Goldie first began addressing the administration's concerns by increasing the company's capitalization to £100 000. He then managed to corral £1 000 000 in investments in a new concern—the —which bought up the UAC and its interests in 1882. The death of Léon Gambetta the same year deprived the French companies of their support within the French government and the strong subsidies it had been providing them. Goldie's cash-flush NAC was then able to maintain 30 trading posts along the river and ruin its competition in a two-year price war: by October 1884 all three had permitted him to buy out their interests in the region and the NAC's annual report for 1885 was able to crow that it "remained alone in undisputed commercial possession of the Niger–Binué region".