The Industrial Giant Reborn

Faced with betrayal from within and powerful enemies from outside, Simon Keswick had no choice but to come up with a solution to the current Jardine Land crisis.

There are many shareholders on the scene, but no matter who controls Land, as long as they can bring Land back to life and increase Land's stock price, they will follow.

Obviously, Chen Zhiwen is the most suitable. As for Simon Keswick? What the hell? Not many people I knew at the scene.

But the only disadvantage is that Chen Zhiwen's listed company, unlike other listed companies in Hong Kong, never pays dividends, but keeps all profits in his own hands.

In their words, if my investment ability is stronger than yours, you should believe me. Money in my hands can create more profits. If you don’t believe it and think you are stronger, you can sell all your stocks!

If other companies dared to say such things about ignoring shareholders, they would have been scolded to death long ago. But when such strong and confident words come from the mouth of a strong person, no one objects.

Simon Keswick glanced at a group of British people in the area on the left below. These were the ones he had roped in to vote for him at the shareholders' meeting. However, the sudden interference of Huo Jianning and others seemed to make them a little unsure. idea, let alone anyone else.

"Okay, everyone, no matter who is the most suitable for Jardine Matheson and Land, this is not something that I or Mr. Keswick can decide unilaterally. The general meeting of shareholders will naturally make the decision by the shareholders." Newbijian added.

"Jardine Matheson and Land hold mutual holdings and can represent each other. This is a completely unreasonable factor. The real shareholders will have no rights. This is a document issued by the Hong Kong Supreme Court." Simon Keswick added, Chen Zhiwen owns more than 20% of Land shares. If Newbikin continues to vote for Land as Jardine Matheson, others will stop playing.

After coming to Hong Kong, he intended to use the previous regulations of European and American countries to break this chain of mutual control. In addition, this itself is unreasonable, and the Hong Kong government courts have to pay attention to it, otherwise, large consortiums will be divided into two in the future. , and then hold shares with each other, is it still necessary for the entire stock market to exist?

However, such a shareholding model itself is legal. Simon Keswick spent a lot of effort to obtain a court document on the serial mutual control model. At the shareholders' meeting, there is no other party's voting rights. This is not against Jardine Land, but everyone who does the same thing.

This is the secret weapon he prepared. Originally relying on this document, plus his own shares and the Keswick family's previous control history of Jardine Land, Newbigan and others managed the company like this. Simon Keswick We are still very sure of winning this shareholder meeting.

But now, Niubijian actually offered to resign, and even introduced Chen Zhiwen's capital before leaving. This clearly meant to disgust him, or in other words, he must have reached other cooperation with Chen Zhiwen.

No matter what his chances of winning are now, Newbikin's voting rights must be abolished no matter what, otherwise, he can go back to the UK directly.

After receiving the document passed by his subordinates, Niubijian didn't pay attention and said, "Okay, no problem."

In fact, when Jardine Matheson Land engaged in serial mutual control, there was great opposition from various business circles. This model is not feasible overseas and seriously infringes on the rights of shareholders. However, the Hong Kong government may also be out of protection. The purpose of Jardine Land is to turn a blind eye to this, and other consortiums are just talking about it because they are unwilling to offend the Jardine family.

But when the Keswick family competed for control of Jardine Matheson Land, they applied to abolish the voting rights between mutually controlled companies. This was basically successful. Even if Chen Zhiwen applied, he might succeed. After all, although the Hong Kong government favors British-owned enterprises, it cannot override market stability. If it disagrees, it will allow the same large companies to hold shares in each other. This is tantamount to destroying all the efforts of the Hong Kong government to build the stock market, and even It could lead to another stock market crash and so on.

Newbijian ignored Simon Keswick and said: "Now I would like to ask everyone who has already made a decision to vote first."

Now that he has decided to cooperate with Chen Zhiwen in exchange for his future development, he has naturally made preparations for it.

Except for some small shareholders or shareholders with very small shareholdings, Newbijian also knows most of the shareholders, or at least knows about them, and which of them have a good relationship with the Keswick family, and which ones do not care about the real estate status, but only know about them. It just needs to be able to make money, and there is information about who might be inclined to land being acquired by Chen Zhiwen, or who is even willing to sell their shares, and so on.

Newbijian also contacted the right people based on the number of shares, from most to least. Through precise crowd selection, in a short period of time, he found many shareholders for Chen Zhiwen who were willing to support him or who were willing to sell. Of course, for the shareholders of the stocks in their hands, Chen Zhiwen's subordinates will negotiate the price, or those who are willing will also put forward their own conditions. But how can it be said that Newbijian has accurately found these people and basically will not disclose this. thing.

This is the scary thing about a high-level undercover agent. All the information is exposed, allowing the acquirer Chen Zhiwen to obtain the consent of a large number of shareholders in the shortest time and at the lowest cost.

This may also be Nubikin showing his value.

The people below began to discuss with each other after Newbijian finished speaking, but some people went directly to the ballot box in front to vote. There were two boxes, one for agreement and one for disagreement, and each vote would be written on their own. The name of the shareholder or company information, etc., as well as the proportion of shares held, the official will ultimately decide whether the opinion can be passed through internal voting.

"Simon, it seems that your family has been away from Hong Kong for too long and is not very famous." Niubijian said arrogantly. Although he was forced to lose to Chen Zhiwen, it doesn't matter if you think about it carefully. The capital of the two parties is already different. It was too big. Even before the real estate crisis, Real Estate could only rely on mutual control with Yi Zhi to protect itself. It’s not that Chen Zhiwen couldn’t acquire it at that time, but the price would be very high and not cost-effective.

Now, under the pressure of the Keswick family, he was forced to resign. Simon Keswick was the first opponent to target him. Now that he is embarrassed, he is naturally very happy.

"You just said you were going to resign. It seems that Chen Zhiwen is not going to continue to let you be the manager of Jardine Maison after acquiring Land, right?" Simon Keswick sneered and said, "Although I don't like Chen Zhiwen, I also admire him a lot. His ability is also very rare in the world. I am convinced when I lose to him. However, I now find that he and I have one thing in common, that is, they are dogs without teeth. We don’t know how to raise them. of."

Now that they have fallen out, Simon Keswick will naturally not be polite. In fact, he also knows that even if Newbijian does not betray Jardine Land, under Chen Zhiwen's eager gaze, it will be difficult for him to fight against such a large local conglomerate. , but it’s one thing to lose after hard work, but it’s another thing to be stabbed in the back.

"Humph, don't be too talkative. You should worry about it. If Land is acquired by Chen Zhiwen, what will happen to your Keswick family's Jardine Group under the mutual control of Yiji?" Newbijian listened. After that, he was very angry, but he also knew that to a certain extent, Simon Keswick was right. After this incident, his behavior would definitely be shamed by the British business community in Hong Kong. No matter how he explained it, he was indeed betrayed. "British-owned interest groups".

And if he can still work as a Taipan of Jardine Matheson or Land, then the price is still worth it. But Chen Zhiwen obviously disagrees. This will become another joke. The only chance to make a comeback is to run the company smoothly in the future and become Only by being the number one figure in Hong Kong's business community can everything now be washed away. As long as it is successful, whatever you did before will be right.

"The mutual control of Yihe has been lifted. After Chen Zhiwen takes control of Yihe, his voting rights for Yihe are useless. In the future, it will only be a mutual decomposition." Simon Keswick said.

Land is indeed Jardine's biggest asset, but it is not the only one. No one wants to lose land, but when there is no other way, the only choice is to "sacrifice the big and keep the small". This is better than having nothing at all. Moreover, Land Land only has strong financial resources and relies on rent collection to basically guarantee income during droughts and floods. If Newbigan, a waste, had not expanded on a large scale at the wrong time, this kind of enterprise would never have fallen to where it is today. As for the Jardine Matheson Group itself, it has a lot of business, involving dozens of countries and dozens of different businesses around the world. However, because of its poor management, it has suffered serious losses. If it is in the hands of capable people and can be managed well, The scale effect and profit will not be lower than those of Land.

"Oh, there is one thing I forgot to tell you." Newbijian said with a smile: "Chen Zhiwen also has some Jardine shares in his hands, about 18%, which is less than the shareholding of your Keswick family. The amount is less than twice as much!"

"What did you say?" Simon Keswick almost stood up in a hurry and said, "Is this your idea?"

"Of course not. It's not my idea and it's impossible for him to acquire so many stocks in such a short period of time, right?" Newbijian said with a smile: "Hutchison also started to acquire Jardine Matheson shares as early as 5 years ago. It’s the same period, which means that a few years ago, Chen Zhiwen was not just thinking about land.”

"Yihe belongs to my Keswick family, no one can take it away." Simon Keswick said coldly.

"From your family? Just 10% of the shares. Your family also has a lot of investments in other companies in other industries, right? But since Jardine is said to be owned by the Keswick family, why does your family only have 10% of the shares? This ratio is extraordinary. 30%. I don’t think Chen Zhiwen will have any more ideas about Jardine. Even if you control Land through Jardine, it will not be so easy for him to acquire Land. Even I couldn’t have acquired Jardine from your family. management rights." Niubijian sneered.

The source of all problems is actually the diversified investment logic of the Keswick family. They were unwilling to invest fully in their assets in Hong Kong, which led to all the problems today. Of course, in this case, he will always be the vice president of Jardine Group.

Simon Keswick fell silent and did not argue anymore.

Below, the voting results are slowly tallied. A total of 24% of people agreed with Chen Zhiwen’s investment in additional shares in Land.