Chapter 686: 9 Dragon Warehouse Acquisition Battle
Chapter 686: The Wharf Acquisition War (2)
At 9 am the next day, Yang Wendong arrived on time at the headquarters of Wharf Holdings, which is located in Tsim Sha Tsui, where Changxing Group started its business.
Within the Jardine Matheson Group, Wharf's core business in the early days was the dock. However, after the container terminal opened, the traditional dock basically had no business, so the Jardine Matheson Group gave it the most profitable commercial complex in human history: Harbour City.
However, such a large project requires an investment of more than 20 billion. Wharf cannot afford such a large amount of money and is unwilling to borrow money. It can only rent and build houses, which makes the progress extremely slow. At the same time, the share financing also gave Yang Wendong the opportunity to secretly acquire most of Wharf's shares.
It can be said that the success or failure of Hutchison Whampoa is due to Harbour City. If there were no projects like Harbour City, the attraction of Hutchison Whampoa to Yang Wendong, which originated from Pao Yu-kong in the past, would have been greatly reduced.
"Mr. Keswick." Yang Wendong smiled and shook hands with him after seeing him. "We just reached an agreement on a big project a week ago. Now, we have a new cooperation. I hope we can work together to run Wharf well."
Henry Keswick, who had a bad look on his face just now, looked even uglier when he heard what Yang Wendong said, but he soon recovered, shook hands and said with a smile: "Haha, Wharf has a bright future ahead of it as it can welcome Mr. Yang as a major shareholder and director."
It is a habit not to hit a smiling person. Facing the powerful Yang Wendong, he could only endure it; because he had visited the Governor of Hong Kong the night before, and Murray MacLehose meant that it was not convenient for the Hong Kong government to intervene. Then he visited Stephen Simpson, who neither agreed to help nor refused, but said that he needed to think about it.
Although the Jardine Matheson Group has strong capital, the large amount of money it has earned in Hong Kong over the years has all been transferred overseas and turned into large local projects. If it wants to cash out in a short period of time, it will be difficult.
Faced with an intentional takeover, if he did not have enough strong support, he might not be able to be the opponent. After all, he also knew that some of Changxing Group's achievements overseas were very impressive.
Yang Wendong immediately said, "Mr. Keswick, let's get down to business first. I have brought 20% of the shares. We, yours, and the notary public of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange will review all matters together. Once the number of shares is confirmed, we can discuss them. How do you do?"
Before the Internet age, stocks, like banknotes, were made of paper. Even some bonds worth tens of millions were made of paper. They were generally controlled by the authorities according to the grade of banknotes to avoid counterfeiting, which was even more risky than banknotes.
However, it can also be deposited with the official. Now that it has been publicly acquired, it can be deposited after being counted in front of the officials. After all, Yang Wendong dare not put such a large number of stocks in the office casually. Before notarization, he can only take responsibility if they are stolen or destroyed.
This time, he only took 20% of the stocks, and hid about 10% in order to survive a little longer. When the acquisition battle becomes difficult to resolve in the future, he would take it out to turn the tide. Otherwise, the more it reaches 50%, the higher the stock price will be, which will be unfavorable to his acquisition.
"Okay," Henry Keswick agreed;
Although he also knew that Yang Wendong would not cheat, he still waited until everything was confirmed before considering the next step.
The two bosses fell silent, while the three representatives quickly reviewed the stocks brought by Changxing Group, occasionally discussing in a low voice. After about half an hour, the representative of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange said, "Mr. Yang, we have confirmed that you have a total of 1800 million shares. According to the total of 9000 million shares of Wharf Holdings, you hold a 20% share."
"Okay, thank you, Mr. Wang." Yang Wendong also said politely;
Now that it has been officially confirmed, there is no problem. Fang Xianming then arranged for several people to follow the official personnel and leave. These stocks will also be deposited in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Henry Keswick said, "Mr. Yang, since it has been confirmed that you have 20% of the shares, then according to the law, I will give you a board seat. You can arrange someone to attend the board meeting in the future, or you can attend in person."
"Okay." Yang Wendong said with a smile.
Henry Keswick continued, "Mr. Yang, there are some things I want to talk to you about alone."
What I just said was just official talk. What was discussed in private is the strategy that will affect the future of the two major conglomerates.
"OK." Yang Wendong nodded;
Then all the people brought by the Jardine Matheson Group and the Changxing Group left, leaving only four people at the scene, including New Bijian, one of Keswick's men, and Fang Xianming.
This Newby is the vice president of the Jardine Matheson Group, that is, the future head of the Jardine Matheson Group in history. He took the position of head of the Jardine Matheson Group from the Keswick family as an outsider, which is enough to show his ability. This also made Yang Wendong look at him twice. "Mr. Yang, let's be frank. What do you want to do next?" Henry Keswick asked directly.
Yang Wendong smiled and said, "I bought Wharf's shares for investment, because I am optimistic about the future of the Harbour City project. In addition, Wharf also has a large amount of land to be developed.
However, as a shareholder and director, I naturally have certain responsibilities to all shareholders in Hong Kong. The previous operation of Wharf Holdings was too bad. I think it is time to change the chairman of the board of directors. "
Henry Keswick was prepared in his heart, but when Yang Wendong finished speaking, he still snorted coldly: "Mr. Yang, so, are you planning to forcibly acquire my Wharf?"
"Didn't you guys acquire Dairy Farm International in the same way?" Yang Wendong said with a faint smile, "And what do you mean by your Wharf? Your Jardine Matheson Group's shares in Wharf are only a dozen points, not as good as mine;
Besides, Wharf Holdings should belong to all shareholders, not just you or me. Whoever can bring the greatest benefits to Wharf Holdings’ shareholders is qualified to control Wharf Holdings.”
Since the merger has already been initiated, Yang Wendong will naturally not pretend anymore. They have basically fallen out with each other. This is actually a matter of time. With Huaying's positions swapped, there will inevitably be a fight;
However, on the surface, the reason still has to be for the sake of "shareholders". This is an industry consensus that things like acquisitions cannot be expressed too directly and need to be somewhat obscure.
"Humph, Wharf Holdings has been part of the Jardine Matheson Group for nearly a hundred years. This is well known in Hong Kong," Henry Keswick said coldly.
Yang Wendong said indifferently: "So what? Did Dairy Farm belong to you before? Shares are everything. This is not 50 years ago, Mr. Keswick."
If it was 50 years ago, when the British controlled everything, let alone whether Chinese capital could rise, even if it did, it would basically be successful only if it joined the British side, and British capital was superior to the Hong Kong government to a certain extent;
The Chinese capital group, let alone launching a takeover against British capital, might accidentally end up feeding the fish in the sea even if they were to compete fairly with a large conglomerate like Jardine Matheson.
Whether in the past or now, the foundation of the rise of Chinese capital is the rise of the mainland, especially the war 20 years ago, which scared the British and even the Americans. The Americans always have trouble dealing with the Vietnamese monkeys because of a saying from the mainland: "Don't cross the 17th line", so the Americans really dare not
Otherwise, even if Yang Wendong rose to prominence with his various prophetic abilities, he would not dare to take decisive action against the British-owned trading companies. If he really had to, he might even have to leave Hong Kong.
Henry Keswick frowned and thought for a moment, then said, "How about this, let's make another deal. I will exchange the Central Building under Hong Kong Land for the Wharf shares in your hands. How about that?"
"Central Building? Which buildings?" Yang Wendong was not in a hurry to refuse. He also wanted to know Henry Keswick's bottom line.
In the past, Jardine Matheson Group had proposed to exchange the Central Building for the shares held by Pao Yu-kong. Pao Yu-kong was tempted for a time because he was not sure that he could acquire Wharf Holdings. However, they failed to reach an agreement on the price.
In the end, Pao Yue-kong bought Wharf Holdings' shares at a high price. Seeing that the situation was hopeless, Jardine Matheson Group gave up and even took the opportunity to sell its shares, earning nearly 10 billion yuan. These were also the bottom lines.
However, in history, it was Newby-Jardine who controlled the Jardine Matheson Group, and now it is still Henry Keswick, and the two may have different views.
Henry Keswick saw that Yang Wendong did not refuse, so he said, "I can offer the three buildings, Prince's Building, Alexandra House, and Gloucester Building, as an exchange. How about that? We can negotiate the specific value. If one side is short of money, the other side can compensate with cash, other properties, or securities. Anything is fine."
"Mr. Keswick has really lost a lot of money." Yang Wendong sighed, but shook his head and said, "But these three buildings are still not enough. I am more optimistic about Wharf."
In fact, the prices of these three buildings are really no worse than the Wharf shares in Yang Wendong's hands. After all, in this era, no one knows the future of Harbour City, and the same goes for the senior management of Jardine Matheson. Otherwise, if they were really confident, they would not have adopted the previous construction method.
Wharf's main properties are on the Kowloon Peninsula, with a few on Hong Kong Island;
At present, at least in the 70s, although the Kowloon Peninsula has been developed, the economic center of Hong Kong is still in Hong Kong Island, and Hong Kong Island still accounts for a very high proportion of Hong Kong's total economy. Yang Wendong knows the future and knows that with too many people in the future, Kowloon will also become the top priority of Hong Kong's real estate and other economies, which naturally makes the economic share of Hong Kong Island decline;
The most important thing is the Harbour City project, which will generate tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars in rent in the next year, which is unmatched by any other buildings. Other land owned by Hutchison Whampoa, such as the original Times Square location, are also of super high quality.
Henry Keswick looked at Yang Wendong with a sharp look in his eyes and said, "In that case, let's see the truth in the stock market."
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(End of this chapter)