Hong Lok Building, Central:
"What, seven properties have been seized by Hutchison? What do you do for food?" Bao Fuda almost jumped up in anger.
On weekdays, this group of people usually appear very kind, but in essence, they are still superior to others. If only one or two properties are intercepted, it doesn't matter, but there are 7 properties at once, and the competitors and Huang are positive and negative. , that’s a gap of 14 companies.
"Sorry, Mr. Bao Fuda, as far as I know, Hutchison Whampoa paid a price that was 10% higher than ours. This price was also much higher than the average market price. Among these seven properties, two were directly acquired by Hutchison Whampoa. Yes." The visitor was also a British man, and at this moment he reported in fluent English.
"Two of them acquired properties, and the other five leased them at high prices." Bao Fuda frowned and said, "This Hutchison is playing really hard. If we really want to play like this, we will have to invest hundreds of millions in the retail market."
"Okay, you go down first." Niubijian, who had been silent for a long time, said to Bao Fuda's men.
"Thank you, Mr. Newbikin." The little British man thanked him quickly, and then immediately withdrew.
"This is our funding problem, no one is to blame." Newbijian said to Bao Fuda.
"I lost my temper." Bao Fuda nodded and said, but this was just to say to his leader Niubijian. Even if he really lost his temper, he would not say it to his subordinates.
Niubijian continued: "It seems that Chen Zhiwen is determined to enter the retail market. Now this makes us very embarrassed. If we withdraw, the tens of millions we have invested in it will be in vain. Maybe we will wait for Hutchison Huang in the future." PARKnSHOP has become a large-scale supermarket. If Chen Zhiwen launches a price war again, our Wellcome will continue to lose money. But if we don't quit and we don't win Hutchison, even if we maintain the current situation, we will have to invest several hundred million. .
You also know the situation at Jardines now. A few hundred million at this time, even with credit, is still a lot of money. "
"I know this, but if we withdraw, we will give up completely. The plan to control the Hong Kong retail market that we have prepared since Henry Keswick will be completely scrapped." Bao Fuda said with some entanglement.
As early as 1972, before the acquisition of Dairy Milk, Henry Keswick, who was still the boss of the Jardine Matheson Group at the time, conducted a comprehensive analysis of Dairy Milk International with Newbijian, Bao Fuda and others. In addition to taking a fancy to the scale of its real estate holdings, the remaining Its milk business, ice factory and retail are all high-quality assets.
As overseas supermarket chains have grown to a large scale, Jardine Matheson Group is also preparing to use Wellcome Supermarket, a subsidiary of Dairy Milk, to complete its control of Hong Kong's retail industry. However, after the acquisition of Dairy Milk, the real estate crisis and the oil crisis broke out, which affected the Jardine Matheson Group. A series of plans, including plans to expand retail supermarkets, have also been temporarily shelved.
However, in the Hong Kong market after 1973, there were basically no large-scale supermarket chains. Local supermarkets were mainly independent, and foreign capital was not accustomed to the local environment. Therefore, the top management of Jardine was not in a hurry and was slowly taking a closer look at the retail market. Come with attitude.
It was not until recently that Jardine suddenly discovered that Hutchison Whampoa, which was acquired by Chinese capital, began to enter the retail supermarket market on a large scale, which aroused their alarm. However, it was obviously too late. Hutchison Whampoa was still willing to invest huge sums of money even if it was heavily in debt. Entering the scene, this disrupted Yihe's plan.
"In the past year, the real estate market has increased a lot. Is there any property under the Land Group that has not used up its credit line?" Newbijian asked again.
Land has a large scale. It owns about 20 buildings in prime locations such as Central, Admiralty and Tsim Sha Tsui. The annual rent of these buildings is 200-300 million Hong Kong dollars, but this does not mean that the money is pure profit, because Land has developed to Nowadays, the business model has always been to rely on renting to support loans. Although the rental income is high, it is basically used to support loans.
Even Land's debt is still higher than that of Hutchison Whampoa. The difference is that Hutchison Whampoa has insufficient collateral, while Land's main core real estate business is not very sensitive to the decline of the real estate market, so it has never been insolvent.
Now that the real estate market has recovered a bit, and the market prices of various buildings have increased, the loan amount has naturally increased as well.
"Yes, yes, but these funds are all planned to be used for the redevelopment of the Central District. It seems a bit uneconomical to allocate funds at this time just for retail. Moreover, Wharf is currently short of funds. I also want Jardine to allocate some more Where are the funds?" Bao Fuda said with a frown.
The Central District redevelopment plan is actually a big hole. This was also a plan proposed by Henry Keswick when he was in office. The main reason was that many of Land's buildings in Central have a long history and are relatively old in interior and exterior decoration. Therefore, it was decided to spend billions Hong Kong Dollar has renovated Hong Kong Land's buildings in Hong Kong, and then connected the buildings with pedestrian bridges to increase the flow of people and ensure that customers will not lose their willingness to shop due to weather conditions.
This idea is a good one, but the funding of one billion Hong Kong dollars is too much, and the real estate crisis and oil crisis have consumed Land's large cash reserves. However, this project, like Harbor City, cannot be stopped at all. Many buildings have been renovated for renovation. The tenants have been relocated at a cost, and the interior is being renovated. The renovation is halfway through, and it is impossible to stop it. If it is stopped, it cannot be rented out. It is also impossible to let the tenants go out and renovate it after a few years.
"Don't think about it. Jardine's sugar cane farm in the Philippines has already lost tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars. South Africa and Australia are also losing money. Overseas, they are still pressing me for money." Newbijian shook his head and said.
In fact, one of the fundamental reasons why Newbijian and others were able to defeat the Keswick family and control the Jardine family was that the Jardine family was taken to the ditch by Henry Keswick and the previous Keswick family. A large number of overseas The investment suffered losses and had to be severely drained from Hong Kong. Hong Kong also missed many opportunities. However, after all, the Jardine Department has a strong foundation. Even if there are long-term operating problems, it will take a long time to break out.
After the global oil crisis broke out, Jardine's overseas investments began to experience an avalanche of crises. It just so happened that Jardine's management changed. So, following the trend, Niubijian and others obtained the management rights of Jardine.
Of course, when it comes to abilities, Niubijian and others also have it, but the previous losses of Yihe were too serious. Many problems are still bleeding Yihe, and it is difficult to stop it.
"Then what should we do? Do we really have to give up?" Bao Fuda frowned and said: "The biggest advantage of the retail industry is that there is a lot of liquidity that can be settled. As long as we win this field, our capital problems will be much better. This But it’s a huge profit.”
"Yes, you are right. The most attractive thing about the retail industry is the amount of funds." Niubijian thought for a while and said, "Well, let me go find Shen Bi and ask him to provide some more funds. Wellcome We must not give up on supermarkets, even if we cannot defeat PARKnSHOP, we still have to control a certain market share."
"The relationship between Shen Bi and Chen Zhiwen is also very good. Will he help us?" Bao Fuda asked. Over the years, although everything seems to be normal on the surface, Jardine Matheson and HSBC are actually competing for the position of the first consortium in Hong Kong, and their relationship is not the same. Not great.
"It is because Shen Bi has a good relationship with Chen Zhiwen that he is even more willing to lend us money. As a bank, they hope that their customers can be more easily controlled," Newbijian said.
"That's true. HSBC is really sitting on the mountain watching the fight between tigers and tigers. We know it is beneficial to HSBC, but there is nothing we can do about it." Bao Fuda said with some displeasure.
"There is no way, no one is the central bank." Newbrick shook his head and said, if HSBC was not recognized as the "central bank" by the Hong Kong government and provided a large amount of financial help and legal protection, Jardine Matheson would have surpassed HSBC in scale. .
"In that case, I will first prepare to win the market on Hong Kong Island. As long as we win Hong Kong Island, we will basically be firmly on the Diaoyutai." Bao Fuda thought for a while and said.
PS: Please give me a monthly ticket
(End of chapter)
