily announced the news, the stocks of German rubber companies fell that day.
Of course, this is just the beginning of the rubber crisis.
Immediately afterwards, important rubber importing countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Australasia, and the United States successively announced that rubber imports this year (1911) would be temporarily maintained at last year's level. This also means that the development of world rubber has reached saturation. In the past few years, The golden age of rubber is over.
This news is quite fatal for the current rubber market, because the joint announcement by several major rubber importing countries means that the development of rubber has reached its peak and the demand for rubber has become saturated.
Companies and enterprises that enter the rubber market in the future will not only fail to make money, but may even threaten the current rubber market.
What's even more terrible is that soon, the German branch of Benz Automobile Factory, the world's largest automobile brand, announced that it will cooperate with the synthetic rubber factory to be established in Germany to replace natural rubber tires with synthetic rubber tires.
You must know that the rubber boom can develop to such a huge scale, and the role of cars is not insignificant.
The four Benz automobile factories in Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australasia can be said to be the four largest automobile factories in the world.
This means that the rubber market will not only not expand again, but will shrink rapidly in a short period of time.
These pieces of news were a devastating blow to the rubber market, causing rubber stocks in various stock markets to plummet rapidly.
At the end of April, the price of rubber had dropped sharply from 17 shillings per pound to 11 shillings per pound, a reduction of more than one-third in less than ten days.
More serious, of course, are rubber stocks. As of the end of April, the price of rubber stocks in the London stock market has generally dropped to one-tenth of what it was a dozen days ago, and the price reduction has even become faster and faster.
In the past, a single share of rubber company stocks was worth dozens of pounds. Now, the single share of most rubber companies' stocks is less than ten pounds, and has even generally been reduced to about two or three pounds.
Of course, securities trading markets like London, which are subject to strict regulations, are fine.
In East Asia's stock exchange markets, such a plunge was even more serious.
Because there is not much supervision, the number of stock companies in the East Asian stock exchange market is very large, and there are a large number of shell companies mixed in.
When stock gold was listed, a lot of people bought stocks of stock companies, but now people are dumbfounded.
Stocks that were worth thousands of dollars before may now not even be worth a meal. What's more serious is that no one takes over the stocks they want to sell on the stock market, which also results in them having to sit back and watch the stocks in their hands continue to plummet.
In just over a month, the price of a single stock plummeted from tens of pounds to ten pounds, several pounds, and finally to less than one pound.
Such a price cannot even reach the issue price of the stock, which is enough to prove how severe the impact of this rubber crisis on the rubber industry and rubber companies.
According to Arthur's guess, especially in Southeast Asia, there are at least thousands of rubber companies that have gone bankrupt due to the rubber crisis, and the total funds lost are even countless.
The few rubber companies that were able to get the news in advance had already cashed out when their stocks were at their highest price, and quietly left with a large number of pounds earned during this period.
And those ordinary investors who don't know the news at all can only react when the crisis comes. By this time, it is already too late. The stock market is full of people who want to sell stocks, and who will buy stocks?
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(End of chapter)