The birth of the Hong Kong Island family

On January 1, 1979, Hutchison Whampoa held a shareholders' meeting at its headquarters in Hutchison Building.

The purpose of this shareholders' meeting is to elect the chairman of the board of directors. This is because the major shareholder of Hutchison Whampoa changed last year, so the shareholders' meeting was held as usual.

The position of chairman of the board of directors of Hutchison Whampoa will be voted on between Lin Zhichao and Wei Li. There were six to seven hundred shareholders participating in the voting at the general meeting of shareholders, so in order to count the votes fairly, a law firm was hired to count the votes.

In a large conference room, Lin Zhichao and others sat on the rostrum, and Wei Li presided over the meeting.

During the question-and-answer session, a shareholder stood up and asked: "Mr. Lin, can you reveal the proportion of shares held by Cheung Kong Group in Hutchison Whampoa?"

Lin Zhichao smiled and said: "No less than 40% of the shares!"

The shareholders in the audience suddenly became excited and whispered among themselves.

In less than a year, Cheung Kong Group has secretly purchased no less than 15% of its shares, but Hutchison Whampoa's market value has only increased by about 15%, which is obviously incredible.

As everyone knows, Cheung Kong Group already controls 45% of Hutchison Whampoa shares, and is well on the way to a full acquisition.

Wei Li suddenly felt relieved, there was no suspense about today's election!

as expected.

The subsequent election was a one-sided situation. Even though Cheung Kong Group finally gave up its vote, Lin Zhichao still defeated Wei Li with an absolute advantage and was elected chairman of the board of directors of Hutchison Whampoa.

In his election speech, Lin Zhichao showed his humility as always.

"I am very grateful to everyone for their support. I have always been very trusting and satisfied with the management of Hutchison Whampoa, so my follow-up work is to chair the board meeting, run the company well with the management, and provide constructive suggestions. Give it to the current management to help Hutchison Whampoa’s market capitalization rank among the top four in the Hong Kong stock market as soon as possible.”

Thunderous applause! Lasts forever!

Everyone here is a shareholder of Hutchison Whampoa. How can we not hope that Hutchison Whampoa’s market value will soar? Now Lin Zhichao said that the market value will soar to the top four, which means that it will be second only to HSBC, Jardine Matheson, and Cheung Kong Holdings, and surpass Land, Swire \u0026 Co., Ltd., etc.

At present, Hutchison Whampoa's market value is only HK$2.7 billion, and it obviously still has a lot of potential.

At the same time, Lin Zhichao's words were also relatively modest, saying that he would communicate and negotiate peacefully with the management and that no civil strife would break out. In this way, everyone has full confidence in Hutchison Whampoa.

Weili suddenly felt like a rabbit was dying. Of course, he didn't want to leave Hutchison Whampoa, because he can now get 2.5% of the profit share every year, and his annual income can reach more than 6 million.

Therefore, he must compromise with Lin Zhichao, otherwise it will not be worthwhile to leave too early.

Of course, compromising to Lin Zhichao is not a shameful thing. After all, he is a senior worker, and Lin Zhichao can be regarded as the one who pays the salary.

The next day.

"Sing Tao Daily" reported: Yesterday, Sir Alex Lam became the chairman of Hutchison Whampoa. This is the first Chinese person to serve as a major trading house in Hong Kong (Wharf Group does not count independent foreign companies and trading houses). As Hong Kong investors said Said he wouldn't be the only one.

"Oriental Daily" reported: Yesterday, Sir Alex Lam, who spans shipping, industry, real estate and other industries, entered Hutchison Whampoa without any surprise. At the same time, it also ended the century-old situation of "the British are strong and the Chinese are weak" in Hong Kong's business community. In the future, Chinese capital Tycoons will continue to challenge British capital.

"South China Morning Post" foreign reporter reported: For more than half a year, I have been asking Shen Bi, "Why did you choose Lin Zhichao, the leader of the consortium that has surpassed HSBC in strength?" He finally answered recently, "Cheung Kong Group has excellent results and a good reputation." Well, Hutchison Whampoa's business has now achieved certain results after getting out of the predicament in 1975. It is logical for HSBC to sell its shares in Hutchison Whampoa at this time. ’ He then added, ‘HSBC’s sale of its shares in Hutchison Whampoa will be beneficial to the long-term interests of Hutchison Whampoa’s shareholders. We firmly believe that Cheung Kong Holdings will make an extremely valuable contribution to Hutchison Whampoa’s future development. ’

A foreign reporter from "The Tiger" reported that it was said that Lin Zhichao was responsible for the introduction of HSBC's acquisition of SITC Bank. Assuming this is the case, we can't help but lament Lin Zhichao's huge influence, and we have to admit - this is a deal.

The media reported it with great fanfare, even less humiliating than the reports in March last year. After all, only 25% of the equity was traded last year, and the board of directors represented by Wei Li may launch a counter-takeover; but now that Lin Zhichao has been elected as chairman of the board of directors, it means that the acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa by the Cheung Kong Group is a foregone conclusion, and no one can anymore Launch a counter-takeover.

After all, with more than 40% of the equity and the support of HSBC, there is no reason for it to be counter-takeover.

A week later, Cheung Kong Group announced that it already held 45.5% of the equity of Hutchison Whampoa, and as usual, it sent two directors to join the board of directors of Hutchison Whampoa, namely executive director Mai Lisi and non-executive director Li Yeguang of Cheung Kong Group.

The board of directors of Hutchison Whampoa also approved the joining of Melis and Li Yeguang, which means that Hutchison Whampoa officially ushered in the status of "Cheung Kong Group".

On the board of directors of Hutchison Whampoa, Lin Zhichao officially sat in the chairman's position, Wei Li and Richard Richard were on both sides, and two directors from the Cheung Kong Department also sat on one side.

Everyone clearly felt that Cheung Kong's involvement in Hutchison Whampoa went further, especially the two directors sent by Lin Zhichao, which was unexpected by everyone.

Li Yeguang and the others are all familiar with him. He is a barrister in Hong Kong who must be respected even by senior executives of major foreign firms. Of course, Li Yeguang also has the nickname of Lin Zhichao's "Consultant".

Meris was somewhat unfamiliar to everyone, but after the introduction, everyone couldn't help but sigh that Lin Zhichao had even invited foreigners in. It was obvious that Hutchison Whampoa's affairs were inseparable from Chang Shi's interference.

Next, everyone will definitely have both cooperation and some hidden competition.

Lin Zhichao immediately said: "Now that we have investigated and approved the Hutchison Telecom matter, let's prepare for its establishment immediately! President Wei Li, what do you think?"

Lin Zhichao still raised this matter many times and negotiated. Obviously, the face has been given enough.

Wei Li immediately said: "No problem! We will establish Hutchison Telecommunications as soon as possible, and acquire a large number of paging companies and licenses, and strive to become the largest paging company in Hong Kong as soon as possible."

After all, the paging business in Hong Kong is small. Even if Hutchison Whampoa has not fully recovered, it is still a skinny camel bigger than a horse. It can definitely become the industry leader through acquisition as soon as possible.

Lin Zhichao nodded and said: "Very good! As long as it is a promising industry, Hutchison Whampoa can definitely get involved and develop. Today is different from the past. Hutchison Whampoa is no longer fighting alone. Cheung Kong Group has rich assets and cash Flow backs it up.”

A kind of Western management suddenly understood - the situation is stronger than the people.

Cheung Kong Group is the third largest company in Hong Kong by market capitalization, second only to HSBC and Jardine Matheson. This is because Cheung Kong Group has huge real estate assets and diversified businesses.

Next, Wei Li began to preside over the working meeting.

He said happily: "Last year (1978), Hutchison Whampoa made a net profit of 250 million, further getting out of trouble. Hutchison Whampoa's liabilities were only 810 million Hong Kong dollars."

It seems that he, Weili, has made great contributions. One year after he took office, the profit in the first full year (1976) was HK$107 million, the profit in the second full year (1977) was HK$160 million, and the profit in the third full year (1978) was as high as HK$250 million; At its peak, the debt was as high as HK$1.3 billion, and today it is HK$810 million.

As everyone knows, Hutchison Whampoa's assets are as high as more than 6 billion, which is much higher than the asset value of Cheung Kong Group, but its profits are less than half. As for debt reduction, there are actually a lot of sales of assets, and of course a lot of new investments.

Generally speaking, Weili only contributed to the reorganization of assets; but in terms of business operation, he can only be said to be average.

And it is precisely that the head of an enterprise must first know how to operate, and as for asset restructuring and financial technology, it is only second. After all, for a well-run enterprise, asset restructuring and financial and technical arrangements are not particularly important.

Lin Zhichao did not criticize Wei Li. After all, others had also made contributions, so he affirmed the performance of the management headed by Wei Li.

Suddenly, everyone was happy!

But in the second half of the meeting, Lin Zhichao once again expressed his opinion: "Hutchison Whampoa's current listed companies include: Hebao, Watsons, Hutchison Real Estate, Harbor Engineering, Junyicang. Together with Hutchison Whampoa, there are six companies in total. A listed company. Among them, the seaport project has been in a state of loss. I recommend selling it to Cheung Kong Group to further alleviate financial pressure."

Weili was suddenly startled, and he suddenly felt something was not good.

as expected.

Director Xia Boyin immediately said: "This plan is very good! Harbor Engineering is an infrastructure engineering company. Hutchison Whampoa is not strong in the field of construction and infrastructure. This company is obviously weak; on the contrary, if it is sold to the Yangtze River Industrial Group, and then handed over to Poly Construction’s integration is a win-win situation.”

Peter Wei also nodded and said, "I agree to negotiate this deal!"

Then many senior executives agreed, after all, it was beneficial to Hutchison Whampoa.

As the chief executive, Wei Li could only agree.

In this way, Lin Zhichao has already begun to take charge of the administration before he is also the general manager; the so-called suggestions have become Hutchison Whampoa's decision-making.

There is no doubt that Lin Zhichao has gained the trust of Hutchison Whampoa's board of directors and management in a relatively short period of time, while Wei Li has gradually lost his influence.

Wei Li's shortcoming is that he is not a veteran of Hutchison Whampoa, and he is not actually monolithic with Richard Richard and others; nor does he hold any equity in Hutchison Whampoa, he is just a senior migrant worker.

Therefore, he was destined to have no chance of arm wrestling with Lin Zhichao!

In Lin Zhichao's view, Wei Li is even less of a threat than Richard Sun. Richard Sun has deep-rooted influence in Hutchison Whampoa, but he will become a 'threat' if he becomes CEO.

In this way, Lin Zhichao hopes that Wei Li can stay for two years, Richard will take over for another two years, and finally everyone will leave and be replaced by his own core senior management. In this way, Lin Zhichao must find a candidate for president who can take charge of Hutchison Whampoa, and Ma Shimin was reminded of him again.

After the meeting, in order to ease the relationship with Wei Li, Lin Zhichao took the initiative to invite him to his office for a chat and affirmed his performance in words.

This made Weili feel that he was good again!

When Richard and others learned the news, they couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.

Shortly after Lam was elected chairman of the board of directors of Hutchison Whampoa, he attended the board meeting of Hong Kong Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd.

At the meeting, the most complicated person was probably Run Run Shaw.

Since the 1970s, Lin Chi-chao has become a media tycoon in Hong Kong with lightning speed. Media groups have quickly become Hong Kong’s dominant players in the print media, film, and publishing industries.

In particular, its film company, Golden Harvest Films, killed off all the Shaw Brothers films and quickly fell into depression. His domineering level is far more powerful than Jiahe in his previous life. Among the top ten local films, Golden Harvest has about seven films every year, while Shaw Brothers only has one or two films.

Now, Run Run Shaw is even more frightened, because Lin Zhichao is actually one of the major shareholders of Hong Kong Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd. The current equity structure of TVB is:

HSBC and Hutchison Whampoa both hold 2.36 million shares (unlisted companies) and are the two largest shareholders, with the same shares.

Times Life International holds 2.26 million shares, which is also a British-owned enterprise.

As TVB chairman, Li Xiaohe only holds 270,000 shares;

Li Rongsen and Lin Rongda hold a total of 110,000 shares. These two are also members of the Li Hysan family;

As general manager, Run Run Shaw only holds 320,000 shares.

There are also some small shareholders who only hold tens of thousands of shares.

Therefore, in Shaw's opinion, if Lin Zhichao, as the chairman of the board of directors of Hutchison Whampoa, takes over the TVB shares from HSBC, then Hutchison Whampoa will hold more than 51% of TVB's shares, and then Lin Zhichao will naturally become the The chairman of the board of directors may also become the person in charge of TVB.

So in this case, wouldn't it mean that he not only loses his status as a film hegemon, but also loses opportunities in the television industry?

And Lin Zhichao has truly become a media tycoon in Hong Kong. He, Run Run Shaw, has worked hard for more than ten years to make Lin Zhichao's wedding dress.

What a tragedy!

"Since Sir Lin is already the chairman of the board of directors of Hutchison Whampoa and he is a veteran in the media industry, I propose that he succeed Mr. Wei Li and be elected as a director of TVB this time." Li Xiaohe said with a smile.

Lin Zhichao had a good relationship with the Lee family, especially his personal relationship with his brother, so he was willing to make friends with Lin Zhichao and immediately invited Lin Zhichao to join TVB.

As for Lin Zhichao, if he really has ideas for TVB, he can't stop it. After all, HSBC and Lin Zhichao have a close relationship, and their combined equity accounts for 61% of TVB.

Applause broke out in the conference room, and it was clear that everyone had no objection to this.

Lin Zhichao immediately delivered his speech: "I am very happy to join TVB as a director. In my opinion, TVB is currently operating well and Mr. Shao's management methods are exemplary, so we directors can enjoy dividends every year!"

Everyone couldn't help but be a little surprised. After all, Lin Zhichao himself is a media tycoon, so it is normal for him to covet TVB. Even Shen Bi of HSBC was very surprised. He also thought that if Lin Zhichao came to talk about TVB, it would be okay to sell half of the shares as a favor. After all, even Hutchison Whampoa had been sold.

Nowadays, Lin Zhichao's words and deeds seem to have no idea about TVB at all. They do not doubt Lin Zhichao's "sincerity". After all, Lin Zhichao does not need to be hypocritical.

Run Run Shaw immediately came out and said humbly: "Lin Sheng is good at ingenuity and business management. You can see it from the management of Oriental Newspaper and Golden Harvest Films. If you participate in TVB management or suggestions, then TVB will definitely be able to do better, and I will do the same." Let’s learn from it.”

He has completely lowered his profile, and is actually quite sincere. After all, you can suspect that Lin Zhichao has intentions for TVB, but you will never doubt Lin Zhichao's management skills, or the management skills in the media industry.

Lin Zhichao waved his hand and said: "There is really no time and no suggestions, Mr. Shao, please stop being modest!"

Then Li Xiaohe said: "Since Mr. Lin said this, Shaosheng should not be humble anymore."

At this time, Lin Zhichao is online. If Li Xiaohe passes away next year (1980), he will be the first in line to become the chairman of the TVB board of directors. Because Hutchison Whampoa is the major shareholder and he is a media tycoon, there is no suspense about this.

But will he accept the position of chairman of the board of directors?

In fact, it does not matter whether Hutchison Whampoa is accepted or not, it can become the largest shareholder of TVB at any time. In other words, Lin Zhichao can take over TVB through equity at any time.

However, Lin Zhichao is more eager to run Lai's TV station, and then run it into an innovative TV station, compete with TVB for the local market, and then develop overseas (copyrights, satellite TV stations, etc.).

The most surprising thing about the board meeting that day was that Qiu Degen was also a shareholder, even though he only had tens of thousands of shares.

However, Lin Zhichao didn't take it to heart. Without Qiu Degen of Lychee Garden, his financial resources were completely insufficient and he could not pose a threat.