The Industrial Giant Reborn

"One day is 70 million withdrawals, and a rumor can create such power." Early the next morning, Chen Zhiwen looked at the data in his hand and said with admiration.

This data was sorted out overnight by Hang Lung Bank, and then informed the major banks in Hong Kong to seek help. Hisense, as the third largest local bank in Hong Kong, with Chen Zhiwen behind it, is naturally one of the people Hang Lung Bank most needs help from. one.

"Yeah, I checked yesterday. Hang Lung Bank and Xie Liyuan Gold Shop are purely cooperative and have no investment affiliation at all. It is because of a rumor that they have suffered such a big run. Besides, even if there is affiliation In legal terms, a certain percentage needs to be repaid." Huo Jianning continued.

"So, legal principles are legal principles, and reality is another matter. To be a bank, you need to face various possible crises. Unless the scale is large enough, a medium-sized bank may be killed by a newspaper." Chen Zhiwen said .

A long time ago, Chen Zhiwen decided that he would definitely need a bank in the future, but he did not do it until recently. Apart from the timing, more importantly, he could only invest in a bank when he had a certain amount of financial resources. One was when he was not large. It also needs to rely on other banks. For example, it needed the help of HSBC in the early days, and Standard Chartered in the past few years. The second is that a small bank is not very useful, but is easily affected by the market. This kind of case has happened many times in Hong Kong, and his golden finger of the prophet is of no help to the banking industry.

Banks hold huge amounts of funds, and they can conduct transactions with large real estate companies worth billions or even more. One step at a time, Hang Seng Bank even became HSBC's strongest rival that year. Hong Kong's stock market index was named after Hang Seng, which is enough to show its influence at the time, but a run on the bank forced it to sell itself to HSBC.

"Then do we want to bail out? This kind of run, which is not a problem in itself, should be suppressed soon as long as we step forward." Huo Jianning said.

"If you don't save it, if you release the news again, you will say that Hang Lung Bank itself has a major debt problem. Then make an appointment with the CEO of Standard Chartered, Wen Te." Chen Zhiwen said.

"Major debt problem? Is it true?" Huo Jianning asked.

"I can only say that there is such a possibility, just like Hisense Bank back then, there is no evidence." Chen Zhiwen said.

This is not lying, or deliberately cheating Hang Lung Bank, but in the past, Hang Lung Bank relied on concealing its debt situation to quickly obtain help from Standard Chartered and Bank of China in this crisis, but paper cannot cover the fire. Afterwards, Hang Lung Bank still had capital problems and eventually closed down. At that time, no bank was willing to take over. If the Hong Kong government had not broken its own "freedom principle", Hong Kong's banking industry might have been even more affected.

"Okay, I understand." Huo Jianning agreed.

When it comes to solving the bank run problem, the situation is very urgent. The CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, Bill Winter, rushed over immediately after receiving Chen Zhiwen's appointment. It happened to be lunch time, so he booked a small table in the private room of the mobile hotel nearby. High-end food and drink.

"Sheng Chen, why did you come to me in such a hurry about Hang Lung Bank?" Bill Winter asked hastily.

Regarding Chen Zhiwen's sudden acquisition of Hisense Bank, the reaction of Standard Chartered Hong Kong Branch was rather muddled, because the two parties have been cooperating very well, and Standard Chartered also regards Chen Zhiwen as the largest customer, but now they have their own bank, although they are limited by the Hong Kong Banking Law. According to the regulations, one's own bank cannot lend to one's other companies, but there are many businesses that are not directly controlled by Chen Zhiwen but can be influenced by him, and these can naturally cooperate with Hisense Bank in legal terms.

As they expected, many businesses under Chen Zhiwen started to cooperate with Hisense Bank, but Chen Zhiwen gave Standard Chartered a lot of face, because the business of Standard Chartered Bank did not move, but the business with other banks.

This naturally made Bill Winter very happy. Perhaps the other party considered that the current scale of Hisense Bank cannot accommodate too much business, and it will be different when the scale of Hisense Bank expands in the future, but this has nothing to do with him as a wage earner. When I am in office, it is enough for both parties to cooperate happily.

"Yes, it is Hang Lung Bank." Chen Zhiwen said: "You also know that I bought Hisense Bank before. In fact, before that, I checked many banks to choose the right one, and Hang Lung was one of them. Over the past few years, Hang Lung Bank's The business is too extreme, and the awareness of risk control is very low, and many accounts may not be able to get back in the future.”

"Is there a dead account?" Bill Winter asked.

"That probably hasn't happened yet, but it's hard to say what will happen in the future. Xie Liyuan Gold Shop also had problems in 1980, but it was only bankrupt two years later." Chen Zhiwen said with a shrug. Everything has a certain delay. When a bank has bad debts, as long as it decides to hide it, it can still persist for a period of time by relying on financial methods. Even if the bad debts are not very large and the economy has been improving, then after many years, it is This bad debt can be smoothed out through various financial methods. Both Hisense in the past and Hang Lung Bank in the present plan to do so.

"On the Hong Kong government side, the chief envoy entrusted me to suppress this matter by phone. If I don't do it without sufficient reasons, I'm afraid the Hong Kong government will lose face?" Bill Winter said with some embarrassment , Hisense Bank’s hole was too big before, and he had reason to refuse. However, Hang Lung’s scale is much smaller, and there are no problems on the surface. The difficulty is completely different. Standard Chartered is capable of easily suppressing this run crisis.

"It's actually not difficult. The accounts that can threaten the survival of Hang Lung Bank are at least more than 100 million Hong Kong dollars. As long as we make a request, we will review all Hang Lung's current accounts exceeding 100 million. If the objects of these loans, If there is enough collateral or the risk is low, then we can sell it to help, and in turn, we can only let it go." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"Then what is Chen Sheng's purpose?" Bill Winter had spent most of his life in shopping malls, so he naturally knew that Chen Zhiwen had something in mind.

If you feel that there is a risk, then you can just not participate, let other banks take action or the Hong Kong government will end. Again, let Hang Lung Bank be run, even if it spreads to other banks later, it will not affect Hisense Bank with Chen Zhiwen behind it.

Now that Chen Zhiwen specially invited him here, he didn't believe that the other party was helping him for the sake of "friendship" and avoiding the risk of Standard Chartered Bank.

"If my news is correct and there is a problem with Hang Lung Bank's accounts, then this wave of runs will be confirmed. At that time, the top executives of Hang Lung will have no choice but to sell their own bank like Hang Seng and Hisense. .” Chen Zhiwen said.

"You want to acquire Hang Lung Bank?" Bill Winter wasn't surprised. Besides acquiring the other party, what purpose could he have in doing this kind of thing? That is, under the influence of Chen Zhiwen's halo, Hisense Bank's scale is much larger than before. If it acquires Hang Lung again, the scale may not be lower than Hang Seng, nor is it lower than Standard Chartered (Hong Kong) Branch.

"Yes, but it's not convenient for me to come forward, so I hope Standard Chartered will come forward to make this request." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

The banking industry in Hong Kong has a long history, and the entire market is actually saturated. For example, the number of branches and decades of competition have led to different branches in various places in Hong Kong. In terms of operating efficiency, the density has basically reached the extreme.

This brings a problem to Hisense Bank, which is expanding. It is not convenient for it to continue to expand the number of branches, and the Hong Kong government's banking law also has certain restrictions on the construction of branches.

Therefore, the best way to continue to expand is through mergers and acquisitions. From 1982 to 1985, many banks collapsed due to the economic crisis, but there were only a few large-scale banks.

In the original history, Hang Lung Bank closed down a year later. In fact, Chen Zhiwen waited until then to do the same thing, but banks are different from real estate. Bad debts dragging on for more than a year will only lead to greater losses for the bank. Hisense is serious, but if it buys late, it may lose hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars. If it buys early, the losses are now written off, and the rest is normal banking business. When the economic crisis breaks out, the larger the scale of its own banking business, the easier it is to benefit.

Time waits for no one. The Iron Lady will visit Yanjing at the end of the month. Perhaps history will change. Thatcher may not fall that way, but the outcome of the negotiations will definitely be the same. The economic crisis he has been waiting for for a long time is finally coming. Before that, Hang Lung Bank was considered the only one that could strike first.

But I still need to be a good person, I will only be a white warrior who saves the company and depositors, and if I am a villain, I will entrust the ghost.

"I understand what Chen Sheng means, but I, Standard Chartered, can't show this face in vain, right? How about we buy Hang Lung together in the future, seven or three points? You seven and three?" Bill Winter said with a smile, being able to invest in a joint venture with Chen Zhiwen , Even if you don’t have the right to speak, you can basically make a profit. This is to make money through people who can make money.

"Qi San is too much, let's go 82, this matter, without Standard Chartered, I can go to other people." Chen Zhiwen said forcefully. He did not refuse, firstly because the food is not big, there is no need to eat it alone, and secondly, it can only be said that Standard Chartered Bank will also be his goal when the right time comes in the future. Take it back.

"Okay, then I'll agree." Bill Winter didn't make any further counter-offers, and seemed to be focusing on participation.

"Okay, time is urgent, let's start this afternoon." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

In the afternoon of the same day, Bill Winter immediately visited the Hong Kong branch of Bank of China. Later, news came from the market that Standard Chartered and Bank of China requested to review the financial affairs of Hang Lung Group and help it through the crisis only after confirming that there was no problem.

The news came out, but Hang Lung Bank did not immediately agree to it publicly, which aroused public suspicion, and the run on trend became more obvious.

Hang Lung Bank Headquarters:

"What the hell is Bill Winter doing? The Hong Kong government has already asked him to support him. Why do they suddenly want to check our accounts?" Zhuang Rongkun, chairman of Hang Lung Bank, said very annoyed.

"Maybe it's prudent. In the past year, the banks in Hong Kong have had a hard time. It's normal for them to worry about our debt problems." Zhuang Qingquan, the general manager and biological brother, said: "It's another small bank. , if we fund, I am afraid that we also need to consider the risks."

Zhuang Rongkun naturally understood the reason, and said: "But the problem is that the Hong Kong government will not allow a financial run. When Hisense Bank had a serious run before, it was said that the Governor of Hong Kong personally came forward and asked Chen Zhiwen to take action. Governor Youde just After taking office, there will be a large-scale run in the first year, which is definitely not what he wants to see."

"I just asked the people from the Hong Kong government because people from Standard Chartered asked the Hong Kong government to guarantee the amount of capital contribution, but the Hong Kong government could not make such a decision so quickly, so Standard Chartered proposed to simply check our There is no problem with the large amount of bills, and the Hong Kong government has no reason to refuse." Zhuang Qingquan said with a frown.

The so-called enterprise is too big to fail, which works in any place, especially for banks related to the financial system. Once it fails, it may trigger a domino effect. The larger the bank, the less the government can let it fail. Although Hang Lung Bank It is not comparable to Hisense, but it also has a certain scale in Hong Kong, and has business relationships with many financial companies and banks. Once something goes wrong, the Hong Kong government does not want to see the consequences.

Originally, I thought that the run was just caused by an unfounded reason. I just need to ask myself and pay a certain price, and then I should be able to get assistance, but I didn't expect that Standard Chartered and Bank of China were so cautious. It’s not that it’s impossible to get the Hong Kong government to guarantee it, but that the process will be very slow. After all, hundreds of millions of funds are involved, and this year’s land auction is not good, and the Hong Kong government itself is still in the red.

"We can't let them check. Once we check, we will reveal the truth immediately. Many of our loans have serious insufficient collateral." Zhuang Rongkun said.

If you are hiding a bad debt, it is still possible to hide it from the account inspector in a short period of time, but if you focus on the collateral, it is much simpler. How much you have borrowed and what the collateral is, these are the most basic information , you can find out by checking.

"These are not top-secret financial information. If we refuse to provide them, the market rumors will only get worse." Zhuang Qingquan said.

"It's completely unsolvable." Zhuang Rongkun said in despair. The root cause was that many of his company's mortgages had problems. This is actually the epitome of many Hong Kong banks. It's just that he was unlucky and hit the gun.

"I wonder if Standard Chartered made such a request just to ask for something more?" Zhuang Qingquan said.

"It's also possible, then you can arrange it immediately. I'm going to meet Bill Winter." Zhuang Rongkun thought about it and agreed.

Soon, Standard Chartered Bank arranged a meeting with Hang Lung Bank, but there was no actual progress. Standard Chartered Bank only asked for an audit to ensure that there were no major problems, but Hang Lung Bank refused, and only offered to give a higher interest return. .

This kind of negotiation, not to mention elite negotiators like Standard Chartered Bank, even ordinary shareholders know that Hang Lung must have a big problem. Otherwise, why is it so hard to provide some basic information?

Affected by this, not only the stock price of Hang Lung Bank plummeted, but even the run became more serious. This time, no other bank dared to fund it, because everyone knew that there was a problem.

In less than 5 days, Hang Lung Bank's 500 million funds were taken away, and there was no more money in the bank account. As a last resort, the two banker brothers had to announce the closure of various branches, which made a large number of depositors excited , Even the police couldn't hold it down.

Subsequently, the Hong Kong government had no choice but to immediately take over Hang Lung Bank, and at the same time immediately met with the senior management of Standard Chartered, Bank of China, HSBC, and Hisense Bank. In the end, Hang Lung Bank's depositors' deposits were temporarily supported by Standard Chartered and Hisense.

However, what is going on inside Hang Lung still needs to be investigated for a period of time, and it will be dealt with after the accounts are settled.

Before the economic crisis, the last bank run in Hong Kong was over safely.

Time soon approached the end of the month, and Thatcher went to Yanjing as in history, but naturally the negotiation failed, and he fell on the stairs. Affected by this, the entire Hong Kong real estate market immediately experienced a plunge comparable to that in 1973 At the same time, the stock prices of the Hang Seng Index and a large number of listed companies fell on a large scale.

Hong Kong's cyclical economic crisis for about ten years has finally arrived.