The Industrial Giant Reborn

"Is Hongkong Land catching up? Bought 5 properties in Central at once?" Chen Zhiwen looked at the information sent up and said in surprise.

"Yes, judging from the situation, Landmark seems determined to fight us to the end." Zhou Jiayang said.

"It's interesting. I thought Hongkong Land would back down, but I didn't expect them to keep up." Chen Zhiwen was a little surprised. You must know that in the original history in 1978, Li Jiacheng raided Wharf, and the huge Jardine Group did not Willing to go head-to-head with Cheung Kong, which has a market value of only 500 million Hong Kong dollars, instead he found Shen Bi from HSBC to mediate.

If it was 5 years ago, if Li Jiacheng dared to play like this, his backhand would be shot to death by Jardine.

This is enough to show that Jardine's financial situation was poor at that time. Although it is still a year and a half away from 1978, Chen Zhiwen estimates that Jardine should also be in trouble now. After all, the land price in Hong Kong in 1978 was Far more than the current one, with Landmark's huge real estate allocation in Hong Kong, the increase in housing prices alone is a considerable amount of credit.

"In this case, we can only spend money together." Zhou Jiayang said after a pause. Controlling the retail market in Hong Kong was one of the core businesses that Chen Zhiwen set for He Huang at the beginning. After controlling the retail market in Hong Kong, you can Leverage this platform, experience and the cheap and high-quality supply chain brought by the US retail market to enter other Southeast Asian markets. The importance of ParknShop can be imagined.

"Then let's spend money. I'd like to see how much Jardine is willing to pay for this Wellcome supermarket?" Chen Zhiwen nodded and said. Although the current funds are very important, they will not be used for the time being in the next two years. First, invest the funds in actual real estate projects. When the funds are really needed in the future, these properties that have appreciated in value with the real estate market can also be used. It can be used as collateral for loans and even more funds can be loaned out.

The only downside is that robbing shops with Jardine now will definitely increase the acquisition cost, but no matter how much it increases, it can’t compare to the doubling growth of the real estate market. It is relatively cost-effective, let alone control Hong Kong’s retail market.

"If the Jardine Department has consumed too much funds in the retail market, then when we forcibly acquire Wharf in the future, maybe the pressure will be much less." Zhou Jiayang said suddenly.

"I also have this idea, but I want to play a little bigger." Chen Zhiwen continued: "I want to buy Hongkong shares in the stock market."

"Acquisition of land?" Zhou Jiayang almost cried out in surprise.

"It's not the acquisition of Hongkong Land, but the acquisition of Hongkong Land's stock." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said: "With the current scale of Hongkong Land and our financial resources, it is impossible to succeed in the acquisition, but buying some stocks is not a problem at all."

Chen Zhiwen's history is already different, but under his long-term layout in the early years, it is actually not difficult to acquire Wharf. The difference is that he may have a head-on confrontation with Jardine Matheson at that time, and it will cost more money.

Relatively speaking, Chen Zhiwen felt that if Jardine also asked Shen Bi of HSBC to come out to deal with him, and if he didn't give face, he might have a bad relationship with HSBC.

Before, Chen Zhiwen never thought of spending the funds on Hongkong Land, because at that time his main target was Hutchison and Wharf, especially Hutchison was heavily in debt.

However, with the cooperation process between Hutchison and Huazi real estate companies, it has begun to get rid of the problem of the collapse of the capital chain, coupled with the success of large-scale slimming and the rise of the Hong Kong real estate market. Under the circumstances, the debt problem was successfully resolved. When the first phase of Whampoa Garden is pre-sold, the funds of the entire Hutchison will be completely improved, except for the ParknShop supermarket that needs to spend money with Jardine to grab the market.

And several other overseas businesses are also developing smoothly, especially Midea’s arcade machines, which will continuously bring a lot of money to Hong Kong. The Magic Cube is now popular in the United States, and a large number of orders have been sent to Hong Kong factories. Although the greedy snake It started to be squeezed in the United States, but there is demand in Europe, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and even South America. Maybe these countries are small or poor, but they are better in quantity, and the combined orders are not worse than those in the United States.

At the same time, I also have a good history of cooperation with Citibank, and it is not difficult to obtain a certain amount of funds. Again, JPMorgan Bank can obtain loans, although there may be certain pitfalls in it.

At present, Chen Zhiwen is really not short of money, he has some funds and credit lines. Under such circumstances, he naturally needs to invest. The real estate market in Hong Kong is a good choice. Before 1981, he could basically cash out at any time, but other than that In addition, Hongkong Land's stock is actually directly proportional to the Hong Kong market. After all, Hongkong Land's main assets are the dozen or so buildings located on Hong Kong Island, and now there is a large amount of land owned by the Milk Company. , It’s just a drop in the bucket. It really allows Wellcome Supermarket to monopolize Hong Kong’s retail sales, and maybe it can still account for a few percentage points of Landmark’s scale.

"Then we bought Hongkong shares just for investment?" Zhou Jiayang asked.

"Investment is part of it, and the other is to put pressure on Jardine." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said, "Do you know how many shares Jardine holds in Landmark?"

"I heard that it is around 20%. Jardine does not hold it directly, but indirectly controls it through many methods. No one knows the exact amount." Zhou Jiayang replied.

"In fact, there is no 20% at all. Although Landmark did not spend a penny to buy milk, it also issued a large number of new shares. This has diluted Jardine's holdings in Landmark. Not to mention Jardine, the entire Hong Kong British This is the traditional habit of Western companies." Chen Zhiwen said with a light smile.

For a company that has developed for hundreds of years and has spanned several generations, it is difficult to maintain a high proportion of the controlling family for a long time, even among Chinese capital. Not to mention other things, just a few children share the inheritance, and the equity will inevitably be diluted. , After three generations, it is very rare for one person to hold 10%.

Only the current Hong Kong Chinese-funded companies are all in the entrepreneurship of the first generation of founders, and their respective holding ratios are very high. In addition, the geniuses who can be rolled out in entrepreneurship are all masters of management. With the help of historical development opportunities, naturally Can reverse over the British capital.

The Jardine family used to belong to the Keswick family. This family has a long history and has a good control over the major companies of the Jardine family. However, when Hongkong Land acquired Milk, it had to dilute its share capital on a large scale if it didn’t want to spend money. .

Originally, this was not a problem, as long as the stock price was low afterwards, we could find a way to buy back shares. However, the Hong Kong real estate crisis in 1973 and the global oil crisis severely hit Jardine's investment in Hong Kong and the world. As a result, for a long time, The self-holding equity of the Jardine Department has reached a very dangerous point.

In particular, Wharf, in order to increase capital to obtain funds to build Wharf, released several times the shares in the secondary market within a few years. This is also the reason why Chen Zhiwen was able to purchase Wharf shares without being discovered. And Hong Kong Land is not much better. Jardine’s shareholding in Hong Kong Land has been around 10% since the annexation of Milk. Maybe Hutchison’s acquisition will alert them once, but it is difficult to change it when there is no money. After all Like capital increase and land acquisition, it needs about 1 billion Hong Kong dollars in units of funds.

"That is to say, if we also acquire 10% of the stock, the entire Jardine Matheson department will have to be on high alert, and their funds will all be in trouble, because they have to prevent us from actually making an acquisition. "Zhou Jiayang nodded and said.

"Yes, this is a good investment in itself, and it may have a greater effect when buying Wharf." Chen Zhiwen said: "But you don't have so much money here, you can just buy it properly. The main force, I transferred money from overseas."

"Okay, I understand. As long as the funds are in place, I will arrange to start buying Hongkong shares." Zhou Jiayang continued: "One more thing, Mr. Chen, Huodoli has already negotiated with several people from Qizhou Yingni. We have contacted the shareholders and bought about 18% of the shares. In addition to the shares we bought in the secondary market, we already have about 25% of the shares of Qizhou Yingni, which has exceeded the share of the holding family of Qizhou Yingni. Huodoli means that if we are not in a hurry, we can continue to acquire slowly, but it is also easy to be discovered by the board of directors of Qizhou Yingni. If we are in a hurry, we can directly announce the acquisition plan, spend more funds, and directly Public acquisition, so that the purpose can be completed in the shortest possible time."