Chapter 379 Cooperation with Standard Chartered Bank
Chapter 379 Cooperation with Standard Chartered Bank
"Well, OK." Yang Wendong nodded and asked, "What about the ham sausage? How is the research going at Dongsheng?"
Instant noodles and sausages can be said to be a perfect match. Although the nutrition is a little lacking, they can easily fill your stomach. Before any economy reaches a high enough level, the market for these two things is huge.
Even people in Europe and the United States, who don't eat instant noodles much, like sausages very much. One reason is that the taste itself is very good, and the other is that their traditional sausages are too hard and too oily, and not everyone likes them.
Zhou Haoran said: "Dongsheng has already made equipment to extrude starch and meat together, which can make sausage-like shapes.
The outer packaging has been made, but the rapid packaging equipment and corresponding production lines have not yet been developed.”
"Okay, we can only wait a little longer." Yang Wendong replied.
He naturally knew how ham sausage was packaged in his previous life. Although he didn't know why it was designed that way, since it was the mainstream, there must be a reason for it.
Yang Wendong has also registered a patent for this type of outer packaging and informed Dongsheng, but it is much more complicated to quickly package the finished ham sausages on the assembly line.
Zhou Haoran added: "Dongsheng has grown very fast in the field of equipment development in the past two years, and has also recruited many senior design engineers from overseas. I think they will be able to figure it out soon."
"The investment in Dongsheng is still worthwhile. Not to mention the economic benefits, just being able to design so many devices for me saves me a lot of time." Yang Wendong also said with a smile.
Time travelers have a lot of creative ideas, but these are just products and terminal products. In the absence of corresponding equipment, they will need a professional equipment company.
If there were no such companies in Hong Kong, they would have to go to Japan. Not to mention the cost, the communication time and the different language and culture would delay too many things. Therefore, in the early days, Changxing Group specifically supported such companies with funds, just to ensure that some of the new non-standard equipment it needed could be produced in Hong Kong.
Of course, even with all the support, Hong Kong can only produce ordinary production lines, and some complex ones still have to be purchased. However, Changxing Industrial's products are simple in themselves, and most of the equipment can be provided locally, which is very important for improving efficiency.
As for the future, we will talk about it in detail later. In the future, many equipment related to the electronics industry will indeed not be able to be produced in Hong Kong or Taiwan, and can only be imported from Europe and the United States. This is also the difficulty in developing the basic electronics industry. However, in the early days of chips or LCDs, there was no global blockade of technology. As long as we plan early, we will be able to catch up.
Zhou Haoran smiled and said: "Yes, Dongsheng is already able to produce various types of injection molding and textile equipment, and is also researching beverage production lines. It is indeed very beneficial to our group."
Yang Wendong nodded and said, "Okay, that's it for today, but the supermarket won't always be like this. If you want to promote it to all sales outlets in Hong Kong, you can go find Zhao Chengguang.
In addition, if the production capacity is sufficient, we can send it to Taiwan, where we also have channels, and then gradually send it to Southeast Asia or Japan. "
When the group is large enough, the channels created for the previous products can also be used for the later ones, and even the brand, which leads to lower and lower costs in the later stages.
"Okay, no problem." Zhou Haoran agreed.
Friday, January 1964, 1:
Yang Wendong was invited to the headquarters of Standard Chartered Bank in Central, Hong Kong.
"Hello, Mr. Yang, welcome to Standard Chartered Bank." Albert, the head of Standard Chartered Bank, and many bank executives greeted him at the door.
Standard Chartered Bank obviously attaches great importance to the founder of the most successful Chinese consortium in Hong Kong today.
"Hello, Mr. Albert." Yang Wendong also said politely.
Albert smiled and said, "Mr. Yang, let me introduce you. This is from Standard Chartered Bank."
With Albert's introduction, Yang Wendong became familiar with everyone, and the same was true for himself.
After the introduction, everyone went to the top floor of Standard Chartered Bank, a conference room on the eighth floor.
"Mr. Albert." Yang Wendong looked around and out the window, and said, "With the current reputation of Standard Chartered Bank, this headquarters seems a bit inappropriate?"
Among the Chinese banks in Hong Kong today, several giants are working hard to build high-rise headquarters buildings. For example, Hang Seng has a 22-story building in Central, and Bank of East Asia has an 18-story building. Other small banks are slightly inferior, but generally have more than ten floors.
On the one hand, it may be due to comparison, office needs, etc. On the other hand, having a good headquarters building is the best advertisement for one's own bank, and it can also make people feel at ease to deposit money.
The same was true of Liu Chong Hing Bank a few years ago.
Standard Chartered Bank, the second largest British bank in Hong Kong, currently has its headquarters in a rather shabby building, with only six floors, but it is not small in size.
Albert said helplessly: "Yes, I think so too, but there is no way. We are a branch bank, and large investments require the consent of the British headquarters. They just don't agree and think that this headquarters is enough."
"If this happens, it will indeed affect normal development." Yang Wendong asked again: "I don't know, what did the UK headquarters of Standard Chartered Bank say about the cooperation we discussed last time?"
In fact, in history, one of the main reasons for the decline of Standard Chartered Bank was that its branches had no decision-making power, which led to many policies formulated based on the local market being rejected by the UK.
Even the profits that Standard Chartered earned in the Hong Kong market were transferred to the headquarters. Under such circumstances, it would be strange if it did not decline.
Albert said: "The headquarters is also very happy to cooperate with Mr. Yang, but the amount involved this time is too large, so we hope that Mr. Yang can consider cooperating with other banks."
"Okay, I understand." Yang Wendong nodded and said, "Then I will contact HSBC later and ask for their opinions."
Normal companies will seek other consortiums to participate in projects that they are not sure of or involve a lot of risks, so that they can share the risks.
The same goes for banks. Unless they are very sure, large projects usually form a banking consortium. "Okay, I will also negotiate with HSBC," Albert said with a smile.
Yang Wendong asked again: "I heard that your relationship with HSBC is not very good, right? I haven't heard of any cooperation between you two for a long time?"
Albert shook his head and said, "It's not that we are bad, it's just that we have been competing for many years. Besides, Mr. Yang also knows that Standard Chartered's scale is gradually not as large as HSBC, so we have fewer cooperation opportunities."
"That's fine." Yang Wendong nodded.
In the competition among British banks in Hong Kong, Standard Chartered still lost to HSBC, so that the gap became increasingly larger after the 60s, and eventually became inferior to Hang Seng and even Chinese banks such as Hisense.
Of course, this refers to the size of Standard Chartered's bank in Hong Kong. Standard Chartered's headquarters is quite large.
After leaving Standard Chartered Bank, Yang Wendong went directly to HSBC and was invited to Sanders' office.
"Mr. Yang, I heard that you just went to Standard Chartered Bank?" Sanders said with a smile while making tea.
Yang Wendong didn't care at all and asked, "Mr. Sanders, I can't hide anything that happened in Hong Kong from you."
"Haha, that's not the case." Sanders said with a smile, "I have a pretty good relationship with Standard Chartered Bank. I just found out about Mr. Yang's visit to Standard Chartered Bank."
"I see." Yang Wendong smiled and said, "Mr. Sanders, this business cooperation is naturally selective."
Placing people in rival companies is normal and not even illegal, because it does not count as espionage;
As long as it does not involve the sale of core company information, it is difficult to legally determine that it is illegal to tell others what you see and hear in the company.
"Of course." Sanders nodded and said, "But HSBC and Mr. Yang have been cooperating for many years. HSBC can basically meet Mr. Yang's needs."
"But Mr. Sanders didn't say that before." Yang Wendong said with a faint smile.
Sanders said, "Yes, considering the risks is also something I have to do, but the board of directors of our bank has approved the cooperation with Mr. Yang. In terms of the amount, we can fully meet your needs, but there are some small conditions."
"What conditions?" Yang Wendong asked.
Sanders replied: "Interest and mortgage, Mr. Yang also knows that the risk of this investment is relatively high, so as a bank, I naturally need high interest as a return;
As for mortgage, we still hope to obtain stable collateral, such as some of your real estate in Hong Kong, or Changxing Industry. "
"If there is a stable collateral, then why should your interest be higher?" Yang Wendong asked in return.
Sanders smiled and said, "So this is a question of choosing one or the other. It depends on what Mr. Yang does."
"What a good choice." Yang Wendong nodded, and then said: "Okay, I will send someone to your bank to discuss the details of the cooperation;
But I will also cooperate with Standard Chartered Bank, so whichever of you offers the best deal will be the one I choose.”
"That makes sense." Sanders said with a smile, "Then I will definitely provide the most perfect solution."
After meeting with Sanders, Yang Wendong returned to Changxing Building, called Zheng Yuhua, and asked, "How is the bank in Japan?"
Zheng Yuhua replied: "So far, it is going smoothly, mainly because our ships will be mortgaged to Japanese banks, so their risks are much lower than those of Hong Kong banks;
Now Japan's Mitsui Bank has promised that as long as we continue to place orders with Mitsui Shipyard, we can still maintain the previous cooperation model and provide us with a total loan of 65% of the ship, but in terms of interest, they will increase it by 1%. "
"1%?" Yang Wendong thought for a moment and said, "I can accept a slightly higher interest rate, but 1% is too much. Let's talk about it and see if we can get it down to 0.5-0.75%.
Or if they can give me a higher amount, then I can accept 1%.”
As long as the amount given is high enough, it doesn't matter if the interest rate is a little higher. Compared with the huge wealth that the ships can bring after the outbreak in the Middle East, this interest rate is nothing.
"Okay, I'll talk to them again." Zheng Yuhua asked again: "The banking problem in Japan shouldn't be that big. What should we do in Hong Kong now?"
Japanese banks are restricted by policies and will not provide too much in the form of loans. Therefore, even if Japan provides most of the loans, the remaining small portion will need to be provided by Hong Kong banks. This small portion is very important as it is related to how much money the shipowner has to invest. If the local banks give a little more, the leverage will be very large. This is also the core of the shipping business.
"I have already negotiated with HSBC and Standard Chartered. This is what happened." Yang Wendong told her the whole story and said, "HSBC's rejection of us in the early stages is also a signal to us that we cannot completely hand over our overseas cooperation to them.
So for this cooperation, we will try to reach an agreement with Standard Chartered. If they are not willing to provide all the funds, then part of it is fine. We also need a second British bank in Hong Kong that can support us. This is in our best interests in the future."
After cooperating with HSBC for many times in the early days, Yang Wendong did not give up the cooperation with Chinese banks, because he thought that the real estate business needed to be well-connected and could not rely on only one company.
As for the shipping market, I didn’t think too much about it because I had cooperated with banks very rarely and HSBC had already taken over the entire business once.
Now that he will be investing heavily in shipping in the next few years, he naturally needs to establish a good relationship with another Standard Chartered Bank.
"Okay, I understand." Zheng Yuhua agreed.
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(End of this chapter)