Hong Kong's new giants

……

Andre brought the team to Gucci headquarters, where Felinder and Gucci management received them.

Although they were very annoyed by the hostile takeover of Barings Bank, Felind and others had a premonition of what Barings Bank was going to do next, so they did not dare to act rashly.

When he came to the meeting room, Felinder tentatively asked, "What does it mean that Barings Bank violently increased its holdings of Gucci Group's stock in a short period of time?"

Andre said with a smile: "Of course we are optimistic about the development prospects of Gucci Group, we plan to invest in it!"

A Gucci executive immediately said: "Bahrain Bank acquired 34.4% of the shares to control Gucci. However, this is unrealistic. After the agreement of Gucci's board of directors, we hope that Bahrain Bank will offer to acquire all the shares of Gucci."

As soon as the words fell, Gucci's senior executives looked at the group of Barings Bank with complicated expressions.

If Barings refuses a full takeover, they think it is the best outcome, because they have a way to deal with Barings.

But if Barings agrees to a full takeover, Gucci shareholders seem to be very happy, because the premium is so high.

Andre immediately said: "No problem, we are already preparing legal documents and formally proposing a comprehensive acquisition. This time I came to Gucci, just to inform everyone. After all, we will be partners in the future, and we hope to get along with each other."

"What? Are you really going to buy Gucci in its entirety?" Felinder said incredulously.

Andre said lightly: "Of course! I believe that this is what Gucci shareholders are very happy to see. And we also know that if we don't do this, according to the resolution of the Gucci board of directors in 1995, the Gucci board of directors has the right to report to the Gucci board of directors within five years. The legal entity is offering shares, which means our stake is at risk of being diluted. However, from the beginning, we intend to buy Gucci outright.”

Gucci's management immediately felt that a punch had been punched into the air, and the strength and determination of others were greater than expected.

A senior executive couldn't help but said: "You bought Gucci at such a high premium, don't you worry that it is not worth it?"

Andre said with a smile: "We estimate that it will cost about 80 billion US dollars to acquire it. Naturally, we think that Gucci is very valuable."

In the end, Felinder could only say: "If this is the case, then you should go through formal legal procedures!"

Andre left the Gucci Group contentedly with his team, and the next step is to formally submit a takeover offer to the Netherlands, the US Securities Regulatory Commission, and the Italian government; as for whether the Italian government will come forward to stop it, the possibility is very small. Listed in the Netherlands and the United States, it has nothing to do with the Italian government.The only relationship is that some commitments need to go through procedures, such as not moving the headquarters out of Italy and so on.

……

In a villa in Milan, Monica, Li Jiaxin and Li Zi surrounded Lin Zuhui one after another, excitedly asking about 'Gucci'.

Monica clung to Lin Zuhui's body and asked excitedly, "My dear, did you really buy Gucci? Is this our Italian national luxury brand?"

Lin Zuhui sat on the sofa, surrounded by beauties from left to right, and said with a hint of contempt: "Where is it so powerful? Didn't Gucci almost go bankrupt in 1992!" The voice changed, and he said confidently: "Of course, since Gucci If it comes in our hands, the prospects are boundless."

He said that it was true that Gucci almost went bankrupt. In 1987, Gucci fell into a family dispute. Afterwards, a foreign consortium intervened in the equity but did not intervene in management. In 1992, Gucci lost more than 4000 million U.S. dollars and almost went bankrupt. The foreign consortium took full control of Gucci , and hired Tom Ford as the creative director, and introduced professional managers such as Felinde.

In fact, the major shareholder of Gucci at this time is the Fund, but it has entrusted the management of Gucci.

"Honey, you're amazing!" Monica sent a kiss, and then said with insatiable desire: "I will only buy Gucci brand in the future, because it is a luxury of our family."

After being included in Lin Zuhui's family office, Monica has been very excited and proud, and Lin Zuhui has seen all this.

Lin Zuhui shook his head and said, "That would make life very tiring, so you don't have to kidnap yourself like this, it's more important to buy what you like!"

Monica said: "Of course Gucci will become my favorite. After all, if I hold a Gucci bag, I will always think that it belongs to our family, and my mood will naturally become different."

Lin Zuhui stroked Monica's hair, and suddenly said: "In the future, Gucci will be listed, and the three of you will have a small amount of shares, so that you will have a greater sense of accomplishment!"

The three women looked at Lin Zuhui in surprise again, and then rushed forward one after another, their expressions of happiness were beyond words.

While enjoying it, Lin Zuhui was thinking about things.

The acquisition of Gucci is only the first step, and the next step is to develop Gucci: strive to develop the global market, especially the Chinese and American markets; use Gucci Group, through mergers and acquisitions, to make Gucci's business even bigger, and strive to develop into one of the world's three major luxury goods groups.

……

Paris, headquarters of the LVMH group.

The assistant hurried to the office of Bernard Arnault, the founder of LVMH Group.

"BOSS, Barings Bank has launched a comprehensive acquisition offer for Gucci Group!"

Bernard Arnault raised his head abruptly, and then said in surprise: "How did the Gucci board of directors respond?"

The assistant said: "It has been agreed! All shareholders of Gucci have expressed their approval. It is expected that Gucci will be privatized and delisted soon."

Bernard Arnault slammed the table and said furiously, "Does this Barings Bank know how to surprise luxury goods? Also, a Chinese also wants to get involved in European luxury goods. I really don't know what he is thinking?"

The assistant is obedient, and he is very afraid of this luxury 'Napoleon'.

But having said that, someone else bought it for 80 billion US dollars, can you control how others play?

……

Seeing that the success of the acquisition of Gucci is imminent, Lin Zuhui also summoned the Barings Bank team again.

Lin Zuhui got straight to the point: "The acquisition cost of Gucci is 81.5 billion US dollars, so Gucci must make greater changes to make Gucci worth the money. You have also taken over for almost two months. What plans have you made for Gucci?"

Although Lin Zuhui can say that even if Gucci does not change the management, it can still achieve good development; however, this development is due to the increase in the number of wealthy people in the world, not the ability of the management itself.

For example, in the future, if the LVMH Group's annual growth rate is 10%, then Gucci must achieve an annual growth rate of more than 15%, so that Lin Zuhui can be satisfied.

Andre quickly said: "We have already planned to hire Unilever executive Robert Porett as the executive officer. He is a professional manager who is good at turning losses into profits. We hope that after he takes office, he can make drastic reforms and accelerate the launch of New products, increase the speed of marketing and advertising."

In this kind of acquisition case, it is very important to really choose an excellent professional manager.

Lin Zuhui was also thinking about some suggestions he could provide. He has a very high talent in business and has a very long-term vision. If he came to be the president of Gucci, there would be absolutely no problem.Of course, his time does not allow it, and his energy does not allow it.

"In this way, recently I also learned about Gucci's designer-led corporate culture, and found that Gucci is too dependent on those big-name designers who are too independent. I don't think it is a good long-term development plan. The real corporate design culture , it should be a steady stream of new designers and give new designers more opportunities. Even luxury goods like Gucci should put down their dignity and learn from fast-moving consumer goods brands like Zara and GAP to make Gucci products more fashionable. ,young."

The team of Barings Bank echoed Lin Zuhui's statement one after another, and put forward their own views. In summary, this old luxury brand should be made to exude a more fashionable and youthful charm.

After a meeting, Lin Zuhui felt that he could finally get rid of this matter, and left the rest to his subordinates. He only needed to keep abreast of the development of the matter on a regular basis.

Lin Zuhui still has a lot of plans in his mind, that is, let Gucci carry out mergers and acquisitions and development at the same time in the future. There is no advantage in a single luxury product. Although Gucci has jewelry and watch series, it still has great potential for development.

For example, Lin Zuhui intends to sell the Luchen family to Gucci, so that Gucci can develop in an all-round way like Chanel.

Of course, we have to take it step by step, and communicate directly with the new president of Gucci later.

In fact, although he intends to relist Gucci at a certain time, he will not hand over the rights of major shareholders; although professional managers can have certain independent management rights, Lin Zuhui will take back the management rights at a certain time.

This "certain time" is whether his and Monica's child can perform well.Of course, these things are too far away, and Lin Zuhui will not force the children of the family to take over these companies. His priority is the development of the company.

……

At the end of March, Lin Zuhui left Europe contentedly and flew back to Hong Kong.

In addition to supervising the acquisition of Gucci this time, he also inspected his other industries, and went to the German Luxembourg shipyard to order a 108-meter-long superyacht.

Once the yacht is built, it will be the longest and most luxurious super yacht in the world. It can take off helicopters and send small submarines. It can accommodate 36 guests (only in terms of design) and hundreds of crew members.

The cost of the entire superyacht is about 1.5 million US dollars, which can be called the price of a Boeing 747, which is simply inhumane.

With this super yacht, Lin Zuhui estimated that the time spent on vacation at sea will be longer.

Of course, it was just a super yacht, and Lin Zuhui didn't take it too seriously. He still puts his career first.

The business in Europe has also made great progress in the recent period. First, the Amazon shopping mall won the site of the '1908 French-British Exhibition' and plans to build a 180 million square feet largest shopping mall in Europe.

This project requires a total investment of 15 billion pounds (about 18 billion U.S. dollars), which can be called a large-scale investment project.

With the advancement of this project, it also marks that Amazon Shopping Center has begun to vigorously enter European shopping malls, and Lin Zuhui will also become the largest "landlord" in Europe.

After all, he also holds a full 1600 million square feet of commercial area in Canary Wharf.

With the expansion of Barings Bank's business, Lin Zuhui's business was mainly concentrated in real estate in the past, and now he has also formed an organization to extend his investment to luxury goods and hotels.

In the future, he will also dabble in the sports brand - Fila. In this way, Lin Zuhui and Li Chaoren will go to different development paths.

Li Chaoren likes to invest in infrastructure. Lin Zuhui thinks that this is just "asset trading" and "asset transfer". He thinks he should adjust to more difficult areas: investment banking, clothing, luxury goods, hotels, etc. After the acquisition of these industries, Better management methods are needed, after all, faster appreciation of assets is needed.

In short, Lin Zuhui has no plans to invest in infrastructure in Europe and America for the time being, so leave this field to Li Chaoren!

Chapter 657 [Development of Telecommunications]

Beginning of April, Thursday.

Lin Zuhui came to the Hong Kong Telecom Building located in Quarry Bay, which is one of the old nests of Swire Properties - Taikoo Place; Taikoo Place has a total of eight buildings, two of which were sold by New Times Group to Swire Properties.

The property rights and naming rights of the Hongkong Telecom Building were purchased by Hongkong Telecom from Swire Properties in 1994. It is a modern building completed in the 90s, with a height of 43 floors and a property area of ​​60 square feet. The current value is about HK$20 billion.

Before the crash in 35, the Hong Kong Telecom Building was worth at least [-] billion Hong Kong dollars, which was almost one-third of the price of Queen’s Road in Central.

At its peak, Hong Kong Telecom had 1.6 employees, and now it still has 1.2 employees. It is a complete giant; the fact is that Hong Kong Telecom is the third listed company in Hong Kong by market value. Before the rise of New Times Group, It is second only to the existence of HSBC Bank.

It's a pity that such a huge company has gradually gone downhill because it exhausted its potential.

Of course, now that Lin Zuhui has taken over, it is natural to give HKT more 'imagination' and 'potential'.

After two months of asset integration, Hong Kong Telecom has undergone some changes:

First, New Times Group will inject 'Cyberport' and 'Times Telecom's Hong Kong business' into Hongkong Telecom, increasing the group's shareholding to 60%;

Second, the new management replaced the original management and became more powerful.

Led by an assistant, Lin Zuhui walked into the conference room elegantly, and all the senior executives of HKT stood up one after another.

Among them, Yuan Tianfan was the director of Hong Kong Telecom dispatched by the New Times Group. He knew that he didn't need to stand up to welcome him, after all, the boss didn't like it; but when everyone got up, he naturally couldn't sit down.

"boss"

"Sit down, the companies under my banner don't like this!"

Only then did everyone sit down one after another, and they even felt some pressure, which showed the influence of the new boss.

If Li Chaoren could compete with Lin Zuhui in the past, it is obvious that Li Chaoren is not at the same level as Lin Zuhui now. One can only be called a "world businessman", while the other is "the world's top business giant".

After sitting down, Lin Zuhui took a look at several senior executives of "Hong Kong Telecom". He did not plan to privatize Hong Kong Telecom, but planned to develop Hong Kong Telecom into a "giant" technology/telecom company.

Therefore, the top management of Hong Kong Telecom are all very powerful top talents:

Director and President of Hong Kong Telecom: Avellon, well-known in the telecommunications industry in Hong Kong. He graduated from the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering of the University of New South Wales in Australia. He participated in the plan to open the Australian telecommunications market in his early years. In 1993, he was employed by the Hong Kong government. , as the Director of the Telecommunications Authority, Hong Kong's telecommunications market can break the monopoly situation. He has made a lot of contributions and led the mainland to introduce competition mechanisms such as new fixed network operators and PCS operators.In the early days of the Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau, he served as a special policy advisor.Because he is very familiar with Hong Kong telecommunications regulations and industry development trends, and is well-known in the telecommunications industry in the Asia-Pacific region, he was immediately recruited by Hong Kong Telecom.

Wu Qinghua, director and vice president of Hong Kong Telecom, graduated from the Department of Business Administration of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He used to be the managing director of Hong Kong Telecom. He was recruited by New Times Group as the president of "Times Communication". ", and has also served as the president of the Hong Kong Communications Industry Association for many times, and has a very high status in the industry.

Zhong Chuyi, director and vice president of Hong Kong Telecom, joined the corporate finance department of Standard Chartered Bank in 1988, and became the director and general manager of Benda International in 1990. In 1992, Huang Hongnian and Zhong Chuyi established Zhongce Group Co., Ltd., which has always been run by Zhong Chuyi Taking care of.The reason why Zhong Chuyi joined HKT was at the invitation of Yuan Tianfan.

Yuan Tianfan, one of the most famous figures in Hong Kong stocks and financial circles, knew Zhong Chuyi when he was working as an investment banker. After Yuan Tianfan joined Lin Zuhui's company, he introduced many talents to Lin Zuhui.

"Tell me, what is the current situation of Hong Kong Telecom!" Lin Zuhui took the lead in speaking in English.

Avalon immediately said confidently: "At present, we divide the business of Xiangjiang Telecom into three parts:

First, the telecommunications business and Cyberport, which is the 'operating' part of Hong Kong Telecom, because they can create a steady stream of cash flow;

Second, PCC business (Internet policy control and billing), broadband Internet service, Internet video, which is also the "operation" part of Heung Kong Telecom; we plan to cooperate with internationally renowned companies such as Intel.

Third, Hong Kong Telecom established an Internet fund company CWH, specializing in venture capital, which is the company's 'mergers and acquisitions' part.

Heung Kong Telecom will develop into a Vopera-non like CMGI in the United States, with mergers and acquisitions and operations in parallel..."

After Lin Zuhui listened, his expression didn't fluctuate much. Lin Zuhui probably told Yuan Tianfan about these development models, and Ai Weilang and others just went to formulate the details, complete them, and implement them.

Of the three businesses, the PCC business is the most 'imaginative', but Lin Zuhui has to admit that this business is used to raise the stock price of 'Hung Kong Telecom'.As for how much he can achieve, Lin Zuhui also has no idea, after all, he has never heard of how great Li Zekai achieved in this in his previous life.

The PCC business has those, which are also very imaginative:

For example, PCC first cooperates with local cable TV network operators to install a set-top box (set-top box) developed by PCC and Intel on the TV of cable TV users, so that users can use artificial satellites and cable optical fiber in the future. The broadband system can not only receive TV programs, but also surf the Internet at the same time, and carry out various electronic business activities, including online shopping, banking wealth management, stock trading, and business transactions between companies.

For example: change the previous practice of broadcasting sports events on cable TV, and switch to the Internet for broadcasting (when the network speed is sufficient in the future, intervene as soon as possible).

In short, PCC has unlimited room for development, because according to statistics, the economic development of most countries in the Asia-Pacific region is relatively slow, and the use of computers and mobile phones is not popular.The number of Internet users in Asia (excluding Japan) is only about 1200 million, and the popularity of the Internet is far lower than that in Europe and the United States. On the contrary, 1500% of households have a TV.Taking India as an example, there are currently only 6350 million computers in the country, while there are 7000 million TV sets; China has more than [-] million cable TV subscribers, and the coverage rate is higher than that of the United States. The PCC program is based in India.China.Japan is the key target to conquer.

After listening to all the reports, Lin Zuhui just urged: "CWH Fund can report to me before investing in Internet companies, and invest as much as possible in emerging Internet markets, such as the Mainland; as for the United States, although it is the year of the Internet explosion, the bubble It's a bit serious, it's an Internet company that charges very high prices."

Zhong Chuyi, who was in charge of the investment business, immediately said, "Okay, boss!"

Lin Zuhui nodded and said, "If there is a chance, if my personal investment company encounters a good project, I can also bring this fund."

For a moment, everyone showed surprise expressions.

Who is this boss?

That is an Internet investment tycoon, there are too many successful investment cases, and he was even rated as a technology tycoon second only to Bill Gates by the American media, which shows his strength.

Chapter 658 [Handling Little Ma]

On Qingming Festival, Lin Zuhui worshiped his ancestors in Shunde, which alarmed city officials to come to accompany him.

Returning home, probably refers to this situation.But then again, is this 'township' his hometown?

The 'township' in his previous life should be his real hometown!

In any case, it is nothing more than a matter of donating money. Lin Zuhui can figure it out very well. Regardless of the "Xiang" in the previous life or the "Xiang" in this life, Lin Zuhui's donations have already reached hundreds of millions of RMB.

It is worth mentioning that there are two Lin Zuhuis in this world, and the other one is exactly what Lin Zuhui looked like in his previous life; although Lin Zuhui has never met "himself", he has entrusted someone to give "his" parents some "window money". There is no problem living a wealthy life in the city.