Hong Kong 1980: The Savage Era

Chapter 474 476 [Increase Advertising Fees]

The top floor office of Dongchang Building in Central.

Luo Qihong is browsing the latest information on the U.S. stock market and Citibank.

Since April this year, the US economy has gradually begun to recover. After two or three months of development, the S&P 4 index alone has risen by 2%, which is a very sharp increase, even more powerful than the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong.

In other words, Luo Qihong has earned $2 million from his $500 million investment in the S&P 2400 index, an average of $800 million per month.

Luo Qihong is not very satisfied with such a profit speed, because the growth in the first few months was the most rapid, and it will slowly cool down afterwards. Now the average monthly increase is only 4%, which is really a bit low.

"Fortunately, there is no leverage, otherwise there will be losses in terms of interest." Luo Qihong said with a sigh.

According to history, 91 was a year of economic recovery in the United States. The growth of the technology industry has begun to affect the S&P index, and the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates several times to stimulate consumption.

In fact, Luo Qihong's main investment in the United States is in technology stocks, and now technology stocks are rising well, which has earned Luo Qihong $1 million.

The debt restructuring of Bank of China was also very fast. It got rid of the crisis of bankruptcy in just two months. The stock price is recovering and has increased by 2%.

The US$2 million investment earned nearly US$6000 million in profit, so the total investment in the United States successfully exceeded US$10 billion, which is equivalent to 78 billion Hong Kong dollars, equivalent to the total market value of a large real estate company.

Even under such circumstances, Luo Qihong still believes that the US market will have greater growth because a new war is coming and the stock market indices of many countries and regions will skyrocket.

"If our assets in the United States can grow to 20 billion US dollars, we can complete the first step of the plan ahead of schedule." Luo Qihong put down the documents, touched his chin and thought.

There are also many investments in Hong Kong, but the focus is still overseas.

Combined with previous bottom-fishing investments, the total investment of Luo Qihong Private Investment Company in Hong Kong has reached HK$22 billion.

The investments that misjudged the market last year have also recovered, and the investments that bottomed out have also made a profit of almost 30%, totaling HK$2 million.

In the afternoon, he arrived at the headquarters of Hengan Investment Company.

Luo Qihong placed the company's registered address in the Cayman Islands to prepare for future events.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket, this is the rule of business.

The total asset value of Hengan Investment Company has soared to HK$200 billion, and its investment areas include Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

"Boss, this is the recent report from the Australian mining company." said Yuan Tianfan, president of Hengan Investment Company.

Yuan Tianfan graduated from the University of Chicago in the United States. He returned to Hong Kong in 76 and taught at Hong Kong University. In 77, he joined the bond department of Waldo Corporation and engaged in the underwriting of Hong Kong dollar and US dollar bonds.
He worked in the International Finance Department of Citibank, where he was a colleague of Leung Pak-tao. In 86, he became the managing director of its subsidiary, Vico Securities, and then replaced Li Fook-chiu as the chief executive officer of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

After completing his three-year term, Luo Qihong took the lead in inviting him to join Hengan Investment Company and Hengchangxing Enterprise as CEO.

At first, Yuan Tianfan was still hesitating between Luo Qihong and Li Jiacheng. Later, Luo Qihong directly threw out some dry shares and dividends from Hengchangxing Enterprise, and introduced the situation of Heng'an Investment Company. Only then did Yuan Tianfan clearly join Luo Qihong's camp.

"The mining company has acquired three mines, two of which are iron mines and one is a copper mine, spending US$3 million." Yuan Tianfan was familiar with the contents of the report.

"To speed up mining, the US$2 million loan from the bank is really too much and it will easily overwhelm the mining company's finances." Luo Qihong took a quick look at the report.

Yuan Tianfan responded, "It is expected to be repaid within 5 years, but I am afraid there will be no company dividends in these 5 years."

"It doesn't matter!" Luo Qihong waved his hand. The shareholders of the mining company were easy to deal with. If things didn't work out, he would take out a sum of money to buy out their shares. "The acquisition of the vineyard is already under negotiation. It is expected to be acquired for 2000 million US dollars, including the winery." Yuan Tianfan handed over another report.

Luo Qihong nodded, took the document, and said, "The company's plan is to become Australia's largest wine supplier and a top ten mineral exporter. We need to move faster in this regard."

"Yes, boss!"

Luo Qihong casually flipped through the documents and said with a smile, "We have finished discussing official matters, let's talk about some personal matters."

"I heard that you are very particular about Feng Shui and metaphysics. Your friend who is a geomancer has done a fortune telling for you and said that you can start your own business and become a boss after you turn 40. Is this true?"

Yuan Tianfan is already 39 years old this year and his birthday is in the first half of the year, so there is not much time left.

Yuan Tianfan looked embarrassed. He didn't know what Luo Qihong's purpose was and was worried that Luo Qihong would have objections.

After all, he was hired by Luo Qihong at a huge expense and given important tasks, and he had never been treated unfairly.

"That's true, I believe it."

Yuan Tianfan serves as the CEO and director of both companies. With some stock dividends, his annual salary reaches a staggering 3 million Hong Kong dollars, which is more than what some small company bosses earn, and he does not have to take any risks.

But people are greedy and they all hope to achieve something big.

Luo Qihong said, "Okay, let me know in advance when you have made up your mind. If you are short of funds, you can come to me. I also helped Bo Tao and his team a little when they started their company."

People who want to leave cannot be kept, and Luo Qihong will not force anyone, even if Yuan Tianfan is very talented.

Luo Qihong remembered that Yuan Tianfan failed in his business in his previous life, but made huge profits.

Facts have proved that talented people may not necessarily succeed in starting a business, and being a senior manager is no less promising than starting a company.

"thank you boss!"

Since it was certain that Yuan Tianfan could not be retained, Luo Qihong naturally had to look for a new candidate for president.

After years of development, Asia Television entered a new era. On the surface, it was controlled by Lam Pak-yan, Cheng Yu-tung and Lo Chi-hong, but in fact, Lam Pak-yan had the final say most of the time.

In recent years, the Cheng Yu-tung family has continued to insist on the company's equity, while Luo Qihong is only in charge of TV program production, and Lin Baixin's son Lin Jianyue became the president of Asia Television.

At Luo Qihong's suggestion, Asia Television has successively filmed popular TV series such as "Justice Bao", "The Creation of the Century" and "Across the World", and produced popular variety shows such as "Tonight Without Defense", "Hong Kong Strange Cases" and "Today's Real D", which brought huge traffic to Asia Television.

Unfortunately, although there have been many breakthroughs in the programs, TVB has always been plagiarizing and producing at a very fast speed. In addition, the expenses are too high, so the profits of Asia Television are still less than those of TVB.

Therefore, Lin Baixin ignored the opposition and began to focus on controlling costs, reducing expenditures and increasing profits.

In fact, the profits over the years have not allowed the three families to recover their original investment costs, so Lin Baixin made this suggestion.

"I propose to increase advertising fees. Our advertising fees have been set lower than that of TVB for a long time. If they are set at the same level, profits at the end of the year will increase by at least 2%," said Executive Director Lin Jianyue.

This proposal was put forward two years ago, but was rejected by Luo Qihong at that time. The reason was very simple. At that time, Asia Television was no match for TVB and could only use "cheapness" to attract advertisers.

(End of this chapter)