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A day later, Lin Haoran successfully obtained the required investigation information.

As expected, thorough preparation brought corresponding rewards.

Through careful comparison of the information, he confirmed that the information provided by President Liu was indeed true and there was no suspicion of forgery.

In addition, Lin Haoran further asked the investigation company to conduct a detailed investigation into the major shareholders of Shipli Logistics Company.

Especially the latest developments and current situations of the second and third largest shareholders.

After an in-depth investigation of the current chairman of Shipley Logistics Company, who is also the largest shareholder and the founder of the company, Lin Haoran found that it was a bit difficult to obtain shares from him.

The chairman attaches great importance to control of the company and even rejected the Royal Mail's proposal to acquire a stake because he was worried that he would lose control of the company.

Because they were afraid of losing control, they even divided the company into AB shares when it went public.

AB shares are a special equity structure that allows a company to issue two different types of shares: Class A shares and Class B shares, which differ in voting rights and dividend rights.

This structure is often used by listed companies to achieve the goal of "different voting rights for one share", that is, ordinary shareholders have one vote per share, while Class B shares held by specific executives or founders can have more voting rights per share, thereby attracting more investment while maintaining control of the company.

A company like Wheelock & Co. in Hong Kong implements this AB share system.

I just don't know if the other party will consider selling the company now that the company is facing a crisis. I will only know this after discussing it with him in the future.

Although Spree has a long history of nearly thirty years, it was not officially listed until three years ago.

Therefore, there are still a large number of founding shares remaining to this day.

For example, the company founder currently holds 26% of the shares, firmly sitting in the position of the largest shareholder, plus he owns most of the B shares, with voting rights close to 40%, so this founder has the most say;

The second largest shareholder is a British angel investment consortium, which holds 12% of the shares. They tend to invest but do not often participate in company decision-making. It was this consortium that helped the company go public successfully.

The third largest shareholder and the former fourth largest shareholder are both founders of the company, holding 10% of the shares respectively. However, the former fourth largest shareholder chose to cash out and leave after the company went public, and transferred his shares to Chairman Liu. As a result, Chairman Liu now takes over the position of the fourth largest shareholder.

These four are the core shareholders of Shipley Logistics Company.

Lin Haoran discovered through investigating the information obtained by the company that the angel investment consortium was actually looking for buyers to sell its shares.

The reason is that they lack the confidence to compete head-on with Squid Capital, the powerful capital behind DHL Group.

After all, the power of Squid Capital is not simple, and even the United States cannot escape their control.

Investigation data further showed that the head of the consortium had contacted several potential buyers, but failed to reach an agreement because the acquisition prices proposed by the other party were too low.

Therefore, if nothing unexpected happens, the shares of the second largest shareholder should be obtained.

After the investigation, Lin Haoran made a decision, which was to control half of the company's shares. Before that, he had to at least control more than 40% of the shares.

On the morning of August 8, Lin Haoran appeared in the office of the president of Citibank's London branch.

The purpose of this time is to entrust the securities company under Citibank to absorb the shares of Shipley.

He wanted to take advantage of the fact that everyone was pessimistic and increase his holdings to more than 40% so that he could have more voting rights than the founder and ultimately take control of the company.

His relationship with Citibank is pretty good.

When entrusting the other party, Lin Haoran also called Mr. Walter Reston of Citibank in New York in front of the president of the London branch.

As a result, the branch manager's attitude towards Lin Haoran changed drastically and he began to be very respectful to him.

Lin Haoran’s goal was quite clear: he hoped to secretly acquire as many shares as possible through Citibank’s securities team, avoiding detection while also not actively pushing up the stock price.

For Lin Haoran, it was not a difficult task to acquire the Shipley Company, whose total market value was only 50 million pounds.

The last time he borrowed 20 billion Hong Kong dollars from Huifeng Bank, so his funds are very sufficient.

What's more, the chairman of Shipli Company also took the initiative to express his intention to raise funds, which undoubtedly provided convenience for Lin Haoran.

However, the chairman probably would never have dreamed that this financing cooperation would actually be inviting a wolf into the house.

After settling this matter, Lin Haoran felt relieved.

He decided to take control of the company before returning.

He plans to stay in the UK for no more than half a month.

So time is still a bit tight.

After leaving Citibank's London branch, Lin Haoran called Chairman Liu.

The call was quickly connected. "Uncle Liu, it's me, Haoran." Lin Haoran introduced himself with a smile.

"Haoran, what have you thought about the financing issue?" President Liu couldn't wait to ask before Lin Haoran even brought it up.

"Uncle Liu, after two days of consideration, I have made a decision. I agree to the financing conditions this time. But you also know that I can't stay in the UK for too long, so I hope that if you want to raise funds, do it as soon as possible. I can't wait too long." Lin Haoran answered directly.

"That's great. I will bring this matter up with the chairman of Shipley Company right away and I guarantee that it will be resolved within three days!" President Liu said in surprise.

For Chairman Liu, with Lin Haoran's investment of 10 million pounds, Shipley Company has the capital to compete with the outsider DHL Group. At least for a year, there is nothing to worry about.

In this way, the stock market will naturally go up.

"Okay, then I'll trouble Uncle Liu." Lin Haoran said and hung up the phone.

He is not in a hurry to contact the second largest shareholder now. He plans to talk to them secretly after becoming a shareholder of Shipley Company.

In this way, he will be able to quickly increase his equity to over 40%, thereby increasing his voting rights over the founder and giving himself complete control of the company.

Three days later, Lin Haoran appeared in a 15-story office building on the South Bank of London. Through the glass windows at the back, he could see that there was a huge logistics warehouse at the back, with many large trucks busy coming and going.

In front of them were reporters from more than a dozen mainstream British media outlets.

This is the headquarters of Shipley Corporation.

At this moment, Lin Haoran was sitting in the chairman's seat.

There were four other people next to him.

These four people include Chairman Liu, and they are the four major shareholders of Shipli Company.

However, from today on, Shipley will have five major shareholders.

“We are holding this press conference to announce an important news: Shipley Logistics will soon welcome a new shareholder, Mr. Lin Haoran from Hong Kong. Mr. Lin Haoran will invest 20 million pounds in this financing, and after the company issues additional shares, he will hold % of the company’s shares.

At the same time, in order to effectively deal with malicious competition from other competitors, we have decided to put the 10 million pounds into operation. Starting tomorrow, our logistics collection and delivery fees will be 50% off. We will not hesitate to lose money to deal with competitors until they stop this malicious competition.

Here, I also solemnly declare that Shipley Logistics will never fear any form of malicious competition!" Chairman Beo Stevens proudly declared.

With the funds in place, the chairman's confidence increased significantly and he was eager to regain lost market share.

Although the price after a 50% discount is still slightly higher than that of DHL Group, Shipley Logistics has its unique advantages, such as a more complete network layout and faster delivery speed.

Therefore, he is full of confidence for the coming year!

As soon as these remarks were made, they immediately caused a huge sensation among the reporters on the scene.

Originally, the market generally predicted that the UK logistics market would form a three-way competition, and Shipley Logistics might slip from the second position to the third due to the strong entry of DHL Group.

However, Shipley Logistics Company showed amazing determination and vowed to compete with DHL Group!
The next morning, the news spread quickly through media newspapers and television stations, sweeping across the UK.

At the same time, the name Lin Haoran also entered the eyes of many British people for the first time.

In the past, although news of his taking over Hong Kong Electric Group and China Gas Company occasionally appeared in the British media, it did not actually attract much attention. After all, these companies were not British companies, but merely Hong Kong companies.

But this time it was completely different. It involved a company that was very well-known in the UK. Lin Haoran not only became the second largest shareholder of this company, but also became a key figure in it, which naturally attracted a lot of attention.

Through financing, Lin Haoran successfully held 20% of the shares of Shipli, becoming the second largest shareholder of this logistics company.

原大股东的股份从26%稀释至20.8%，依然是第一大股东；原来的第二大股东退居至第三大股东的位置，其股份由12%减少至9.6%；而原本的第三、第四大股东，其10%的股份也相应减少至8%。

This news also attracted the attention of investors. On the same day, the stock price of Shipli Logistics Company rose by 8%.

Lin Haoran's securities client, Citi Securities, a subsidiary of Citibank, also took this opportunity to directly increase Lin Haoran's holdings by 3.8%.

Although the stock price rose, Lin Haoran didn't care at all.

Instead, he took advantage of the trading boom and became the largest shareholder of Shipley Logistics Company without anyone noticing.

Next, his target became the head of the consortium.

As long as he can convince the other party, 9.6% of the other party's shares will become his.

In this way, his shareholding is getting closer to exceeding 40%.

Taking control of the company is just around the corner! (End of this chapter)