July 3, 1977, sunny.
The morning sun was already a bit scorching. In addition, there had been a heavy rain two days ago, and the humidity in the air was high. I only had to stay under the scorching sun for 5 minutes before I felt like I was sweating profusely.
In Hung Hom, outside a single-storey building near the sea, countless people lined up in an S-shaped queue. Some held umbrellas, some wore hats, and some didn't care, but all of them were there. Looking anxiously at the door in front, expecting someone to come out, because if someone comes out, those of them who are queuing up outside will be able to go in.
If a foreigner comes here, he will definitely think that this is some kind of tourist place. Because the number of people is limited, people outside are allowed to queue up. But Hong Kong people all know that this is just a sales center. There are queues like this in Hong Kong. There are too many places.
"These people are really crazy." Even if the air conditioner is blowing in the room, as long as he sees the brightness reflected from the concrete floor outside after being exposed to the sun, Chen Zhiwen can feel the heat outside, but too many people don't Don't care, just wait outside.
"Chen Sheng, in fact, only a few of them are real home buyers. Most of them are scalpers, who come here to speculate in real estate. They keep queuing and lottery. Once they get one, they can resell it. Earn 1,000 Hong Kong dollars." Zhou Jiayang explained with a slight smile beside him.
"1,000 Hong Kong dollars? Ordinary workers at Midea, if they don't work much overtime and don't eat or drink, would probably have to work for more than two months to earn it," Chen Zhiwen said.
In the past two years, with the rise in housing prices in Hong Kong, wages for all jobs in Hong Kong have also begun to rise. Otherwise, many people would not be able to afford to rent a house. Midea factories have naturally increased their wages based on market conditions. Currently, generally Midea workers earn almost HK$400 a month, which is actually pretty good in Hong Kong where food and accommodation are included.
However, the factories that make arcade machines are very busy, and the wages are also very high. They work more overtime, and the income can range from seven to eight hundred, or even thousands. Only those who perform very well in each factory will have the opportunity to be transferred.
But even so, compared to queuing here, the benefits are still too small.
"It's not that easy. We calculate how many suite number vouchers are issued every day. The more people come, the lower the probability of being shaken. There are many people who may not be able to win even if they queue for ten days. Arrive." Zhou Jiayang said.
"These scalpers are real," Chen Zhiwen said, shaking his head.
Nowadays, almost all real estate companies in Hong Kong are implementing lottery restrictions, unless they are in very remote communities.
It’s not that I like to toss house buyers so much, but that most of the people who come to buy houses are real estate speculators. Once these people buy a house, they immediately sell it at a high price. Real estate companies are certainly not fools. This is a good thing. Is it your turn? I won’t raise the price myself?
But housing prices are a trend in themselves. That is, because these people enter the market with a large amount of money, many people who want to buy a house cannot buy it, which also promotes the rise in housing prices. Even if real estate companies increase housing prices, these people still won’t. Stopped.
As a result, many real estate developers began to limit daily shipments and adopted a lottery method. This method was also used in the mainland in later generations, but it only appeared in a few places, but it is everywhere in Hong Kong today.
Even if you get one per month, it is much better than going to work, and many people will take advantage of the mentality of some people who only dare to go to work and dare not work hard, and pay them more than ten yuan a day to wait in line and take advantage of the Diaoyutai.
"There are more scalpers queuing up at Taikoo Shing. The market has been so good recently. Taikoo has also kicked Dachang Real Estate out of the way and now specializes in Taikoo Shing business." Yang Xiao of the Zhou family said.
"It doesn't count as kicking. The breakup fee is about 100 million Hong Kong dollars. Some of the profit earned before will be given to Dachang. It can be said that Dachang has made a lot of money." Chen Zhiwen shrugged and said with a smile.
As early as 1972, the Swire Group decided to develop Taikoo Shing. However, because it did not understand real estate and was timid, it brought in Dachang Properties, which was somewhat famous at the time, to develop Taikoo Shing together. However, it encountered a two-year real estate crisis and the project was suspended. , was relaunched in 1975. Today, the price of houses for sale in Taikoo Shing has more than doubled, and because of its good location, the market is basically in short supply.
In this case, the Swire Group was naturally not happy to share the profits with Dachang and wanted to kick him away. However, breach of contract also came with a price. Dachang received HK$100 million, which became a magical story in the Hong Kong real estate industry. Basically They made more than 100 million Hong Kong dollars without doing anything. However, many real estate companies work very hard to develop more than a dozen projects, but they may not have so many.
"Our second phase has been put on sale, with a total of 3,100 houses. I am currently releasing 100 houses every week, and it is estimated that they will be released in more than half a year." Zhou Jiayang added: "Now we have enough funds to develop the foundation of the third phase. It just so happened that the houses continued to be sold for a period of time, and these funds were used to develop the third house. According to the plan, the third phase of houses will be pre-sold in April next year. We can also follow the half-year plan and start selling in October next year. All the funds will be recovered by the end of the month, so the entire Huangpu Garden project is considered completed."
"Just follow the plan and recover all the funds in the second half of next year." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, "What about Huangpu Business District?"
Huangpu Business District is a commercial project developed on the 800,000 square feet of land acquired by Hutchison Whampoa after its acquisition of Jinzhou Yingni. There are a total of ten buildings on it. After completion, the total construction area will be as high as 5.5 million square feet.
This is a cash cow prepared by Chen Zhiwen for Hutchison Whampoa in the future. In Hong Kong in the future, except for 1983 and 1984, Hong Kong's housing prices have been rising rapidly, and the rental prices are also the same. The rents of Grade A office buildings in Central are also rising. .
Especially after 1985, because foreign capital has to do business with the mainland through Hong Kong, mainland state-owned enterprises also need to do business with overseas multinational companies through Hong Kong.
Regardless of whether it is abroad or domestic, doing business requires face. Whose headquarters is located in a poor place, and outsiders will still do business with you? This has led to office rents in Central rising faster than house prices.
Under such circumstances, how can a company doing business normally endure this?
As a result, they had no choice but to move out, and rents in other towns and cities in Hong Kong also increased.
The location of Hung Hom is very good. It is close to the sea, and there is an undersea tunnel leading directly to Hong Kong Island, plus the future subway. In addition, if Hutchison Whampoa works hard here, it will definitely be more suitable for companies migrating from Central than in later generations.
"The Huangpu Business District is also executing according to the plan. The underground garage has been built and ten office buildings are also under construction at the same time. It is expected to be completed in June next year." Zhou Jiayang said: "Many people have come to inquire about our leasing prices. Yes, our underground garage has three floors, which is our advantage."
"With good supporting facilities, there will be no worries about tenants." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.
Parking in Hong Kong is an eternal problem, so the Huangpu Plaza in front of Huangpu Garden also has a super parking space underground, and the same is true in the Huangpu Commercial District here, which not only facilitates the tenants upstairs, but also allows independent rent collection. .
"All our funds come from banks. HSBC has some objections to this. They want us to advance more funds." Zhou Jiayang added.
"Ignore them, but if HSBC really shrinks its loans, then find some small banks that don't have such high risk control in order to make money." Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and said.
After Hutchison Whampoa bought the land in Yingni, Taizhou, it spent another 98 million Hong Kong dollars to convert the land to commercial properties. This land was formerly a cement factory and there was some pollution on the ground. Hutchison Whampoa had to spend another 2,000 Hong Kong dollars. The earthwork was replaced with 10,000 Hong Kong dollars and the foundation was stabilized. In addition to the funds invested in the previous acquisition of Qingzhou Yingni, a lot of money has been spent.
Therefore, the construction cost of Huangpu Business District relies entirely on banks. They borrow money from banks to build houses using the future value of real estate and rent collection as collateral. This is also a normal routine in Hong Kong, but big banks will still require investors to invest more. The principal goes in to reduce the bank's risk.
"Okay, but the interest rates from these small banks may be a little higher." Zhou Jiayang said.
"Everything you give up has to be gained. Nothing is perfect. After collecting the rent in the future, you can just pay it back slowly. If you want to own a 5.5 million square foot commercial office building at one time, of course you have to pay a certain price." Chen Zhiwen smiled. said with a smile.
In fact, if he had enough funds, he would have already built commercial office buildings on the huge land in Huangpu Garden. The commercial office buildings with more than 10 million square feet would be worth 200 billion Hong Kong dollars by the 1990s, and the annual rent is estimated to be more than HK$200 billion. Ten billion Hong Kong dollars is a completely different Harbor City project.
But the premise is that there are enough funds, and because it is similar to Harbor City, it cannot be done, because it will drag down all the funds of the entire group. If it is really operated like this, the entire Hutchison Whampoa will have to focus on this project within ten years, and can only wait until the housing prices After a sharp increase, the loan can only be repaid to a certain extent before it can recover.
And if you do this, you will also miss too many golden opportunities. Especially if you have a golden finger, the value of many projects is better than such a commercial office cluster. There are even opportunities to obtain better ones that are worthy of long-term holding. s project.
Therefore, Huangpu Garden has been turned into a community just like its original history, so that a large amount of money can be quickly cashed out to make other investments with higher returns. The land obtained from Qingzhou Yingni was not small, but it would not bring down the current Hutchison Whampoa, so Chen Zhiwen decided to turn it into a commercial building business district.
Rent can be collected for a long time in the future, but it will not affect the normal operation of Hutchison Whampoa. Moreover, as long as land prices rise, the value of these office buildings will also increase, and they can be used for second mortgage loans.
Of course, this risk is also very high, and most banks will be more cautious.
"According to the current rental price in Hung Hom, the annual rent collection in Huangpu Commercial District will be HK$50 million. However, the current market interest rate is too high and we are under great pressure to repay the loan. This rent may not be enough to repay the loan." Zhou Jia Yang said somewhat helplessly.
"Interest is a global problem and cannot last for many years. The economies of Europe and the United States cannot bear it. For the time being, we have to find ways to repay loans with loans. Let's take it slow for now. The real estate market will continue to rise." Chen Zhiwen said.
Although I don’t like real estate, but with the golden finger of the prophet, this is really a super cash machine, and even if you don’t participate, others will make some money, so you might as well leave it to yourself and earn it yourself. We will also invest this money in industry to help Hong Kong's economic development, or in China after the reform in the future.
Even in the field of charity, Chen Zhiwen's investment in Hong Kong far exceeds that of other wealthy people. The Huagang Foundation has built 30 Zhiwen primary schools in the past two years. At the same time, it has helped many poor children to reduce tuition fees. In terms of food, it also provides meat at home. and vegetables for students, which are not part of the daily meals of middle-class families. In addition to education, the China-Hong Kong Foundation has also established special project teams in major hospitals in Hong Kong to help poor families who are seriously ill.
"Okay." Zhou Jiayang nodded. As long as the Huangpu business district is completed, Hutchison Whampoa will become one of the top ten property owners in Hong Kong. This is the benefit of large land. This kind of land is very rare. , it will be gone if developed into a community. Otherwise, it may be better to wait until Hutchison Whampoa has sufficient funds to develop it again.
"Okay, you have to pay attention to real estate and try to cash out as much money as possible. I will have a lot of use by the end of next year." Chen Zhiwen stood up and said.
"Chen Sheng, I understand." Zhou Jiayang nodded and said, but he was very curious in his heart. You must know that after the Huangpu Garden project is fully developed, after deducting all loans, construction costs, etc., it will be enough The net profit is 1 billion. If housing prices continue to rise, it will be more than 1 billion Hong Kong dollars, plus a 1.7 million square foot Huangpu Commercial Plaza.
Hutchison Whampoa's other land parcels are also cooperating with different Chinese companies or Galaxy Hengyi. It is estimated that another 4 to 5 billion Hong Kong dollars can be cashed out. In addition, Galaxy itself also has its own real estate projects, which can provide at least 2 billion. Hong Kong dollars.
What are you going to do with so much money? It is definitely not the acquisition of a certain company, because acquisitions in Hong Kong do not need to be so troublesome at all. If every acquisition requires raising funds by itself, there will not be one merger and acquisition in Hong Kong in ten years.
As long as the acquisition target is not in debt crisis like Hutchison before, then you can directly seek a bank loan. Hong Kong banks are happy to do this kind of business, and even international banks are the same.
Not to mention, the boss also has many non-real estate businesses. Midea's arcade machines and Red Bull drinks are very popular in Europe and the United States. In terms of profits, they may not be lower than Hong Kong's real estate.
"Okay, I'll leave first." Chen Zhiwen said. Under his previous arrangements, before the real estate market took off, Hutchison Whampoa, Galaxy Real Estate and even Dad's Hengyi acquired many high-quality assets. Now It is the development stage. At this stage, Chen Zhiwen does not understand and will not participate. He only needs to know the final results and arrange for a third-party review team to come in to review the finances. The rest will be left to professional managers.
The era of huge profits in real estate has arrived. Hutchison, Galaxy, and Dad's Hengyi have long been prepared. With their absolute confidence, if they just roll up their sleeves and get started, they will definitely gain more profits than other peers.
Of course, management ability is also one aspect. Chen Zhiwen is also constantly recruiting teams from several major Chinese real estate companies. This is all he can do. The rest depends on whether he makes a lot of money or a lot.
(End of chapter)
