On the morning of May 22, as soon as Li Guangyu came to the office, Gan Qin reported to him about the situation at Wellcome Supermarket.
Since Wellcome did not follow up on the 40% off sales in the past two days, there were very few customers in Wellcome Supermarket these two days.
It was Wellcome Supermarket's failure to follow up in time, which made citizens worry that this discount would not last too long. Therefore, there was a huge flow of customers at Hengyu Supermarket and Watsons in the past two days, and some products that were easy to store for a long time suffered from panic buying.
Fortunately, Hengyu Supermarket and Watsons were well prepared. This panic buying wave did not put too much pressure on the two supermarkets, and both supermarkets maintained normal operations.
These two days have put considerable pressure on Wellcome Supermarket, perhaps because they are unwilling to withdraw from the Xiangjiang market, or perhaps the shareholders behind them hope to slow down the expansion of the Li Group in this regard.
Just today, Wellcome Supermarket also had a 40% discount sale, and it seems that it is determined to fight the Li Group to the end.
After listening to Gan Qin's report, Li Guangyu said to him: Inform Zhou Liang Shuyi and others and ask them to make some reports on this, especially exaggerate the losses.
Since today is Saturday, Li Guangyu does not need to worry about the problems in the stock market. He has already discussed it with Zheng Yutong, Li Ka-shing and others. If someone sells the tradable shares in Hutchison Whampoa, it will be taken over by Ho Investment Company.
, in this way, Hutchison Whampoa Group will completely become a combination of interests among them.
Then Li Guangyu personally called Li Xuelan and asked her to prepare for a 50% discount sale starting tomorrow. Li Guangyu was prepared to decide the country this time and not delay any more.
Li Guangyu now realizes that procrastinating like this is not only detrimental to Jardine Group, but also very detrimental to himself. Moreover, yesterday's conversation with Youde also gave him some ideas.
The British consortium will definitely be suppressed, but it is not necessary to squeeze them all out of Xiangjiang. It would be good to do this like the Swire Group.
He now needs some non-Chinese-owned groups that have some influence in Xiangjiang but cannot threaten the Li Group. Their existence will indeed be of great benefit to the Li Group.
Li Guangyu didn't even think about killing all of the Jardine Matheson Group. He only needed to eat Wellcome Supermarket and Dairy Milk International under Jardine Matheson. He had no idea about Jardine Matheson Land. There are three real estate groups under the Li family.
, has invested in several real estate groups, Jardine Land is of little use to the Li Group.
Li Guangyu thinks to himself that it's pretty good, but I'm afraid that the future development may not go as he wants.
While Li Guangyu was preparing to continue the price war, Shen Bi, Henry Keswick and George Lavin were at the Wellcome Central store to see if the customer flow would return after the follow-up discount.
The result left them a little disappointed. Although the passenger flow was a little more than the previous two days, it was still a lot worse than before.
When he came to the private room of a tea house, Henry Keswick said: This is mainly because many citizens have purchased a lot of products in the past two days. After our follow-up, they are not worried that this discount will end in the short term, so
Only then will this happen.
Shen Bi is not worried about today's passenger flow. What they are worried about now is the next move of the Li Group. Since they have taken the approach of hurting people at the expense of others, 60% off will obviously not be the other side's bottom line.
After follow-up, further actions will definitely be taken.
It took a lot of effort to convince the directors of HSBC to offer a 40% discount this time. If the price reduction continued, he didn't know what reason he should find to discuss with these directors and continue to follow up.
At the current sales price, Wellcome will lose tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars every month. If the price is lowered again, the loss may be hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars. This is not something that ordinary groups can afford.
Shen Bi said: "Cather Craven, where is the bottom line for your price reduction? I think you also know that the current price will definitely not be the bottom line of the Li Group. They are expected to make adjustments tomorrow. I don't know if you What's the plan?
George LaVine's headquarters has long drawn a bottom line for him. Standard Chartered Bank is willing to bear the loss at a price of 50% off. Once the price falls below this price, Standard Chartered Bank will not follow up.
The pressure on Henry Keswick is also very high. The current losses have made him grit his teeth and insist on it. He himself has also set a 50% off position.
Once the price falls below this price, no matter how unwilling he is, he will have no choice but to abandon Wellcome Supermarket. He cannot let one Wellcome bring down the entire Jardine Matheson Group.
He was quite speechless about Li Guangyu's approach of not caring about profits and costs. This is typical of vicious competition. It's a pity that the government is unwilling to stop it, and the citizens of Xiangjiang are even more happy to see the results. In addition, there are only three of their supermarkets, so there is no harm. There is nothing he can do about the interests of the public.
Shen Bi has nothing to do about this now. When he bought shares in Jardine Holdings Group, he was thinking of selling at a 30% discount, so that there would not be too big a loss, and they could still afford it.
However, as soon as their two major banks entered, the situation maintained by the Li Group for several months was immediately broken, leaving their two major banks facing a dilemma.
Shen Bi even wondered if the Li Group was waiting for his two major banks to enter the game, otherwise the price war would have started just after he and others entered the market.
If Li Guangyu had started the current model in advance, then HSBC would definitely not invest in Jardine Matheson Group.
The more Shen Bi thought about it, the more he felt that this was a conspiracy of the Li Group to tie the two major banks to Jardine's chariot. Once there was any major problem with Jardine, the two major banks would also be implicated.
Shen Bi said: We need to make more preparations for the future now. Today's price reduction will definitely cause Jardine Holdings Group's stock to plummet when the stock market opens the day after tomorrow, and our two banks will also be affected by that time. Once the Lee Group takes further action tomorrow and we follow up, some investors will definitely sell the shares of Jardine Matheson Holdings Group.
Henry Keswick said helplessly: We don't have much to do about this matter. No matter what we do, Jardine Holdings Group will plummet in the stock market. Wellcome Supermarket used to be one of the important profit supports of Jardine Holdings Group.
George Lavin then said: We can't care about that much for the time being. You have to pay attention to the situation at Hengyu Supermarket now. Once the price exceeds our ability to bear, you should stop purchasing here. Let’s clear out the goods.
In fact, the three of them all know that Wellcome is helpless. The Li Group can bear such huge losses. They have other groups to donate blood to Hengyu Supermarket, let alone 50% off, even 10% off sales. They dare to do so. Li The monthly profit of the consortium is enough to support Hengyu Supermarket's price war.
When they meet someone like Li Guangyu who doesn't regard money as money, they can only admit their defeat. At the same time, they are also thinking about who the Li Group will target next.
Among them, Shen Bi is more worried than the two of them. Both of them have escape routes. If they are desperate, they can withdraw from Xiangjiang. But HSBC’s roots are in Xiangjiang. Once the Xiangjiang market is lost, HSBC will no longer be the HSBC it is now.