Legend of Xiangjiang Tycoon

,!

Hong Kong's real estate industry plays a pivotal role in the economy. The industry accounts for two-thirds of Hong Kong's fixed assets.

The production value created by property transactions and property rent collection accounted for 22.7% of the GDP in 1980, the peak period of real estate, and 19.5% in 1983, the low period.

Government land revenue is an important source of fiscal revenue for the Hong Kong government. In the 18 years from 1961 to 1979, the Hong Kong government sold land for a total of 18.9 billion Hong Kong dollars, accounting for 10% of fiscal revenue during the same period.

From 1980 to 1981, the proportion was as high as 35%. In addition to selling land, the Hong Kong government also directly or indirectly collects various taxes on land and properties. In addition, the Hong Kong government also has property and investment income.

Therefore, some people say that the reason why the Hong Kong government can implement a low tax system is that it has the "gold mine" of land as the financial backing.

The real estate and construction industries developed side by side. From 1975 to 1982, the real estate market was booming, and the construction industry continued to flourish for eight years. The total construction expenditure increased from 4 billion Hong Kong dollars to 24.8 billion Hong Kong dollars, an increase of more than 5 times.

The real estate industry and financial capital are mutually fused and interdependent. In the financial industry loan business.

The real estate and construction industries account for a high proportion. From 1981 to 1989, the total amount of real estate development, construction industry loans and mortgage loans accounted for 30% to 35% of the "loan amount used in Xiangjiang". The real estate boomed and the financial industry boomed.

Conversely, if the real estate market declines, there will be a large number of bad debts, and even trigger a banking crisis.

The real estate industry is very closely related to the stock market. In 1989, among the 298 companies listed on the stock market, 103 were in the real estate and construction industry, or 34.56%. In that year, the total market value of real estate and construction stocks was 184.7 billion Hong Kong dollars, accounting for more than 30% of the total stock market value of 607.7 billion Hong Kong dollars, the largest proportion among various stocks.

Among listed companies that do not belong to real estate, there are also many concurrently engaged in real estate.

Therefore, whenever the real estate market is booming and the value of the real estate market rises, it will drive the prosperity of the entire stock market. Listed real estate companies take the opportunity to issue new shares, further promoting the "bullishness" of the stock market.

On the contrary, when the stock market bear market comes, real estate profits decrease, and stock prices fall, it will drag down the market, forming a special phenomenon of "stock market pull".

Real estate has a direct impact on Hong Kong's manufacturing industry. This industry provides a broad market for cement, stone, paint, glass, hardware, wood, aluminum, decorative materials, etc. in the manufacturing industry.

The level of land and property prices directly affects the cost of various sectors of the manufacturing industry, thereby affecting the international competition conditions of Xiangjiang products.

There are very few Guangdong people in the delta of Guangdong Province who do not know the Huaxia Hotel and the Yangshen-Zhuhai Expressway.

These two large-scale projects are the masterpieces of Xiangjiang Terrace and Industry Hu Yingxiang.

Hu Yingxiang's ancestral home is Yangcheng Flower City. His father, Hu Zhong, was once the king of scholars in Xiangjiang.

Hu Zhong has 5 sons and 4 daughters, and Hu Yingxiang is the third eldest among his brothers.

The eldest, Hu Wenhan, was admitted as a taxi driver at the age of 8, and was the youngest driver in Xiangjiang at that time.

While driving to help his father's business, he studied at the same time. He studied in two universities, Hong Kong University and Chinese University, before completing his studies.

After graduating from university, he has been assisting his father in the taxi company business.

The elder Hu Yingzhou, a doctor of medicine and a cardiologist at Columbia University, has never been involved in the management of the family business.

Hu Yingxiang liked construction toys since he was a child. After graduating from middle school, he went to the famous Princeton University in the United States to study civil engineering. After completing his studies, he returned to Hong Kong in 1958. He worked as a construction engineer for 5 years, and then joined the Hong Kong Government Works Bureau.

In 1967, Hu Zhong owned 378 taxis and more than 120 red-plated cars.

At the beginning of the year, the government allowed privately purchased taxis to operate, and the competitiveness of taxi companies was greatly weakened.

In the summer, the Xiangjiang incident broke out, the city was depressed, and the taxi business was slow. Under such circumstances, Hu Zhong resolutely disbanded the fleet, sold all the taxis and license plates to the drivers, and collected the money in installments.

The central taxi company established by Hu Zhong painstakingly exists in name only.

Hu Zhong formed another company, Central Construction Industry, as the origin of the family real estate industry.

Because the arrears were difficult to recover for a while, Central Construction did not do much in the first two years.

In 1969, Hu Zhong retired, and the family business was taken care of by Hu Wenhan and Hu Yingxiang.

This year, Hu Yingxiangde's father invited friends to guarantee and obtained a loan of 15 million Hong Kong dollars from HSBC.

Hu Yingxiang immediately established a Hopewell Industrial Company, with his father as the chairman of the board of directors and himself as the managing director.

Hu Zhong also serves as the chairman of Central Jianye, and Hu Wenhan is the general manager.

In all fairness, Hu Wenhan is not as good as his younger brother Hu Yingxiang in the real estate and construction industry, but he is more famous in the political circle than Hu Yingxiang. He has served as the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, a member of the Municipal Council and the Legislative Council.

Hu Zhong's other two sons, the fourth Hu Yingguang, a master of electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, worked in the United States, died in a private plane crash in 1988; the fifth Hu Yingbin, a master of architecture from the California Institute of Technology, a registered architect, founded after returning to Hong Kong Dabao Real Estate Company, as the chairman of the board of directors.

Hu Yingxiang is still the most famous and ups and downs in the real estate industry.

Taihe was a start-up with a surging momentum. In addition, Hu Yingxiang is a rare professional professional among real estate developers. Fifty million Hong Kong dollars, divided into 75 million shares, with a par value of 2 yuan per share.

Public offering of 25 million new shares at the time of listing

The subscription price per share is HK$5, which means a premium of HK$3; this listing raised HK$125 million, but due to its growing reputation, the number of shares issued has increased to 100 million.

This year, a total of five Chinese-funded real estate companies went public: Hu Zhong’s Hopewell Holdings (referring to licensed investors), Guo Desheng’s Sun Hung Kai Properties, Li Jiacheng’s Cheung Kong Properties, Chen Zengxi’s Hang Lung Properties, and Zheng Yutong’s New World. At that time, the media called it the "Five Tigers of Chinese Investment", or "Five Tigers of Chinese Investment".

These five tigers, in the 1980s and 1990s, all successively entered the Xiangjiang Ten Billion Super Rich List.

Hopewell is the handsome tiger among the five tigers-the first to go public, from the autumn of 1972 to the spring of 1973, the stock price of Hopewell was higher than the other four tigers. However, an unexpected disaster fell from the sky.

It was this disaster that caused Hehe to lose Shuaihu's supremacy.

Fortune comes when misfortune rests—Hehe suffered this disaster because Hehe has a good reputation and good performance, and the person in charge is a professional in the real estate industry who graduated from a prestigious American school. In addition, Hu Yingxiang served as an official in the Hong Kong Government Works Bureau and has many connections in the Hong Kong government.

This is the reason why the share price of Hopewell is higher than that of the other four Chinese real estate companies.

As we all know, the counterfeit objects of counterfeit goods are all famous and high-quality goods or best-selling goods.

In Hong Kong, some people have imitated the US dollars, British pounds, and Hong Kong stocks with exquisite designs and anti-counterfeiting technology. It is not a piece of cake to pirate "lifelike" stocks.

In the spring of 1973, the rising stock market was full of bullishness, and the stock price was fired to an unreasonably high level. The Hang Seng Index climbed to 1,700 points, and the daily turnover reached 5.6 billion Hong Kong dollars.

The stockholders were crazy, but a piece of news exploded in the stock market like a bolt from the blue:

At this time, the Hehe shares with a face value of 2 Hong Kong dollars have been fired to 30 Hong Kong dollars, and their value has increased by 28 Hong Kong dollars! How can it not make the counterfeit stock production and sales gang feel swayed and salivate? However, it was Hopewell that was damaged.

Hopewell suffered the bad luck of "suspending transactions for thorough investigation". Later, fake stocks of several popular stocks were also found. The fake stock incident became the fuse of the Xiangjiang stock market crash.

The incident of "Taiwan and counterfeit stocks" discouraged some investors who were preparing to enter the market, while some veteran stock speculators had a premonition of a catastrophe, and hurriedly sold a large number of stocks, causing the stock price to plummet. The Hang Seng Index plummeted from its peak of 1,775 points on March 9 to 495 points on July 11.

Some investors who don't care about the depth of the stock market have suffered heavy losses, and the stocks they bought at a high price are now as cheap as waste paper! Shareholders vented their anger on Hehe, and Hu Yingxiang complained that Hehe was implicated for no reason, and even a large number of stocks in his hands did not sell at a high price.

Most of the other Chinese-funded listed companies have gained a lot from selling on the high. Since then, Hopewell has lost the lead of the Five Tigers.

The Hong Kong government took advantage of the "Hehe incident" to rectify the stock market, and conducted an inventory of stock exchanges, securities companies, and listed companies.

Hopewell itself did not falsify, and was not allowed to re-list. However, Poly Construction Company, in which Hopewell was a shareholder, was liquidated and went bankrupt. The chairman of the board of directors, Paul Lee, was arrested and imprisoned in 1973. Hopewell suffered again!

The founder of Poly Construction Company, Paul Lee, is an architectural genius. The quality of the projects he undertakes is good, the credit is good, and the business develops rapidly.

In the late 1960s, he was rated as a "C-level" contractor by the Hong Kong Public Works Bureau, and he was able to undertake projects of unlimited value.

Hopewell has a wholly-owned Hopewell Construction Company, which is good at building construction but not civil engineering - Poly is good at both. In order to make up for its own shortcomings, Taihe purchased 4.5 million shares from Poly with two properties valued at HK$9.9 million, accounting for 25% of Poly's total issued shares.

Hu Yingxiang, managing director of Hopewell, became a director of Poly.

Although Paul Lee is a construction genius, he is not good at financial management. He is not familiar with the responsibilities and obligations of listed companies, especially the risks of investing in securities. Many things are handled by relevant people.

In 1972, when the company went public, Poly's assets were insufficient, so it was not possible to issue shares. Poly made false accounts, making it the fourth listed local construction company after Baohua, Jinmen and Xinchang.

After Poly sold shares to raise funds, it immediately used 9 million Hong Kong dollars to speculate in stocks, of which 7 million Hong Kong dollars were purchased through Hu Yingxiang to buy Hopewell shares.

Hehe had an accident, and Poly suffered heavy losses. Not long after, the case of "steak fees" in which Poly bribed government officials when undertaking public projects was seized by the newly established ICAC.

Li Paulo was imprisoned, and during the interrogation, he could not refute the charges of falsifying accounts and bribery.

Poly went bankrupt and liquidated, and Hopewell, which held Poly shares, also lost its wings, and all 9.9 million Hong Kong dollars were lost.

Is it not just money that is damaged by Hehe? And reputation that money can't buy!

It is precisely because of Hehe's "poor reputation" that it suffered even more severe losses. By December 1974, Hopewell shares with a face value of 2 Hong Kong dollars plummeted to a pitiful 0.62-0.65 Hong Kong dollars, which was more than 40 times smaller than the peak value of 30 Hong Kong dollars! During the same period, the other four Chinese-owned real estate stocks also fell quite sharply, but the decline was not as shocking as Hehe.

People in business generally believe in fate, especially those who are frustrated.

We assume that if the fake stock incident does not fall on Hehe, Hehe will "stop trading for a thorough investigation".

At the same time, Poly Company, where Hu Yingxiang is the director, will not become the focus of the investigation. Poly’s bankruptcy and liquidation, in the final analysis, was “as it should be”—at that time, the management of the stock market was chaotic, government personnel were seriously corrupted, the company was allowed to go public by falsifying accounts, and there were not too few business people who bribed personnel to obtain government contracts. safe and sound.

Hu Zhong once advised Er Yu to give up Hehe, and the family still had Central Jianye. Hu Yingxiang also had this idea. But he did not back down, but stuck to Hehe and fought against fate!

Fortunately, Hehe suffered such a major setback, mainly not because of poor management or "mistakes" in decision-making, but because of its ill-fated fate.

Therefore, the bank did not abandon Hehe, but gave necessary assistance.

Hehe stabilized its position and expanded slowly. In 1976, with the recovery of real estate and rising property prices, Hopewell's profit also continued to rise. By 1979, it finally surpassed the highest level in history, with an annual profit of HK$76.38 million.

During this period, the sites and properties purchased or developed by Hopewell include: Allway Garden, Xiewei Garden, Kangli Garden, Dongwei Building, Shanguang Garden, Yunjingtai, Jianwei Garden, Telford Garden, Hopewell Center, etc.

Telford Gardens, located in Kowloon Bay, has more than 40 residential buildings and nearly 5,000 residential units. It was put on sale in 1977, bringing huge profits to Hopewell.

In the late 1970s, the Hong Kong government promulgated the "Extended Rent Control Act" to increase the rental income tax of owners. A senior economic commentator in Hong Kong published an article and pointed out: "Generally speaking, although the current profit prospects of real estate companies in Hong Kong have been greatly discounted due to the implementation of 'extended rent control', Hopewell can still continue to develop. Xiangjiang made more and more profits.

Judging from the current deployment, Taihe can become a company with an annual net ancestral income of 80-90 million Hong Kong dollars in two or three years, and another tens of millions to more than 100 million Hong Kong dollars in property sales profits. The company has exciting prospects. "

At this time, the signature building of Hopewell—Taihe Center is under construction.

Hu Yingxiang, a real estate developer who graduated from the Department of Civil Engineering, never forgets his major. Taihe Center was designed and built by Mr. Hu himself. This extraordinary building has made Mr. Hu famous at home and abroad, becoming a generation of architectural masters.

Hopewell Center is located on Wanchai Boulevard East, spanning Boulevard East, Kennedy Road and Spring Garden Street. It covers an area of ​​54,000 square feet and has a height of 66 floors. It was the largest commercial building in Hong Kong at that time.

The podium and the center have unique shapes and are cylindrical buildings, including three inner cylinder walls and one outer cylinder wall with a diameter of 150 feet. The streamlined shape of the main building can resist the severe storm that occurs once in five thousand years.

The construction of the main building adopts slip-form technology, and one floor is completed every 4 days, setting an Asian construction speed record.

The ground floor and basement of Hopewell Center are shopping malls and parking lots; the middle and lower floors are office buildings, and the top floor is a revolving restaurant, where you can enjoy the street view and sea view of Xiangjiang.

In the initial stage of opening, the annual rental income of Taihe Center exceeded HK$70 million.

In the 1980s, many tycoons in Xiangjiang even hesitated to invest in properties in Xiangjiang, and hesitated to move forward. Whenever there was a disturbance, they would invest abroad.

However, Hu Yingxiang went against the current and invested heavily in the mainland, and most of them were large-scale civil engineering projects with slow investment results.

Many friends are sweating for Hu, and Hu is always optimistic about the prospects of the mainland.

Hu Yingxiang's first signature project in the mainland is Huaxia Hotel.

This four-star hotel is not far from Yangcheng Railway Station, across the street from the Canton Fair Complex.

Some people say that the significance of this hotel is not to improve the contradiction of the lack of high-end hotels in Guangzhou, but to excavate the southern Guangdong soil site during the construction, which caused a sensation in the archaeological circles at home and abroad.

As a result, the hotel has been relocated 100 meters away. The chief designer of the hotel is Hu Yingxiang.

Compared with today's Hu's projects in the mainland, this hotel is just a child's play.

There are several other large-scale projects, such as the Humen Shajiao Power Plant. In order to raise funds, Hu Yingxiang pulled more than a dozen major real estate companies in Taiwan, and traveled around, mobilizing 45 banks for joint loans.

The project is divided into Plant B and Plant C, and the electricity is mainly supplied to Yangcheng and Shencheng.

Hu Yingxiang traveled frequently to and from the province and Hong Kong, and was particularly impressed by the backwardness of the highways.

In 1981 and 1984, Hu Yingxiang twice proposed the idea of ​​building expressways in the interior.

pointed out that the Mainland should at least

Build three expressways: Beijing-Tianjin Line, Yangshen Line, and Shenyang-Dalian Line.

Today, the three expressways have become a reality, among which the Yangshen-Zhuhai Expressway was led by Lihehe. The project cost 1.5 billion U.S. dollars and was completed in 1993.

Hu Yingxiang also proposed a comprehensive development plan for the Pearl River Estuary in April 1989. The plan includes super-large projects such as cross-sea bridges, subsea tunnels, and deep-water ports, which will cost US$3.5 billion.

Hu Yingxiang's completed and planned projects are all long-term projects with long construction period, slow results, high risk and huge cost.

Many Hong Kong businessmen invest in the Mainland, mostly in the short-term and fast processing industry.

Therefore, friends say that Hu Yingxiang is not only a real estate tycoon, but also a master architect. Xiangjiang has a small space, so he can only go to the mainland to realize his ambition.

In 1988, 67-year-old Hu Yingxiang said in an interview with the media:

"In the 21st century ~www.wuxiaspot.com~ the Xiangjiang River and the Pearl River Delta can constitute a backbone of the Asia-Pacific Economic Zone. It is based on this view that I strengthen investment in power plants, roads, and seaports in Guangdong Province."

In 1992, Hu Yingxiang had not yet entered the Xiangjiang Ten Billion Rich List. By 1994, according to Xiangjiang "Express" on January 1, 1995, Hu Yingxiang's family ranked 9th on the rich list,

The market value of the company is HK$34 billion. According to the Hong Kong Economic Journal of the same month, the Hu Yingxiang family ranked 8th among the top ten richest people. In the same month, Xiangjiang "Capital" magazine selected 27 Hongkong Chinese billionaires,

Hu Yingxiang and Huo Yingdong are tied for the 11th place, and the family's own assets average 20 billion Hong Kong dollars.

The tigers who were once on the verge of extinction will reunite, and today they are reappearing as tigers.

And Li Zhiwen is in both real estate and hotels, and he doesn't even let go of light industry.

If it is done in a normal way, there will not be so many people joining the anti-Li alliance. After all, it is really not a good thing to be an enemy of such a behemoth.

But it's a pity that the small quagmire of Xiangjiang is too shallow, and everyone says that the water is too shallow. Now that there is a crisis, naturally all the ghosts and ghosts have been found.