Time soon came to May, and the housing prices in Hong Kong began to increase further. In each real estate, there were more and more guests viewing the houses. I don’t know if they were real potential home buyers, or just sitting in the sales center with the 200 people in the future. Trust.
But the trend is already obvious, and rising housing prices have become inevitable.
In recent years, a large number of people have poured into Hong Kong, which has not only lowered the average salary of Hong Kong workers, but also raised housing prices and rents, making life even worse for real ordinary people in Hong Kong.
But this is good for capitalists. Fortunately, Midea's factories have very good profits and there are no layoffs. All workers who join now are basically living a comfortable life, and they even have very low-interest loans to buy houses.
The same goes for the stock market. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index has risen from the lowest point of 150 to 430 points, nearly tripling.
Estimating that the time was almost up, Chen Zhiwen ordered Hutchison Whampoa to sell off all the stocks in its hands and cash out almost 150 million Hong Kong dollars. With this extra capital, Hutchison Whampoa's real estate business can develop calmly.
Central, Hutchison Building Headquarters:
"With this amount of money, Huangpu Garden can develop 20 buildings at once plus the funds for the commercial center. There is no problem at all. Chen Sheng's overseas funds have not even been used." Zhou Jiayang said with a smile.
Generally, real estate companies develop large-scale land in multiple phases, ranging from five to six to closer to ten. After the first phase is developed, they have the funds to develop the next phase. For example, Taikoo Shing, a subsidiary of the Swire Group, The project is smaller than Whampoa Gardens, but only five or six buildings will be built in each phase, which is far behind the 20 buildings developed in the first phase of Hutchison Whampoa.
Although the real estate industry mainly relies on spending other people's money, such as borrowing from banks, asking builders to advance money, etc., after all, it is impossible to advance 100%, and builders are not fools. They will definitely need money to a certain extent. Banks have no control over risk control. There is also a certain amount of control. If you want to develop real estate, you still have to prepare a lot of money.
It is said that when the pre-sale system was first introduced in Hong Kong, real estate development companies not only did not need to advance money but also obtained more funds through multiple channels by borrowing money paid in advance by ordinary people plus bank loans and advance money from architects. As a result, the real estate companies at that time Naturally, the funds were used to expand significantly, but in the end they ran out of money, resulting in heavy losses for the bank. In the end, the Hong Kong government restricted the pre-sale system. Pre-sales could only start eight months before the house was capped.
Otherwise, Hutchison Whampoa would not need so much capital to develop Whampoa Garden.
"If the local market rises, the stock market will naturally rise. These two are basically barometers of Hong Kong's economy. Next, we have to sell off all the non-core business stocks in our hands." Chen Zhiwen said calmly.
Large companies in Hong Kong will not only find ways to invest in multiple businesses, but also invest in various directions, especially when large companies have a lot of funds, they prefer this. Hutchison used to be this type. At its peak, Hutchison, owned by Qi Dezun, controlled 8 Hong Kong companies in the top 100 by market value and became the major shareholder of 27 listed companies in total.
Chen Zhiwen doesn't know about the future of these companies, and has no interest in analyzing each one. Everyone is mainly involved in real estate. Instead of putting money in the hands of others, it is better to take it back to develop their own land, or buy other high-quality land. Investments with leverage have the highest returns.
You know, in the following years when the real estate market soared, even Li Jiacheng's Cheung Kong Holdings did not see its stock price rise more than ten times. However, as long as an ordinary person dared to buy a house with leverage and then left it there, real estate prices would reach their peak. When trading, you will earn more than ten times, because leverage can double your profits.
In the whole of Hong Kong, there are basically few companies whose income growth can exceed that of Cheung Kong Holdings. In other words, as long as they escape before the peak of real estate, the income growth efficiency with closed eyes will exceed that of Cheung Kong Holdings stocks.
In the context of growth, Chen Zhiwen will naturally want to clean up the non-core business stocks held by Hutchison. However, because he is a major shareholder in many companies, it will take some time to withdraw completely.
Zhou Jiayang thought for a while and said: "It's just that, Hutchison Whampoa's influence in Hong Kong is really getting smaller and smaller."
In the past six months or so, Hutchison Whampoa has sold various marginal businesses on a large scale and reduced its employees by thousands. Now it has begun to liquidate many of its company stocks. You must know that during the Qi Dezun era, Hutchison Group retained control over these Due to the company's influence, many investments are made by everyone together, which ensures that Hutchison can gather more funds.
"Don't worry about these little things. What I have to do is try to gather the most funds before the end of 1978. Besides, why do we need these small companies to show our strength." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.
"Okay, I understand." Zhou Jiayang nodded and said. Chen Zhiwen had repeatedly said that he would gather all the cash before the end of 1978. Even the development of Huangpu Garden would require a heavy investment to ensure that it was completed before the deadline. Naturally, he knew for sure. It will be of great use then, but I don’t know what it is? Are you going to take action against some big British asset?
However, the boss did not tell him, and he did not speculate too much, and then asked: "Chen Sheng, can we continue to acquire Wharf stocks? Now that land prices have begun to recover, the Hang Seng Index is also rising, and we are now considered to have got rid of the original acquisition. With Hutchison’s financial constraints, I’m afraid that delaying the process will increase our future costs.”
"In the past six months or so, Jardine Matheson has added a lot of Wharf stocks, right?" Chen Zhiwen suddenly asked.
In fact, this is a normal operation. When Hutchison Group was suddenly acquired by Chen Zhiwen, other British investors would naturally be shocked. After all, British investors are not good at real estate development, but they are not fools. They buy real estate and drink milk without spending a penny. After completing the acquisition, this business merger and acquisition case will be considered a classic even 50 years later.
"Yes, Jardine Matheson has increased its investment in Land and Wharf, but the effect is not obvious. Land's scale is too big. Even in the second half of last year, the market value exceeded HK$5 billion. Considering the growth effect of the stock market, Jardine Matheson wants to An increase of 10 points would require at least HK$800 million. The market value of Wharf is much smaller, but in 1973-74, in order to develop Harbor City, Wharf issued additional shares many times. I estimate that the Wharf shares held by Jardine Matheson It’s less than 10%, and we are now the largest shareholder of Wharf.” Zhou Jiayang said with a smile.
"It's a pity that we, the largest shareholder, cannot obtain the company's management rights." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said that it is useless to become a major shareholder. If you want to obtain stable management rights, you must start at least 35%, and it is absolutely safe when you reach 49 .
In the original history, Pao Yugang obtained 30% of the shares of Wharf, while Jardine Matheson only had 20%. However, the latter firmly controlled Wharf until Pao Yugang spent 2 billion Hong Kong dollars in one go to Only when his equity was increased to 49% could he completely defeat Jardine.
Zhou Jiayang continued: "The Harbor City project consumes too much money. The original budget was 1 billion Hong Kong dollars, but the current trend is that 2 billion is not enough. It cannot be stopped. Once it is stopped, the previous 1 billion investment will be lost." It’s all in vain, and the entire Wharf will go bankrupt immediately.”
"Actually, just selling the properties in Harbor City will be enough to solve this problem. Unfortunately, people in Yihe are too obsessed with self-sustaining properties and can't get out of this circle." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said.
The original land of Harbor City was also one of the three major piers in Hong Kong. It is named after the current Taikoo Shing and Whampoa Gardens. In terms of location, although it is on the Kowloon Peninsula, it is opposite Central. With the help of the Star Ferry, the location here is not at all Not worse than Taikoo Shing.
If this kind of land is developed into a community like Taikoo Shing, it is estimated that it will easily earn one billion. However, Jardine's senior management obviously hopes that this can become a business model that can replace Central's annoying hot and rainy days in warm winters and summers, so they built Harbor City.
Judging from the future situation, this idea is correct. Harbor City has become the largest shopping mall in Hong Kong. By the 21st century, the annual rent collection will exceed 10 billion Hong Kong dollars. But obviously all this has nothing to do with Jardine, because now Excessive investment led to Wharf's financial problems being full of loopholes, and it had to dilute its shares on a large scale, and was eventually snatched away by Bao Yugang.
In this life, of course it’s me.
"Land has been making money in Central for decades. Jardine Matheson probably hopes that Wharf will become like this." Zhou Jiayang said with a smile. When the funds are sufficient, he will purchase a large number of Central properties and wait for the appreciation in value. Collecting huge amounts of money is indeed very profitable. Unfortunately, Hutchison Whampoa does not have the ability to do so now.
"The acquisition of Wharf is not in a hurry. I just want to acquire slowly. So let's restart the acquisition of Wharf stocks now. Everything should be stable and the acquisition should be slow." Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and said.
In fact, apart from the funding issue, one of the main reasons why Chen Zhiwen has not taken action on Wharf is to allow Jardine Matheson to spend more funds on Harbor City. After all, if he acquires it, he will also have to pay for the one billion Hong Kong dollars. Otherwise, if Harbor City is ruined, what's the point of acquiring Wharf?
"Okay, I will try my best to acquire the most stocks at the lowest cost." Zhou Jiayang asked again: "What about the funds?"
"I will also transfer from overseas." Chen Zhiwen said.
PS: Please give me a monthly ticket
(End of chapter)
