In Hong Kong, we build a global business empire

"That's right, I hope to work together with Mr. Lin to deal with the British financial group of Jardine Matheson!" Li Jiacheng said with a smile.

"Mr. Li, can you tell us your specific purpose?" Lin Haoran asked curiously and with a little doubt.

He didn't believe that Li Jiacheng would be so kind as to propose cooperation to fight against the powerful Jardine Matheson British financial group. There must be a clear goal behind it.

Although Li Ka-shing appears to be approachable on the surface, how can he be a simple person when he was able to successfully seize Hutchison Whampoa from Bank of Hong Kong?

The British financial group behind Jardine Matheson is not simple. How could Li Ka-shing offend others for no reason?
"Mr. Lin, to be honest, I have carefully studied the situation of Jardine Matheson. Although you have sufficient funds now, the possibility of successfully acquiring Jardine Matheson is very, very small. However, I have a way to greatly increase your success rate in acquiring Jardine Matheson!" Li Jiacheng paused here.

"Mr. Li, just say it directly and don't beat around the bush!" Lin Haoran said with a wry smile.

“Then I’ll be frank. I want to join hands with you to acquire the Jardine Matheson Group. I will give you Jardine Matheson and even its subsidiary Jardine Securities. I only want the Jardine Matheson Group. As long as both of us work together, the Jardine Matheson Group will need to fight on two fronts. In this way, your success rate will be greatly improved!” Li Jiacheng finally expressed his ambition!

Lin Haoran suddenly realized who the opponent who had been secretly competing with Huanyu Investment Company in the past few months was. It turned out to be Li Jiacheng!
No wonder some people, like him, quickly set their sights on the fat piece of meat of the Jardine Matheson Group. Li Ka-shing now has the confidence to do so.

In the past two years, Bao Yugang took the lead in successfully seizing Kowloon Wharf from Jardine Matheson, but the Bao family was seriously injured because they paid too much premium to acquire Kowloon Wharf. It will take at least two or three years for the family to recover.

Li Ka-shing, who also acquired a large British bank, took over Hutchison Whampoa's shares from Bank of Hong Kong at a very low price. Therefore, Li Ka-shing made a fortune by acquiring Hutchison Whampoa.

In addition, in the past two or three years, Cheung Kong Holdings has made a fortune thanks to the booming real estate industry. Now that it has fully controlled the Hutchison Whampoa Group, its strength has grown by leaps and bounds.

According to media statistics in 1979, which was last year, the building area held by Cheung Kong Holdings had reached 1450 million square feet, surpassing the 1300 million square feet of Hutchison Whampoa.

Although the value of buildings under Cheung Kong Holdings is lower than that of Hutchison Whampoa Group due to differences in location, and its overall strength is still very different from that of Hutchison Whampoa Group, the fact that it can compare in area with Hutchison Whampoa Group, the largest real estate group in Hong Kong, is enough to demonstrate the strong strength of Cheung Kong Holdings today.

After the real estate industry doubled, it became easy for Cheung Kong Holdings to repay the debt owed to Huifeng Bank.

Coupled with the Hutchison Whampoa Group that was under his control, the funds he now has at his disposal are already enormous.

Even if he does not have enough funds to acquire the Jardine Matheson Group, Li Jiacheng can easily borrow enough funds now that he controls these two large groups. It is the same as how Lin Haoran used the shares of the Hong Kong Electric Group as collateral and successfully borrowed HK$20 billion from the Bank of East Asia.

Lin Haoran frowned. This was a bit difficult. How should he answer the other party?
After some thought, Lin Haoran decided that it would be better to be more direct.

With his current strength, he has no need to worry about offending Li Jiacheng, not to mention that his actual financial resources are even greater than Li Jiacheng's.

So, he said apologetically: "Mr. Li, I am very sorry. My original intention of acquiring Jardine Matheson was actually for the Hong Kong Land Group. In my opinion, the value of the Hong Kong Land Group is far greater than that of Jardine Matheson.

The reason why I chose to acquire Jardine Matheson was that I hoped to indirectly control the Hong Kong Land Group by enhancing the strength of Jardine Matheson. Therefore, I am really sorry that you asked me to give up the Hong Kong Land Group now, but I am afraid I cannot do it. "

He now controls more than 40% of the shares of the Jardine Matheson Group.

Although he did not have an exact number of how many shares Li Jiacheng held, he thought that the shares acquired by the other party in the past three months should be far less than 10%. After all, Su Zhixue had been monitoring the transaction data of the Swire Group.

In other words, with the shares that Lin Haoran currently holds, even if Li Jiacheng joins forces with Jardine Matheson and other British financial groups, they cannot be compared with him.

With his current terrifying shareholding ratio, it would be easy for him to seize the controlling stake in the Jardine Matheson Group!
The reason why he did not immediately announce his official entry into the Jardine Matheson Group was actually to put some pressure on this group of British financial consortiums.

It would be best if we could successfully seize the controlling stake of Jardine Matheson from these British financial groups.

Now he has not completely failed in the competition with Jardine Matheson.

And if he ultimately fails to take over Jardine Matheson, Lin Haoran will also make them give up the Hutchison Whampoa Group willingly.

After all, these British consortiums still hold a considerable portion of the shares of the Hong Kong Land Group. Once he successfully takes over, they may use their shares to create trouble.

Lin Haoran’s goal is to make these people from the British financial groups admit defeat with conviction!

After hearing Lin Haoran's words, Li Jiacheng was deeply surprised.

Unexpectedly, the other party rejected him so decisively.

"Mr. Lin, you have to think carefully. It is difficult for you to compete with the entire British financial group on your own. At present, even Huifeng Bank does not support you to take over Jardine Matheson.

If we unite and deal with one opponent each, the chances of success will be greatly increased, which is beneficial to both you and me. Although Jardine Matheson is not as valuable as Hong Kong Land, it still maintains a top position in Hong Kong in many fields, and it owns many properties in Hong Kong. It is also a very high-quality British-owned enterprise. Even if it loses Hong Kong Land, Jardine Matheson is still among the top companies in Hong Kong.

Why should you be too greedy when you might end up with nothing? " Li Jiacheng did not give up and was still trying to persuade Lin Haoran.

"Mr. Li, how about this? I will give Jardine Matheson to you and I will deal with the Jardine Matheson Group. How about that? I can even sell you the shares of Jardine Matheson that I hold. As for the Jardine Matheson Group, there is no way I will give it up!" Lin Haoran suddenly laughed.

If Li Jiacheng really agreed to Lin Haoran, he could actually give up his shares in Jardine Matheson as long as the price was right.

After all, he already knew that after failing to get the support of Huifeng Bank from Jardine Matheson, the chances of him acquiring Jardine Matheson were pitifully small.

The 6% of Jardine Matheson shares held by Huifeng Bank is extremely crucial.

The reason why they are reluctant to give up now is just to gain more benefits from it.

"Sorry, we have no plans to acquire Jardine Matheson!" What Lin Haoran did not expect was that Li Jiacheng answered him without hesitation.

Lin Haoran laughed in his heart.

You yourself don't even plan to acquire Jardine Matheson, so why do you want me to buy it?

"Mr. Li, you really don't plan to consider Jardine Matheson. You know, I am now a major shareholder of Jardine Matheson. Once you want to acquire Jardine Matheson, the identity of a major shareholder will be of great advantage!" Lin Haoran said with a smile.

“No, I think I prefer the Jardine Matheson Group. Jardine Matheson should be given to Mr. Lin!” Li Jiacheng shook his head and refused.

In Li Ka-shing's view, as he now holds more than 5% of the shares of the Hong Kong Land Development and has Hutchison Whampoa as his capable assistant, his chances of success in acquiring the Hong Kong Land Development are very high.

"In that case, Mr. Li, we can only see the results in combat. However, I advise Mr. Li not to put too much effort into the Jardine Matheson Group, because you have basically no chance of success. The Jardine Matheson Group can no longer escape from my control. As fellow Chinese businessmen, I still don't want you to engage in infighting!" Lin Haoran thought about it and still advised.

Lin Haoran's words made Li Jiacheng think a lot in an instant.

He suddenly asked, "Mr. Lin, I want to know if you already hold a lot of shares in the Hong Kong Land Group?"

Before coming, he was sure that Lin Haoran would not own much of the Landmark Group, and that there must be someone else competing with him for the Landmark Group.

After all, he really couldn't believe that while Lin Haoran was aggressively acquiring shares of the Jardine Matheson Group, he could actually become a major shareholder of Jardine Matheson.

The total market value of these two companies is not small.

Lin Haoran thought for a moment, then slowly said: "Mr. Li, can you agree to one condition of mine? If I tell you, you must promise not to tell anyone. I didn't intend to make this public!"

Originally, he did not intend to tell this matter to anyone because it might interfere with his plans.

However, now that Li Jiacheng asked, he was considering whether he should tell the other party.

Because telling Li Ka-shing actually has its positive side - it can make him completely give up his covetousness for the Hutchison Whampoa Group and thus stop continuing to absorb shares of the Hutchison Whampoa Group.

Seeing Lin Haoran's serious attitude, Li Jiacheng couldn't help but have an ominous premonition in his heart.

Could it be that the other party really held a number of shares in the Jardine Matheson Group that he had not expected?

"I can assure you that I will never reveal it to anyone. Mr. Lin should believe my promise. My good reputation for keeping secrets is recognized throughout Hong Kong. I will definitely do what I promised. Mr. Lin, please speak!" Li Jiacheng said, his eyes fixed on Lin Haoran.

"In that case, I will reveal a piece of news to Mr. Li. To be honest, I now have the strength to take over the Hong Kong Land Group at any time. The shares I hold even exceed those of all British financial groups, even if the shares held by Jardine Matheson Securities are included.

Since Mr. Li is interested in the Hong Kong Land Development, he must have noticed that the stock trading volume of the Hong Kong Land Development has increased significantly since the beginning of this year, which is not a natural market behavior.

I guess Mr. Li’s current shareholding in the Hong Kong Land Development should not be many, and the highest cannot reach 10%, or even only around 5%, because over the past year, the secondary market of the Hong Kong Land Development has been basically under my control.

To put it bluntly, even if you buy all the shares circulating in the secondary market, you can't exceed the number of shares I hold, not to mention that I believe it is difficult for Mr. Li to do this."

Although Lin Haoran did not mention specific data, his words have revealed a lot of information. (End of this chapter)