"Sheng Chen, Huoduoli has agreed to be our financial advisor for the acquisition of Qingzhou Yingni, and we are ready to contact the major shareholders of Qingzhou Yingni." Early in the morning, Zhou Jiayang brought the good news.
"Okay, then let's wait for the good news about making more profits." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.
Although the takeover war that breaks out in the stock market looks very majestic and the two sides are constantly fighting, for the acquirer, if it turns into a stock market takeover war, it will definitely result in losses.
For example, in the original history, Pao Yugang acquired Wharf, and it took two years for the two parties to fight. In the end, Pao Yugang spent HK$2.1 billion to acquire 20% of Wharf shares, successfully defeating Jardine Matheson, and gaining control of the entire Hong Kong. It has left a strong mark on business history.
But what's the cost? The total market value of Wharf has been directly raised from HK$1 billion before the acquisition to more than HK$10 billion at the end of the acquisition war. Just 20% of the shares acquired in the last few days can buy 2 Kowloons 2 years ago. The total market value of the warehouse. After the acquisition of Wharf, Wharf's stock was almost cut in half. It was just a book loss. In one day, Bao Yugang lost 700 million Hong Kong dollars. In addition, global interest rates were at a high level at the time, and the interest rate was Hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars in losses.
Although in the long run, the acquisition of Wharf was lower than the Bao Yugang family's strategic goal of abandoning the ship and landing, but judging from the literal data at the time, it still resulted in too many losses. The profits made in shipping over the years , a lot was spent on this acquisition.
If it weren't for the tug-of-war, there might not be a need to spend so much money.
Compared with the acquisition strategy of another person, Li Jiacheng was much more successful.
In the original history, Li Jiacheng was the first to acquire Yonggao Company, which is also the first acquisition of the American company that owns Hilton hotel properties by Chen Zhiwen in this generation. Like Chen Zhiwen a few years ago, Li Jiacheng's acquisition of Yonggao was also completed in a low-key manner. After acquiring Qingzhou Yingni, they also acquired enough shares to become a shareholder, and then slowly replaced the controlling family and gained controlling rights.
Cheung Kong Shetonxiang acquired Hutchison Whampoa, not to mention that by negotiating with HSBC, it basically acquired Hutchison Whampoa with a market value of HK$2.5 billion and total assets of more than HK$6 billion. Hutchison Whampoa's subsequent acquisition of Hong Kong Electric was also Negotiations were held with Jardine Matheson at the time (Jardine Matheson Group acquired Hong Kong Electric Group in the early 1980s), and while Jardine Matheson was weak, it acquired Hong Kong Electric Group at a preferential price.
It can be said that Li Jiacheng's acquisitions were all completed in a gentle manner. Even if there was a struggle, it was outside the stock market. Although the momentum was far inferior to that of Bao Yugang, who had a head-on confrontation with Yihe, it was obtained at the minimum cost. To acquire an asset larger than Wharf, this is a truly successful acquisition.
This time, Chen Zhiwen will not spend several years to complete the acquisition of Qingzhou Yingni like Li Ka-shing. However, in the early stage, he still has to keep a low profile as much as possible. This is the purpose of entrusting the company to earn more profits.
Chen Zhiwen continued: "Midea has mobilized a lot of funds from overseas. Next, it will mainly develop PARKnSHOP supermarkets or Watsons stores, directly purchase properties in suitable places, and then open supermarkets. In this way, the property aspect will As real estate values appreciate and profits are made, PARKnSHOP does not need to pay rent every year.”
In the retail industry, in the Asian operating model, the biggest cost in many cases is rent. In later generations of the mainland, when many international giants entered the country in the 1990s and 2000s, they operated on leases of 15-20 years, starting from the control of foreign capital. From a risk perspective, this logic is sound.
But in the field of real estate in China, we learned from Hong Kong. As a result, 20 years later, that is, around 2015, these international retail giants were faced with rent expiration and rising rents. In the end, many of them chose to close their doors.
On the contrary, domestic domestic retail companies or Bayan retail companies (RT-Mart, etc.) try their best to hold properties themselves or control the proportion of properties they hold. Although this leads to slower development in the early stage, it will have a lot of benefits in the later stage. Strong cost advantage.
Today's housing prices in Hong Kong have just started to rise in this wave. Now that we have some funds in hand, we can naturally purchase these properties. Anyway, as long as housing prices are rising, even if we need money again in the future, we can use these high-quality properties as collateral. Come for a loan, and because it has increased two or three times, you can easily lend more money than you do now.
"Okay, I will buy two to three hundred properties first. If I open a supermarket next, it will be a dimensionality reduction blow to other supermarkets." Zhou Jiayang said with a smile.
"Okay, but don't forget about Wellcome Supermarket, a subsidiary of Landmark. After Landmark acquired the milk, it invested a lot in Wellcome, and many properties are also Landmark's properties." Chen Zhiwen said.
"In the future, our only opponent will probably be Huikang." Zhou Jiayang nodded and said.
"Then let's fight for capital. It won't hurt us to consume Jardine's capital now," Chen Zhiwen said.
In the retail industry, especially in places like Hong Kong, the competition is capital. After all, this place is different from Europe and the United States. In Europe and the United States, the area is too large and the people live in scattered places. Although supermarkets cannot be built anywhere, there is no choice. There are many places, and therefore, even if there are giants such as Kmart and Sears with a turnover of tens of billions of dollars in the past, Wal-Mart will also have the opportunity to rise in the future.
But in a place like Hong Kong, where the population density is high, there are not many places to choose from in supermarkets. Once it is controlled by capital, others will have little chance. Before the 1970s, big capital still looked down upon the scattered retail industry. But with the success of supermarket chains overseas, supermarkets in Hong Kong have also begun to capitalize.
Especially after Land acquired Dairy Milk International, Wellcome Supermarket, a subsidiary of Dairy Milk International, has gradually become one of the core businesses that Land intends to develop.
Anyway, if I want to acquire Wharf in the future, I won't lose anything if I compete with Land in other areas now.
"Actually, with the current development, it is only a matter of time before we have business conflicts with several major foreign banks." Zhou Jiayang thought for a while and said.
"Yes, let's try it first." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said. After all, it is just a small city. When it expands internally, it is bound to be a matter of time for conflicts to occur.
Tsim Sha Tsui:
This is one of the most commercially developed areas outside of Hong Kong Island.
On the ground floor of a 15-story building, a middle-aged bald man and a few boys were picking up various decoration and construction waste on the first floor.
"Boss, all the fine wooden floors here have been smashed?" a foreman said with some reluctance.
"Nonsense, if you don't want to smash it, why would you leave it here? The next boss here is going to open a supermarket. How many days can your wooden floor last for a few days?" The bald man said while smoking a cigar.
There used to be a hotel here, but the economy was not very good in the past two years and it closed down. Then it was shut down for more than a year. I originally thought I could rent it out again when the economy improved, but I didn't expect that I went directly to the sponsor to buy it. The donor requested that all useless things here be cleared away, so naturally he had to arrange for someone to clean it up.
"What a pity." The contractor said with some regret.
"If you can't bear it, just be careful and take it out slowly, maybe you can still sell it for some money." Bald Head laughed.
"Forget it, if you are careful you can take it out without damaging it, but this kind of second-hand wooden floor cannot be sold for a lot of money, and it will waste too much time." The contractor shook his head and said.
"Then don't go to work." The bald head looked at him, and the frightened foreman quickly ran to give orders to his men.
"Old Dong?" A familiar voice came from behind. The bald old Dong looked back and said with a smile, "Hey, Old Wu? What are you doing here?"
"What else can happen? As I said last time, we bought your house for 2 million Hong Kong dollars. How are you thinking about it?" After Old Wu Gang finished speaking, he looked at the workers around him and asked, "What are you thinking about?" Is the house rented out again?”
"It's not rented out, but it has been sold. Now I just want to clean up the place and let my sponsor take over smoothly." The bald old Dong said with a smile.
"What? You sold it? Who can offer a higher price than Land?" Lao Wu's heart suddenly bled. You know, he can get almost 10,000 Hong Kong dollars in agency fees from this transaction. He originally thought it was a sure win. , I just needed to polish off the bald head in front of me, and then I could make a little more, but I didn't expect that such a big store would be sold in just one week.
"The offer was higher and it was easy to pay, so I naturally sold it. Lao Wu, you are just too greedy. I want to thank you very much. If you had been more easy-going, I wouldn't have been able to earn an extra 100,000 Hong Kong dollars." Yeah, hahahaha." The bald old man laughed.
"Then, who bought it?" Old Wu was heartbroken, but he still had to know who cut off Hu. You must know that he was the one who promised to buy the land. This shop was a sure thing, but now something went wrong.
"I really don't know about this, but what I do know is that they are planning to open a supermarket just like the Land behind you. As for which one it is, you will naturally know when it opens in the future." The bald old Dong shrugged He said with a shrug.
…
The same thing happened continuously in various districts of Hong Kong throughout August. Hutchison Whampoa Capital began to acquire large-scale stores in good locations with an area of about 5,000-10,000 square feet, which still attracted some people's attention.
Hong Kong, Connaught Building:
This is currently the tallest building in Hong Kong. It is close to Victoria Harbor and belongs to the Land Group. It is currently the headquarters of the Jardine Matheson Group, which houses the core businesses of Jardine Matheson itself, Land, Wharf, Maxim's Food, and Cultural Oriental Hotel. The headquarters are all here.
"Dong dong dong" There was a knock on the door.
Newbijian was busy with official duties. He looked up when he heard the voice and saw that it was Baughford, the chief executive of Real Estate, and said quickly: "Please come in."
Bao Fuda came over and said: "Nubijian, this is the news that the person in charge of Wellcome Supermarket just reported to me. They are looking for suitable shops all over Hong Kong, and then purchase or lease them to open new supermarkets, but recently For a period of time, Hutchison Whampoa has also been acquiring a large number of such assets. His funds cannot compete with Hutchison Whampoa, and he wants the head office to provide some help."
"Hutchison? Is Chen Zhiwen preparing to enter the Hong Kong retail market?" Newbijian took the information and looked at it. It turned out that in less than half a month, the six potential store locations that Wellcome Supermarket had chosen had all It was acquired directly by Hutchison Whampoa.
Hong Kong is not big, and there are not many locations suitable for opening supermarkets. When two giants are thinking about expanding in this market, they will definitely easily influence each other and even compete for properties. I only know about 6 properties, but I don’t know. I don’t know how many there are.
"When Qi Dezun still controlled Hutchison, he opened the PARKnSHOP chain of supermarkets in 1970. By the time the real estate crisis broke out in 1973, there were almost 20 stores, which were small in scale, and many of them were leased. Later, with Remember that PARKnSHOP has basically not developed much since it fell into a debt crisis. It was only recently that it suddenly started to expand on a large scale. Judging from what is known now, Hutchison seems to have invested a lot of money and acted in a hurry. It seems that there is no lease. They are all direct acquisitions of properties." Bao Fuda said with a frown.
After China Land acquired Dairy Milk International, it spent a year sorting out the various businesses of Dairy Milk. Although the main purpose of Dairy Land's acquisition of Dairy Milk International was to acquire the large amounts of land owned by Dairy Farm in Causeway Bay and Pok Fu Lam, Dairy Farm as a company The top 30 companies in Hong Kong once had many high-quality assets.
The Dairy Milk Company owns the largest ice factory and the largest milk sales channel in Hong Kong. It has more than 400 sales stations in Hong Kong, covering half of the population in Hong Kong. All of these commodity businesses have been given to Jardine Group's Maxim's Food.
Naturally, the land of the Dairy Company was given to Real Estate. However, due to the real estate crisis at that time, it was not developed for the time being. The remaining business, Wellcome Supermarket, made the Jardine Group very satisfied. This can be said to have filled the gap of Jardine in the retail business. There was a gap, so Jardine Matheson decided to invest more money in Wellcome to develop it into the largest supermarket in Hong Kong, making it one of the main businesses of Jardine Matheson Group in Hong Kong.
However, the process is not rushed. After all, no major capital company has entered the retail supermarket industry in Hong Kong, and Jardine Matheson’s capital turnover in the past one or two years has not been ideal. Therefore, the expansion of Wellcome Supermarket is to take its time. Intended to acquire or lease properties at the lowest cost.
But unexpectedly, I suddenly ran into Hutchison Whampoa.
"Chen Zhiwen is different from us. He doesn't seem to be interested in investing in many fields. He has sold almost all of Hutchison's businesses. His purpose should be to gather funds and fully develop in several fields. , his Midea and Red Bull are like this. He has made a lot of money in Europe and the United States. Now that he is suddenly purchasing supermarket properties, he must be preparing to invest on a large scale." Niubijian thought for a while and said.
As a special figure who suddenly emerged in Hong Kong's business history, Chen Zhiwen's development process has long been interpreted by many shopping mall elites. Naturally, they also discovered Chen Zhiwen's business methods, which is to choose several business directions and then make every effort to make them bigger and stronger. Instead of being like the foreign banks in Hong Kong, they want to develop hundreds of businesses when they grow up.
As the chief executive of the Jardine Matheson Group, Newbigan is also a rare non-Keswick family chief executive in the more than 100-year history of Jardine Matheson. He has the ability to take away the crown of Jardine Matheson from the Keswick family. Naturally, he is also an elite figure in the business world. Maybe he will make wrong judgments in some career decisions, but he is still very strong in analyzing things and people.
"So what should we do now? The Hong Kong retail market is so big. If Hutchison Whampoa invests huge amounts of money and gets a lot of high-quality locations first, we will be at an absolute disadvantage. Especially the Galaxy Trading under Chen Zhiwen, the main business direction is overseas. If the orders from retail giants allow them to successfully build supermarkets all over Hong Kong, it will be basically impossible for us to catch up in the future." Bao Fuda said worriedly.
Every supermarket has a coverage area. Once a supermarket is built in a place, people within a certain radius will basically become its customers. Hutchison Whampoa’s investment speed is obviously faster than that of Landmark. Once the supermarkets are dense enough, then This may be the case for the whole of Hong Kong. Once the scale advantage is formed and the cheap goods of Galaxy Trade are added, Yihe may need to pay greater costs if it wants to seize the market again. This is basically equivalent to cutting off Yihe. And the idea of monopoly retailing.
Unless now, at the beginning, we compete with the opponent for capital and seize high-quality positions.
"This is really troublesome. Now it's not just a matter of grabbing commercial land, but even if we invest almost the same amount of money, we still can't beat Hutchison Whampoa. So in the future, we will definitely compete in the retail market together. This may take who knows how long. There’s a price war.” Niubijian said with a frown.
Although Newbijian took advantage of various opportunities last year to defeat the Keswick family and obtain the supreme management rights of Jardine Matheson Group, the mess of Jardine Matheson Group is getting bigger and bigger, and he also needs to expend energy to deal with it. all of these.
The huge losses of Jardine Matheson's overseas business have caused the capital chain in Hong Kong to become tense. If Hong Kong land prices had not increased in the past year, it is very likely that Jardine Matheson would have become the next Hutchison.
At this time, although Jardine Matheson does not need to stop expansion, it also gives priority to businesses that do not have too much risk or do not require a large investment. The retail industry where no giants have entered the market is a good choice, but Hutchison Whampoa Entering the venue is another matter.
If it were just one Hutchison, Niubijian wouldn't be afraid. But behind Hutchison, Chen Zhiwen owns a large number of high-quality industries and has a strong capital base. Its overseas development is also very smooth, and there are even some It is predicted that the export output value of the entire Chen Zhiwen company may reach 5% of the entire Hong Kong this year, which is a very scary ratio.
The current situation of Jardine Matheson is not very good. It is obviously not cost-effective to go head-to-head with Hutchison in the retail market. However, Land has invested a lot in Wellcome in the past two years. If it suddenly stops, the previous money will not be a loss. , but it will definitely take a long time to get back the money.
Bao Fuda thought for a while and said: "How about we talk to Chen Zhiwen? Although Hutchison Whampoa has obtained a lot of funds through weight loss, such heavy debts are still there. It is estimated that Chen Zhiwen himself does not want to confront us."
"You can't expect Chen Zhiwen to give up after talking to us, right? I know his business strategy very well. Now that he has decided on it, he will definitely not give up. Moreover, he is still a young man. This kind of person, no matter how humble he is on the surface, , I am also very arrogant inside." Niubijian frowned and said.
Bao Fuda said: "It is impossible for him to give up, but if everyone sets rules and everyone does his own thing, it should be fine."
"Okay, then go and try it." Niubijian nodded and said.
PS: In the past few days, the order will be adjusted every time I update.
(End of chapter)
