The birth of the Hong Kong Island family

Lin Zhichao and Hu Zhaoxu came to Yau Ma Tei Public Sifang Street, which was later called "Zhongfang Street".

When the British Hong Kong government built this street in 1887, they named it "Public Square Street" based on the square, which means "public square". However, the Chinese name was mistranslated into "Public Square Street".

After arriving at the location, Lin Zhichao took a detailed look at the land in front of him and evaluated the development prospects of this land of more than 170,000 square feet.

According to Lin Zhichao's speculation, after the "New Residential Development Regulations" were passed in 1955, the "area ratio" of this land could reach about 6 to 8 times, which means that a minimum of 1 million square feet of residential floor space could be built. According to With a unit of 800 to 1,000 square feet, about 1,200 residential units can be built.

The average selling price of a unit is more than HK$25,000, which is a sales price of 30 million. The land price is currently about 20 yuan per square foot, the land price is about 3.5 million Hong Kong dollars, and the construction cost plus tax is 8 million to 10 million; then, the profit of just one project is more than 15 million Hong Kong dollars, and it may be much more.

Take it, you can take it!

Lin Zhichao quickly judged that the east side of the public Sifang Street is a large park and square, which is very close to the Yau Ma Tei Police Station, and the west side is the public pier. In addition, this piece of land is large enough to build a real private housing estate. It will be the first shot in Hong Kong's property prices after the passage of the "New Residential Development Ordinance".

On the contrary, the land on Paterson Street in Causeway Bay can be used as the focus of the "sale of uncompleted flats" in 1956. Among them, the commercial part is naturally reserved for Changjiang Real Estate to collect rent.

"Who is the owner of this land?" Lin Zhichao asked.

"The Kadoorie family" Hu Zhaoxu said.

Lin Zhichao was a little surprised. The Kadoorie family owned quite a lot of land and properties. The commercial land of the Hong Kong Hotel on Pedder Street also belonged to the Kadoorie family. The land in the hands of these old-fashioned families and foreign firms is really enviable.

Of course, Lin Zhichao will soon become a big landlord in Hong Kong, because he has decided to buy land at a large scale this year.

Recently, he calculated: When the rent is collected in July this year, Global Shipping will theoretically have no debt; in the remaining five months, it will have a monthly profit of 1.4 to 1.5 million US dollars, which is a full 7 million US dollars. profit. Global Shipping's expansion target for this year is only 50,000 tons, and the capital needs to be about 3.5 million US dollars.

Therefore, Lin Zhichao will spend 3 million US dollars to buy land this year, which is nearly 17 million Hong Kong dollars.

The sooner he buys it, the sooner he can rest assured.

"I have no contact with the Kadoorie family. I will leave this matter to you and the lawyer to communicate. In short, this land is good. It must be very good to buy it and develop a large private housing estate."

"Okay, I'll contact you right away."

The Kadoorie family currently operates CLP Power, the Peak Tramway, and the Grand Hotel Group. It is the largest Jewish family in Hong Kong, with strong financial resources and assets of hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars.

Although he has a strong financial position, Lin Zhichao is not worried about not selling. These old-line families are not good at real estate development, and their land is sold gradually. Only in the 1970s and 1980s did they realize that even if they did not know how to develop, they could still Will find someone to cooperate with the development, at least not sell the land.

The piece of land that Lin Zhichao is looking at seems to have been bought by Airship Tai in his previous life, and then 100 five-storey tenement buildings were built, which is really a bit wasteful.

Now that he has taken a fancy to him, let's take the first step, anyway, Hong Kong has a lot of land.

After winning this piece of land first, continue to look for the next target. In short, we must vigorously store land this year, and we must not let it go next year.

"Boss, there was an official land auction recently. There was a piece of land at No. 10 Xuechang Street. It was a commercial land with an area of ​​about 9,800 square feet." Hu Zhaoxu added.

A map suddenly appeared in Lin Zhichao's mind. He was very familiar with Hong Kong's geographical location and properties. He quickly said, "Are there real estate properties around it?"

"Yes, the Gloucester Building and the Imperial Household Building are nearby, and the Bank of East Asia is right next to Des Voeux Road." Hu Zhaoxu was very well prepared.

The main reason is that Lin Zhichao communicated with him that this year he will buy a large amount of residential land and commercial land, and the residential land will buy a larger area.

"There, I understand. When the time comes, I will go to the auction house and try to get it."

"Um"

This piece of land is relatively small, and it is estimated that it cannot be built too high in the future. It can have seventeen or eight floors, and the floor area is only about 100,000 square feet.

To be honest, this kind of building is not a beautiful building, but the location is good. It is the commercial heart of Central and the future prospects are very good.

Importantly, Lin Zhichao planned to build a 'UNIQLO' building in the late 1950s to serve as the headquarters of the clothing industry. This was enough.

Of course, although it is the headquarters of a certain company, most of the office buildings must be rented out.

In such a short period of time, Lin Zhichao felt very satisfied with having two land purchase directions.

He doesn't have to worry about funds. The two plots of land cost only about HK$6 million in total, and Global Shipping will be able to spend more than half of it this month (April). The residential land on Sifang Street, in the public area, can definitely be paid in installments. Even if we don't pay in installments, there are nearly one million Hong Kong dollars in Crocodile T-shirts and three million Hong Kong dollars in Yangtze zippers, so it doesn't hurt to borrow them for the time being.

A week later, the Hong Kong government auction.

Lin Zhichao participated in the auction in a low-key manner with two of his subordinates. He had never shown off his skills at an auction before. At this time, the income from land sales in Hong Kong is not high, only 10 to 20 million Hong Kong dollars a year. This is because Hong Kong's fiscal revenue currently does not mainly rely on real estate. At the same time, the land market is not very good either.

Of course, even so, the Hong Kong government will put up a few pieces of land for auction every year, but almost all of them are foreign banks and foreign compradors showing off their skills. There were many foreign banks in Hong Kong at this time, but in later generations they were slowly annexed by their own people, and later by Chinese capital. As for the compradors of foreign banks, they were almost all wealthy families, such as the comprador Mo Gansheng family of Swire Western Bank. ', the former compradors of Jardine Matheson \u0026 Co., the 'Ho Tung Family', etc., are all extremely wealthy, and each company has more than one comprador.

Generally speaking, after these foreign banks and compradors buy the land, they usually collect rent after construction. If it weren't for the Chinese to develop "strata and stage sales", I'm afraid these people would still dominate Hong Kong's real estate.

Only with "stratification and installment" can we have the wealthy Chinese businessmen of later generations. Otherwise, how would we catch up with foreign banks, compradors, and established families! Because these people cannot change their minds and do not dare to take risks, they can only watch the younger generations grow up.

Walking into the auction, Lin Zhichao and his party found a seat in a low-key manner. There were many foreign faces inside, but almost no one knew them. Even if they had met, they were not familiar with each other, so they did not say hello.

Soon, we arrived at the site at No. 10 Snow Factory Street.

Auctioneer: "This is a piece of land located at No. 10 Ice House Street. The current low price is HK$1.7 million, and each increase will not be less than HK$10,000. Start!"

Lin Zhichao did not join immediately, but observed the situation on the field. Time passed by, and soon only three or four families were left competing.

Hey, there was actually a person Lin Zhichao happened to know during the bidding, named Liang Xianli. He was a comprador of Jardine Matheson and a member of the Shunde Chamber of Commerce, but his presence was not high and he seemed not to care about the Chamber of Commerce.

Seeing this, Lin Zhichao started to raise his placards.

"2 million Hong Kong dollars"

For a time, many people looked at Lin Zhichao and others, and it turned out to be a new face.

The auction continues.

Soon, the price had risen to HK$2.3 million, and the only auctioneers were Liang Xianli and Lin Zhichao.

Lin Zhichao had a price in mind, which was not to exceed 2.6 million Hong Kong dollars, so he was very calm.

On the other side, Liang Xianli also noticed that Lin Zhichao was competing with him and muttered: "Why is it him!"

How could he not know that Lin Zhichao was the new shipping king of Hong Kong? So in terms of strength, Liang Xianli already felt guilty.

"2.4 million"

"2.42 million"

"2.5 million"

"2.55 million"

"On the 16th, congratulations, the deal is done"

Just when Lin Zhichao was about to give up, Liang Xianli unexpectedly quit on his own initiative. Obviously, he was even less confident.

Lin Zhichao believes that there are more choices, and this is only the early 1950s.

Of course, he had to admit that the land in Hong Kong at this time should be higher than at the same time in his previous life. Because staging has already appeared (stratification in the previous life appeared in 1948 and staging in 1954), Hong Kong real estate would have been much better if it had not been for the Peninsular War.

Of course, if you can't build high-rise buildings, everything will be restricted.

But if the government approves the construction of high-rise buildings, land prices in Hong Kong will skyrocket even before the plan is finally approved. Therefore, despite the fact that the current land price is only over 20 Hong Kong dollars, I am afraid that in five years’ time, the residential land price will be at least 100 Hong Kong dollars per square foot.

"Lin Sheng, I didn't expect to see you at the auction house. Congratulations!" After the auction, Liang Xianli came to the door and said.

Lin Zhichao quickly said politely: "I give in, Liang Sheng. To be honest, I will give up if you yell just one or two more times."

Liang Xianli immediately said: "Haha, it seems that I missed out, but it doesn't matter. I also got a piece of land that I like. Although the location is not as good, it is still big enough."

He sincerely felt that he was definitely not as good as Lin Zhichao in terms of wealth. If he continued to fight, he would not only offend others, but he might not be able to win the fight.

"Well, congratulations. To be honest, I want to build a building to prevent my companies from renting properties for offices. If I build it myself, I should be able to save a little bit."

"It makes sense. I think so too. Building a building to collect rent is a good investment."

The two of them were polite to avoid hurting their friendship, and finally they both left the auction house with a smile.

The piece of land that Henry Leung auctioned was in Sheung Wan. Although it was big enough, it was no longer in Central. I was afraid that I would regret it in the future.

At the end of April, Lin Zhichao returned to Hong Kong from Japan. During his trip to Japan, he stayed for a full week and completed the signing of contracts with three shipping companies. The nine ships had a "four-year ownership".

The carrying capacity of these nine ships, which is 85,000 tons, will expire in May 1956. At that time, no matter what, it will be impossible to sign a long-term contract, and you will only be able to run short-distance for a few months. There is always a reason, and it won't offend anyone. It's just a little 'discount'.

When Suez closed, the Japanese shipping company still asked him to rent it at a high price for a long time. The "30% reduction" in the number of ships worldwide will have a huge impact. The annual rent will be at least three times that of 1955. This is Lin Zhichao's guess.

Lin Zhichao brought his lawyer and his men to the conference room of China Electric Power Company.

"Mr. Rowlands"

"Mr. Lin"

After greeting everyone, everyone sat at the conference table and prepared to complete the signing. The price was negotiated between the lawyers and their subordinates. Originally, Lin Zhichao and Laurence Kadoorie did not need to come forward, but they unanimously chose to sign the contract in person.

After all, both parties are respectable ‘big shots’ and give each other face.

Lorenz Kadoorie was born in 1899. He is a figure of the last century. He is fifty-three years old this year and is a standard second-generation rich man. The origin of the Kadoorie family is Eli Kadoorie, the father of Lorenz Kadoorie. , relying on 500 Hong Kong dollars to gain a foothold in Hong Kong.

Jews seem to understand the principle of money begetting money. Eli Kadoorie quickly invested the money he earned. He teamed up with friends to establish the China Electric Power Company in 1903. Although the power of generators was very small at that time, and only a few foreigners in Hong Kong had access to electric lights, the clever Kadoorie had foreseen that the electric power industry was an industry with great development potential. He concentrated his efforts on CLP Power Corporation. In 1906, Eli Kadoorie purchased a large number of shares in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotel and became the majority shareholder.

Eli Kadoorie established Sir Kadoorie \u0026 Sons in 1926 as the family's holding company. Before World War II, the Kadoorie family's business developed rapidly, involving industries such as electricity, real estate, trade, finance, hotels, cable cars, etc. Its business even expanded to major cities in the mainland such as Guangdong and Shanghai. In the late 1920s, the Kadoorie family invested US$400,000 to build the Peninsula Hong Kong, one of the most luxurious hotels in Asia at the time. When the Peninsula Hotel was completed, there were many crowns and buildings, and the grand occasion was unprecedented. The Kadoorie family became famous both at home and abroad because of this, and became a well-known prominent family in Hong Kong.

"Mr. Lin, there is a problem with this land. It is full of junk, rubbish, and there are many tenants. So if you want to develop the building, I'm afraid it will take some energy." Rowland reminded 'kindly'.

Why was he so kind? Anyway, it was Lin Zhichao who proposed the purchase, and now that the price had been agreed upon, he proposed it at this time as a favor.

Lin Zhichao said with a smile: "We are used to this kind of trouble, and if we talk about it slowly, it will make sense."

In this era, there is no tenant court, and there are often many households living on one floor, so it is more troublesome than demolition in later generations. But obviously, everyone will use some "third-party demolition", and naturally someone is willing to solve the trouble.

However, Hong Kong is bigger after all, so Cheung Kong has to pay attention to the impact, so it mainly focuses on persuasion at the beginning, and then "reminders". In the end, it has no choice but to use "tricks" - outsourcing and temporary workers.

Fortunately, Changjiang Industrial is not in a hurry to develop, so they have time to deal with these things.

Lawrence smiled and said, "That's good! Then let's formally sign the contract!"

The price of 172,000 square meters of land is HK$3.52 million, and the average price is just over HK$20 per square foot.

In the office of Yangtze River Holdings (Changjiang Real Estate), Lin Zhichao and Tang Caiyun are sitting in the same office. Tang Caiyun has officially become a senior executive of Yangtze River Holdings (a sinecure).

"This month is very impressive. I purchased two pieces of land at once for more than 6 million yuan! Husband, what do you think?" Tang Caiyun asked curiously.

Lin Zhichao said with a smile: "This year I will probably buy more than 15 million Hong Kong dollars in land and properties. I will take advantage of the cheap land and seize the time to reserve it."

Tang Caiyun stood up, came behind Lin Zhichao, and rubbed his shoulders.

"Store up?"

Lin Zhichao suddenly became a little funny and joked: "What's wrong? Do you feel pressured? The second bedroom has to ride on the head of the first bedroom!"

Tang Caiyun blushed, thankful that Lin Zhichao didn't look back and saw her embarrassing scene.

Although she and Xu Caiying are sisters, the problem now is that the global shipping assets are far larger than those of the Yangtze River system. So she felt a little anxious in her heart. It's not that I'm jealous of Xu Caiying, but I feel that the Yangtze River system can also develop.

"No way! Besides, we sisters have not been so clearly distinguished since we were young, and we are not so clearly distinguished now."

"Ha ha"

"It's disgusting, don't you believe it?"

"No!"

Having a child is definitely different, this is Lin Zhichao's opinion.

In fact, Tang Caiyun and Xu Caiying asked Lin Zhichao not to mention those things many times. First, Lin Zhichao was still very young, and second, the relationship between the two women was very good, so there was no need to think about those things now.

However, what Lin Zhichao said is that whoever grows up and the company helps him is not a matter of succession.

Later, Lin Zhichao said: "I will tell you today about Yangtze River Industrial's plan. Just keep it in mind and remember to keep it confidential!"

Tang Caiyun nodded. She knew that Lin Zhichao liked to have everything planned out.

"The land and properties we are purchasing now will not be developed for the time being. This is called strategic reserve land. As for when will it be developed?"

"First, the regional war is over, Hong Kong's import and export has resumed, and its industry has developed."

"Second, and most importantly, Hong Kong now has a population of more than 2.5 million and the living environment is very poor. So it is certain that after the war is over, the Hong Kong government will consider the issue of housing. So I think Hong Kong's housing will Allow high-rise buildings, such as 20-story residential buildings. Think about it, you could build 5-story buildings originally, but now you can build 20 stories. How much more money will you make?"

Although it is not a simple multiplication, after all, it is related to the 'plot ratio', but what is certain is that at least the floor area will be doubled.

Tang Caiyun then asked: "You mean, once the Hong Kong government passes the 'High-rise Building Ordinance', we will immediately use the 'sale of uncompleted properties' to withdraw funds in advance for construction costs?"

This is her husband's ability to start a business, and she is also familiar with it.

"Not bad! It can even be done like this. As long as I get the building approval, I can set up a simple sales office on the land and start selling the houses immediately. I can build the house without having to prepare a penny for the construction fee."

"What's more, even the land fee can be paid as a down payment, and then directly start preparing to buy a property."

Tang Caiyun was surprised, and said: "Then everyone can come in and do real estate?"

Lin Zhichao said: "As long as you are brave enough, you can do it! But precisely because the threshold is not high, a cliff-like plunge may occur in a short period of time, and many people will lose their money. Therefore, our land is now reserve land. Any situation can be dealt with. In short, real estate seems to be very profitable, and it is easy to lose money, so it is best to be cautious.”

Tang Caiyun clicked her tongue secretly, and said, "It seems that there is still a lot of knowledge in real estate."

Lin Zhichao said with a smile: "As long as it is stable, it is almost impossible to lose money. Assuming that you borrow as little as possible, you can make a steady profit without losing money. Because in the next few decades, housing prices will continue to grow, even if they suddenly drop by 50%, But it will rise again in a few years.”

Tang Caiyun secretly kept it in her heart, she would write it down when her husband said this.

Later, Lin Zhichao told Tang Caiyun the general layout of five sites in total: Paterson Street, Orchard Road, Sing Tao, Sifang Street, Kowloon Public Road, No. 77 Des Voeux Road Central, and No. 10 Ice House Street.

"Remember, don't tell it, as long as the two of you know it!"

"Yes, husband"

"Call the general manager"

"General Manager Husband"

Lin Zhichao played Tang Caiyun mischievously, so he pulled her into his arms and stroked her slime.

In the end, it was Tang Caiyun who was thin-skinned and gave Lin Zhichao a taste of the sweetness, so she quickly avoided and straightened her clothes.