In Hong Kong, we build a global business empire

Sam Walton's attitude towards Lin Haoran was extremely respectful.

He could not have imagined that Walmart would become the world's number one retail company and one of the global industrial giants in the future.

Because today's Walmart is just a retail company that can barely rank third in the United States, and is just an average company among all listed companies in the United States.

Therefore, when facing a super rich man like Lin Haoran, he was extremely respectful.

After all, Lin Haoran is not only a famous rich man now, but also a potential investor of Walmart.

Moreover, once Lin Haoran invests in Walmart, it will definitely drive up Walmart’s stock price.

During this period, Lin Haoran's successful investment in Apple had already caused a sensation in the United States.

In less than a year, I made more than thirty times the profit. This investment is so successful!
After listening to Sam Walton's words, Lin Haoran changed the subject and talked about the issue of financing: "Mr. Sam, I understand that you hope to issue 10% more shares and raise $1500 million. I wonder what your plan is for the use of this money?"

10% of the shares is already a lot.

In addition, Lin Haoran is now secretly acquiring shares of Walmart.

It is not impossible for him to become the largest shareholder of Walmart in the future.

As far as I can remember, by 1999, Walmart's market value had reached $3150 billion.

This means that Walmart’s market value has increased more than a thousand times in just over a decade.

In addition, Walmart has maintained dividend growth for many consecutive years, demonstrating its stable dividend policy. Just by holding shares, one can still receive a lot of dividends after more than ten years.

Another advantage is that as a major shareholder of Walmart, it is not difficult for him to obtain important operating information of Walmart.

Lin Haoran’s Wellcome Supermarket can learn from Walmart’s experience and expand globally in the future.

As for the United States, it doesn't matter if the market is left to Walmart. As a shareholder, it will also benefit.

Mr. Sam Walton was slightly stunned, obviously not expecting Lin Haoran to mention the financing issue so directly.

But he quickly regained his composure and elaborated in detail on Walmart's funding needs and plans for use.

"Mr. Lin, this money will be mainly used in two aspects. One is to continue to expand the number of stores and increase market share; the other is to optimize supply chain management, reduce costs and improve profitability." Mr. Sam Walton explained seriously.

"Can you talk in detail about Walmart's next plan?" Lin Haoran continued to ask.

"Mr. Lin, have you heard of the BigK department store chain?" asked Mr. Sam Walton.

Lin Haoran shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with this company and I haven't heard of it."

“It’s normal that Mr. Lin doesn’t know about it. After all, the business of the BigK department store chain is mainly concentrated in the southeastern United States.

It spans nine states, has 120 branches, and is currently ranked as the fourth largest department store in the United States. However, due to extremely fierce market competition, BigK is facing financial difficulties and is interested in seeking a sale.

This is undoubtedly a golden opportunity for Walmart. Once we successfully acquire BigK, Walmart will become the second largest department store in the United States, second only to Kmart.

By then, our strength will be greatly enhanced, the number of branches will reach 349, covering 13 states in the United States, and annual sales are expected to exceed the 25 billion US dollar mark.

Therefore, Mr. Lin, if you choose to invest in Wal-Mart, as long as you successfully acquire Big K Department Store, I, Sam Walton, promise you that I will never let you down!" Sam Walton introduced.

Lin Haoran suddenly realized that Walmart was planning to merge and acquire others in order to surpass other retail companies!

This is indeed much faster than opening stores one by one and expanding slowly.

If Walmart expands normally and wants to open 120 more stores, it will take a long time at its current pace.

After all, there are only 229 Walmart stores today, and it took nearly 20 years of development to achieve today's results.

In his previous life, Lin Haoran was not clear about the development history of Walmart.

But it is obvious that the acquisition of BigK will definitely occupy a very important position in the development history of Walmart.

"1500 million US dollars for 10% of the shares is not impossible. I am still very optimistic about the prospects of Walmart!" Lin Haoran thought for a while and said.

Sam Walton's eyes lit up and he said, "Mr. Lin, on behalf of Walmart, I welcome your investment."

But he knew that Lin Haoran was really rich. After all, he had just sold his shares in Apple and earned more than 300 million US dollars.

In comparison, $15 million is nothing.

“However, Mr. Sam, I hope to have the opportunity to join Walmart’s board of directors. Of course, I fully respect the professionalism of you and the Walmart management team and will never interfere in the company’s daily operations.

After all, I am from Hong Kong, and my main industries are indeed concentrated in Asia. For me, investing in Wal-Mart is just a simple investment. "Lin Haoran continued with a smile. Since he decided to raise funds through formal channels, Lin Haoran wanted to go a step further and directly join the senior management of Wal-Mart.

His purpose was pure and clear: not to interfere with management, but to learn and absorb Walmart's excellent business strategies up close.

He will bring these valuable international experiences back to Wellcome Supermarket to help it achieve leapfrog development.

Once he becomes a senior executive within Walmart, he will naturally be eligible for access to all of Walmart's internal information.

After privatization, the Hutchison Whampoa Group is his private enterprise, which means that Wellcome Supermarket is also his personal enterprise.

Sam Walton nodded and said, "Please rest assured, Mr. Lin. After the financing comes in, you will hold 10% of the shares and will be the second largest shareholder of Walmart. Naturally, you are qualified to become a member of Walmart's board of directors. I can also promise that Mr. Lin can serve as Walmart's vice chairman!"

"Vice Chairman?" Lin Haoran was slightly surprised, obviously not expecting Sam Walton to make such a proposal.

This undoubtedly directly gave him a very high status and power, but Lin Haoran quickly realized the profound meaning of Sam Walton.

Considering that he will not live in the United States for a long time, the position of vice chairman will be more of a symbolic role, a senior executive in a temporary position.

Moreover, his previously expressed stance of not interfering in the company's operations also assured Sam Walton that he would not dictate the company's affairs.

Therefore, giving him such a title is both a recognition of his strength and a respect for him.

In addition, Walmart today is just an extremely ordinary company, and giving a super-rich man the position of vice chairman is really nothing.

"Mr. Sam is really straightforward. I agree to this financing!" Lin Haoran laughed and directly announced that he was about to complete another foreign investment.

However, for this investment in Walmart, Lin Haoran does not plan to sell it within just one year like he did with his previous investment in Apple.

He plans to hold onto his Wal-Mart shares for a long time, at least until the late 1990s before considering selling them.

Hearing Lin Haoran's words, Sam Walton's face was full of smiles. His goal of this financing was finally achieved successfully.

Although Lin Haoran’s investment is obviously not as good as Citibank’s investment, if Citibank invests, they can still provide a lot of help for the sake of shareholders.

But since Citibank is unwilling to invest, the next best option is to choose a super rich person like Lin Haoran.

The handshake between Lin Haoran and Sam Walton marked the initial completion of this round of financing.

Sam Walton was very self-aware. In the current economic environment, it was not easy for Walmart, as a retail company that had a certain scale but still needed further expansion and whose financial condition was average, to obtain financing from those big conglomerates.

For various reasons, financial institutions such as Citibank were cautious about Walmart's future and had no intention of investing. Even though he took the initiative to approach the company many times to seek cooperation, he failed to make any substantial progress.

Of course, there are other large American financial groups that have expressed interest in financing Walmart.

However, these consortiums often come with extremely harsh conditions. Not only do they demand more shares than expected, they also attempt to have more say.

Sam Walton keenly realized that the real purpose of these consortiums was not simple financial investment, but an intention to gradually control and eventually acquire Walmart through financing.

For Sam Walton, Walmart is not just a business, but also the result of his nearly 20 years of hard work.

From the initial small shop to the large retail enterprise of a certain scale today, every step has condensed his wisdom and sweat.

Therefore, he absolutely could not accept handing over Walmart to those consortiums that only cared about short-term interests.

In this context, when Lin Haoran, a mysterious billionaire from Asia, expressed interest in investing in Walmart, Sam Walton naturally cherished it.

He knew very well that Lin Haoran not only had strong financial strength, but more importantly, this Asian tycoon had stated that he would not interfere too much in the management of Walmart. This was also the reason why he was very satisfied with Lin Haoran as an investor.

Walmart is now short of money and opportunity, otherwise he would not want Walmart to carry out a new round of financing.

This time, Sam Walton did a lot of preparation to find suitable investors.

Therefore, after Lin Haoran agreed to invest in Walmart, Sam Walton quickly called on Walmart's team in New York to sign the investment contract.

In just half a day, Lin Haoran officially had Huanyu Investment Company and Walmart sign an investment agreement, and he also readily transferred 1500 million US dollars into Walmart's public account.

With these 15 million US dollars, Wal-Mart will no longer be restricted by funds and can acquire the BigK department store chain with confidence.

A day later, Lin Haoran saw the official announcement issued by Walmart in the newspaper.

It turned out that after successfully reaching a financing agreement with Universal Investments, Sam Walton immediately returned to Bentonville, Arkansas, USA, and quickly announced the news to the outside world.

The notice pointed out that from now on, Mr. Lin Haoran officially raised funds for Walmart and successfully held 10% of the company's shares.

In addition, with the unanimous approval of all members of the Wal-Mart Board of Directors, Mr. Lin Haoran was formally appointed as the Vice Chairman of the Wal-Mart Board of Directors. (End of this chapter)