The Industrial Giant Reborn

"Which one did Chen Sheng choose?" Li Haonan asked with bright eyes.

As one of the veterans who started the business from scratch with Chen Zhiwen, he watched the company grow step by step. Today, the entire group has a very high position in several major fields, and Midea has become one of the most famous electronics companies in the world. , although Red Bull is not ranked in the top ten in the beverage industry, its core business of energy drinks has always maintained its global dominance. Although its food and carbonated drinks are still very general, they are also developing rapidly. The amount is also growing at a rate of 50%. Any small business branched out will be a medium-sized or above company in Hong Kong.

Hutchison and Wharf have become the second largest real estate companies in Hong Kong. Galaxy Trading is the largest trading company in Asia. A large number of small factories in Hong Kong rely on Galaxy Trading. As for the boss's business in the United States, it is even more successful Now, Costco has become the same as Wal-Mart and has become a miracle in the global retail industry.

Success in many fields has brought a lot of profit and cash flow. Even Red Bull, which does not aim at profit at present, has a very large cash flow. There have long been voices within the group that they should be their own bank.

Of course, banks are also restricted by the Banking Law. There will be strong restrictions when their own banks do business with other companies or companies that hold more than a certain percentage of shares. The laws of some countries directly prohibit it, and Hong Kong is similar, but , even if you can't do business directly, there are many indirect ones.

"I am going to acquire Hong Kong Overseas Trust Bank." Chen Zhiwen said. He lacks a bank of his own, so he naturally knows that it is not that he needs funds for other industries, but that with a bank, he can obtain more funds more easily, so that he can make profits in many fields and Get involved and make an impact.

For example, in Hong Kong's real estate market, in the coming real estate crisis, a large number of Chinese-funded real estate companies will inevitably fall into trouble. These are companies with great potential in the future, and the founders are also very capable. It is impossible to operate in the form of acquisitions, and buying shares is naturally the best choice, but when the market value of the other party plummets, the proportion of shares cannot be too large, so it will not be able to provide too much funds. In this case, there is a bank that is It's a good choice to use the funds of bank depositors to bring these companies that he has invested in and have potential in the future. Otherwise, he will lose too much if he uses his own money to lend to the other party.

After 1985, the real estate market will enter a bull market for 12 consecutive years. In this case, even the huge Hutchison and Wharf cannot swallow too much of the market. Besides, the office shopping malls in Hong Kong alone , It’s enough for the two companies to toss about. In terms of housing, He Huang Jiulongcang may not have too much energy and resources to participate. After all, no one can be the best in every project.

But if there is a bank, knowing the future real estate market, it can borrow money with all its strength, and there is no need to worry too much. In this way, whoever does the real estate project can let the bank get a share of it.

The other one is the large-scale investment projects in the mainland in the future, which will require a huge amount of funds and a large amount of overseas loans. However, this requires a lot of banks. In Hong Kong, except for HSBC, other banks obviously do not have this ability , but the future can be developed.

"Ocean Trust? This is indeed a good goal, the third largest local bank in Hong Kong, and its founder Zhang Mingtian passed away this February, and now its internal management is also a mess." Li Haonan nodded and said.

There are currently many banks in Hong Kong, but most of them are relatively small. There may only be a few stores in Hong Kong, and the deposit scale is only in the hundreds of millions or billions. The larger ones may be several billion, the second-tier ones may be more than 10 billion Hong Kong dollars, and the highest level in the end is HSBC.

Hisense Bank is the second echelon. Its deposit scale is second only to HSBC and Hang Seng. It is about 12 billion Hong Kong dollars. It is the third largest local bank in Hong Kong. However, this ranking is only valid for local banks. The branches of foreign banks in Hong Kong It is not in the statistics, such as Standard Chartered Bank, and the gap between Hisense's third and Hang Seng's second may be a bit large, but this does not prevent it from being a very suitable goal for itself.

"Yes, but the death of Zhang Mingtian is just one of them. The most important thing is that Hisense Bank has been hiding a huge loss, almost 60 million US dollars. Here, I know the news, but I have no evidence. This requires you to investigate It's over." After Chen Zhiwen finished speaking, he handed over a piece of paper.

Many banks in Hong Kong, especially Chinese-funded banks, have been plagued by disasters since their birth. From the 1950s to the 21st century, there have been several bank financial runs, each of which resulted in the collapse of several banks.

For example, more than ten years ago, the run on events from 1961 to 1965 led to the bankruptcy of several medium-sized gold shops, finance companies and banks. , was acquired by HSBC, but it is said that HSBC itself is behind this incident.

At the end of the 1960s, the Hong Kong government was frightened by several runs that almost triggered the financial tsunami. After learning lessons, it imitated Western countries with mature banking laws to formulate some regulations, which made Hong Kong banks relatively stable in the next ten years. , a lot of security.

However, from the real estate bull market in 1975 to 1981, everyone got too much benefit from this bubble. In order to earn more profits and please the strong real estate companies at that time, all banks began to control various risks. The system turns a blind eye. After all, no matter how big the risk is, as long as the real estate market continues to rise, the bank's loans will be safe and sound.

Chen Songqing's Carrian Group took advantage of this loophole to rise. After 2 years, it will bring a huge tsunami to Hong Kong's financial market. Hisense Bank, which has nothing to do with Chen Songqing, is also being used to defraud.

"60 million U.S. dollars?" Li Haonan was taken aback. After receiving the information, he looked at it for a while and said, "Just using such a simple routine as a check wheel, you can actually defraud 60 million U.S. dollars?"

Although Hisense Bank's deposits are as high as 12 billion Hong Kong dollars, the bank is also special. Once there is a loss of 1% of the bank's total deposits, it will cause huge losses. This is different from ordinary companies.

"There is no complicated scam in this world. In the final analysis, it is nothing more than internal and external collusion. With internal support, even a simple scam can be solved. However, this also has something to do with Hisense Bank's loosening of risk control in recent years." Chen Zhiwen said lightly said with a smile.

Check round, in fact, because there is no information transmission on the Internet nowadays, when a branch company issues a check, the other branch company can only confirm the authenticity of the check, but cannot confirm whether the account has been withdrawn in the recent period , can only exchange money first, and then confirm. The loopholes formed by this kind of information transmission often appeared in Western banks a hundred years ago. The simplest solution is to restrict users, especially large-value checks.

It’s just that this will definitely affect the efficiency of the bank’s major customers. Therefore, how to control risks and maintain customer experience needs to be formulated by each bank. Hisense Bank has relaxed the review of a major customer and made it non-stop With this method, a large amount of spare funds were obtained, which were then used for investment, but the investment failed and the family went bankrupt.

Of course, there must be helpers inside Hisense Bank, otherwise, no matter how lax a bank is, it is impossible to keep making mistakes in this kind of thing.

"Based on the current situation of Hong Kong's real estate and banking industries, if this incident breaks out, Hisense Bank will definitely suffer an unprecedented run." Li Haonan said.

With the scale of Hisense Bank, a loss of 60 million U.S. dollars is actually not unbearable. Even if the current economy is very bad, after all, the size of the assets is there, and at most it will lose a few years of profits. Even if the stock price is cut in half, it will not go bankrupt, but What banks are most afraid of is a run on the bank. Once the news of this kind of loss spreads, I am afraid that a large number of people will come to withdraw money and run on it.

Under this kind of run, not to mention banks that have suffered heavy losses, even any bank that is operating normally cannot resist. After all, most of the bank's deposits have already been loaned out, otherwise it would be impossible to have money. to pay depositors interest.

"This is our opportunity, but we must grasp the time, because once the run is too serious, it may attract the attention of the Hong Kong government. If the Hong Kong government accepts Hisense Bank first, then we will miss the opportunity." Chen Zhiwen added. Based on the lessons learned in the 1960s, the Hong Kong government generally no longer adheres to the so-called "market freedom" principle for banks, because Hong Kong's banks are all interoperable, and many of them exchange shares, or jointly undertake multiple large-scale transactions. Projects, or direct cooperation, once a bank has a problem, it is likely to affect other banks. When a run on several banks occurs, even the Hong Kong government will have to work hard to take over.

"Okay, I understand, but if there is a run on Hisense Bank, there seems to be no reason for us to intervene directly. Why don't we first get a fund from Haixin Bank, and then we have a reason to contact their board of directors. What does Chen Sheng think?" Li Haonan After thinking about it, he suggested.

"Okay, let's start with a loan of several hundred million Hong Kong dollars. Let's say that we plan to cooperate with Huazi Bank. Hisense is the first one. There will be more than one billion or more funds in the future, so let's fire a cannonball first." Let Hisense people be full of hope." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

Targeting Hisense Bank this time can be said to be the first time in Chen Zhiwen's business layout in Hong Kong that he specifically targeted a Chinese company. Even the previous Taohua Datong was a purely friendly acquisition. The two parties set a price and directly traded.

But Hisense Bank is not a good thing either. At the beginning of this year, they already knew that they were cheated out of 60 million US dollars. It’s not bad to be cheated, but concealing it is a felony. However, because the founder had just passed away and such an incident happened again, the entire management decided to conceal it, and even deliberately helped Ye Yuling, who defrauded Hisense Bank, to conceal it, but was later caught by others, and continued to work in a fair and honest manner. Hisense Bank makes money.

In the end, when the Hong Kong government discovered the anomaly in 1985, the entire Hisense Bank was defrauded + blackmailed for more than 90 million US dollars, plus subsequent losses such as bank runs, supply cuts, and contract breaks with partners, totaling more than 2 billion Hong Kong dollars. To prevent the financial tsunami, 4 billion Hong Kong dollars of foreign exchange funds were pasted in. Although under the intervention of the Hong Kong government, Hisense Bank sold 4.4 billion Hong Kong dollars in the 1990s, but there was a difference of ten years, and 4 billion is completely different. In this process, many depositors have suffered heavy losses. Even if the Hong Kong government has the bottom line, it still took many years to get their money back, and many people's lives were ruined.

Now that I detonate this mine in advance, not only will the loss of the entire Hong Kong be smaller, but if I take over decisively, it can also reduce the loss of ordinary people. After all, the current Hisense Bank can still bear the direct loss of 60 million US dollars. It is necessary to provide the common people with the confidence of deposit security after becoming the master, so there will be no other losses.

"Okay, I understand. I will go to Hisense to contact Hisense about the loan immediately, and then investigate this matter. If we can find evidence, then we can start." Li Haonan nodded and said, as long as this matter is true , then it is easy to check. After all, if a bank wants to suppress such a large bad debt, it is definitely not something that a few top management can operate on their own. everything. As for physical evidence, it may be difficult to find, but personal evidence is also effective. Besides, once the matter is exposed, under the guilty conscience, there will definitely be leaks.

"Okay, this matter is very important, let me know immediately if there is any progress." Chen Zhiwen said again.

Acquiring a bank and growing it is a part of Chen Zhiwen's long-awaited plan. Now it's the right time. In the next two years, the entire Hong Kong market will undergo earth-shattering changes. Having a bank of our own will make things much more convenient.

Of course, the current Hisense Bank is just the starting point. After acquiring it, it will inevitably expand with its own resources. At the same time, if there are other opportunities, it will continue to acquire other banks, and there will be more in the next few years. There are many such opportunities.

A week later, the headquarters of Hisense Bank in Hong Kong:

Taipan Huang Changzan took a distinguished guest, walked around the building, and said with a smile: "Li Sheng, our Hisense Bank is strong. In Hong Kong, HSBC, Standard Chartered, and Hang Seng are bigger than us. There are special circumstances, only Hisense is the real deal, relying on high-quality customer service, and developed, if your company chooses our bank as a partner, it will definitely be the best choice."

Li Haonan nodded and said, "Of course we believe in the strength of Hisense Bank, otherwise I wouldn't have come here. This is actually our Chen Sheng's request."

"Oh, Chen Sheng's request?" Huang Changzan was overjoyed, and if he reached contact with this God of Wealth, the future development prospects would be limitless. You must know that several real estate companies under Chen Zhiwen's company were established as early as 2 years ago. As they began to fade out of the Hong Kong real estate market, they naturally basically stopped cooperating with local banks. Even if it was an acquisition, they would find Standard Chartered or overseas banks to provide funds.

"What Chen Sheng means is that all of us are Chinese-funded companies. In the past, we had to rely on HSBC for development, but now, everyone knows that whether it is a bank or various companies, Chinese capital has risen. Of course, we all have to cooperate with each other. It is." Li Haonan said with a smile.

"That is, the Chinese should help the Chinese, and everyone should work together to drive British capital out of Hong Kong." Li Haonan smiled and asked again: "I wonder how much money Li Sheng needs this time?"

"500 million Hong Kong dollars, the corresponding collateral, we will provide some properties in Hong Kong, the process is definitely not a problem." Li Haonan said.

"500 million?" Huang Changzan paused, seemingly hesitant.

"What? Does Huang Sheng not trust our collateral? Or, Hisense Bank can't afford 500 million Hong Kong dollars?" Li Haonan asked with a frown.

"Of course not, even if there is no collateral, with Chen Sheng's name, we can easily lend 500 million Hong Kong dollars." Huang Changzan quickly explained: "500 million Hong Kong dollars is not a big problem for us, but it is possible. need some time."

"How long? This money is what Chen Sheng is concerned about. If you take too long, I can only go to the Bank of East Asia." Li Haonan said.

"It won't be very long, 10 days is enough, how about it?" Although he knew that his bank's current problems were very serious and there would be certain problems in funding, Huang Changzan did not want to lose such a big customer. It is a huge profit, but if it really reaches a cooperation with so many big companies under Chen Zhiwen, then the loopholes of Hisense Bank may be slowly filled. As long as the scale of Hisense develops in the future, this bad debt will be able to Slowly erase it through time. In this way, legal risks are avoided, and these people may be able to escape from prison.

"10 days? All right, then you are ready, I will arrange the legal department to come to sign the contract, and they will also bring the relevant collateral information, if there is no problem, sign it as soon as possible." Li Haonan thought for a while, and finally nodded in agreement road.