The meeting room of the shareholders' meeting is located on the 11th floor of the Hutchison Building. Everyone inside is sitting in their own seats. Everyone is still chatting with each other. The sound of bustling can be heard above the venue.
At this moment, the door of the conference hall opened. After everyone heard the sound, they subconsciously looked up and saw that two security guards opened the door first, and then a young Chinese and a white guy walked in. It was Chen Zhiwen and Shen Bi.
Everyone immediately fell silent. These two were the most important people in the venue today. They could be said to control half of Hong Kong. And the two of them together seemed to remind the people present of their special significance.
According to the rules of the shareholders' meeting, Hutchison's board of directors or senior executives sit at the top, while Shen Bi sits at the bottom as a bank representative, and his position is naturally in the first row. Similarly, the same is true for representatives of other banks, only the "most important" The shareholders sit in the back. When there are no major shareholders, even Qi Dezun, a wage earner, doesn't care much about these people.
Chen Zhiwen sat in the middle seat on the opposite side, surrounded by Hutchison senior executives Richard and Zhou Jiayang, and on both sides were white British people, who were also the top executives of Hutchison.
"Everyone, thank you very much for coming to attend the Hutchison Group's general meeting of shareholders. On behalf of all the employees of the company, I would like to thank all shareholders for their support of the company during this period." As Hutchison's new chief executive, Richard Richard made his first speech to shareholders. The speeches at the conference were also in Cantonese. Although it is a British-owned foreign company, the majority of shareholders are Chinese. Not everyone present can speak English. On the contrary, the British ghosts who mix in Hong Kong can basically speak Cantonese, especially those who mix in. At the top level, many of them are so high-level that even without looking at it, you wouldn’t know it was being said by a foreigner.
"Due to personal reasons, Mr. Qi Dezun, the former chief executive of Hutchison, resigned ten days ago. I will be the chief executive of Hutchison in the future. At the same time, because he is optimistic about the future of Hutchison, Mr. Chen Zhiwen became our major shareholder in Hutchison through investment. He holds 49.9% of Hutchison shares, and with the approval of the board of directors, we invited him to become the chairman of Hutchison Company, and now we are specifically reporting to the shareholders' meeting to ask for your approval from shareholders." Richard continued.
There was a "buzzing" sound at the venue. Everything was as expected. To become the controlling shareholder, of course you have to become the chairman, but you still have to go through the process. The appointment of the chairman still requires the shareholders' meeting. Permission, but this group of shareholders does not have the right to disagree, is another matter.
The whole process took 5 minutes. All shareholders wrote down their approval or objection according to their shareholding ratio, and then handed it in for review by the people present at the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
It's just that even the people from the China Securities Regulatory Commission don't care. This is obviously just a show. One person owns 49.9%, and the other group of people may not necessarily have 30% in total, because you don't have to be a stock investor to attend the shareholders' meeting. A certain proportion of shares is required, and many Hutchison shares are scattered in the hands of many small shareholders. In addition, some shareholders do not care about this shareholders' meeting, or they have important matters of their own and cannot come. Therefore, the shareholders here , it’s just a part of the remaining 50.1%.
How does this work? It doesn’t work if everyone is against it.
Witnessed by members of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Chen Zhiwen received an overwhelming majority of votes in favor and became the chairman of Hutchison Company.
"Everyone, thank you for your support. I will definitely live up to everyone's expectations and run Hutchison better and better." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.
This vote legally gave him the supreme rights in Hutchison. Simply owning 49.9% of the shares was not enough. It lacked official certification.
"Sheng Chen, you are the major shareholder of Hutchison. We agree with you becoming the chairman. But how will Hutchison be managed in the future? Does Mr. Chen also have to give everyone an explanation? If the stock has fallen like this, can it rise again?" , If it doesn’t work, just file for bankruptcy. With Hutchison having so many assets, we can get some money if we sell them all.” A middle-aged woman below suddenly said.
"Yeah, forget about filing for bankruptcy." A group of booing voices followed, and many people began to get excited. Obviously, many people who supported the idea of filing for bankruptcy agreed.
"Everyone." The microphone's voice suppressed the noise at the scene. Chen Zhiwen said: "Hutchison's assets on the surface do seem to be many, but these assets are actually just like stocks. If you sell one or a few, there will be nothing. The problem is that it can basically be sold at the original price, but if they are all sold, all values will plummet. Who will take over the billions of assets in Hong Kong now?
Have you all been exposed to real estate auctions? A house worth HK$100,000 can basically only be auctioned for HK$50,000. Do you think that after Hutchison's assets are auctioned and the liabilities are deducted, you can still get even a penny?
According to the bankruptcy law, for funds after bankruptcy, employee salaries come first, banks come second, suppliers and partners come third, and shareholders come last. "
"What should we do?" When Chen Zhiwen said this, many shareholders changed their minds.
"I am now the major shareholder of Hutchison. If Hutchison goes bankrupt, I will suffer the biggest loss. Naturally, I have prepared follow-up measures. Next, I will ask Mr. Richard to report Hutchison's operating conditions in the most recent quarter. Let me report it to everyone." Chen Zhiwen said.
In the original history, it was this group of shareholders who forced Qi Dezun to file for bankruptcy. History seems to be repeating itself, but if it were not for the prophetic ability, Hutchison's situation would be really dangerous.
Richard had already prepared the information and spoke into the microphone in an orderly manner about the main business conditions of Hutchison Company.
Although he had read this report a long time ago, when Richard said it, Chen Zhiwen also felt the scale of Hutchison's problem. Seven of its eight major listed companies were losing money, and the only one that was profitable was Watsons, but its profits were also limited. not much.
However, among the seven that lost money, several were real estate companies. When land prices were at their peak in 1972, they received many high-priced projects. As a result, land prices plummeted and the projects had to be suspended.
Fortunately, the Hong Kong government is aware of the general situation of real estate companies and has acquiesced in the development defaults of all real estate companies. Otherwise, if these lands were taken back by the Hong Kong government, Hutchison would immediately go bankrupt.
In addition to real estate, Hong Kong's port business is still profitable, but overseas Indonesian ports have been too much of a drag, resulting in serious overall losses. The infrastructure company Seaport Engineering also suffered considerable losses because it had no projects for a long time.
The rental of other properties has also plummeted due to the plummeting land prices. In addition, Qi Dezun had previously mortgaged these real estates and owed a lot of debt, and the rental income could no longer keep up with the debts.
The remaining businesses, a total of dozens of them, are the products of random acquisitions during the Qi Dezun era. Some of them are actually pretty good, such as a chain car sales company, but most of them have chaotic management and are basically in a state of loss.
The entire Hutchison and its subsidiaries are facing huge debts. Qi Dezun mortgaged properties and then mortgaged stocks, and even went into some gray areas, mortgaging one asset to several companies to obtain funds.
Hutchison's losses were so serious because the debt interest was too high, exceeding Hutchison's own company profitability. In order to repay the loan, it had to continue to borrow money from other banks or financial institutions, demolishing one wall to pay for the other. But in the end, everyone Now that everyone knows about Hutchison's problems, there is nothing left to borrow, and the debt crisis breaks out.
After hearing Richard's return, the shareholders below became even more excited. Hutchison's financial situation is now worse than the last shareholders' meeting. Even if a major shareholder comes now, what will happen?
"Everyone, please be quiet." Chen Zhiwen used the microphone to suppress the noise below and said: "Everyone knows the general situation of Hutchison, so at this shareholders' meeting, I hope that all our shareholders will inject HK$200 million into the company. "
(End of chapter)
