The Industrial Giant Reborn

On July 8, 1975, a row of Mercedes-Benz cars drove into Hutchison International's headquarters building - Hutchison Building under the witness of countless reporters.

The convoy did not stop in the underground garage, but directly in front of the gate on the first floor of Hutchison. They wanted to enter the Hutchison Building under the witness of everyone.

"Chen Sheng, as the first Chinese in the history of Hong Kong to acquire a British foreign company, do you have anything to share?"

"Chen Sheng, what will Hutchison's future look like? Can we Chinese really control this company, or are you just purely investing?"

"Chen Sheng, how do you solve the debt problem of Hutchison Group?"

"Chen Sheng, Hutchison's stock price has fallen sharply. Is there any measure to ensure that the stock price will rise?"

The car door had just been opened, and Chen Zhiwen hadn't completely left the car. All kinds of questions were being asked by the surrounding reporters like a bombardment. Fortunately, enough security guards had already been prepared, and the reporters couldn't get in at all.

Under the protection of a group of security guards, Chen Zhiwen entered the Heji Building from the gate of Heji Building. Inside the building, the reporter was directly stopped by the security guards at the entrance, and the surroundings suddenly became much quieter. On the first floor, there were also a few people working normally. They all looked at Chen Zhiwen and his party with curious eyes.

"Chen Sheng, hello, I'm Alan Chabot, Secretary of the Board of Directors of Hutchison Group, and Mr. Qi Dezun arranged for me to pick you up." A white man about 30 years old stood in front of the service desk in the lobby and followed behind him. After seeing Chen Zhiwen and his party coming in, two blond young women hurried forward to speak.

"Where's Qi Dezun?" Chen Zhiwen asked.

"Mr. Qi Dezun is upstairs, and the directors and senior management of the company are waiting for you upstairs." Allen said.

"Okay, let's go up then." Chen Zhiwen said lightly, this is to give himself a blow, so he sent a secretary to pick him up.

"Please." Allen turned around and waved his hand to indicate the direction, and a group of people walked towards the elevator in a mighty manner. This is an elevator specially used by Hutchison executives, and there are special guards outside the elevator.

The elevator is also relatively slow, it took 2 minutes to reach the designated floor, the highest meeting room of Hutchison Group, located on the 26th floor of the building

"This way please, the board meeting will be held at 10 o'clock." After reaching the 26th floor, Allen said again.

Although the floor is not high, the single-floor area of ​​Hutchison Building is large. Chen Zhiwen walked for a while before arriving at the meeting room in the southeast corner.

This is also the basis for Li Jiacheng to dismantle it and build a super building in the past. The larger the area, the higher the building can be built. In the 1950s, when the Hutchison Building was just built, the land price was cheap and the building was too high. It’s not cost-effective, it’s better to buy more land and build a few more buildings, the same area, so the cost is the lowest, but when the local price is very high, it’s cost-effective to build a super building.

No matter in any country, Europe, America, or the mainland of later generations, you can roughly know whether the housing price is high by looking at the height of buildings or the density of residential buildings in a city. The higher the floor density, the higher the land price, and the higher the housing price, and vice versa. Explain that the house price is very low.

"Mr. Qi Dezun, Mr. Chen Zhiwen is here." After Alan led Chen Zhiwen into the conference room, he said to a round white-haired man.

"Hello, Chen Sheng, welcome to Hutchison Group." Qi Dezun got up calmly and smiled, while shaking hands politely.

"Welcome is not an accurate word. As a major shareholder of Hutchison, it's normal for me to come here." Chen Zhiwen also shook hands, but retorted back with a light smile.

"Welcome" is for the guests, he is not. Whether Qi Dezun's words are casual or intentional, they are all to show that he is the host.

"That's right, my mistake, Chen Sheng, please sit down." Qi Dezun's tone seemed to turn cold, but soon returned to normal.

"Okay, thank you." Chen Zhiwen followed the instructions and sat down. This is the chairman of the board of directors. It seems that Qi Dezun is not confused and wants to fight for this position today.

"Chen Sheng, this is our bi-weekly board meeting of Hutchison. It was supposed to be held on the 10th. Because you just became a shareholder of Hutchison, you deliberately moved it two days earlier." Qi Dezun smiled and said: "No Do you know if you have anything to say here?"

"Let's have a meeting first, I'll just listen." Chen Zhiwen said with a light smile.

"Okay, then let's hold the meeting normally." Seeing that Chen Zhiwen didn't move, Qi Dezun was a little happy in his heart, but Richard beside him looked normal, as if seeing Chen Zhiwen for the first time.

At the beginning of the meeting, Qi Dezun introduced the members of the board of directors of Hutchison to Chen Zhiwen one by one, and Chen Zhiwen had a better understanding of them. Representative of the Doctrine family.

Large-scale British-funded groups in Hong Kong will also hold shares with each other to ensure the convenience of some business cooperation, and sometimes even if they do not, they will exchange directors. Of course, these two situations only exist with British-owned companies that do not compete In the group, the main business of the Kadoorie family is electricity, while Hongkong Telecom is in the telephone, and there is no business conflict with Hutchison.

The other 9 people are all high-level personnel within Hutchison as members of the board of directors. None of the small shareholders of Hutchison were able to join the board of directors. The entire Hutchison was perfectly controlled by the management, even if the stock price fell from the peak. 90%, scattered shareholders still have no way to overthrow this board.

After the introduction, Qi Dezun entered into a normal meeting state, and everyone reviewed the debt issues, business development status, etc. within the Hutchison Group.

It is also the first time that Chen Zhiwen has a certain understanding of Hutchison's core business. Although Zhou Jiayang's team has also collected a lot of data before, it is definitely not comparable to this internal information.

Hutchison's current situation is much worse than he predicted. Among all major businesses, only the retail business and the port container terminal are still making profits, while others are losing money. A large number of real estate projects have basically stopped working, and the number is as high as Dozens of them were previously unable to be sold due to the sharp drop in land prices. This year, they were a little better, but there was no money in the account, suppliers refused to deliver goods, and workers did not start work, forming an endless loop.

Half an hour later, Qi Dezun smiled and said to Chen Zhiwen: "Chen Sheng, Hutchison's current situation is probably like this. As for the specific details, if you want to know, I can also give you the information. Now the harbor project and some real estate projects are very important. According to the current market conditions, if we have a sum of funds, about 150 million, we can start these projects and the entire company can resume normal operations.”

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