The Industrial Giant Reborn

"Hutchison International Group?" Zhou Jiayang was shocked, recalled the recent situation of Hutchison, and asked in disbelief: "Chen Sheng, do you want to acquire Hutchison Group?"

"I have this plan." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said: "Hutchison has now fallen into a penny stock, and its market value has dropped by nearly 95%. This is the best time for us to make a move."

"This risk is too great, Chen Sheng, I suggest you think about it." Zhou Jiayang suggested.

Hutchison's stock is not worth much, but this company is currently in the worst period, with various liabilities and various management chaos. Six months.

"No need, just follow what I did. Hutchison now only has a market value of more than 400 million yuan, and it doesn't cost much to buy some stocks." Chen Zhiwen said: "As for what to do after the acquisition, I have my own ideas, and so It is still very difficult to acquire a large company."

Seeing that the boss had already made up his mind, Zhou Jiayang could only continue to ask: "Is that still the same as Wharf's slow acquisition?"

Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said: "No, Hutchison's situation won't give us a long time, but no one wants Hutchison stock now, even if we buy it faster, it won't be easy for the market to find out, I hope you can buy it in half a year Acquire 30% of the shares within a certain period of time.”

"30%?" Zhou Jiayang thought for a while and said, "Okay, Chen Sheng, I will do my best."

Chen Zhiwen added: "The funds for this matter are the same as Wharf's. Use my overseas funds. At least in the initial stage, don't let anyone know."

At the beginning, I made a lot of money by speculating on oil derivatives during the oil crisis. Some of them bought Fedmart and invested in Costco, some of them invested in Wal-Mart, some of them were used on Red Bull and Midea, and the rest were mainly used in Kowloon. In addition to the acquisition of warehouses, there is really not much left. Except for the funds invested in Wal-Mart and re-borrowed through Citibank, the rest are real investments. If it weren't for the extreme use of leverage in Hong Kong's real estate investment, his funds would have dried up long ago, and now the last sum is basically used in Hutchison stocks.

Fortunately, Red Bull's sales are growing very fast and its profit margin is high. Although Wal-Mart's stock has been mortgaged, because Wal-Mart's performance is so good, the stock price has risen very sharply, and its mortgageable amount has also risen sharply. Either of them can become a source of additional funds, plus he has great confidence in arcade machines and the recovery of the real estate market in the future. These four things are the capital he is preparing to wrestle with the Hong Kong bigwigs.

After all, the previous acquisition of the Hilton Hotel property in Central was just a small test. The name Chen Zhiwen was only recognized by the bigwigs in Hong Kong. Success, just becoming a major shareholder of Hutchison is enough to make Hong Kong famous.

"No problem." Zhou Jiayang nodded and said: "It's just that Chen Sheng, Hutchison's current situation, as long as we have enough funds, we can buy it, but it itself is a super bomb. You must have this here." Aspects of preparation. '

"Don't worry, I have my own plan." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

After discussing some industrial real estate investments, Zhou Jiayang also left the office.

Chen Zhiwen glanced at the Hutchison Building in the distance, and felt deeply moved. After staying in Hong Kong for two and a half years, he prepared for two and a half years, and now he is ready to attack the British capital.

Of course, persimmons have to be picked softly. Although Hutchison and Jardine are both one of the four major foreign companies in Hong Kong, the gap between them is very different now.

The two core assets of the Jardine Group, Hongkong Land and Wharf, one holds more than a dozen skyscrapers in Central, and the other holds a large number of undeveloped land in prime locations in Hong Kong. Although there are certain debts, the rent collection in Central is really It's so fragrant, basically it will remain invincible forever. Only after two years later, when Jardine's overseas investment in several large-scale projects suffered disastrous losses, and Hong Kong Land's profits in Hong Kong for many years were consumed, did it start to lose its value.

As for the Hutchison Group, it started to fail last year. During the previous good cycle of real estate and stock market development, Qi Dezun, the leader of Hutchison, made a large number of investment acquisitions in order to expand the scale of Hutchison. In just a few years, Hutchison It controls more than 360 companies and more than 26 listed companies, which also brings huge liabilities to Hutchison.

When the economy is good, the scale is bigger, the stock price is higher, and then the stock price is mortgaged to obtain funds to buy investment, and then raise the stock price, and then mortgage, unlimited dolls, Qi Dezun uses this very common trick, Chen Songqing in a few years It will be the same.

However, once this kind of operation encounters an economic crisis and the stock price plummets, the collateral in the bank will be insufficient, and the bank will require additional collateral or repay the loan for risk control.

However, with the strength of the Hutchison Group, although the stock price has fallen, the loan is still being repaid normally, so the bank still has no reminders, and everything is as normal.

But as everyone knows, Qi Dezun has been overdrawing Heji's profits to repay the loan, and even sold some real estate in order to maintain the stock price, included in the net profit of the listed company, and then distributed dividends to shareholders. After the economic crisis, it persisted for more than a year.

Qi Dezun's logic is very simple. He knows that the entire company is suffering serious losses, so he insists on waiting for the economic crisis to pass. As long as the economic crisis passes and the stock price rises, the value of his collateral will increase, and all problems will be solved. This logic is still the same as a few years ago. The same as Chen Songqing later.

It's just a pity that after waiting for a year and a half, the stock market did not recover, and it has been falling to the bottom. And Hutchison Group had previously received a loan from the Swedish Bank, and the currency was Swedish francs. However, the value of the Swedish franc suddenly rose sharply. Hutchison is only in foreign exchange fluctuations The loss is more than 150 million. .

This incident became the last straw that broke the camel's back. Hutchison's stock price fell to the bottom. From the market value of nearly 7 billion Hong Kong dollars in early 1973, it fell to 400 million Hong Kong dollars in December 1974. I don’t know how many stockholders didn’t die last year, but died on Hutchison’s stocks this year.

In the coming year, that is, in 1975, Hutchison has been holding on due to its characteristics of being too big to fail, and the banks did not dare to threaten them too much. Otherwise, the bank will die, However, after persisting for more than half a year, Qi Dezun was still unable to recover, and was finally forced to take over by HSBC. After that, there is a story familiar to countless people in later generations. Li Jiacheng took over Hutchison from HSBC in 1979.

In this life, although Chen Zhiwen had planned to acquire Wharf earlier, the first one to really do it must be the Hutchison Group. Of course, the persimmon has to be picky. Moreover, the most troublesome thing in this matter is not the stock market, but the debt issue. Acquiring Hutchison’s stock is actually not difficult. Even if it is exposed, it can be solved with a little more money, but the debt problem is very troublesome. Hutchison’s debt is as high as 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollars, and the debts owed by its listed companies are not included.

But this is also a problem after the acquisition. Once the acquisition is made, as long as he can prove that he has the ability to manage and record, the major banks can only acquiesce in this matter. This is why Chen Zhiwen has been trying to build a good relationship with HSBC.

In Hong Kong, doing business is really inseparable from the support of HSBC, of ​​course, except for profiteering industries.