In Hong Kong, we build a global business empire

Chapter 673 They earned HK$260 billion just like that?
Hong Kong, as one of the world's three major financial centers, is a small market with only a few million people, but its advantageous geographical location has given rise to many business giants.

Huafeng Bank, Jardine Matheson, Hang Seng Bank, Hong Kong Electric Group, Hongkong Land Group, Swire Properties, Wharf Holdings, CLP Power, Hutchison Whampoa, etc.

These companies, even if taken to the United States or Europe, would be considered major business giants.

They have cultivated their expertise in their respective fields, and with their excellent management, keen market insight, and pioneering spirit of innovation, they have stood out in the fierce market competition, not only dominating the local market in Hong Kong, but also making their mark in the international market.

However, since Lin Haoran rose to prominence, he has directly privatized Qingzhou Yingni and Zhidi Group one after another.

Other listed giants such as Hong Kong Electric Holdings, Hong Kong and China Gas, Kowloon Motor Bus, and Hong Kong Telephone have also been incorporated into Lin Haoran's holding company one after another.

Looking at the once-powerful Jardine Matheson & Co., it was only because it offended Lin Haoran that its business in Hong Kong was eroded to almost nothing, and it could only withdraw from the Hong Kong market in disappointment.

This once-dominant trading company vanished like a shooting star in the long river of Hong Kong's history.

Even today, the once-dominant financial giant in Hong Kong, Huifeng Bank, has been relentlessly pressured by Lin Haoran, nearly driven to bankruptcy, and was ultimately forced to sell itself to Standard Chartered Bank.

At this moment, the document in front of him contained a list of nearly twenty companies held by Galaxy Securities, a company under Lin Haoran's control, which almost encompassed all the major giants in Hong Kong.

Huafeng Bank, Hang Seng Bank, Swire Properties, CLP Power, Hutchison Whampoa, Cheung Kong Holdings, New Century Development, Swire Properties, Hong Kong Tunnel, Wheelock Properties, Hutchison Properties, Lane Crawford, etc.

Each of these companies, taken individually, is a shining star on Hong Kong's business landscape, dominating their respective fields, controlling the lifeline of their industries, and influencing the direction of the market.

Prior to this, these companies were generally among the top 20 listed companies in Hong Kong in terms of market capitalization.

But now, Lin Haoran has actually become the second largest shareholder of these companies!
In particular, Lin Haoran has secretly acquired a full 24.3% stake in Hengsheng Bank.

Don't forget that Huifeng Bank currently holds 62.14% of the shares of Hengsheng Bank, and after Standard Chartered Bank successfully acquires Huifeng Bank, these shares will need to be sold to East Asia Bank, which is under Lin Haoran's control.

This means that once this transaction is completed, Lin Haoran will soon hold more than 86% of Hengsheng Bank's shares, in addition to his existing 24.3% stake!

According to the rules of tender offers in Hong Kong, once the shareholding ratio reaches 90%, the company has the right to initiate a compulsory takeover process for the remaining shares.

In this way, if Lin Haoran could quietly increase his stake in Hengsheng Bank to around 28% before Huifeng Bank transferred its 62.14% stake to East Asia Bank, then once Huifeng Bank completed the share transfer, he could directly initiate the process of forcibly acquiring the remaining shares of Hengsheng Bank.

After deciding to acquire Hengsheng Bank, Lin Haoran decided to privatize the bank.

With his current financial resources, he has no financial pressure to privatize Hengsheng Bank, but maintaining its status as a listed company would require him to bear additional compliance costs.

After all, listed companies are required to disclose financial data and are subject to shareholder decisions, while privatization allows for more flexible implementation of long-term strategies.

Moreover, most of the business of his banks relies on the financial transactions of his own companies, and this part of the business alone is enough to make the banks very profitable.

He plans to list a bank in the future, but it will definitely not be Hengsheng Bank; instead, he will consider Bank of East Asia or Dao Heng Bank.

After successfully acquiring Hang Seng Bank, he had gathered three major banks under his control: Bank of East Asia, Dao Heng Bank, and Hang Seng Bank, making his position as the financial hegemon of Hong Kong even more secure and unshakeable.

Although Standard Chartered Bank is about to complete its acquisition of HSBC, judging from the current situation, even if Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC merge successfully, their market share will be insignificant compared to that of Lin Haoran's banks, with a huge gap.

It is a pipe dream and utterly impossible for Standard Chartered Bank to overtake Lin Haoran's banks in market share in a short period of time.

Lin Haoran looked at the data, his gaze lingering on Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong Holdings.

"Holds 18.71% of Hutchison Whampoa Group."

"Holds a 16.25% stake in Cheung Kong Holdings."

As he read these data, a smile involuntarily crept onto his lips.

You should know that the legendary business figure who was famous in his previous life and was respectfully called "Superman Li" has not only had many opportunities seized by Lin Haoran in this world, but now, he probably never dreamed that Lin Haoran has quietly become the second largest shareholder of his two major holding companies.

Although both were business tycoons in Hong Kong, Lin Haoran had very little contact with Li Jiacheng during those three years, and they had almost no in-depth understanding of each other.

Therefore, the two sides rarely have any overlap in business cooperation and rarely work together.

When Li Jiacheng conceded to the privatization of Yingni in Qingzhou, it wasn't because Lin Haoran owed him any favors; it was simply because Li Jiacheng did this favor out of consideration for Bao Yugang.

However, the situation later changed drastically.

Lin Haoran successfully acquired Bank of East Asia, but Huifeng Bank launched a proactive crackdown on Bank of East Asia. Li Jiacheng, however, did not hesitate to strongly and fully support Huifeng Bank.

Since then, the two have not even been considered ordinary business friends anymore.

Lin Haoran simply couldn't understand someone who stood by his business rival and helped the rival suppress him; he didn't believe he had such a broad mind.

Regardless of whether Li Jiacheng was forced to do so or for some other reason, even if he wanted to ease his relationship with Lin Haoran, Lin Haoran would never agree.

As fellow Chinese entrepreneurs, Lin Haoran was not only angered that the other party did not help his own people, but also that the other party openly stood on the opposite side and caused trouble for East Asia Bank, even though he had not offended them.

But in any case, this was a figure he knew well in his previous life, a pillar of the business world, who had held the title of the richest Chinese person for many years.

Now, he had quietly become the second largest shareholder of two of his companies. This strange feeling made Lin Haoran feel quite good.

Who knows, this status as the second largest shareholder might come in handy in the future!
Unfortunately, Li Jiacheng's style of doing things is extremely steady and shrewd.

He directly holds more than 40% of Cheung Kong Holdings' shares in order to prevent others from eyeing Cheung Kong Holdings;
Although Cheung Kong Holdings holds shares in Hutchison Whampoa through Cheung Kong Holdings, this indirect shareholding still exceeds 40%.

With such a high shareholding ratio, it would be extremely difficult for Lin Haoran to launch a takeover bid.

Even with his vast wealth, if Li Jiacheng is determined not to sell his shares, the acquisition battle will be deadlocked from the very beginning.

Lin Haoran understood that Li Jiacheng had been a prominent figure in the business world for many years and had a strong desire to control his companies. He would never easily hand over the business empire he had worked so hard to build.

And it's even more impossible to secretly acquire shares through the stock market.

Li Ka-shing's think tank specializes in studying the equity structure and market dynamics of major listed companies in Hong Kong, and maintains a high degree of sensitivity to any slight movement.

As far as Lin Haoran knew, Cheung Kong Holdings had established a strict monitoring system to track every large transaction in real time, especially the shareholding changes of core assets such as Cheung Kong Holdings and Hutchison Whampoa.

Purchasing shares on a large scale directly from the open market is tantamount to declaring war on Li Ka-shing, which will soon trigger his defense mechanisms.

Lin Haoran was certainly not afraid to declare war on Li Jiacheng, but the problem was that if he could not gain control of the company, even if he declared war, it would be useless and would only allow Li Jiacheng to increase his shareholding!
Once Li Jiacheng's shareholding exceeds 50%, what's the point of Lin Haoran acquiring it...?

And you want to absorb on a small scale?

Doing so would indeed allow one to conceal their identity for a short period of time, preventing Li Jiacheng from noticing.

However, if the trading volume of Hutchison Whampoa or Cheung Kong Holdings shares decreases in the secondary market, Li Ka-shing's think tank will surely detect the unusual activity like a keen hunting dog.

Therefore, a covert acquisition is virtually impossible.

Therefore, Lin Haoran has no plans to acquire the two companies under Li Jiacheng for the time being.

However, holding so many shares may seem useless now, but it may have its uses in the future.

In short, he has no intention of disclosing these shares!
Although once it is made public, it will alarm the entire Hong Kong, and Lin Haoran's status in the business world may be further enhanced.

But Lin Haoran felt that there was absolutely no need for that.

He is already Hong Kong's undisputed richest man, so what if he goes any further?

It's better to keep them secretly; they might come in handy in the future!

"By the way, Dai Shi, could you help me calculate how much these dozen or twenty stocks we've acquired in the last few days would have been worth when these companies were at their peak market capitalization? Oh, we don't need to include Huifeng Bank in the calculation," Lin Haoran said to Dai Shi after a moment's thought.

The reason he excluded Huifeng Bank was that he knew its share price might rise tomorrow, but the increase would be limited.

After all, Huifeng Bank lost a large number of customers. Even after Standard Chartered Bank acquired it, now that its funding problems have been resolved, it may still be able to retain many loyal customers thanks to its years of accumulated experience.

Compared to its peak, it is no longer comparable, and Huifeng Bank is now in complete decline.

In his view, it would be very good if Huifeng Bank's market value could rise to several billion Hong Kong dollars in the near future, let alone rise back to a market value of more than 20 billion Hong Kong dollars.
Other stocks, once freed from the stigma of Huifeng Bank, will definitely recover to their original market value very quickly.

"Okay, boss! Give me ten minutes, and I'll calculate it for you right away!" Dai Shi replied, took the data sheet to the side, and then found several relevant documents on the bookshelf. His fingers tapped rapidly on the calculator, making a continuous "tap tap tap" sound.

As a professional in the financial industry, Dai Shi is extremely sensitive to stock price data. Moreover, his company has a wealth of such data, so calculating the results is naturally a piece of cake for him.

About ten minutes later, the white paper in front of Dai Shi was filled with dense numbers.

Immediately afterwards, he quickly pulled out another sheet of white paper and carefully drew a table, filling in key data such as company name, shareholding, purchase cost, and peak market value valuation.

"Boss, the results are in. According to my calculations, excluding the expenditure on Huifeng Bank, we've invested a total of HK$38.2 billion in other stocks during this period. I calculated this based on the market capitalization data of major companies before Huifeng Bank fell into its cash flow crisis. Ultimately, based on our shareholding ratio, if the share prices of these dozen or so stocks can all recover to their original market capitalization levels, then the total value of these stocks we hold will be approximately HK$256.7 billion, with a minimal deviation!"

As Dai Shi handed the hand-drawn form to Lin Haoran, he explained in detail.

The investment of HK$38.2 billion does not include the funds used to purchase HSBC and Wharf Holdings.

It can be said that Galaxy Securities' operations in the stock market recently have accounted for at least half of the market's trading volume, or even more.

Without Galaxy Securities' covert and continuous acquisition of various stocks, the Hong Kong stock market during this period would likely have been even more dismal, with the Hang Seng Index falling even more and the share prices of listed companies plummeting even further!

"Yes, thank you for your hard work." Lin Haoran looked at the data without looking up.

He calculated that as long as the market value of Hong Kong business giants such as Cheung Kong Holdings, Swire Pacific, Hutchison Whampoa, and CLP Power returned to the levels before the sharp drop, he could earn more than HK$20 billion this time, even without counting the gains from shorting HSBC!

HK$256.7 billion minus HK$38.2 billion equals HK$218.5 billion!
That's an exaggeration, absolutely an exaggeration.

He made HK$53 billion from shorting HSBC!
This amount of money should naturally be included.

In other words, in this wave of business competition with Huifeng Bank, he actually managed to rake in a huge profit of more than HK$260 billion by using precise planning and decisive decision-making!

At this moment, even Lin Haoran felt that the money came far too easily.

HK$260 billion! Even he thought it was an unbelievably extravagant sum.

But the facts are right in front of us.

Such achievements would be a significant chapter in the history of global finance.

Lin Haoran's lips curled up slightly. Awesome, really awesome.

At this moment, he admired himself!
"You must keep this matter a secret. Only you can know about it. Not a single word of it can be leaked out, understand?" Lin Haoran said solemnly, his eyes fixed intently on Dai Shi.

Lin Haoran knew that if word got out about his actions, it would cause a huge uproar in the market.

In essence, this is undoubtedly a harvesting of the vast majority of stock investors!
Although the entire process was within the framework of laws and regulations and conformed to norms, it ultimately violated business ethics.

Once investors learn the truth, their opinion of him will inevitably change drastically, and it may even bring him a lot of unforeseen trouble.

Dai Shi looked at Lin Haoran with admiration and nodded heavily, saying, "Boss, don't worry, I'm very tight-lipped and will definitely not let a word out!" Dai Shi patted his chest to assure him, his eyes full of certainty.

Dai Shike personally witnessed his boss Lin Haoran's series of amazing "miraculous operations" in the stock market over the past three years.

In his heart, if he really had to choose a stock market god who deserved the title, it would have to be Lin Haoran. He was the insurmountable peak in the stock market.

In contrast, while Warren Buffett, the renowned American investor, has achieved considerable success in the investment field, his record pales in comparison to that of his boss.

However, the boss has always been low-key and dislikes being ostentatious.

Otherwise, how could Warren Buffett have earned the title of "Oracle of Omaha"?

Lin Haoran nodded slightly; he had always placed complete trust in Dai Shi.

After all, the loyalty rating of 95 on the stone was like a reassurance, allowing Lin Haoran to entrust him with many key and important matters without any worries.

Since Su Zhixue was transferred to the United States by Lin Haoran to secretly acquire shares of listed companies with great development potential, Dai Shi has become Lin Haoran's most trusted and capable subordinate in the Hong Kong securities industry.

Even Allen, the general manager of Galaxy Securities, could not be considered Lin Haoran's confidant.

As evening approached and Lin Haoran was preparing to return home, he received a phone call from Mr. Brown, the VP of Standard Chartered Bank.

"Mr. Lin, you must have heard about the acquisition agreement reached between Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC Bank, right?" Brown asked with a smile.

At this moment, Brown was riding high and full of confidence.

After successfully acquiring Huafeng Bank, although Standard Chartered Bank's market share in Hong Kong is still difficult to compete with Bank of East Asia, it has undergone a tremendous transformation compared to the former Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong branch.

In the future, Standard Chartered Bank may not be able to become the true hegemon of Hong Kong's financial industry, but it has already become an industry giant second only to Bank of East Asia.

Moreover, among British-owned companies, Standard Chartered Bank will inevitably be the first choice to cooperate with them in the future.

Standard Chartered Bank has reaped numerous benefits from this series of actions.

As the head of Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong, his status and position will rise steadily along with the significant increase in Standard Chartered Bank's market share in Hong Kong.

It's just a pity that I couldn't take this opportunity to become the dominant force in Hong Kong's financial industry.

"Congratulations, Mr. Brown," Lin Haoran said with a smile.

He assumed Brown had called him to tell him about this.

However, Brown changed the subject and continued, "Mr. Lin, actually, I'm calling today because I need your help with something."

"Oh?" Lin Haoran raised an eyebrow slightly, a look of curiosity appearing on his face, and asked, "Mr. Brown, please speak freely."

"Mr. Lin, here's the thing. Standard Chartered Bank has reached an agreement with the senior management of Huifeng Bank to acquire 51% of Huifeng Bank's shares. However, there's been a problem right now. Many shareholders have reported that some of their shares have been lent to Citibank, and the rest have been lent to you."

Therefore, we hope Mr. Lin can be lenient and return their shares ahead of schedule; otherwise, our transaction with Huifeng Bank will likely be difficult to complete smoothly.” Brown finally revealed his true purpose.

Previously, Lin Haoran had gone to great lengths to meticulously plan his short-selling attack on Huifeng Bank.

On the one hand, he borrowed shares directly from the shareholders of Huifeng Bank in Hong Kong, and on the other hand, he cleverly used the name of Citibank to borrow more shares in the UK.

Although his series of operations were secretive, given Brown and others' shrewdness and connections in the financial world, they naturally couldn't escape their notice.

Moreover, Lin Haoran's intention to short-sell Huifeng Bank was no secret in Hong Kong.

Especially now that so much time has passed, those people have long since realized that Citibank's borrowing of Huifeng Bank's stock was actually orchestrated by Lin Haoran behind the scenes.

Currently, if Lin Haoran does not return these shares of Huifeng Bank, it will be virtually impossible for Standard Chartered Bank to acquire a 51% stake in Huifeng Bank.

According to the original agreement, the return period was set within three months, but the deadline is still far away.

However, the acquisition deal between Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC has reached a critical juncture.

If this transaction is to be completed smoothly and successfully, the shares held by Lin Haoran have become an unavoidable obstacle, and he must return them in advance.

Otherwise, even if an acquisition agreement is signed, it will be nothing more than a mirage, a castle in the air, and will never truly take root and be effective.

Standard Chartered Bank is eagerly anticipating that this acquisition will allow it to make significant strides and expand its presence in Hong Kong's financial market.

However, without this key stake, it will be extremely difficult and challenging to integrate Huifeng Bank's various resources and accurately control its operations. It may even lead to a deadlock where it cannot be effectively managed and the situation gets out of control.

Therefore, Mr. Brown now has no choice but to bite the bullet and come to Lin Haoran for help.

With their shrewdness and years of experience in the financial world, they could easily deduce that Lin Haoran must have been secretly buying back a lot of Huifeng Bank shares in the past few days, and that he might already have a substantial number of Huifeng Bank shares in his hands.

In fact, Standard Chartered Bank was also busy in the past few days, secretly and intensively acquiring shares of Huafeng Bank.

After all, they knew in their hearts that they couldn't place all their hopes on acquiring shares from the consortium behind Huifeng Bank. They knew that the consortium behind Huifeng Bank simply couldn't come up with that many shares to meet their needs.

Therefore, the best strategy is to use a two-pronged approach:
On one hand, they were secretly acquiring a portion of Huifeng Bank's shares;

On the other hand, they also tried to acquire some shares from the shareholders behind Huifeng Bank.

Acquiring a 51% stake will not be easy for Standard Chartered Bank.

Although it has already received support from the consortium behind Huifeng Bank, it cannot rely entirely on these consortiums to raise enough shares to reach 51%.

As for why not acquire all the shares from the secondary market, the reason is quite obvious.

Firstly, the limited liquidity in the secondary market makes it impossible to absorb a sufficient number of Huifeng Bank shares.

Secondly, and more importantly, they intended to use this acquisition as an opportunity to completely eliminate the deeply entrenched old forces behind Huifeng Bank.

Only in this way can we prevent those "veterans" from interfering and hindering our actions after Standard Chartered Bank successfully takes over HSBC.

In this way, Huifeng Bank will truly become their subsidiary, rather than a mere "joint venture partner" that is still subject to various constraints.

(End of this chapter)