In Hong Kong, we build a global business empire

Chapter 156: A competitor for the acquisition of Hong Kong Electric Group has emerged
In fact, there is nothing to negotiate with Apple. Both parties are willing to cooperate on the financing issue.

So, the two parties didn't talk for long before they started drafting the contract and their cooperation went very smoothly.

After the contract was signed, Lin Haoran readily transferred 10 million US dollars into Apple’s account.

So it was natural for him to become a shareholder of Apple.

By becoming a shareholder of Apple, his affairs in the United States were basically settled.

Jobs was very curious about Lin Haoran, a young Chinese man who had become an important partner of Citibank at such a young age.

Because he knew that the person who contacted them personally was the senior vice president of Citibank.

In recent years, Apple has become a hot new star in Silicon Valley and attracted a lot of attention from capital, but it still has not received the favor of Citibank.

However, the young man in front of him is taken seriously even by the top executives of Citibank.

Therefore, Lin Haoran appears particularly mysterious in the eyes of senior executives at Apple and other companies.

However, Lin Haoran did not reveal too much, he just told them that he was a Hong Kong entrepreneur and had many important collaborations with Citibank.

As for the cooperation with Citibank due to gold futures, he naturally would not say it.

As he owns 10% of Apple's shares, he is also one of the bosses of Apple, so Lin Haoran stayed at Apple until the afternoon, during which time he chatted a lot with Jobs and others.

Although he had already decided not to interfere in Apple's business, during the conversation, Lin Haoran couldn't help but talk to Jobs and others about his "visions" of future computer development trends.

Everyone was shocked that Lin Haoran, a Chinese from Hong Kong, had so many ideas about computers.

Jobs even wanted to invite Lin Haoran to join the company's senior management, believing that Lin Haoran was an imaginative designer who would definitely be a great help to Apple if he participated in the development of Apple. However, Lin Haoran decisively refused.

What a joke! How could he possibly join the top management of Apple when he has so many things to do?

As for Apple, he plans to just sit back and enjoy the results, allowing it to develop.

Although the time may be long, so what?

He is only twenty-five or twenty-six years old now, and even in thirty years, he will only be in his fifties.

Therefore, even without him, as long as Apple continues to develop along the normal historical trajectory, it will sooner or later become a giant in the technology industry.

If he comes here to help Apple grow, it will definitely completely change the fate of Apple. If it develops in a good direction, it will be fine, but if it develops in a bad direction, then he will be doing more harm than good.

After all, he only knew the general development trend of computers and didn't know much about the industry.

When I came out of Apple, it was already past four in the afternoon.

There are many famous companies in Silicon Valley, such as HP, Intel, Fairchild Semiconductor, etc.

However, compared with the 1990s more than a decade later, Silicon Valley today has clearly not yet entered its heyday.

Lin Haoran had no plans to visit these companies, so he took a taxi directly back to the luxury hotel near Chinatown in San Francisco.

He was not in a hurry to return to Hong Kong. It would be a waste to come to California with such great difficulty and go back so hastily.

So, Lin Haoran stayed in San Francisco for another three days.

During these three days, he rented a car and left his footprints in some famous attractions in San Francisco and its surrounding areas, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Museum of Art, Fisherman's Wharf, Lombardy Street, etc.

During the three days, time passed quickly and was very pleasant.

Originally, he wanted to take a plane to Los Angeles, the largest city in California, which is a few hundred kilometers away. There is the famous Hollywood there, and maybe he could meet some famous female stars of this era there.

However, a piece of news came that forced him to return to Hong Kong early.

This matter is also related to Hutchison Whampoa.

Ever since Lin Haoran sold his shares in Hutchison Whampoa, he has not paid much attention to this stock.

However, although Lin Haoran did not pay attention to Hutchison Whampoa, the competition between the Jardine Matheson Group and Bao Yugang has continued.

Perhaps influenced by Lin Haoran's intervention in Hutchison Whampoa, Bao Yugang's acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa's shares has accelerated.

As a result, the thunderous capture of Kowloon Wharf, which was originally scheduled to take place in June 1980, actually happened ahead of schedule.

At the beginning of January, Bao Yugang announced that he would invest HK$21 billion in the name of himself and his family to purchase an additional 105 million shares of Wharf Holdings at a price of HK$ per share, and he authorized the Huoduoli Company to handle the relevant purchase procedures.

As a result, Bao Yugang successfully increased his and his family's shares in Wharf Holdings to 49%, officially gaining control of Wharf Holdings.

In fact, more than half of the 20 million shares of Hutchison Whampoa acquired were secretly sold by Swire Properties.

Because Jardine Matheson and Hong Kong Land Group knew that they had lost the war when Bao Yugang announced the acquisition price of HK$105 per share.

HK$105 per share. This is equivalent to directly increasing the market value of Hutchison Whampoa to more than HK$ billion. This is already a cost-effective way to seize Hutchison Whampoa.

In this situation, Jardine Matheson and Hutchison Whampoa Group naturally chose to give up the competition in order to obtain the greatest benefits for Hutchison Whampoa and Jardine Matheson.

It's very simple. They secretly sent people to sell the Wharf Holdings shares held by the Hong Kong Land Development to the Warranty Corporation. In the end, they sold more than 10 million shares of Wharf Holdings and recovered more than HK$1 billion.

It can be said that although the Hong Kong Land Group lost the battle with Wharf Holdings, it did not lose because they made huge profits.

The news caused a sensation throughout Hong Kong. Compared with Lin Haoran's acquisition of Qingzhou Cement Company, Bao Yugang's successful acquisition of Wharf Holdings was truly amazing. The market value gap between the two companies was too big.

Therefore, this matter caused a lot of uproar in Hong Kong, and it took nearly half a month before it gradually died down.

Lin Haoran actually knew about it when Bao Yugang successfully acquired Hutchison Whampoa. After all, he often contacted Hong Kong and his subordinates would report important matters in Hong Kong to him.

However, at that time he was keeping a close eye on the gold price every day and was not very concerned about the acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa by Bao Yugang.

After all, the current Hutchison Whampoa has nothing to do with him anymore.

Moreover, after Lin Haoran left New York, the issue of Kowloon Wharf gradually subsided in Hong Kong.

However, what Lin Haoran did not expect was that the large amount of funds obtained by Hutchison Whampoa in the acquisition battle of Wharf Holdings actually made Hutchison Whampoa set its sights on Hong Kong Electric Group.

This matter was not spread by Zhidi, but was guessed by Lin Haoran.

On the evening of January 1, Su Zhixue called Lin Haoran. According to Su Zhixue, the stock trading volume of Hong Kong Electric Group has obviously increased by at least twice compared with the past two days, and has also accelerated the rate of increase in the stock price of Hong Kong Electric Group.

Su Zhixue was in charge of the acquisition of Hong Kong Electric Group during this period. Naturally, he was very clear about the daily trading volume and other data of Hong Kong Electric Group. Therefore, the sudden changes of Hong Kong Electric Group made him realize that other big investors had entered the market.

So I quickly contacted Lin Haoran.

After coming to San Francisco, Lin Haoran told him the contact information of the hotel here.

After learning about the affairs of the Hong Kong Electric Group and thinking about what happened in Hutchison Whampoa some time ago, Lin Haoran guessed that the financial backer must be Hong Kong Land.

Today, after selling its shares in Wharf Holdings, Hong Kong Holdings has become wealthy and powerful, and is looking for a large British bank to make up for its losses at Wharf Holdings.

As a result, Hong Kong Electric Group became the target of the Hong Kong Land Group.

While Lin Haoran instructed Su Zhixue to increase the absorption of Hong Kong Electric Group, he also decisively gave up his plan to go to Los Angeles and directly bought a ticket from San Francisco to Hong Kong.

As one of the major Chinese cities in the United States, San Francisco has long had navigation links with the Hong Kong River.

On the afternoon of January 1, Lin Haoran, Li Weiguo and Li Weidong returned to Hong Kong smoothly.

This time, he went to the United States for a full month.

After coming back, he did not go back to visit his parents first, but went directly to the Wan'an Group Building.

Arriving at the Wan'an Group Building, Lin Haoran went straight to the office of Huanyu Investment Company.

At this moment, he just wanted to know what the situation of Hong Kong Electric Group was like.

Today, Swire Properties has received more than HK$1 billion in funds from Bao Yugang alone.

If he uses this money to buy a large number of shares of Hong Kong Electric Group, it will pose a certain threat to Lin Haoran.

Therefore, the actions of the Landmark Group must be stopped.

In fact, the way to stop the actions of the Hong Kong Land Group is very simple. That is to find a way to absorb more shares of the Hong Kong Electric Group as quickly as possible so that its shareholding in the Hong Kong Electric Group will exceed 40%.

Of course, Lin Haoran’s best goal is to hold 49.9% of the shares of Hong Kong Electric Group, so that he will not be afraid of competition from anyone.

Today is Sunday and all four major stock exchanges in Hong Kong have suspended trading.

However, Su Zhixue knew that his boss would return to Hong Kong this afternoon, so he came to the company's office to wait for his boss.

"What's going on?" Lin Haoran asked directly as he entered the office.

It was too troublesome to report too many things over the phone, so he rushed back to get more specific information.

"Boss, I have marked our acquisitions during this period, as well as the changes in the Hong Kong Electric Group during this period." Su Zhixue handed a data report to Lin Haoran.

Lin Haoran nodded, took the data report and looked at it carefully.

He transferred more than 22 million Hong Kong dollars into the securities trading bank account on the afternoon of the 5nd, New York time, so the Huanyu Investment Team actually started trading on the 23rd, and until Friday the 25th, they actually traded for three days last week.

In three days, a total of more than HK$35 million was spent to acquire nearly 10 million shares of Hong Kong Electric Group.

This speed is indeed many times faster than before when funds were scarce.

However, 1.588 million shares only helped Lin Haoran increase his shares by about 24.5%. He already held about 30% of the shares before. Even with these 40 million shares, he is still a long way from 49.9% of the Hong Kong Electric Group shares, not to mention a shareholding ratio of more than % or even %.

"Based on the changes in the past few days, can you estimate how many shares of Hong Kong Electric Group the other party currently holds?" Lin Haoran put down the data report, looked up and asked.

"Boss, I estimate that he should have absorbed about 1300 million shares in the past few days, which is much faster than ours. Moreover, the absorption speed on the third day was faster than the previous two days. Obviously, they intend to speed up the absorption." Although Su Zhixue didn't know who the other party was, he could roughly guess the situation of another competitor based on previous transaction records.

Lin Haoran nodded.

He had already guessed that his opponent was the Hong Kong Land Development. Since he had guessed it, he didn't need to panic too much. He now controlled so many shares of the Hong Kong Electric Group and had more than US$11 billion in funds. He was not worried at all that the Hong Kong Land Development would change the fact that he controlled the Hong Kong Electric Group.

However, there is also a disadvantage to Hutchison Whampoa's involvement, which is that it will cause the share price of Hong Kong Electric Group to rise faster.

Therefore, it is imperative to take over the Hong Kong Electric Group in the shortest possible time.

(End of this chapter)