HSBC Chairman Shen Bi is very troubled right now. Just today, he received calls from countless people, all talking about the same thing: the issue of the shares of Heung Kong Electric and Heung Kong Telephone Group held by HSBC.
Whether it was Li Ka-shing, Xu Shixun, Pao Yugang, Stanley Ho and others from the Chinese family, or John Swire and John Madden from several families in the British consortium, they all called him. Even the British Kai-shek The head of the Sirk family even called him personally.
On the morning of the next day, Shen Bi held a high-level meeting of HSBC.
Shen Bi said: "I believe everyone knows the hottest thing in Xiangjiang in the past two days. Just yesterday, Li Group and Jardine Group completed the acquisition of the shares of all other shareholders except us, HSBC. Now, regardless of whether Both the Lee Group and the Jardine Group hold about 46% of the shares of Heung Kong Electric and Heung Kong Telephone Group respectively, and we have now become the key to the outcome of the two groups this time."
A vice chairman of HSBC said: "Chairman, as a British-owned bank, I suggest that we should transfer our shares to Jardine Matheson Group. This is to safeguard our British interests and we must not allow Li Guangyu to make another acquisition." success."
The vice chairman who spoke was sent to HSBC by the major shareholder of HSBC to look after HSBC. As a British person, the vice chairman did not like the policies implemented by Shen Bi at HSBC. This time he did not want HSBC to do it again. Just like last year, handing over the shares of these two groups to Li Guangyu will make Jardine Group fall short.
Immediately after the vice chairman finished speaking, a Chinese executive said: "Chairman, you must know that this competition between the Heung Kong Electric Lighting and Heung Kong Telephone Group involves the current competition between Chinese families and British-owned foreign companies. We Once the shares are transferred to Jardine, we will lose the business of the Xiangjiang Chinese family, especially the Li Alliance headed by Li Sheng."
"We need to know that the Li Group's business in our bank is already huge, and coupled with his relationship with major families in Hong Kong, we need to consider whether we, HSBC, can afford such losses if we do this. You know, A lot of the business of several major foreign banks is with Standard Chartered Bank. Even if we help them this time, they will not transfer all their business to us."
After listening to the speech of this Chinese executive, the senior executives present fell silent. The reason why HSBC can beat Standard Chartered today is because of the close relationship between HSBC and the Chinese families in Xiangjiang. The Chinese families in Xiangjiang basically do business with their HSBC bank.
Thinking about the families behind Li Guangyu, if HSBC supports Jardine this time, Li Guangyu and others will definitely not maintain such a relationship with HSBC again.
You must know that the families behind Li Guangyu are now the main source of business for HSBC. Whether it is the He family, Li Ka-shing, Guo Desheng, Lee Shau Kee, Pao Yugang, etc., they all contacted HSBC this time. I hope HSBC can take care of the business this time. The shares of these two groups were transferred to Li Guangyu.
Shen Bi said: "Everyone, think about what HSBC should do to avoid offending these two major consortiums."
Shen Bi is also very troubled. As a British bank, it is necessary to support domestic consortiums. However, for the benefit of HSBC, it is more beneficial to support the Lee Group. It is difficult for him to make this decision now.
None of the senior management spoke, even the vice chairman who had just clamored to transfer the shares to Jardine Matheson did not speak. The interests of HSBC forced him to stop his thoughts.
Seeing that the top management did not express their opinions, Shen Bi said: "This afternoon, Mr. Li Guangyu and Mr. Newbikin will come to our HSBC to discuss the shares of Heung Kong Electric and Heung Kong Telephone Group. Now we must come up with something. Come up with a plan on how we should deal with it.”
At this time, an HSBC executive said: "Chairman, if we at HSBC continue to hold the shares of the two groups, no one will transfer them."
As soon as he finished speaking, someone answered: "Chairman, we must not continue to hold the shares of these two groups at this time. This will offend us at the same time. The two major consortiums will not trust the release of the shares." It’s in our hands.”
"Whether the Lee Group is the largest shareholder of these two groups or the Jardine Matheson Group is the largest shareholder, once we continue to hold it, they will be worried that the group will change owners at the next moment."
The general manager of the investment department complained: "If we had known this would happen, we might as well have released the shares when they started to compete in the stock market, so that we would not be in such an embarrassing position now."
Shen Bi also had some regrets. At that time, he thought that he could be a favor and make a lot of money. But he didn't expect that the Li Group and the Jardine Group came so fiercely and so quickly. In just two days In a short period of time, he basically acquired all the shares of the two major groups, leaving only his shares in HSBC Bank, and this share still plays a decisive role today.
During the meeting at HSBC, Li Guangyu was also discussing the acquisition of HSBC in the afternoon.
Li Guangyu is also very troubled now. After acquiring the shares of several major families, his company's liquidity has been exhausted. This is only enough after another billion Hong Kong dollars have been transferred from Xingyu Group.
Li Guangyu currently controls 46.5% of the shares of Heung Kong Electric Group, which cost 4.53 billion from acquisition to now, while Heungkong Telephone Group controls 45.7% of the shares, with a total cost of HK$3.43 billion.
Li Guangyu transferred HKD 5 billion for this purpose at the beginning of the year, and Li Xuemei also transferred HKD 2 billion. In addition, some profits from Tianyu Investment last year were not enough, so Li Guangyu transferred another HKD 1 billion from Xingyu Group for this purpose.
Today, Tianyu Investment has less than HK$400 million on its books. If he wants to acquire the shares held by HSBC, Li Guangyu must raise a large amount of funds.
For this reason, Li Guangyu said: "Xuemei, please contact Mr. Gan Qinglin and ask him to transfer the US$1 billion loan he obtained from Sumitomo Bank to us. We will acquire these two groups first and then we will deal with Jaguar." Go raise funds.”
Li Xuemei said: "Okay Li Sheng, I will contact Gan Sheng right away."
To acquire the shares from HSBC this time, Li Guangyu still needs nearly 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollars. This is still based on the current high-three-tier market price. Once Jardine Matheson continues to raise the price, I don’t know how much more will be needed.
However, Li Guangyu feels that Yihe is in big trouble now. He has spent nearly 8 billion on himself. Even if the Yihe Group initially had a lot of shares, in subsequent acquisitions, they would be acquired at three levels higher than the market price just like himself. , it will cost nearly 4 billion Hong Kong dollars. This does not include the funds used by him to build Wharf shares. Nowadays, Jardine is estimated to be short of funds.
At this time, in the office of Newbigian at the headquarters of Jardine Matheson Group, Chief Financial Officer Wei Jiali Deshawn reported the status of this acquisition to Newbigian.
Wei Jiali Deshawn said: "This time we increased the shares of Heung Kong Electric Group to 45.3%, Heung Kong Telephone Group to 45.2%, and Wharf we only increased to 36.8%, and our current funds are almost exhausted. This
This acquisition cost us nearly HK$5 billion."
Nubigian's face also looked a little ugly. Jardine Matheson raised 2 billion Hong Kong dollars and then borrowed 2 billion Hong Kong dollars from Standard Chartered Bank and 1 billion Hong Kong dollars from HSBC. I thought that this amount would be enough to guarantee the acquisition of the three groups.
, I didn’t expect that not a single group has managed it yet.
Nubigian said: "I will immediately contact Standard Chartered Bank to seek another loan of HK$1.5 billion for the acquisition of HSBC's shares."
Wei Jiali Deshawn said: "Chairman, should we continue to trade Wharf stocks? Now Bao Yugang has also begun to take action in the stock market. Obviously he is preparing to trade with us when we are short of funds.
Wharf Group.”
Newbikin is really having a headache. At this time, Pao Yukang appears again. When it comes to the three groups, Wharf is actually the most important. Heung Kong Electric and Heung Kong Telephone Group only have a great influence on the public, and they cannot be compared in terms of profits.
Compared with Wharf, Nubigian does not want Wharf to escape the control of Jardine Matheson Group.
Nubigian said: "You can continue to acquire Wharf for me. If there is insufficient funds, I will find another way."
Newbigian feels that it seems to be a mistake to acquire shares of two groups at the same time as Li Guangyu. The current flow of the Li Group is really terrifying. Even without loans from major banks in Hong Kong, 8 billion Hong Kong dollars can be mobilized.