We're building a super chaebol in Hong Kong

Arriving at the underground parking lot of the Wheelock Group headquarters, Su Cheng directly took his bodyguard and went up the elevator to John Marden's office.

At this moment, it was only 9:40 in the morning, twenty minutes before the meeting, so there was no rush to go to the conference room.

Moreover, the conference room was on the same floor as the chairman's office, just a few steps away.

"Good morning, Mr. Su," John Marden said, greeting Su Cheng as he saw him.

"Good morning, Mr. John," Su Cheng replied with a smile.

However, Su Cheng could sense that John Marden was in a bad mood, and the smile on his face was forced.

Su Cheng could understand that John Marden bore the greatest responsibility for the current situation of the Wheelock Group.

In fact, all the responsibility could fall on his shoulders.

After all, John Marden was the chairman of the board of directors of the entire Wheelock Group, while Su Cheng and Zhang Yulong, the two major shareholders, didn't care about anything.

In other words, the Wheelock Group was entirely under John Marden's control.

Now that the company's development strategy had failed, causing serious losses to the group, John Marden would naturally bear the responsibility.

And today, Zhang Yulong proposed to hold this meeting, which was obviously to hold John Marden accountable!

Speaking of which, John Marden was quite grateful to Su Cheng in his heart.

Su Cheng had been a major shareholder of the Wheelock Group for a long time.

However, Su Cheng had never blamed John Marden's management decisions, nor had he blamed him for the sharp decline in Wheelock Group's profits, and he had always stated that he would not participate in any decision-making at every board meeting.

Even now, when the Zhang family couldn't help but publicly blame John Marden, Su Cheng had never expressed any attitude from beginning to end.

This kind of attitude was a kind of support for John Marden!

"Mr. John, what is the purpose of this meeting?" Su Cheng asked, pretending not to know the reason.

"Mr. Su, you will know at the meeting," John Marden didn't want to say more on this issue.

For him, Zhang Yulong's arrival today was aimed at him, so he naturally didn't want to say much.

"Has Mr. Zhang arrived yet?" Su Cheng continued to ask.

Su Cheng had never actually met Zhang Yulong because Zhang Yulong had been in Australia for a long time and rarely returned to Hong Kong.

Even if he returned to Hong Kong, he wouldn't come to Wheelock's side.

There were also directors from the Zhang family on Wheelock's board of directors, and usually the directors from the Zhang family represented the Zhang family.

"He's here, he's already gone to the conference room," John Marden replied.

Su Cheng nodded.

Soon, at ten o'clock, Su Cheng and John Marden arrived at the conference room.

There were already more than a dozen people sitting in the conference room.

These were all members of the board of directors of the Wheelock Group, and these people decided on every major event of the group.

Of course, in fact, it was mostly decided by John Marden, and few people opposed his decisions.

During this period, the Wheelock Group was having a hard time.

The most difficult one was Wheelock Shipping.

Many ships had no business and could only be docked at the pier.

However, Wheelock Shipping's large-scale expansion also came at a great cost.

Although a considerable portion of the funds was transferred from Wheelock headquarters, another portion of the funds was borrowed from banks.

The wanton expansion of ships made Wheelock Shipping's debt ratio very high.

How ambitious John Marden was at the beginning.

How down and out he is now.

A Wheelock Shipping company may even be able to drag down the entire Wheelock Group in the future.

"Hello everyone, colleagues, the reason why I proposed to hold this board meeting today, I believe everyone should be very clear. Under Mr. John's leadership, our Wheelock Group has vigorously expanded into the shipping industry, investing large amounts of profits into the shipping company.

But what happened? The shipping company not only failed to give our group sufficient returns, but is now heavily in debt and requires subsidies from our Wheelock Group every month. If this continues, it will sooner or later drag down our Wheelock Group. Mr. John must bear the greatest responsibility for this matter.

Although I don't manage the group's affairs, as a shareholder of the group, this has already involved my interests, so I want to ask Mr. Marden, what kind of explanation do you have for this matter?

My non-participation in management does not mean that I am indifferent to the Wheelock Group. If Mr. John does not have a good explanation, then don't blame our Zhang family for making corresponding decisions on this matter!" Zhang Yulong began to make things difficult at the beginning of the meeting.

"What Mr. Zhang said is indeed the truth. I have nothing to explain. As the decision-maker of the group, I hereby apologize to all Wheelock Group members. The most important thing for us now is not how to pursue accountability, but to think about how we should save the Wheelock Group and get it out of its predicament," John Marden did not argue with Zhang Yulong because of his difficulties, but easily resolved Zhang Yulong's most difficult point, avoiding talking about the matter of accountability.

After all, he couldn't shirk responsibility, and there was nothing to talk about.

Did he want him to resign directly?

Now that he holds so many shares in his hand, John Marden will definitely not resign.

However, at this moment, he had the idea of withdrawing from the Wheelock Group.

He had this idea in 1976, but he didn't succeed in withdrawing that time.

Now, it was obvious that he had triggered a conflict with the Zhang family, and this conflict was difficult to resolve.

At this moment, coupled with John Marden's advanced age, he began to gradually have the idea of withdrawing from the Wheelock Group and retiring from the world again.

"Then tell me, how are you going to save the Wheelock Group? If we continue to subsidize Wheelock Shipping like this, no matter how much money our Wheelock Group makes, it will eventually flow out through Wheelock Shipping. This not only causes serious losses to the group, but also causes serious losses to the shareholders of our Wheelock Group, to our Zhang family, to Mr. Su, and to all shareholders!" Zhang Yulong continued to say.

"Therefore, everyone should properly discuss how to deal with this matter. Mr. Zhang, do you have any good ideas?" John Marden threw the question back to Zhang Yulong.

"Now Wheelock Shipping is responsible for so much, and it can't be sold even if we want to. There are no takers. What can I do? I think Mr. John should resign from the position of chairman of the Wheelock Group, and then recruit a more talented professional manager. I think Mr. Su should support me on this matter!" Zhang Yulong turned his attention to Su Cheng at this time.

From beginning to end, Su Cheng had not said a word, watching the development of the situation quietly.

"I believe that the shipping industry's slump is only temporary. As long as we persevere for a while, there will definitely be a day of reward," John Marden said.

Although he led the Wheelock Group into a predicament, he still felt that the shipping industry's downturn was just a matter of bad luck!

Su Cheng was a little dazed. He only intended to slack off this time and had no intention of interfering with the internal affairs of the Wheelock Group. He didn't expect Zhang Yulong to ask him about it.

Since he was asked, it would be disrespectful not to answer, so Su Cheng prepared to say something casually.

"Mr. Zhang, Mr. John, I have no comment on this matter. Everyone knows that I have too many enterprises under my banner. Although I am the major shareholder of the Wheelock Group, I have never participated in the business here, and I haven't even sent a director.

I have great faith in Mr. John's management ability. I believe everyone doesn't want to see the current situation. Now, not only is the shipping industry in a slump, but the real estate industry is also in a slump. The overall environment is not good, so we can only persevere. Whether the Wheelock Group can survive, no one can say for sure. I also don't know how long this shipping crisis will last. Let's see how our luck goes.

If I were the head of the Wheelock Group, I would definitely send many talented managers in to try to improve the situation of the Wheelock Group, but I am just a shareholder now, so if you ask me, I don't know what to do. You decide, I won't interfere too much with your decisions." However, Su Cheng didn't offer any useful solutions.

Improve the Wheelock Group? What a joke! Wouldn't that mean he would lose the opportunity to take over the Wheelock Group?

Only by completely disappointing John Marden and the Zhang family would he have the opportunity to take over the Wheelock Group.

With Su Cheng's current shares, whether it's John Marden or Zhang Yulong, if either of them sells their shares to him and withdraws from the Wheelock Group, Su Cheng can directly control Wheelock.

Before that, he wouldn't care so much. Save the Wheelock Group? That's even more impossible.

If he saved it, it would mean that the Wheelock Group was on the right track of development, and profits would rise again. At this time, whether it's John Marden or the Zhang family, who would still want to sell their shares?

Therefore, Su Cheng was waiting for the two of them to see who would give up first. He would then acquire their shares and take control of the group.

Next, the meeting changed from assigning blame to discussing how to save the group.

However, the biggest difficulty facing Wheelock now is the huge debt ratio of Wheelock Shipping.

It's not easy to solve this problem.

The simplest solution actually exists, and someone at the meeting proposed it.

That is to sell the ships of Wheelock Shipping.

However, this method is difficult to implement at this time.

At this time, unless they are sold at a severe loss, they simply cannot be sold.

The market is bad, and keeping these ships is like supporting little ancestors. Even if they are bought, no business can be obtained. Who would do such a stupid thing?

Even if they are half-sold and half-given away, it is not certain that a buyer can be found.

Therefore, this is where the problem lies. It is simply a dead end, and it is temporarily impossible to break this dead end.

Judging from the current situation, the market next year may be even worse.

In fact, the market in 1984 was not much better than the market in 1983.

The shipping industry's slump was caused by the decline of the world economy, as well as the surplus of ships and the rise in oil prices, among other factors.

These cannot be recovered in a short period of time.

In fact, if Wheelock Shipping belonged to Su Cheng, he wouldn't have to worry about Wheelock Shipping losing money at all, because even in the current bad economic situation, Su Cheng's various businesses, although slightly shrinking, are still very good.

His business spans the globe.

That is to say, Su Cheng's companies are also very dependent on the shipping industry.

The shipping industry has too many advantages. It can ship a lot of goods at once, and the transportation cost of each item is greatly reduced.

If air transportation is used, the cost would be too high.

Therefore, in Su Cheng's view, solving the current predicament of the Wheelock Group is not difficult at all.

The board meeting discussed for a long time, but ultimately did not come to a conclusion.

Even if John Marden has the intention to withdraw, he probably won't completely withdraw this year. According to the information he got from Xiao Ai, John Marden will not completely withdraw from the Wheelock Group until the end of 1984.

Therefore, even if he now has the intention to withdraw, it is not very strong.

It is precisely because of this that Su Cheng did not intend to interfere too much in the internal affairs of the Wheelock Group.

In Su Cheng's view, it doesn't matter if the Wheelock Group loses money. The loss is Wheelock's, not his. He's just temporarily not receiving dividends.

The meeting ended, and just as Su Cheng was about to leave, he was stopped by Zhang Yulong.

"Mr. Su, can I have a chat with you?" Zhang Yulong asked.

Zhang Yulong knew that the gap between himself and Su Cheng was too great.

In the eyes of many people, the Wheelock Group is a behemoth, but Zhang Yulong knows that the Wheelock Group is probably just an unimportant enterprise in Su Cheng's eyes.

After all, Su Cheng's Suke Group, Hutchison Whampoa Group, Hong Kong Electric Group, etc., have many enterprises with a scale exceeding the Wheelock Group.

"Mr. Zhang, is there anything I can help you with?" Su Cheng stopped and turned around to ask in confusion.

"Let's find a place to talk, and then talk slowly," Zhang Yulong said without rushing to say it.

"Okay, I happen to have nothing to do today, so let's find a place to sit down and chat. Speaking of which, I'm not very familiar with Mr. Zhang either," Su Cheng said with a smile.

Indeed, he was not familiar with him. Although he knew about Zhang Yulong when he acquired the shares of the Wheelock Group, it was only a simple understanding.

Moreover, he only met Zhang Yulong himself for the first time today.

"I have admired Mr. Su for a long time. Mr. Su's name is well-known all over the world," Zhang Yulong said with emotion.

"Then shall we chat in the conference room?" Su Cheng asked without taking up Zhang Yulong's topic.

"Why don't we find a place to sit down and have a good chat? This is not a good place to chat," Zhang Yulong shook his head and said.

"Okay, how about we go to the Joyful Restaurant? That's my restaurant. Mr. Zhang can feel free to say whatever he wants," Su Cheng said with a smile.

He probably guessed that Zhang Yulong wanted to talk to him about something he didn't want others to know.