In Hong Kong, we build a global business empire

Chapter 174 Promise them!

The two began to think carefully about Niu Bijian's problem.

"Assuming that Lin Haoran is the spokesperson secretly cultivated by Citibank in Hong Kong, from the information just now, it is impossible for Citibank to make large-scale investments in Hong Kong, at least in the past few years. As for the future, it depends on whether Hong Kong's prospects will turn around. So under this possibility, Citibank should not be able to acquire our Hong Kong Land Group.

As for the second possibility, if the funds were Mr. Lin Haoran's own, it is unbelievable that he could come up with more than 2 billion Hong Kong dollars in two years. I even think that part of the funds must have been borrowed from Citibank.

For example, when Mr. Lin Haoran privatized the Ching Chau Cement Company, he asked the Wardley Company to help with the privatization in the form of a loan. In addition, he also borrowed HK$4500 million from Hang Seng Bank in the form of mortgaged stocks. These funds were obviously for the Ching Chau Cement Company.

In other words, at that time, Mr. Lin Haoran was able to acquire Qingzhou Yingni Company and even completely privatize it with the help of external forces, as his own funds were limited.

The acquisition of Hong Kong Electric Group was too sudden, and the source of funds was too mysterious. I think it is impossible that all the funds here came from Mr. Lin Haoran himself, but were obtained through loans from Citibank.

This also explains why he maintains such a good cooperative relationship with Citibank. If the cooperative relationship is not good, Citibank will not lend him money. "Not long after, Bao Fuda expressed his thoughts.

Jardine Matheson is a shareholder and board member of Bank of Hong Kong, and Hang Seng Bank is the holding bank of Bank of Hong Kong. Loans of tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars will eventually be announced at the board meeting of Bank of Hong Kong, so Lin Haoran’s loans from Bank of Hong Kong and Hang Seng Bank cannot be concealed from Jardine Matheson.

Although Jardine Matheson was a shareholder and board member of Bank of England, what was funny was that in the battle of Wharf Holdings, Bank of England openly helped Bao Yugang, a Chinese entrepreneur who was also a member of the board of directors, and even directly lent up to HK$21 billion to Bao Yugang to take over Wharf Holdings. However, it completely ignored the feelings and did not help Jardine Matheson, a fellow company of the British consortium.

Therefore, even though Jardine Matheson and Bank of Hong Kong still maintain their cooperation on the surface, in fact, the relationship between the two parties has long been full of cracks.

The fact that the Hong Kong Land Group is now eager to start large-scale investment for quick success is closely related to the fact that the Bank of Hong Kong helps the Chinese financial consortium instead of its own people. The Jardine Matheson Group hopes to surpass the Bank of Hong Kong and become the boss of the British financial consortium again.

Bao Fuda's words made Niu Bijian nod his head involuntarily. He also agreed with these ideas because what he thought was similar to what Bao Fuda said.

"In addition, I would like to add that we must sign a contract with the Hong Kong Electric Group. If the Hong Kong Electric Group holds these shares and plans to sell them in the future, it must give priority to selling them to our Jardine Matheson Group. Otherwise, if the Chinese consortium plans to acquire Hong Kong Swire and the Hong Kong Electric Group sells the shares to them, we will still be at risk!" Niu Bijian came up with a just in case solution.

Bao Yugang's acquisition of Wharf Holdings, Li Ka-shing's acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa, and Lin Haoran's acquisition of Hong Kong Electric Group, these acquisition actions of the Chinese consortium have let everyone know that the British consortium has slipped from its peak, while the Chinese consortium is constantly rising. All these have made Niu Bijian quite vigilant, in case someone else sets his sights on the Hong Kong Land Group or even the Jardine Matheson Group.

Faced with the very likely covetousness of Chinese financial groups, Niu Bijian had to consider more.

"Mr. Boss, this is a good idea. This will prevent other Chinese companies from using Hong Kong Electric's shares in Hong Kong to acquire Hong Kong Land. Lin Haoran can use it, but it is obvious that he does not have the ability to acquire Hong Kong Land. If they agree to this contract, then we can rest assured to cooperate in financing!"

Bao Fuda appreciated Niu Bijian's proposal very much. He was worthy of being the boss of Jardine Matheson and he thought more than him!
"In that case, let's hold a meeting of the Land Development Board and let the board of directors decide!" Niu Bijian said directly.

The board of directors of the Swire Properties Group is basically controlled by Niu Bijian and Bao Fuda. Convening a board meeting is just a formality. In this way, even if something happens in the future, it will be approved by the board of directors, and they will not bear all the responsibility.

Except for a few British shareholders, the rest of the board members of the Hong Kong Land Development are senior executives of the group.

Therefore, it won’t take long to convene an emergency meeting.

The cooperation may involve more than HK$1 billion in profits for the group in the future, and it will also require financing of the group's shares. This is naturally a big deal for the Hutchison Whampoa Group and is not something they can decide individually.

If the financing is to be done through shares, the Hong Kong Land Group will need to issue new shares in order to free up more shares for cooperation with the Hong Kong Electric Company. After all, the shares of the Hong Kong Land Group are now owned by someone else, and it is impossible to withdraw shares from these owned shares and give them to the Hong Kong Electric Company. Therefore, the only way left is to issue new shares.

The issuance of new shares will reduce the original stock holding ratio. For example, the original total shares of the Swire Properties Group were 5 million shares. If the holdings were increased by 6.4%, the total shares would reach about 5.342 million shares, and the original shareholding ratio of 5 million shares would also drop from 100% to about 93.6%. The original shareholders' shares were diluted as a result.

It is normal for listed companies to issue additional shares. If a company wants to have more funds for development, issuing additional shares is obviously a very good way.

Such a big thing must be approved by the board of directors.

Three hours later, the Hong Kong Land Group held an emergency board meeting.

As expected, with Niu Bijian and Bao Fuda, the two most powerful executives in the local group, voting in favor, the board of directors passed the proposal unanimously without any objection.

As for the cooperation in the form of shares, Lin Haoran had already made it clear that the closing share price of the previous day would be used as the market value of the Hong Kong Land Group, and neither Niu Bijian nor Bao Fuda objected to this. Because the initiative was not in the hands of Hong Kong Land Group, but in the hands of Hong Kong Electric Group. They did not have to cooperate with Hong Kong Land Group, but Hong Kong Land Group came to them to ask for cooperation. In this case, bargaining was meaningless. The other party said directly that they did not want to cooperate, and no matter how much they said, it was useless.

In order to obtain the development rights of this piece of land in North Point, the Hong Kong Land Group did make a lot of concessions, and all of these were naturally for the purpose of allowing the Hong Kong Land Group to make more profits in the future.

Nowadays, unless they are real estate companies with insufficient funds, few large companies develop new projects by purchasing pre-sale properties.

After all, with the current housing price increase in Hong Kong, if the houses are sold at the current prices, the prices may increase by one or two times if the development is successful in two or three years. However, the houses of real estate companies were almost all sold out two or three years ago at the prices then, so why bother by then?
Therefore, a large enterprise like the Hong Kong Land Group will definitely not use the form of buying pre-sale properties to develop projects during this period of hot real estate.

Therefore, they had already estimated that if they developed the land at the old real estate site on Electric Road in North Point and sold it after the development was successful, the profit would definitely not be small, and might even be unimaginably high.

This is also the reason why they would rather let the Hong Kong Electric Group hold shares than find a way to participate in the development of the land in North Point.

After the board meeting, Niu Bijian, as the executive director of Hong Kong Land Development, could not wait to go to Hong Kong Electric Group.

At this time, Lin Haoran had already returned home and was lying on the sofa reading a book.

Huanyu Investment Company was absorbing shares of several listed companies in an orderly manner. Every afternoon when the stock market closed, Su Zhixue would report the day's performance and the overall performance to him on time.

In Lin Haoran's hand is a book called "Management Practice". Although he has entrusted the management of his companies to professional managers with confidence, he also hopes that he can understand more about management.

Just as he was engrossed in watching, the phone rang.

Lin Haoran put down the book, picked up the phone and answered it.

"Boss, I'm Chen Shoulin. Mr. Bao Fuda came over again just now, and they have made a decision as quickly as possible. After their discussion, they finally decided to agree to the conditions we proposed.

However, they also put forward a condition that if we, the Hong Kong Electric Group, wish to sell the shares in the future, we must give priority to selling them to Jardine Matheson. Unless Jardine Matheson refuses to purchase, the Hong Kong Electric Group can sell the shares to others.

I need to ask for your opinion on this matter. If you agree, I will reply to Mr. Bao Fuda immediately, and then they will be ready for cooperation. They hope that the contract will be signed in the Connaught Building. At that time, the Hong Kong Land Group will invite reporters to witness and announce this matter to the outside world! "Chen Shoulin reported to Lin Haoran.

"Promise them!" Lin Haoran said without hesitation.

Because he allowed the Hong Kong Electric Group to hold shares in the Hong Kong Land Development Group, he had no intention of selling these shares to others. Instead, he did it entirely for his own future control of the Hong Kong Land Development Group.

Therefore, this condition is not a problem at all for him!
"Okay, then boss, you and I need to go to the Landmark Group in Kangle Building before ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Please be prepared." Chen Shoulin continued.

"Okay, then see you tomorrow morning!" Lin Haoran hung up the phone with a smile.

For him, it was great news that the Swire Group agreed to this condition.

Since Hong Kong Electric Group holds these shares, he will be more confident in acquiring the Hong Kong Land Development.

After all, 6.4% of the shares of the Hong Kong Land Development is not a small stake!

If Universal Investment Company can absorb more than 24% of the shares in the secondary market, it means that it controls more than 30% of the shares. With this share, it is enough to challenge the position of Jardine Matheson in the Hong Kong Land Group.

Of course, to be on the safe side, it is better to hold more shares.

Because the British financial consortium is very united. It is not that the Jardine Matheson Group only holds about 20% of the shares of the Hutchison Whampoa Group, and Lin Haoran can win if he holds more than 20% of the shares, because there are other shareholders of the British financial consortium, and those shareholders all support Jardine Matheson.

In this case, if Lin Haoran wants to take over the Hutchison Whampoa Group, his opponent is not just Jardine Matheson & Co., but all the British shareholders of the Hutchison Whampoa Group.

(End of this chapter)