Although Isabella had not worked in finance in her previous life, she still had a general understanding of the Lehman incident.
After all, when the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, news about it was everywhere.
When every kind of media outlet talked about Lehman every single day, it was hard not to know something about it.
So, when Isabella learned that the backing behind Marvel's current chairman, Isaac Perlmutter, was Lehman—
She sincerely felt that the guy's background was basically equal to nothing.
The reason was simple. The subprime mortgage crisis had already arrived. When Lehman itself was trapped in the mud and could barely protect itself, how could it possibly spare the effort to help Isaac Perlmutter?
Isaac Perlmutter was not Lehman's father!
He was merely of the same group as Lehman's real controllers!
In a society that valued law, people from the same group might have an extremely close relationship. When fellow countrymen met, tears welled up in their eyes.
But in a world governed by the law of the jungle, the so-called fellow countryman—
Existed when useful and disappeared when useless.
Yes.
According to the intelligence Susie Figgis provided, the reason Lehman had indulged Isaac Perlmutter was that most of his visible income came from the legal compensation he received for doing Lehman's dirty work.
If one had to describe it—
The relationship between Isaac Perlmutter and Lehman was somewhat like the relationship between Carl Icahn and those government funds.
A black glove.
However, as the saying went: when facing an enemy, look down on them strategically but take them seriously tactically.
Even if Isaac Perlmutter most likely could no longer borrow strength from Lehman at the moment, Isabella would not ignore his close relationship with Lehman. And as she began to take that relationship seriously—
Honestly.
The moment she paid attention to the relationship between Isaac Perlmutter and Lehman, she felt like the chosen one. Because in her memory, the biggest winner in the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis had not been Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley at all, but Britain's Barclays.
Goldman and Morgan had indeed taken more than ten billion in profits from the subprime mortgage crisis through behind-the-scenes deals and related-party transactions.
But Barclays had swallowed all of Lehman Brothers' North American business.
That move was basically a slap in America's face!
Because finance was the foundation of America's current national power. Ever since the Americans decided to use the dollar to colonize the world and manipulate its tides to harvest the globe, they had never allowed foreign capital to touch their financial sector!
Even their own father could forget about looking at their books!
But in 2008, Barclays, controlled by the British, once again planted the Union Jack in America's heart?
This—
If Isabella remembered correctly, after Barclays acquired Lehman, scandals around it broke out one after another.
Money laundering, tax evasion, interest-rate manipulation—
Wall Street launched a fierce attack on them.
There was nothing to be done.
Who told them to snatch meat from Wall Street's mouth?
Precisely because Isabella had seen the future script, when facing the possible enemy alliance of "Microsoft + Lehman," the simplest and fastest method she thought of was to latch onto Barclays.
As long as Barclays could take Lehman down, then Microsoft—
"What?"
"You can still take me down?"
Isabella did not believe that Microsoft, at this moment, could take the current her down.
Since her life was not in danger, she would drag Warner and Disney along and fight Microsoft head-on!
Mm.
Isabella believed that once she and Microsoft started fighting, Warner and Disney would definitely come to her aid.
There was no need to say much about the former. It was purely a matter of interests. Facebook had already started digging at HP's foundations. If Warner could even tolerate that, they might as well shut down!
As for the latter, it was a game of power. First, Steve Jobs was Disney's second-largest shareholder, and compared with the largest shareholder, he was short by only a little over one percentage point in voting rights.
Second, one-tenth and a half of Disney's current revenue had been bestowed by Isabella.
Finally, Google and Apple had entered into a marriage alliance.
So, in the future, where exactly would the Disney vehicle drive?
That was something Isabella and Jobs only needed to discuss behind closed doors.
And when it came to fighting Microsoft—
Jobs was actually even more excited than Isabella, okay?
Although Isabella had not yet thought of the specific method of counterattack, once forces that could be united appeared, finding allies first and then thinking of a plan was exactly what Isabella most wanted to do and would immediately do.
And because her cheap dad—ah, pui! He was now her dear dad!—had come out of Barclays, when it came to clinging to Barclays' thigh, she went straight to her mother and told her she might have been targeted by Lehman.
Then—
"Uh—Isa—I don't think I understand what you mean—"
Vivian, dressed in haute couture and having just finished afternoon tea with her close friends, looked confused.
"You're saying Lehman might target you because of Marvel's chairman. That part I understand."
"But—why would that make you want to establish a connection with Barclays?"
"The logic here—I'm not following it."
"That's because only magic can defeat magic," Isabella said. "Lehman is a giant in the financial industry, so if I want to defend against its attacks, I must have a friend in the financial industry."
"But over the past few years, we've been moving around the media and entertainment industry and the technology circle. We haven't had much contact with people in finance. So—Barclays is the closest possible relationship I can think of right now."
Isabella could not tell her mother that Barclays might already be eyeing Lehman, because that was a judgment she had made based on memories from her previous life. So making up a passable reason was the solution she came up with.
As for this—
After hearing her precious daughter's words, Vivian frowned slightly.
Although she really wanted to say that Isabella's idea was very abstract, after pondering for a moment, she shook her head and focused on the topic in front of her. "I'm sorry, Isa. I don't know anyone from Barclays."
"You know this. I never ask about your father's work."
"So, what kind of connections did he have at Barclays?"
"This—I'm not sure—"
"And I want to say that even if I still remember which of the people who attended Eric's funeral back then were from Barclays, it would still be hard for us to contact them now, because that was seven years ago."
"Besides, when our lives returned to normal, we did not celebrate with them."
"I think you understand what I mean?"
Vivian sighed regretfully at her youngest daughter.
Isabella curled the corners of her lips and chuckled. "Of course."
"Okay." Seeing that her daughter understood, Vivian continued, "So, my view is that if you think your line of thought is correct, then the person you should look for most right now is Joanne."
"Give her a call. I believe she can help you solve the problem. All the problems."
"When we went shopping that day, she even said that when she chose you back then, she only wanted to give you a hand. She never imagined—"
"—that you'd accumulate wealth several times faster than her."
"Of course, what makes her happiest is the appearance of The Voice and Beaver Animation."
"London is still the center of the world—even North America must submit. That is what people like them most want to see."
Vivian's thoughts could be summed up in eight words: when people leave, the tea grows cold; things remain, but people have changed.
When Isabella's biological father—ah, pui! Now he should return to the position of cheap dad again! Because he could not provide Isabella with effective help! When Isabella's cheap dad had already been gone for seven years, then even if he had once had a pile of sworn brothers, now—everything had to be reconsidered carefully.
Therefore, rather than looking for unreliable old connections, it was better to directly embrace the ironclad connections of the present.
And since J.K. Rowling's close friend was the eldest princess, wouldn't finding Barclays through her be ten thousand times more useful than looking for Barclays herself?
To be honest, Isabella's thoughts were actually the same as her mother's, but she could not directly look for J.K. Rowling, because Britain had many domestic banks. As for major multinational banks, there were HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, Standard Chartered, and Westminster.
So, was Lehman's subordinate suspected of having a conflict with Isabella?
Then according to normal logic, shouldn't she look for a bank with a good relationship with Lehman to mediate?
Under normal circumstances, giants did not directly start wars!
Because no matter who won, the party that gained the most would only be a third party!
But Isabella did not accept mediation.
This was not only because "mediation" did not have much meaning in the Western world. If she wanted everyone to never dare harbor any improper thoughts toward her, she had to destroy every bit of malice in the world directed at her!
It was also because the subprime mortgage crisis was both danger and opportunity.
Previously, because Isabella herself had not stepped into the financial circle, she had actively given up the idea of cutting in.
But now—
People in the financial world had already come after me. It's hardly excessive for me to hit back and take a slice of the pie myself.
The old saying still held: pirates never form a civilization, because robbery simply feels too good.
Doing nothing for three years and then making one score that feeds you for the next three — that kind of thing is dangerously easy to get hooked on.
After confirming that her mother didn't actually object to the idea, Isabella asked her mother to contact J.K. Rowling.
After all, the two of them talked often enough already.
With a single phone call, Isabella once again felt as though fortune had decided to bless her personally.
The reason was simple: her usual accounts, along with her foundation's accounts, all ran through Barclays.
"Wait — our money usually flows through Barclays' sphere of influence?"
March 15, 2007.
Isabella met J.K. Rowling at Leavesden.
Having received Isabella's "distress call," the now-liberated Rowling came straight to the set of Order of the Phoenix for a one-on-one conversation with the girl.
Isabella's shock was enough to make Rowling stop teasing "Chestnut."
She smiled. "You heard right. Barclays has always been the transfer point for our family's wealth. The bank functions as an important circulation pool for royal and aristocratic money."
"Its current CEO is even one of the Prince's people."
The Queen was no figurehead.
Anyone with a basic education knows that constitutional monarchy is the product of an incomplete revolution — and an incomplete revolution is, functionally, no revolution at all.
So The Queen still held real power, even now.
Her influence in the judicial sphere had already been covered, so there was no need to revisit it. As for her grip on finance — that was best illustrated through Barclays itself.
Barclays' predecessor, Barclays Company, was founded in 1690. It began in the gold trade before moving into the slave trade. Anyone familiar with that period knows both businesses operated as aristocratic monopolies authorized by the Crown — no royal license, no business. Which meant the people running them were insiders of the highest order.
That was how The Queen's ancestors came to hold shares in Barclays. That was the bank's true lineage.
Under modern corporate practice, shareholders generally stay out of day-to-day operations. To exert control, they install their own people in management instead.
Barclays' current CEO was John Varley. He held no title, and his ancestors weren't nobility — but his father-in-law was Sir Richard Pease, third baronet of Britain's Pease family.
His ancestor was Edward Pease, the "father of railways," who appears alongside George Stephenson in history textbooks the world over.
The Pease family had helped ignite the First Industrial Revolution. They had served the Crown from the very beginning — and in 1902, when their banking business faced collapse, Edward VII personally arranged for Barclays to absorb it, folding the Pease family fortune into Barclays for good.
So: The Queen's ancestors had once saved the Pease family from ruin, and the third baronet's own son-in-law now ran Barclays.
Did anything more really need saying?
What's more, John Varley was genuinely capable in his own right. He currently served as a trustee of the charitable foundation belonging to The Queen's eldest son — Prince Charles III, who was set to ascend the throne only at the age of seventy-three.
Some plain language might sting a little, but the relationship between John Varley and The Queen boiled down to two words: master and servant.
Once that layer of the picture clicked into place, Isabella genuinely felt as though fate had taken her side.
J.K. Rowling's connection to the eldest princess — and her foundation's standing alongside her — existed precisely because their success helped sustain Britain's global image. The Queen and her circle needed constant proof that Britain, though eclipsed by America's rise, remained supreme in the eyes of the world, its influence undiminished.
And Isabella — who was, in her own way, helping paper over the cracks in that aging facade — had been bullied badly enough to retreat home in tears?
Lehman. You really had signed your own death warrant.
"Miss Haywood, I think I understand what you're getting at."
"Marvel chairman Isaac Perlmutter's background has left you a little uneasy?"
"In that case — what if we simply helped you buy Marvel outright?"
"Wouldn't that make the danger disappear entirely? You certainly have the resources to absorb the company."
Three days after parting with Rowling, Isabella met Barclays CEO John Varley in London, on a public holiday.
When you find the right person, every meeting in this world moves remarkably fast.
After hearing Isabella's concerns, John Varley offered his solution immediately. In his view, the cleanest way to solve a problem caused by a person was to remove that person entirely.
Marvel's chairman, Isaac Perlmutter, harbored ill will toward Isabella? Simple — push him out of Marvel. That might be difficult for most people, but for Barclays, it was almost nothing.
John Varley's matter-of-fact tone made the corner of Isabella's mouth twitch involuntarily.
There was, she had to admit, still a meaningful gap between her instincts and those of real pirates — these people's methods were genuinely ruthless.
Under Varley's gaze, Isabella paused, then shook her head. "Mr. Varley, your idea is excellent, but I have no interest in controlling Marvel. Marvel is —"
She stopped there, momentarily lost for words to describe just how worthless the company was.
But Varley understood anyway. "Miss Haywood, you mean Marvel simply isn't a good investment — that the returns don't justify holding it?"
"You'd rather follow Robert Iger's approach: control the board, then extract whatever value matters to you?"
"Exactly." Isabella smiled and nodded.
That was precisely her thinking. At the moment, she'd sooner keep buying Apple stock up to the disclosure threshold than take Marvel private — Marvel's foreseeable returns simply couldn't compete with tech.
"All right, then — shall we go pay Isaac Perlmutter a visit and set him straight?"
Varley had another solution ready.
"I know the man a little. He's a crude man— uncultured, simple-minded. He probably can't even grasp who he's dealing with, which is the only reason he'd dare show you disrespect. So — would you like me to rough him up a little?"
"Don't worry. Even if I beat him within an inch of his life, Lehman wouldn't dare object. Everyone in this world knows exactly where Barclays stands."
Isabella fell silent.
For a moment, Varley didn't strike her as particularly civilized either.
And yet his bluntness pleased her — because a man only spoke that recklessly to her if his master had already given him license to.
"Mr. Varley — may I call you John? And you're welcome to call me Isa."
"Of course! It would be an honor, Isa."
"All right, John. There's actually another matter I wanted to raise with you."
"Go ahead, Isa — say whatever's on your mind. The Princess herself has made clear there's to be no distance between us."
"All right, then I'll speak plainly. While I was in America, I heard Wall Street isn't having an easy time of it. So — any interest in Lehman?" Isabella smiled at him.
John Varley's expression turned serious at once.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her. Only after a long pause did he finally smile.
"Isa — you're remarkably well-informed. So you've come looking for a partnership?"
"In that case — we'd better start from the beginning."