"U.S. dollars? What Chen Sheng means is that the exchange rate of Hong Kong dollars against U.S. dollars will decline in the future?" Huo Jianning immediately understood what the boss meant.
A long time ago, the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate in Hong Kong was anchored to the pound. However, after World War II, the British Empire gradually declined, and the pound exchange rate became very unstable, which seriously affected the Hong Kong economy. Later, the Hong Kong dollar was anchored to the US dollar, with a long-term ratio of 4.5:1. .
But as time went by, two oil crises hit the global economy. In order to stimulate the economy, the Hong Kong government gradually controlled the exchange rate to exceed 5. This was also to restore exports. After all, when housing prices rose sharply, workers' wages also followed. Rising, this is a devastating blow to Hong Kong industries that rely heavily on the export of cheap industrial products, and exports can only be stimulated by lowering the exchange rate.
"Yes, and you also know what will happen soon. I am not very optimistic about the exchange rate of the Hong Kong dollar in the short term. We cannot change this kind of thing, so let's ensure that we do not suffer losses first." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.
After September, the real estate crisis and economic crisis will break out. A large number of wealthy and middle-class people intend to immigrate and want to convert their Hong Kong dollars into US dollars. The Hong Kong dollar exchange rate will face unprecedented challenges. At its lowest point, the Hong Kong dollar will fall to 9.6:1, which is relatively high. The exchange rate has almost doubled compared to now, and even some Hong Kong stores do not accept Hong Kong dollars.
In this environment, all banks in Hong Kong suffered a run, which was much more serious than the Hisense Bank crisis a few days ago. In the end, the Hong Kong government issued an administrative order and imposed legal restrictions on foreign exchange exchanges, which eased the situation. Although the problem still cannot be solved, the Hong Kong government’s foreign exchange reserves were almost depleted.
Although he also has a large amount of U.S. dollars in his hands, if Hisense Bank, a large company, absorbs more deposits and converts them into U.S. dollars without doing anything, it can make a lot of money. This can also be said to be the future of Hisense's international expansion. Basic funds.
"Do we need to convert the Hong Kong dollars in our hands into US dollars?" asked Zhou Jiayang on the side.
"You don't have many Hong Kong dollars in your hands, right?" Chen Zhiwen asked. Hutchison Whampoa had previously invested a lot of money in the gold futures he arranged. Subsequently, this money and part of the profits were returned to Hutchison Whampoa, because part of these funds were foreign debts, but they were also repaid in US dollars, and at that time Hutchison Whampoa began to move towards In terms of international investment, and Hong Kong itself, there were no good investment projects in the mid-1980s.
"Although Hong Kong's real estate market has not been doing well in the past two years, overall, land prices are still at a high level. We have many properties developed on our own land. Together, we have made more than a billion dollars now, plus the regular The cash flow is almost more than 2 billion Hong Kong dollars." Zhou Jiayang said.
"That's okay, you can also exchange some US dollars. Our large-scale exchange may attract attention, so you don't want to be too obvious." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said. Today, Hutchison Whampoa's land reserve is already several times higher than the previous one. It was much less than a year ago. The main reason is that large-scale cashing out has occurred in recent years. Wharf, on the other hand, is much worse. Although there is a lot of land, the prime locations have not been developed for the time being, and the inferior locations have been developed much later. After making a little money, they still need to pay off the debt for the Harbor City project.
"Okay, we will pay attention." Zhou Jiayang said.
Chen Zhiwen nodded, and then said: "In addition to US dollars, do you also know the purpose of lending to real estate?"
“Land is a big piece of meat, and all the Chinese consortiums in Hong Kong want to take a bite of it, but they are too cunning. They used Jardine Land’s interlocking mutual control, locking each other’s controlling rights and unable to take action. Huo Jianning smiled and said: "But this method is just like when Cao Cao tied all the ships together. It is naturally stronger under normal circumstances, but if there is a problem with one ship, the other one will be dragged into the water."
"Yes, this is my purpose. As long as Land's debt is high enough, Jardine Land will only die together." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.
Last year, he encouraged the Hong Kong government to auction the land king in advance, causing the transaction price of the land to increase from HK$4.755 billion to HK$7.3 billion. This move alone gave Land Land nearly HK$3 billion more than it had in history. Liabilities, but because Hong Kong Electric has been acquired by itself long ago, Land has one less acquisition target, which is almost 3 billion Hong Kong dollars. This plus and one minus are almost offset.
However, in the acquisition war of Wharf, Pao Yugang and Land had been engaged in a merger for a long time. When Pao Yugang finally acquired the company at a high price, Jardine Matheson Land took advantage of the high price to cash out a lot of funds.
In the past year or so, Land's strategy has been the same as in its history, purchasing land, properties, or other large companies on a large scale to increase its own scale. It seems that it intends to compare its scale with the companies owned by Chen Zhiwen.
Chen Zhiwen has probably estimated that the current debt ratio of Land Land should be higher than in the original history. However, even the real estate crisis next year has not defeated Land and Jardine in the original history. Therefore, he still needs to "give some more" money” to Land.
"Indeed, if there is really a big problem in the real estate market and Real Estate is in the same situation as Hutchison, then any mutual control tactics will be useless and will drag Jardines down." Huo Jianning nodded and said.
"If you secretly send a message or wish to the top management of Jardine Land, then I can do it." Zhou Jiayang suddenly said.
Huo Jianning asked: "What Zhou Sheng means is that there are people of yours among the senior executives of Real Estate?"
"It's not true that he is one of my people. Such high-level officials generally do not become commercial spies, but there are still some who have good relationships. If it is just to unintentionally pass a message to Newbijian, Bao Fuda and others at the right time, it is No problem, this is not illegal." Zhou Yang said with a smile.
To become a top executive of Hong Kong's top financial group, the direct annual salary alone is probably one million Hong Kong dollars, and the gray income is even more. It is difficult to bribe such a person, unless oneself pays a huge price, but after all, everyone is For a large consortium, even tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars may be nothing, but the problem is that it is openly illegal and involves the mobilization of large funds. It is easy to leave clues. If the Independent Commission Against Corruption is really involved, it will be too troublesome. This is not the case. Not enough, but not worth it.
However, if you do not purchase the other party's core business secrets, but just some ordinary movements, and then use them to judge the other party's investment intentions, etc., these are normal. Any company in the world does this, and secretly passing on information is of no importance.
"Okay, I'll leave this matter to you. Let's release the news that Hisense Bank has a large amount of funds in its hands and intends to find customers with stable properties or stocks as collateral. Land here is struggling to expand and urgently needs funds. It should I won't be able to resist the temptation." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.
Although his assets have far exceeded that of Land, for such a large company with a market value of nearly 20 billion Hong Kong dollars (10 billion after the real estate crisis) to forcefully acquire it, the price is too high. Even if Land owns more than a dozen buildings in Central, it will not It was worth it. Therefore, he had to dig enough holes for Land in the early stage. Anyway, he knew the future trend of real estate and stock market and it was enough to seize the opportunity.
"Okay, I'll make arrangements later." Zhou Jiayang nodded and said.
5 days later:
In most places in Hong Kong, newsstands sell the latest newspapers.
"Hisense Bank officially announced that if people who withdraw their deposits return to renew their deposits, they can regain part of the interest on their previous deposits."
The title of a financial page attracted the attention of many people.
"Dad, what do you think about this?" In a slum in Shatin, a middle-aged woman about 40 years old rushed into the house her family rented with a newspaper.
"What's wrong?" The middle-aged man who was called looked at his wife, then at the newspaper in his hand, and asked, "Did you buy a newspaper?"
"No, I asked for it from someone else." The middle-aged woman said. Although newspapers are cheap, only costing 10 cents each, for their family, they basically don't buy them. After all, they are not food, and there is no need to spend money on them. For this money, many people will throw away the newspaper after reading it. They can still read it, but they can't do it as they please.
"What's the matter?" the middle-aged man asked.
"Look here, Hisense Bank has announced that people who have withdrawn money before can return part of the interest as long as they deposit the money back. I took a look and found that we withdrew 18,000 yuan at that time and half of the interest can be returned." Middle-aged the woman said.
"Half? That's a lot." The middle-aged man stood up immediately. Because he was running a night stall in Hong Kong, when he heard that Hisense Bank had problems before, he immediately went to queue and withdrew his deposit. .
He was still very happy at first, but he didn't expect that Hisense Bank would soon be acquired by Mr. Chen Zhiwen, the richest man in Hong Kong, and then it would return to normal. This made him sad for a long time. The interest rate was very high in the past few years. He saved it for more than 3 years, and the interest rate was They all have more than 3,000 yuan, which is equivalent to the couple's income from setting up a stall for three months. Now that I can return half of it, it is an unexpected surprise.
"Let's go and save money quickly. And I'm thinking that since the richest man, Mr. Chen Zhiwen, has bought Hisense Bank, Hisense Bank should not have any other problems. Otherwise, we can also withdraw the money from our other small banks." Deposit it in?" the middle-aged woman said again.
Everyone knows that it is safer to put money in a big bank, but the interest rate is low, while in a small bank, the interest rate is much higher. In this case, many people go to small banks in order to make more money. Of course , Hisense Bank is actually not too small.
"Okay, more than ten years ago, too many banks in Hong Kong were run on during that time. My former boss went bankrupt at that time. Now it feels like a run is about to happen again." The middle-aged man nodded in agreement.
Some media in Hong Kong have also noticed during this period that there are many more people at the entrances of Hisense Bank branches. However, it is not a run to withdraw money, but also to deposit money. After randomly interviewing a few people, they found that there are actually about 40% of the people. , are new users of Hisense Bank. They come to save money. The first reason is that Hisense was acquired by the richest man in Hong Kong, so it is safer, and the interest rate is still higher than that of HSBC, Hang Seng and Standard Chartered. The second reason is that it is an old deposit user. If you save money again, you can get back part of the previous interest, which is very favorable to people who save money, even those who have never saved money here before.
Hong Le Building:
Newbijian stood on the highest floor of the building, looking down at the pedestrians on the street below who were like ants. Ever since the Connaught Building was built and became the first floor in Hong Kong, he had this feeling of being like an emperor until Wharf was forcibly acquired and slapped him and Yihe severely, which made him very angry at the beginning.
However, when the scale of Chen Zhiwen's industries became larger and larger, to the point that the entire Jardine Matheson Group seemed to be a bit incomparable, he felt that the forced acquisition of Wharf was not a serious slap in the face. Anyway, in Hong Kong, being Chen Zhiwen has forcibly acquired many companies.
No, Ocean Trust Bank, the third largest local bank in Hong Kong, was acquired. Although this was not a forced acquisition, Hisense Bank collapsed so quickly, which always made him feel that there was something wrong, but he had no evidence.
"Dong dong dong" the knock on the door sounded, and Bao Fuda walked in directly.
"What's the matter?" Newbijian asked.
"The Hong Kong government rejected our application to postpone the development of Exchange Square. They required us to start construction within one year in accordance with the original agreement, complete the first phase within three years, and complete the entire project within five years. Otherwise, we will A liquidated penalty of 0.01% is levied every day." Bao Fuda said with a livid face.
"0.01% per day? 730,000 Hong Kong dollars per day? Why don't they go and grab the money?" Newbijian's face turned darker after hearing this. 730,000 is not much for Jardine, but 730,000 Hong Kong dollars per day as liquidated damages, who can bear it? .
The Exchange Building was the land king acquired by Land for 7.3 billion at the Hong Kong government auction last year. Originally, they were very high-spirited and wanted to use this land to further consolidate Land's position in Hong Kong.
However, Hong Kong's real estate market has subsequently undergone periodic adjustments. Land prices in Central have dropped by 20% to 30%. The same is true for land kings. In fact, they did not have so much money when they were able to acquire this land. It was through the first transaction with the Hong Kong government after the auction that we obtained the right to use the land, and then took out a mortgage loan to pay the land price. However, due to the drop in land prices, we went to Japan and the United Bank of Southeast Asia, which we had already negotiated, and asked for additional collateral. , as a last resort, Land also met their requirements, but it also affected Land's credit costs.
This year, due to an opportune time, Land acquired Hong Kong Telephone, and joined hands with consortiums such as Carnegie Corporation and Hang Lung to purchase a large amount of new land and properties. As a result, the entire company's capital chain is no longer sufficient.
However, the house leaked and it rained all night. When the Hong Kong government acquired the Diwang land, they also signed a timetable for land development.
"The results of the Hong Kong government's land auction this year were very poor, and fiscal revenue must have been affected. Moreover, many real estate developers who originally believed that housing prices would rise in the future, like us, may take a wait-and-see attitude when they see that we do not develop transaction buildings. The Hong Kong government insists on our development, and this is probably one of the reasons," said Bao Fuda.
"Can we still find banks to give us credit now?" Newbijian asked.
"HSBC, Standard Chartered, and East Asia all rejected us. Among them, East Asia said that appropriate cooperation is possible, but the development of the Exchange Plaza involves too much money." Bao Fuda said.
"These short-sighted idiots, the future of Hong Kong will be the jewel in the British Empire's eye, and it will also become the financial capital of Asia. In the future, housing prices will definitely be unlimited." Newbijian frowned and said, his concept is deeply rooted, but other banks I really don’t believe them, so there’s nothing I can do if I don’t give them a loan.
"However." Baofuda paused and said, "There is inside information from Hisense Bank. They have a lot of funds and are interested in cooperating with large consortiums in Hong Kong."
(End of chapter)
