In Hong Kong, we build a global business empire

Chapter 173 Full of Questions, Spokesperson for Citibank?
Bao Fuda went back in a hurry.

He was very willing to agree to the conditions proposed by the Hong Kong Electric Group, as this would be of great benefit to the Hong Kong Land Development.

Although it requires paying shares, it can also save a lot of money for the Swire Group.

HK$500 million in cash is not something they can take out easily even if they own the property.

For example, in the battle of Wharf Holdings, after knowing that it could not win the battle, Swire Properties finally chose to sell its Wharf Holdings shares at a high price, and only made a profit of HK$600 to 700 million.

Bao Fuda looks at the issue from the perspective of the Hong Kong Land Group and certainly supports this financing approach.

However, the situation is not necessarily the same for Niu Bijian.

So he had to go back and throw this question to Niu Bijian, the head of the group.

Kang Le Building, the headquarters of the Hong Kong Land Group.

Upon learning that Bao Fuda had returned from the Hong Kong Electric Group and had something to discuss with him, Niu Bijian came from the Jardine Matheson headquarters.

The two companies' headquarters are not far apart, making travel convenient.

In the future, the headquarters of Jardine Matheson Group will also be moved here, and the name of Connaught Building will be officially changed to Jardine House.

In Bao Fuda's general manager's office, Bao Fuda reported to Niu Bijian in detail what he had learned from his visit to the Hong Kong Electric Group and the conditions offered by the other party.

"Cooperate in the form of financing and shareholding?" After hearing Bao Fuda's words, Niu Bijian frowned.

"Mr. Bao Fuda, what do you think?" asked Niu Bijian.

"Mr. Boss, I think this cooperation method is feasible. If they want to hold shares, they can still buy shares through the secondary market with 5 million Hong Kong dollars. Now by cooperating in this way, we can also save a lot of money, and these funds can continue to be invested in other projects." Bao Fuda gave his opinion.

"Do you think that the other party is coming for the Hutchison Whampoa Group and wants to control the Hutchison Whampoa Group?" After the Wharf incident, Niu Bijian had become very sensitive to such things. He was afraid that Jardine Matheson would lose even the Hutchison Whampoa Group. In this case, he would become the biggest sinner of Jardine Matheson. During his tenure, he lost Wharf Matheson and Hutchison Whampoa, two of Jardine Matheson's most important holding companies. So he would not have the face to continue running for the position of boss in the next term.

There was no way to avoid the loss of Hutchison Whampoa. Bao Yugang later offered HK$105 per share to acquire it. No matter who was the boss of Jardine Matheson, it was impossible to reverse the outcome. Moreover, they made a lot of money from Bao Yugang after their withdrawal, so it was not a big defeat.

But it is different for the Hutchison Whampoa Group. After the precedent of Wharf Holdings, if Hutchison Whampoa still loses the business, then the responsibility really lies with him.

Therefore, the Swire Group must not be snatched away by other consortiums like Wharf Holdings Group did. This is the bottom line!

"It is not clear at the moment, we have investigated Mr. Lin Haoran's background, and we heard that he recently spent HK$10 billion to purchase two buildings from Wheelock Group. The original Federal Building has now been changed to Wan'an Building.
It cost at least HK$10 billion to acquire the Hong Kong Electric Group, and then another HK$10 billion to buy the building. In a short period of time, he has spent HK$20 billion. Through investigation, I learned that all these funds came from Citibank. I even wonder if Mr. Lin Haoran is backed by Citibank, a large American financial group. Otherwise, he would not have such strength. Mr. Lin Haoran may just be the spokesperson for Citibank on the surface.

If he had so much money relying solely on himself, then it would be too incredible for Mr. Lin Haoran to believe.

Looking at Mr. Lin Haoran's rise to fame, it is too strange. First, he acquired the Qingzhou Cement Company and then acquired the Hong Kong Electric Group. These are simply impossible for a young man like him to do.

Although there were rumors that he made a lot of money by boldly investing huge sums of money in oil before the oil crisis, the price of oil only increased two or three times. Even if it increased sharply, he should have only made a few hundred million Hong Kong dollars at most. It was impossible for him to come up with so much money, and the source of his capital was also very suspicious.

I tried to talk privately with the president of Citibank's Hong Kong branch, but he did not tell me the details about Mr. Lin Haoran. However, from his tone, I could feel that the head of Citibank's Hong Kong branch respected Mr. Lin Haoran very much, as if he was an important figure in Citibank.

Therefore, I think the assumption that Mr. Lin Haoran is the spokesperson for Citibank in Hong Kong is very likely.

However, even Citibank should not invest heavily in Hong Kong. In recent years, not to mention our British financial consortium, even the American financial consortium has withdrawn a lot. For example, three years ago, Mr. Li Jiacheng's sale of Yonggao Company owned by the American financial consortium was the best proof that the American financial consortium was withdrawing from Hong Kong.

An investment of more than HK$20 billion is beyond my expectation. As for whether Citibank will invest more funds in Hong Kong, I think the probability is not high.

Although Citibank's investment strategy is global, they should not allocate so many resources to a single city, especially when Hong Kong's prospects are not optimistic.

As for the Hong Kong Electric Group itself, it is even less likely to have the strength to swallow up the Hong Kong Land Group. Although their strength is not bad, our market value is three times theirs, and our real hard power is more than three times. If we want to rely on the Hong Kong Land Group, it is just like hitting a rock with an egg. "Bao Fuda expressed his thoughts on the way back.

That’s right, Bao Fuda felt that Lin Haoran was just a spokesperson supported by Citibank.

Otherwise, it would be impossible for a young man like Lin Haoran to rise so quickly in such a short period of time. This was completely beyond his understanding and absolutely impossible to do.

The Lin family had already been thoroughly investigated, and Lin Wanan's past details were completely within their grasp. This was just an ordinary billionaire family, how could they easily come up with 10 billion or even 20 billion Hong Kong dollars?

Not to mention Lin Haoran, even for their own company, it would be difficult to raise HK$20 billion in one go in a short period of time.

For example, Bao Yugang was only able to raise HK$21 billion in a short period of time with the support of Huifeng Bank. It would have been difficult for Bao Yugang to do so with his own strength.

Although these large companies seem to be very valuable, many of them are fixed assets and do not actually have much cash flow.

When they have money, they basically invest it and don't leave too much cash flow in their accounts. Putting it in the bank is a pure waste.

The source of Lin Haoran's funds is so mysterious that even the president of Citibank's Hong Kong branch only knows a little about it. He only knows that Lin Haoran has close relations with the Citibank head office and has huge amounts of funds. He is listed as the highest-level customer by the headquarters because the chairman of Citibank personally instructed him to serve Lin Haoran well.

But of course, Citibank cannot disclose these to the public. These are customer privacy information. If they were disclosed, Citibank's reputation would be ruined.

Bao Fuda's words made Niu Bijian fall into deep thought.

What he was thinking about was how risky this cooperation was. "Is it really not possible to cooperate with Hong Kong Electric Group by injecting funds?" Niu Bijian asked without giving up.

This method is the most appropriate. Although it requires the Swire Group to spend a huge amount of money, it does not involve any risk.

"Mr. Boss, they have made it clear that if you want to cooperate, you can only cooperate with the financing of the Jardine Matheson Group. Otherwise, they have no intention of cooperating, because their new chairman, Mr. Lin Haoran, also owns a real estate company, but he lacks funds now, so he has not developed it for the time being." Bao Fuda shook his head and said.

After listening to Bao Fuda's words, Niu Bijian didn't say anything more.

At this moment, he couldn't help but look out the window. This location was right opposite the land owned by Hong Kong Electric Group in North Point.

From the Kangle Building, you can clearly see the old site of the power plant, which is not far away in a straight line.

The geographical location of the former site of the Electric Road Power Station in North Point is really great, and it covers a large area. If the cooperation is successful, the Swire Group will definitely be able to make huge profits from it.

So, at this moment, Niu Bijian was very conflicted.

Niu Bijian is not only the boss of Jardine Matheson, but also the boss of the Hong Kong Land Group. He has the final say on both sides.

It is reasonable for him to hope that the Swire Group will develop faster and better, so that his position as the boss will be more secure.

Niu Bijian was very clear that his term in Jardine Matheson was about to end, and the Keswick family also wanted to take back control of Jardine Matheson, so the most important thing for him now was to make Jardine Matheson develop better and get the board of directors of Jardine Matheson to stand on his side, so that he could defeat the Keswick family in the next election for term.

After serving as the manager of Jardine Matheson in recent years, Niu Bijian became more and more obsessed with the happiness that this power brought.

Winning the right to cooperate with Hong Kong Electric Group is equivalent to giving the Hong Kong Land Group a high-profit project, which can give it an extra bargaining chip in the competition with the Keswick family.

Should we cooperate or not?
If they choose to cooperate, there will be certain risks. If the other party is really backed by Citibank and Citibank really plans to make large-scale investments in Hong Kong, then it will not be difficult for them to take over the Swire Properties.

You know, Citibank is the largest commercial bank in the world. In terms of strength, it is much stronger than Hong Kong's financial giant, Bank of Hong Kong.

At most, Huifeng Bank can only act arrogantly in Hong Kong, but Citibank has influence all over the world. The two sides are not on the same level at all.

If we do not choose to cooperate, it means that the Swire Group will lose the qualification for cooperation.

"Mr. Boss, it seems that we can't find out anything from Mr. Lin Haoran. We might as well investigate from Citibank. Although it is impossible to get useful information directly from Citibank, they are also unlikely to tell us.

But we can investigate whether they have large-scale investment plans in Asia, especially in Hong Kong. If so, their previous shareholder reports should have mentioned it. As a listed company, Citibank cannot have no disclosure of such long-term investment!" Bao Fuda suggested.

"Well, this is one way. Let's do it this way. Let's have someone collect Citibank's shareholder reports for the past three years and study the contents. If there are any problems, then we will abandon this cooperation. If there are no problems, we will discuss and decide through the Swire Group's board of directors!" Niu Bijian, who had no other solution for the time being, very much agreed with Bao Fuda's proposal.

As a result, the intelligence agencies of Jardine Matheson and Hong Kong began to investigate.

These shareholder reports are all public, and it is not difficult for them to collect them. In just less than half a day, they collected all the shareholder reports and annual financial statements published by Citibank in the past three years. There is not much information, and they are basically only issued two or three times a year, so the collected information does not actually contain much content when put together.

After the information was collected, since there was not much information, there was no need for their staff to analyze and report, so they read it themselves.

Citibank's markets are spread all over the world, even in Africa, they are also one of the important financial institutions.

However, Niu Bijian and Bao Fuda are obviously not focusing on these places, but on Asia.

After reading these reports, financial statements and other information, they already knew the status of the Hong Kong market in the eyes of Citibank.

For Citibank, Japan, South Korea, the Middle East and Southeast Asia are the most important markets in Asia, and its investments and profits in these regions are among the highest in Asia.

However, when it comes to the Hong Kong market, they found that Citibank not only did not increase its investment in the past two years, but instead reduced its investment funds. Even its investment amount in Singapore has surpassed that in Hong Kong.

Seeing this, Niu Bijian and Bao Fuda looked at each other.

They were surprised, but at the same time they felt that this was normal.

Even their British financial consortium is worried about the future prospects of Hong Kong, not to mention the American financial consortium. It is normal to reduce investment, and it is good enough not to withdraw from the Hong Kong market.

Judging from these data, it is impossible for Citibank to suddenly make large-scale investments in Hong Kong.

But most of the more than 20 billion Hong Kong dollars that suddenly appeared in Lin Haoran came from Citibank.

This is also the most strange thing for Niu Bijian and Bao Fuda.

Could it be that all these funds belong to Lin Haoran?
But this is impossible. It is too strange for a young man like him to suddenly obtain such a huge amount of funds.

Everything is so confusing that it is impossible to know the twists and turns involved.

"Does Lin Haoran's funds come from Citibank? Is he a spokesperson cultivated by Citibank in Hong Kong?" Bao Fuda couldn't help but speak.

"Now, there are two possibilities. One possibility is that Lin Haoran is the spokesperson of Citibank in Hong Kong; the other possibility is that these funds belong to Lin Haoran himself. We can analyze from these two possibilities. Under these two possibilities, let's analyze if there will be risks if we agree to the Hong Kong Electric Group and agree to the financing and equity cooperation method?" Niu Bijian's answer was more intuitive.

(End of this chapter)