The Industrial Giant Reborn

"U.S. dollars? Chen Sheng means that the exchange rate of Hong Kong dollars to U.S. dollars will decline in the future?" Huo Jianning immediately understood what the boss meant.

A long time ago, the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate in Hong Kong was anchored to the British pound, but after World War II, the British Empire gradually declined, and the British pound exchange rate became very unstable, which seriously affected the Hong Kong economy. Then the Hong Kong dollar was anchored to the U.S. dollar, with a long-term ratio of 4.5:1 .

But as time went by, the two oil crises hit the global economy. In order to stimulate the economy, the Hong Kong government gradually controlled the exchange rate to break through 5. This was also to restore exports. After all, when housing prices rose sharply, workers’ wages were also reduced. This is a devastating blow to Hong Kong's industries that rely heavily on the export of cheap industrial products, and can only stimulate exports by lowering the exchange rate.

"Yes, and you all know what will happen soon. I'm not very optimistic about the exchange rate of the Hong Kong dollar in the short term. We can't change this kind of thing, so let's make sure we don't suffer any losses." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

After September, when the real estate crisis and the economic crisis broke out, a large number of wealthy and middle-class people intend to emigrate and want to exchange their Hong Kong dollars into U.S. dollars. The Hong Kong dollar exchange rate will be challenged unprecedentedly. Compared with the current exchange rate, the exchange rate is almost doubled, and even some Hong Kong shops do not accept Hong Kong dollars.

In this environment, all banks in Hong Kong have been run on, which is much more serious than the crisis of Hisense Bank a few days ago. In the end, the Hong Kong government issued an administrative order to impose legal restrictions on foreign exchange, which eased the situation. problems, but still can not solve the root cause, the Hong Kong government's foreign exchange reserves were almost emptied.

Although I have a lot of dollars in my hands, if Hisense Bank of Nuoda absorbs more deposits and converts them into dollars without doing anything, it can make a lot of blood. This can also be said to be the future of Hisense's international expansion. base funds.

"Then, do we need to convert the Hong Kong dollars in our hands into U.S. dollars?" Zhou Jiayang asked beside him.

"You don't have many Hong Kong dollars, do you?" Chen Zhiwen asked. Before that, Hutchison invested a lot of money in the gold futures he arranged, and then returned the money and part of the profits to Hutchison, because some of these funds were foreign debts, but they were also repaid in US dollars. International investment, plus Hong Kong itself, did not have any good investment projects in the mid-1980s.

"Although Hong Kong's real estate market has not been doing well in the past two years, in general, land prices are still at a high level. We have many properties developed on our own land. Together, we have earned more than one billion yuan. The cash flow is almost over 2 billion Hong Kong dollars." Zhou Jiayang said.

"That's fine, you can also exchange part of the U.S. dollars. Our large-scale exchange may attract attention, so don't be too obvious." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said. Today's Hutchison, in terms of land reserves, has already compared several dollars. It was much less a year ago, and the main reason is that large-scale cash-outs have occurred in recent years. On the contrary, Wharf is much worse. Although there are still a lot of land, the prime location has not been developed for the time being, and the development of the poor location is much later. After making a little money, it still needs to pay off the debt for the Harbor City project.

"Okay, we will pay attention." Zhou Jiayang said.

Chen Zhiwen nodded, and then said: "In addition to US dollars, you also know the purpose of lending against land?"

"As long as it is Hong Kong's Chinese-funded consortium, they want to take a bite of this big fat piece of Hong Kong Land, but they are too cunning. They used Jardine Land's serial mutual control and locked each other's controlling interests, so there is no way to do it. "Huo Jianning smiled and said: "But this way, like Cao Cao tied all the boats together, it is naturally stronger in normal times, but if there is a problem with one boat, the other will be dragged into the water."

"Yes, that's my goal. As long as Landmark's debt is high enough, Jardine Land will die together." Chen Zhiwen said with a light smile.

Last year, he encouraged the Hong Kong government to auction the land king in advance, which changed the transaction price of this land from 4.755 billion Hong Kong dollars to 7.3 billion Hong Kong dollars. Just this move made Landmark nearly 3 billion Hong Kong dollars more than the original history. Liabilities, but because Hongkong Electric has been acquired by itself long ago, Landmark has one less acquisition target, which is about 3 billion Hong Kong dollars, and this positive and negative are almost offset.

However, in the acquisition battle of Wharf, Pao Yukang and Landmark had merged for a long time in history. In the end, when Bao Yugang bought at a high price, Landmark Jardine took advantage of the high price to cash out a lot of funds.

However, in the past year or so, Hongkong Land's strategy has been the same as in the previous history, large-scale acquisitions of land, properties, or other large companies in order to increase its own scale. It seems that it intends to compare the scale with the companies under Chen Zhiwen.

Chen Zhiwen roughly estimated that the current debt ratio of Hongkong Land should be higher than the original history, but even next year's real estate crisis will not destroy Hongkong Land and Jardine in the original history, so he still needs to "send some more Money" to land.

"Indeed, if there is really a big problem in the real estate market, and Hongkong Land's situation reaches the point where Hutchison used to be, then any mutual control tactics will be useless, and it will drag Jardine into the water." Huo Jianning nodded and said.

"If you secretly send a message or wish to the senior management of Jardine Land, then I can do it here." Zhou Jiayang said suddenly.

Huo Jianning asked: "What Zhou Sheng means is that there are people from you at the top management of Landmark?"

"It's not enough to say that it's my people. Generally, this kind of high-level people will not be commercial spies, but there are still some good relationships. If they just want to send a message to Niu Bijian, Bao Fuda and others at the right time, yes No problem, it's not illegal." Zhou Jiayang said with a smile.

To become a senior executive of a top consortium in Hong Kong, the direct annual salary alone is probably at the level of one million Hong Kong dollars, and the gray income is more. A large consortium, even tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars, may not be a big deal, but the problem is that it is openly illegal and involves the transfer of large funds, so it is easy to leave behind. If it really provokes the ICAC, it will be too troublesome. Not really, but not worth it.

However, if you don't buy the other party's core business secrets, it's just some ordinary movement, and then use it to judge the other party's investment intentions, etc., these are normal, any company in the world does this, and secretly passing information is insignificant.

"Well, I'll leave this matter to you and release the news that Hisense Bank has a lot of funds in its hands and intends to find customers with stable properties or stocks as collateral. Hongkong Land is desperately expanding and needs funds urgently. I can't help being tempted." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

Although his assets have far surpassed Hong Kong Land, the price of a large company with a market value close to 20 billion Hong Kong dollars (10 billion after the real estate crisis) would be too high if he wanted to forcibly acquire it. Even if Hong Kong Land owns a dozen buildings in Central, it would not It's worth it. Therefore, he must dig enough holes for Hongkong Land in the early stage. Anyway, he knows the future trend of real estate and the stock market, and it is enough to grasp the timing.

"Okay, I'll make arrangements later." Zhou Jiayang nodded and said.

After 5 days:

In most parts of Hong Kong, newsstands are selling the latest newspapers.

"Hisense Bank officially announced that if the person who withdraws the deposit returns to renew the deposit, he can regain part of the interest on the previous deposit."

The title of a financial page has attracted many people's attention.

"My child's father, do you read this?" In a slum in Sha Tin, a middle-aged woman about 40 years old rushed into the rented house of her family with a newspaper.

"What's wrong?" The middle-aged man who was called looked at his wife, then at the newspaper in his hand, and asked, "Did you buy a newspaper?"

"No, I got it from someone else." The middle-aged woman said, although the newspaper is cheap, only a dime a piece, but for their family, they basically don't buy it, after all, it is not for food, so there is no need to spend it. For this money, many people will throw away the newspaper after reading it. They can still read it, but they can't do whatever they want.

"What's the matter?" the middle-aged man asked.

"Look here, Hisense Bank announced that the people who withdraw the money before, as long as they deposit the money back, then part of the interest can be returned. I checked, we withdrew 18,000 yuan at that time, and half of the interest can be returned." Middle-aged the woman said.

"Half? That's a lot." The middle-aged man stood up immediately. Because he was setting up a night stall in Hong Kong, when he heard that there was a problem with Hisense Bank, he immediately went to line up and withdrew his deposit. .

I was very happy at first, but I didn’t expect Hisense Bank to be acquired by Mr. Chen Zhiwen, the richest man in Hong Kong, and then it returned to normal. This made him sad for a long time. The interest rate has been very high in recent years. They all have more than 3,000, which is equivalent to the income of their husband and wife setting up a stall for three months. It is a surprise to be able to return half of it now.

"Let's go, hurry up to save money, and I thought, since the richest man, Mr. Chen Zhiwen, has bought Hisense Bank, then Hisense Bank should not have any other problems, or else, the money from our other small banks will also be withdrawn Save it in?" The middle-aged woman said again.

Everyone knows that it is safer to put money in a big bank, but the interest rate is lower, while in a small bank, the interest rate is much higher. In this case, many people go to a small bank in order to make more money. Of course , Hisense Bank is actually not too small.

"Okay, more than ten years ago, too many banks in Hong Kong were run on during that time, and my former boss went bankrupt at that time, and now I feel that the run will happen again." The middle-aged man nodded in agreement.

Some media in Hong Kong have also noticed during this period that there are many more people at the gates of Hisense Bank’s branches, but it is not a run to withdraw money, but to save money. After interviewing a few people at random, it is found that there are about 40% of them. , are new users of Hisense Bank, they come to save money, the first is because Hisense was acquired by the richest man in Hong Kong, the security is improved, and the interest rate is still higher than HSBC and Hang Seng Standard Chartered, and the second is the current old depositors If you save money again, you can get back part of the previous interest, which is very good for people who save money, even those who have never saved money here before.

Kangle Building:

Niu Bijian stood on the highest floor of the building, looking down at the streets downstairs, pedestrians like ants. Since the completion of the Kangle Building, it became the first building in Hong Kong, and he had this feeling like a king until Wharf was forcibly acquired, and he and Jardine were slapped severely, which made him very angry at the beginning.

However, when the scale of Chen Zhiwen's property is getting bigger and bigger, so big that the entire Jardine Group seems to be a bit incomparable, he feels that the forced acquisition of Wharf is not a serious slap in the face. Anyway, in Hong Kong, being There are too many companies that Chen Zhiwen started to forcibly acquire.

No, Ocean Trust Bank, the third largest local bank in Hong Kong, was acquired. Although this time it was not a forced acquisition, the collapse of Hisense Bank always made him feel that there was something wrong, but he had no evidence.

"Dong dong dong" knocked on the door, and Bao Fuda walked in directly.

"What's the matter?" Newbie asked.

"The Hong Kong government rejected our application to postpone the development of Exchange Square. They required us to start construction within one year according to the agreement signed at the beginning, complete the first phase within three years, and complete the entire project within five years. A liquidated damages of 0.01% is collected every day." Bao Fuda said with a livid face.

"0.01% per day? 730,000 Hong Kong dollars a day? Why don't they grab the money?" Niu Bijian's face turned darker after hearing this. 730,000 is not much for Jardine, but who can bear the liquidated damages of 730,000 per day .

The Exchange Building is exactly the king of the land that Hong Kong Land sold for 7.3 billion at the Hong Kong government auction last year. Originally, they were high-spirited and wanted to rely on this land to further consolidate Hong Kong's position in Hong Kong.

However, the real estate market in Hong Kong has undergone phased adjustments since then. Land prices in Central have dropped by 20% to 30%. The same is true for the land kings. They did not have so much money to win the land back then. Relying on the first transaction with the Hong Kong government after the auction, I won the right to use the land, and then mortgaged the loan to pay the land price. However, because the land price fell, I asked Japan and the United Bank of Southeast Asia to increase the mortgage. As a last resort, Hongkong Land also met their requirements, but it also affected Hongkong Land's credit costs.

And this year, because of a suitable timing, Hong Kong Land acquired Hong Kong Telephone, and jointly purchased a large amount of new land and properties with consortiums such as Carrian and Hang Lung. As a result, the capital chain of the entire company is no longer sufficient.

But the house leak happened to be raining all night. When the Hong Kong government won the Land King's land, they also signed the land development time.

"The Hong Kong government's land auction results this year are very poor, and fiscal revenue must have been affected. Moreover, many real estate developers who originally believed that housing prices would rise in the future, as we do, may hold a wait-and-see attitude when they see that we do not develop the trading building. The Hong Kong government insisted on our development, which is probably one of the reasons.” Bao Fuda said.

"Can we still find a bank to give us credit now?" Niubijian asked.

"HSBC, Standard Chartered, and East Asia all rejected us. Among them, East Asia said that appropriate cooperation is possible, but the development of the Exchange Square involves too much money." Bao Fuda said.

"This group of short-sighted idiots, the future of Hong Kong will be the jewel in the palm of the British Empire, and it will also become the financial capital of Asia. In the future, housing prices will be absolutely limitless." Niu Bijian said with a frown. His concept is deeply rooted, but other banks I really don't believe them, and I can't help them if I don't give them a loan.

"However." Bao Fuda paused, and said: "Hisense Bank has an insider information. They have a lot of money in their hands, and they intend to cooperate with a large consortium in Hong Kong."