On July 8, 1975, a row of Mercedes-Benz cars drove into the Hutchison Building, the headquarters of Hutchison International, witnessed by countless reporters.
The motorcade did not park in the underground garage, but right in front of the gate on the first floor of Hutchison, where it wanted to enter the Hutchison Building under the witness of everyone.
"Sheng Chen, as the first Chinese to acquire a British-owned foreign bank in Hong Kong history, do you have anything to share?"
"Sheng Chen, what will be the future of Hutchison? Can we Chinese really control this company, or are you just a pure investment?"
"Sheng Chen, how do you want to solve the debt problem of Hutchison Group?"
"Sheng Chen, Hutchison's stock price has plummeted. Are there any measures to ensure that the stock price rises?"
The car door had just opened, and Chen Zhiwen had not completely left the car. Various questions were bombarded by surrounding reporters. Fortunately, sufficient security guards had been prepared, and reporters could not get in at all.
Under the protection of a group of security guards, Chen Zhiwen entered the Hutchison Building through the Hutchison Gate. Inside the building, the reporter was directly stopped by the security guard at the door. The surroundings suddenly became much quieter. On the first floor, there were also a few people working normally. They all looked at Chen Zhiwen and his party with curious eyes.
"Hello, Mr. Chen. I am Allen Chabot, secretary of the board of directors of Hutchison Group. Mr. Qi Dezun arranged for me to come down to pick you up." A white man about 30 years old stood in front of the service desk in the lobby, followed by Two blond young women, after seeing Chen Zhiwen and his party coming in, hurriedly stepped forward and said.
"Where is Qi Dezun?" Chen Zhiwen asked.
"Mr. Qi Dezun is upstairs. The directors and company executives are waiting for you upstairs." Allen said.
"Okay, let's go up then." Chen Zhiwen said calmly. He wanted to give himself a warning, so he sent a secretary to pick him up.
"Please." Allen turned around and waved to indicate the direction, and a group of people walked toward the elevator. This was an elevator specially used by Hutchison senior executives. There was a special person guarding the elevator outside.
The elevator is also relatively slow. It took 2 minutes to reach the designated floor. The highest conference room of Hutchison Group is located on the 26th floor of the building.
"Please come here, the board meeting will be held at 10 o'clock." After arriving on the 26th floor, Allen said again.
Although the floors are not high, the single-floor area of Hutchison Building is very large. Chen Zhiwen walked for a while before reaching the conference room in the southeast corner.
This was also the basis for Li Jiacheng to demolish it and build a super building in the past. Only with a large area can he build a taller building. In the 1950s, when the Hutchison Building was first built, the land price was cheap and the building was too high. It is not cost-effective. It is better to buy more land and build several buildings with the same area. This is the lowest cost. But when the land price is very high, it is cost-effective to build super buildings.
No matter in any country, Europe, America or later mainland China, you can roughly know whether the housing prices are high by looking at the height of buildings or the density of residential buildings in a city. The higher the floor density, the higher the land price, and the higher the housing prices will naturally be. Vice versa. It shows that the house price is very low.
"Mr. Qi Dezun, Mr. Chen Zhiwen is here." After Allen led Chen Zhiwen into the conference room, he said to a white-haired white man with a plump figure.
"Hello, Mr. Chen, welcome to Hutchison Group." Qi Dezun stood up and smiled calmly, while shaking hands politely.
"The word welcome is not accurate. As Hutchison's major shareholder, it is normal for me to come here." Chen Zhiwen also shook hands, but retorted with a faint smile.
"Welcome" is not for guests. Whether Qi Dezun's words are casual or intentional, he is showing that he is the host.
"That's right, it was my mistake. Chen Sheng, please sit down." Qi Dezun's tone seemed to have turned cold, but it quickly returned to normal.
"Okay, thank you." Chen Zhiwen followed the instructions and sat down. This is the chairmanship of the board of directors. It seems that Qi Dezun is not confused yet and wants to compete for this position today.
"Sheng Chen, this is our biweekly board meeting at Hutchison. It was supposed to be held on the 10th. Because you just became a shareholder of Hutchison, it was moved two days earlier." Qi Dezun smiled and said, "No. Do you know if there is anything you want to say?"
"Let's have the meeting first, I'll just listen." Chen Zhiwen said with a faint smile.
"Okay, let's continue the meeting as normal." Qi Dezun felt a little happy when he saw Chen Zhiwen making no move. Richard on the side looked normal, as if it was his first time meeting Chen Zhiwen.
At the beginning of the meeting, Qi Dezun introduced the board members of Hutchison to Chen Zhiwen one by one. Chen Zhiwen also got an understanding of them. Two of the board members of Hutchison came from non-Hutchison companies, namely Hong Kong Telecom Group and Kaifeng. Representative of the Li family.
Large British-funded groups in Hong Kong will also hold shares in each other to ensure the convenience of some business cooperation, and sometimes even if they do not, they will assign directors to each other. Of course, these two situations only exist with British-owned companies that have no competitive relationship. Within the group, the Kadoorie family's main business is electricity, while Hong Kong Telecom is in the telephone business. There is no business conflict with Hutchison.
The other nine people are all senior personnel within Hutchison who serve as board members. None of Hutchison's previously dispersed small shareholders has been able to join the board of directors. The entire Hutchison is perfectly controlled by the management, even if the stock price has fallen from its peak. 90%, scattered shareholders still cannot overthrow this board of directors.
After the introduction, Qi Dezun entered the normal meeting state, and everyone reviewed Hutchison Group's internal debt issues, business development status, etc.
This was the first time that Chen Zhiwen had a certain understanding of Hutchison's core business. Although Zhou Jiayang's team had collected a large amount of data before, it was definitely not as good as this internal information.
Hutchison's current situation is much worse than he predicted. Among all major businesses, only the retail business and port container terminals are still profitable, while the others are losing money. A large number of real estate projects have basically been suspended, with the number as high as Dozens of them were previously unable to be sold due to plummeting land prices even after construction started. This year things got a little better, but there was no money in the accounts, suppliers did not supply goods, and workers did not start work, forming an endless cycle.
Half an hour later, Qi Dezun smiled and said to Chen Zhiwen: "Sheng Chen, the current situation of Hutchison is probably like this. As for the specific details, if you want to know, I can also give you the information. Now the seaport project and some real estate projects are It's because we have no money that we can't start. According to the current market conditions, if we have a fund of about 150 million, we can start these projects and the entire company can resume normal operations."
One more chapter
(End of chapter)
