Chapter 490: Three Central Buildings of Hong Kong Land

At 10 a.m. the next day, Yang Wendong arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel;

"Hello, Mr. Keswick." Yang Wendong said with a smile and shook hands.

"Mr. Yang, please call me John." John said, "There are too many people with the surname Keswick in Jardine Matheson."

"Okay, John." Yang Wendong nodded and said, "Please sit down."

After they sat down, a waiter served tea and left. John said directly, "Mr. Yang, you know my purpose. Please name a price. If it's suitable, we can make the deal right away."

He must be reluctant to leave, but the situation is unclear now and Jardine Matheson Group must strategically shrink. The first thing to sell is the business that has been losing money.

Yang Wendong smiled and said, "It's your property, you can quote your own price."

John thought for a moment and said, "Okay, my offer is 4600 million Hong Kong dollars."

"Including the properties under these supermarkets?" Yang Wendong asked back.

John shook his head and said, "Of course this does not include it. It is just a simple supermarket business."

"Then we don't need to talk about it." Yang Wendong said with a faint smile: "It's just a supermarket. Although I don't know the operating data, it must lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, right? In this case, even if you give it away for free, others may not be willing to do it. How can you still sell it for more than 4000 million?

And my requirement is simple, the property and the business must be sold together, unless the property on that piece of land is not yours.”

If the property is included, then it might be possible to negotiate. Although housing prices have plummeted nowadays, the property location of Yifeng Supermarket is better than that of Carrefour to a certain extent, after all, it is backed by Jardine Matheson.

As for the supermarket business itself, it would indeed be more convenient if Carrefour acquired it, but it is impossible to pay a high price. Moreover, if it acquires the other party's business at a low price, but the property is not in its hands, then wouldn't it be working for Swire Properties in the future?

"You guys want the property too?" John thought for a moment and said, "That's fine, but we still need to renegotiate the price. We only need to negotiate the price of the supermarket today."

"Okay, let's talk about the supermarket price first." Yang Wendong said, "Forget about 4000 million. I can give you 400 million, but the premise is that the property must be calculated clearly before the transaction."

"400 million?" John's face changed slightly. "Mr. Yang, are you sending away a beggar? Our Jardine Matheson invested more than 8000 million in Yifeng a few years ago, and now we are selling it to you in half."

Yang Wendong smiled faintly and said, "It's useless for you to invest 8 million. I only look at the current value. The reason I can give you 400 million now is because I have the property. Otherwise, I wouldn't want it even if you gave it to me for free."

John said, "Mr. Yang, once you acquire Yifeng, you will completely monopolize the supermarket retail market in Hong Kong. If Yifeng continues to operate, you may need to invest 4000 million in the future to compete with us. Isn't that a bad idea?"

"Your idea is quite interesting." Yang Wendong shook his head and said, "But this is not how business is done in this world. According to your logic, if I spend 4000 million, then shouldn't you be spending the same as Jardine Matheson? You are even worse than me in terms of cost control, maybe 5000 million. So don't you have to give me another 1000 million?"

In human history, there have been cases of acquiring others based on their own possible future losses, but that was also in the Internet era, a critical period for competing for the wind. In order to strike at the opponent and achieve strategic goals, it was worthwhile even if it cost more. For example, Alibaba's acquisition of AutoNavi was a premium of almost double that of Baidu.

But in traditional industries before the Internet, this is not the way things were played. How could there be such a sucker?

John laughed and said, "Mr. Yang is joking."

"John, I know what you mean by Jardine Matheson." Yang Wendong added, "I am the only one in Hong Kong who can take over Yifeng. Even if others believe in the future of Hong Kong and take over such a company, they will start a price war with me in the future. No one is so stupid.

If you really want to make this deal, then be cooperative, package your property and business together, negotiate a good price, and then we can really negotiate.”

"Okay." John said after thinking for a while.

Yang Wendong added: "I hope we can reach an agreement within half a month. Otherwise, this cooperation will be closed. I don't want to waste time."

By December, the economic crisis will be over, and even if Jardine Matheson wants to sell it by then, it will probably be sold at a high price, so we have to put some pressure on them.

"So fast?" John Keswick asked in surprise.

Yang Wendong smiled and said, "Speed is of the essence in war. If you can't do it here, I will also acquire other properties. Carrefour will continue to expand in the future. Maybe starting next year, we can continue this price war."

"Okay, I'll push this matter forward as soon as possible." Seeing that Yang Wendong didn't seem to be joking, John could only agree, and then asked, "Mr. Yang, we also have a construction company under Jardine Matheson that we want to sell. Would you like to consider it?"

"No, I already have Jinmen Construction." Yang Wendong shook his head, then said: "But if you have a property to sell and the location is good, we can discuss it."

John thought for a while and said, "Mr. Yang, I have another piece of news for you, about the Central Building." "Is Jardine Matheson planning to sell the Central Building?" Yang Wendong asked calmly.

In the past few months, there have been buildings sold in Central, but they are all in fringe locations. Although they are all in Central, there is a huge difference between the core and the fringe, similar to the future Shanghai Center Building in Lujiazui and the ordinary buildings on the edge.

Changxing Real Estate has acquired five buildings in Central so far, all of which are on the edge or slightly better locations, but none of them are in the real core locations; while the buildings owned by Swire are basically in prime locations.

John smiled and said, “Yes, but if I tell you, I will need a certain amount of introduction fee.”

"Okay." Yang Wendong thought for a moment and said, "But this may be illegal, so I won't arrange for someone to give it to you directly. This way, as long as the deal is done, you can invest in a regular company and then become a supplier for my industry. This way you can also make money in a long-term and stable manner."

This is the benefit of having a large-scale manufacturing industry. Even though we are trying to build a full industrial chain, it is impossible to do everything by ourselves. We still need to rely on suppliers for a lot of things.
Choosing suppliers is a legal freedom. Even if the Independent Commission Against Corruption in 2024 encounters such a thing, it will probably be helpless.

"Factory? I've never run one. How about I open a trading company?" John suggested, "You guys must have some things you need to import from overseas, right?"

"Okay." Yang Wendong thought about it and agreed.

Let some of the benefits go to others, as long as you can get higher returns;
Although Jardine Matheson is a member of the Keswick family, this family has existed for hundreds of years. It is unknown how many branches it has, but there is only one headmaster. It is hard to say what the other Keswick family members will think.

If I can win over these insiders, that would be good, as it would be helpful to me in many things.

John said, "Jiaxing is planning to sell the Duke's Building and the Murray House. Prince's Building may also be put up for sale. The details will depend on the price or the board's opinion."

"Okay, I understand." Yang Wendong nodded.

These three buildings are all located in prime locations, and each one is much better than the Changxing Building where he is currently located.

Originally, Jardine Matheson did not sell it in 67. That might have been due to its own butterfly effect, or maybe Jardine Matheson was also preparing to sell it, but the price was too high and no one was willing to take it over. Although people like Li Ka-shing and Li Shau-kee were optimistic about the future, they did not have the financial resources to do so.

If I can acquire these three buildings, it will be a qualitative leap for me in the Hong Kong real estate market;

Although he is also planning to take action on the building in the future, he is not sure until he succeeds, and he cannot guarantee whether the building will be sold to other people in the future. It is better to get it at a low price now, and worry about the future later, just focus on the present.

John said, "Okay, I'll go back and tell William and the Landmark board of directors about this."

"Thank you very much." Yang Wendong nodded and said, "I will ask the people from Changxing Industrial to find you and see how we can cooperate."

That afternoon, at Jardine Matheson headquarters.

After hearing his brother's report, William Keswick said, "The Yifeng supermarket property owned by Landmark can be sold together. Let's discuss the price seriously."

"Okay." John asked again, "What about the building? Yang Wendong wants to buy it, and he can afford it with his wealth. If we don't find him, it may not be sold in a short time."

"Do you think we should sell it to him?" William asked.

John said: "Yes, Yang Wendong is probably one of the few people in Hong Kong who can trade directly with us, or even the only one. The cost of several buildings is not low;
Another thing I'm considering is that Jardine Land and Wharf Holdings are both listed companies. If Hong Kong remains the same in the future, will Yang Wendong target us next time after he targeted Whampoa? We have to be on guard against this, and it's good to consume some of their funds now."

"As long as the Hong Kong government is there, Yang Wendong can only become a director of a large British financial group at most. We can easily dilute his shares," William smiled and said, "But no matter what, it will be convenient for us to cash out.

In that case, I will let the people from Hong Kong Land work with you to negotiate these two matters. In addition, if possible, ask Yang Wendong directly for US dollars or British pounds. Otherwise, if we really get too many Hong Kong dollars, it will be troublesome for us to cash out. "

The Hong Kong government allows free currency exchange, but that only applies to small amounts. If the amount is too much, there will inevitably be a series of procedures, and they may even find a reason not to exchange the currency.

"I see." John smiled and said, "Yang Wendong has invested a lot overseas recently, so he probably has a lot of foreign exchange on hand."

Swire Properties and Changxing Real Estate quickly formed a negotiation team, and both parties behind the scenes, whether it was Yang Wendong or the Keswick family, also hoped to complete the deal as soon as possible.

So half a month later, the two sides reached a deal. Changxing Group invested HK$2.36 million to acquire three buildings from the Hong Kong Land Group, namely the Duke's Building, Prince's Building and Murray Building, with a total area of 117 million feet.

Including Yifeng Supermarket and 31 plots of land totaling approximately 12 square feet under its name, the transaction price was HK$3780 million.

As Jardine Matheson and Hong Kong Land are listed companies, such a big deal must be announced. When the news came out, the whole of Hong Kong was shocked. No one expected that Yang Wendong had just announced two large infrastructure projects with a total value of about 4 million yuan, and this time he invested nearly 3 million yuan to acquire Jardine Matheson's properties.
Affected by this, the Hong Kong real estate market saw a rare slight increase, but stock prices fell.

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(End of this chapter)

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