In Hong Kong, we build a global business empire

Chapter 157 Taking the initiative and visiting

If you want to increase your holdings in Hong Kong Electric Group shares, there is another way besides buying them from the stock market.

That is to acquire it from other shareholders.

I just don't know if anyone is planning to buy it.

And this kind of thing cannot be known to everyone, otherwise people will discover his purpose.

Lin Haoran did not intend to make this matter public until he had enough strength to take over the Hong Kong Electric Group.

I looked at the time. It was still early, only around five in the afternoon.

So, Lin Haoran simply went to the Hong Kong Electric Group.

Today is the weekend and many executives are not at work, but Chairman Chen Shoulin is in the company.

Lin Haoran's purpose was not to find him.

He wanted to take over the Hong Kong Electric Group, which was actually an attempt to seize the power of the Hong Kong Electric Group from Mr. Chen Shoulin.

"Mr. Lin, long time no see. The last time you came to HK Electric Group was more than a month ago, right?" In the chairman's office, Mr. Chen Shoulin greeted Lin Haoran with a smile.

Lin Haoran went to the United States without telling him, so Chen Shoulin just thought that Lin Haoran was not interested in coming to the Hong Kong Electric Group during this period.

After all, Lin Haoran is just a director who doesn't care about anything. It doesn't matter whether he comes or not.

"Yeah, long time no see. So I came to visit the company today." Lin Haoran laughed.

"Mr. Lin, I still have work to do, so I won't chat with you. You can come to me anytime if you have anything." Chen Shoulin continued to deal with the work at hand.

"Mr. Chen, I really have something to trouble you. I have become a member of the board of directors of Hong Kong Electric Group, but I am not very familiar with other shareholders of Hong Kong Electric Group. So I would like to ask if you have the information here so that I can take a look. Otherwise, I will not be able to recognize who they are when I see them next time. Wouldn't that be very embarrassing for me?" Lin Haoran said with a smile to Chen Shoulin who was about to concentrate on his work.

"Information about shareholders? I have some here. Wait a minute, I'll get it for you." Chen Shoulin did not doubt him and took out a folder from the bookshelf behind him and handed it to Lin Haoran. He then continued to explain: "This is the information about all the senior executives and shareholders of our Hong Kong Electric Group, including your information, Mr. Lin. It contains very detailed information.

"Thank you!" Lin Haoran took the folder and nodded in thanks.

Afterwards, he left Chairman Chen Shoulin's office and came to the negotiation room nearby, where he sat on the sofa and started watching.

There are more than 30 people listed in the information, including more than 20 shareholders of Hong Kong Electric Group and more than a dozen senior executives of Hong Kong Electric Group.

These twenty-odd shareholders of Hong Kong Electric Group are the information that Lin Haoran needs.

He first glanced through it quickly.

On it, Lin Haoran quickly saw his own information.

The information is not much, but not too little either. His contact information, address, and the Qingzhou Yingni Company and Wan'an Group that he now controls are all recorded in the file. However, there is no record of Huanyu Investment Company.

Obviously, although the information is not small, it is all public information, and it is all information that Lin Haoran had voluntarily provided before.

In other words, the information of other shareholders should be the same, and should be provided by the shareholders on their own initiative.

So he turned back to the second page again.

The information on this page is about Mr. Caesar Bridges, the "largest shareholder of Hong Kong Electric Group" today.

The shares that Lin Haoran announced to the public were only the 4400 million shares he had previously purchased from the former second largest shareholder, Mr. Percy.

In other words, on the surface, he only controls about 6.98% of the shares of Hong Kong Electric Group.

No one knew that the shares of Hong Kong Electric Group that he controlled had already exceeded 20%.

Lin Haoran looked carefully at the page of information in front of him.

The apparent "largest shareholder" of HK Electric Group is Cesar Bridges, who holds 5292 million shares of HK Electric Group, accounting for approximately 8.4% of the total shares.

Caesar Bridges is also a British man, just turned 60 years old. Although Lin Haoran had visited the Hong Kong Electric Group so many times before, he had actually only met him once.

According to information, in addition to being a shareholder of Hong Kong Electric Group, Caesar Bridges also runs a plastic production company in Hong Kong.

Seeing this, Lin Haoran was a little surprised. The plastic manufacturing company had a hard time during this period.

Due to the oil crisis, many industries suffered heavy losses, including plastic manufacturers.

Plastics are high-molecular organic compounds formed by the polymerization of low-molecular organic compounds under certain conditions.

These low molecular weight organic compounds are usually artificial resins extracted and synthesized from petroleum, natural gas or coal cracking products.

Petroleum is one of the main raw materials for making plastics, and about 60% of plastics are made from petroleum.

Because of this, the emergence of the oil crisis has caused the cost of the plastic manufacturing industry to continue to rise and profits to continue to fall, so plastic factories are definitely not having a good time today.

Hong Kong's manufacturing industry was very developed during this period, but since last year, the export volume of Hong Kong's plastic companies has begun to decline sharply. This shows that these companies have been greatly affected by the oil crisis.

However, Mr. Caesar Bridges never planned to sell his shares in Hong Kong Electric Group during the difficult period of the plastic manufacturing industry. It seems that he has some strength!

Lin Haoran's original idea of ​​joining the board of directors was to learn through the board which shareholders were interested in selling their shares. He also got to know many shareholders, but he never heard any relevant news.

His purpose of coming to the Hong Kong Electric Group this time was very simple, which was to take the initiative and seek to take over a portion of the shares from these shareholders so that he could meet the conditions for taking over the Hong Kong Electric Group as soon as possible.

And the largest shareholder, Caesar Bridges, is obviously his most suitable target.

After all, Caesar Bridges holds 8.4% of the shares. Once Lin Haoran takes these shares, his shares will reach about 34.5% of the total shares of Hong Kong Electric Group.

After roughly reading this information just now, he has a clear understanding of how many shares he should own before he can take over the Hong Kong Electric Group.

Basically, if he controls 35% of the shares, he will be able to take over the Hong Kong Electric Group.

Originally, the more than 48 shareholders of Hong Kong Electric Group held nearly 6.98% of the shares. The second largest shareholder's % of the shares had already been taken by him.

If the 8.4% stake held by the largest shareholder is taken away, the shares held by these British shareholders will only be around 32%.

Once he controls 35%, even if all the British shareholders are added together, their shares will not be as much as his. In this way, it will be natural for him to take over the Hong Kong Electric Group.

In addition, he will allow Huanyu Investment Company to continue to acquire shares on the stock market.

At this time, even if the Hong Kong Land Group wanted to acquire the Hong Kong Electric Group, it would be of no use.

Seeing that it was unable to acquire the Hong Kong Electric Group, the Hong Kong Swire Group naturally had no choice but to withdraw from the Hong Kong Electric Group and turn its attention to other major British banks.

This was the first thought that came to Lin Haoran’s mind after he learned about the situation.

This is also the fastest way for him to take control of the Hong Kong Electric Group at present.

If all the stocks are absorbed from the secondary market, we will not only have to deal with rising stock prices, but also a long time.

It will take more than a day or two to acquire so many shares.

The most important thing is that he can find these shareholders and buy out their shares, and the same can be done by the Jardine Matheson Group!
Once Swire Properties also secretly contacts these shareholders, Lin Haoran’s original leading advantage will be gone.

After all, although Lin Haoran now has a large amount of financial support, the Hong Kong Electric Group is ultimately a British-owned enterprise, and its major shareholders are basically British, so the Hong Kong Land Group can better convince them.

Therefore, his idea is to strike first to gain the advantage, and to strike later to suffer the consequences!
His financial resources are definitely stronger than that of the Jardine Matheson Group now. It is impossible for the Jardine Matheson Group to come up with so much funds.

However, Lin Haoran's connections, resources, and influence cannot be compared with those of the Jardine Matheson Group. After all, the Jardine Matheson Group is not just themselves, they even have the support of Jardine Matheson.

It is not difficult for them to quickly acquire the shares of these British shareholders.

If they really succeed, the shares held by Swire Properties will directly surpass Lin Haoran, and he will have no choice but to give up the Hong Kong Electric Group.

Although these are all speculations, for safety reasons, Lin Haoran now wants to convince Caesar Bridges as soon as possible.

As long as he could persuade Caesar Bridges to sell his shares to him, Lin Haoran would no longer have to worry about the Hong Kong Land Group's coveting of the Hong Kong Electric Group.

The information includes Caesar Bridges's phone number and home address.

When Lin Haoran saw the address, he was a little surprised. He didn't expect that Caesar Bridges also lived in Shixun Road. In other words, Caesar Bridges was actually his neighbor.

If he hadn't seen this information, he would have had no idea about this.

After writing down some important shareholder information and materials in the small notebook he carried with him, Lin Haoran returned the file to Chen Shoulin.

Afterwards, he called the "largest shareholder" Caesar Bridges in an office next door.

As it happened, Caesar Bridges was at home.

Upon learning that Lin Haoran, the "second largest shareholder" of Hong Kong Electric Group, wanted to visit him, Caesar Bridges did not refuse. Although he did not know what Lin Haoran was doing, they were all important shareholders of Hong Kong Electric Group after all. It was just a simple visit, and he certainly could not refuse it.

So, Lin Haoran left the Hong Kong Electric Group.

It took less than ten minutes to get from Hong Kong Electric Group to Severn Road. After the car drove slowly for a few more minutes, he saw the room number of Caesar Bridges' villa.

Lin Haoran roughly estimated that the distance between Caesar Bridges' villa and his own villa was only more than 300 meters away.

The sound of the car parked in the parking space outside the villa has alarmed the owner of the villa.

The person who came out to greet him was Caesar Bridges, whom Lin Haoran had met once before.

"Hello, Mr. Caesar. I apologize for disturbing you by visiting me." The two men shook hands and Lin Haoran said with a smile.

"No, we are all members of the board of directors of the Hong Kong Electric Group, and we are colleagues. I very much welcome Mr. Lin. Please come in." Caesar Bridges said politely.

Caesar Bridges' villa is not big, and it looks to be only about half the size of Lin Haoran's villa.

Walking into the hall on the first floor of the villa, Lin Haoran looked at the interior decoration of the house. It did not look like a place where a family lived. He noticed that there was a maid cleaning in the backyard. Apart from that, the villa was very quiet.

"Mr. Caesar, doesn't your family live in Hong Kong?" Lin Haoran asked curiously.

"My family is all in my hometown in England. My husband and I are the only ones living here." Caesar Bridges smiled but did not explain in too much detail, perhaps because he was not familiar with Lin Haoran.

Moreover, for Caesar Bridges, Lin Haoran was too young, while he was over 60 years old. The age gap between the two was too big, and there was also a language gap.

Lin Haoran nodded and did not ask any further questions.

"Mr. Lin, I guess you have something to say that brings you here?" Caesar Bridges did not intend to exchange too much pleasantries with Lin Haoran and asked directly.

"I do have something special to tell you, Mr. Caesar. I want to ask if you have any plans to return to the UK for development?" Lin Haoran asked in a roundabout way.

"Of course, my family is all in the UK. Now that I'm old, I definitely have this idea, but my assets are all in Hong Kong, so it's impossible for me to move back easily."

Lin Haoran nodded. As expected, many of these British people in Hong Kong had plans to return to the UK.

He asked this question for a reason.

If Caesar Bridges plans to return to the UK for development, it would obviously be much easier to persuade him to sell his shares in Hong Kong Electric Group.

If he doesn't have this idea, then it would cost a lot to convince the other party to sell their shares, which would not be worth it.

This is also the reason why Lin Haoran was not in a hurry to reveal his purpose of this trip.

Now, knowing that the other party had plans to go back, and considering his age and the fact that his family were all in his hometown, Lin Haoran knew that he could tell him the purpose of his visit!
"Mr. Caesar, are you planning to sell your shares in Hong Kong Electric Group?" This time, Lin Haoran directly stated the purpose of his visit.

(End of this chapter)