Chapter 370: Privatize the Jardine Matheson Group!

Holding a medal, Lin Haoran returned to Shi Xundao’s villa with a lot on his mind.

Everything he encountered tonight was far beyond his expectations.

He had never expected that those British financial groups would join forces to force him to give up his insistence on Jardine Matheson.

He had not even thought about these things when he went to the Governor’s Mansion. Even though he already controlled Jardine Matheson, these people still refused to give up.

However, Lin Haoran was not angry, but instead a smile appeared in his heart.

Back in the study on the third floor, Lin Haoran casually threw the medal into a drawer.

For him, this medal was far from an honor worth boasting about.

The British government’s attempt to win him over with this medal was obviously a big mistake.

What disgusted him even more was that immediately after the medal was awarded, pressure was put on him to give up his controlling stake in Jardine Matheson & Co., which completely destroyed his good impression of the British government.

After all, the British government ultimately serves the British. In their eyes, Hong Kong is just a colony, so it is understandable that they look down on him, a Chinese.

However, Lin Haoran didn’t care at all.

Because he knew that Hong Kong would not be under British jurisdiction for long.

Calculating the time, in another ten years or so, Hong Kong will return to the embrace of the motherland.

At that time, he would no longer have to do things according to the wishes of the British.

Even now, he doesn’t indulge these people.

If these British financial groups were targeting the Hong Kong Land Group rather than Jardine Matheson, Lin Haoran would not agree to their demands no matter what.

As for Jardine Matheson, as long as there was enough profit to satisfy him, he would consider letting it go.

But the prerequisite is that the benefits must be so great that he is tempted.

Otherwise, there is no need to discuss anything!
That’s why he wasn’t angry.

In Lin Haoran’s eyes, Jardine Matheson’s overseas investment projects did not have much potential.

Previously, he even planned to sell off these overseas assets with bleak prospects after bringing down Niu Bijian in the future, and recover the funds to invest in more valuable projects.

It now seems that since this group of British financial consortiums want to take back Jardine Matheson, they may be able to use Jardine Matheson to gain more benefits for themselves.

For Lin Haoran, the future development of Jardine Matheson is indeed not optimistic.

Even in the 2020s, with Hong Kong Land still a subsidiary, Jardine Matheson’s market value barely reached around US$50 billion.

Now, the value of Jardine Matheson has been greatly reduced due to the loss of the Hong Kong Land Group.

Lin Haoran estimated that in the next few decades, it would be rare for Jardine Matheson’s maximum market value to reach US$20 to 30 billion, and US$50 billion would be even more of a luxury.

In comparison, the market value of Bank of Hong Kong, which is currently similar to Jardine Matheson in strength, will reach HK$1.6 trillion in the future.

As the two major representatives of British financial groups in Hong Kong, Jardine Matheson and Bank of Hong Kong will have a huge gap in future development.

Considering all these conditions, Lin Haoran naturally doesn’t care much about the controlling rights of Jardine Matheson.

Even if he doesn’t care, at least there must be enough benefits, otherwise he won’t even give face to the king.

Sitting in the chair in the study, Lin Haoran began to think deeply.

He was thinking about what conditions to offer Henry Keswick and his men.

First of all, the shares that are mutually controlled by Jardine Matheson and Swire Properties must be resolved.

Otherwise, if he gave up his shares in Jardine Matheson, wouldn’t that allow Jardine Matheson to once again take control of the Hong Kong Land Group?
This is of course impossible.

Even before he sold his 19% stake in Jardine Matheson, he had to resolve the issues between Jardine Matheson and the Hong Kong Land Group.

Perhaps we should take this opportunity to completely sever the ties between the two.

“Why not take this opportunity to completely privatize the Jardine Matheson Group?” This thought suddenly flashed through Lin Haoran’s mind.

The future value of the fixed assets currently held by the Hong Kong Land Group cannot be underestimated. If they can be properly managed, their profitability may be beyond the reach of even the Mint.

After all, the Hong Kong Land Group owns a large number of real estate properties in prime locations such as Central, Sheung Wan, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui. Not only are there a large number of them, but they also occupy the most core locations.

Even if the Swire Group does not expand into other businesses in the future, the rent collected from these properties located in core areas will be enough to make it profitable and lucrative.

The former Hong Kong Land Group, with its British background, acquired many of the most central and prosperous locations, and developed a large number of self-retained real estate properties on this basis. Its advantages are self-evident. Hong Kong Land Group is known as the landlord of Central, and this title is not groundless.

In addition, Hong Kong Land Group also has many high-quality subsidiaries, including Dairy Farm International, which owns the most famous hypermarket chain in Hong Kong, Wellcome Supermarket.

In addition, Mannings Pharmacy, Hong Kong’s largest drugstore chain, and the company that holds a 50% stake in Maxim’s, are also affiliated with Dairy Farm International, further demonstrating its strong business capabilities.

Therefore, in Lin Haoran’s opinion, the quality of the Hong Kong Land Group is much better than that of Jardine Matheson.

Without the Jardine Matheson Group, it would be nothing!

Jardine Matheson is just a vampire on the body of the Hong Kong Land Group.

These can be seen in another world, that in the future Jardine Matheson will find a way to split off from the Hutchison Whampoa Group, allowing Dairy Farm International to become completely independent, thereby transferring its control from the Hutchison Whampoa Group to Jardine Matheson.

But now, they still completely belong to the Hutchison Whampoa Group. With Lin Haoran controlling the Hutchison Whampoa Group, it is naturally impossible for Jardine Matheson to take over Dairy Farm International.

Dairy Farm International is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong Land Group and a privatized subsidiary of the Hong Kong Land Group.

With this thought in mind, Lin Haoran couldn’t stop.

It is indeed possible to privatize the Jardine Matheson Group.

Today, he controls 47.3% of the shares of the Jardine Matheson Group, and if he takes another step further, it will exceed 50%.

But just about 50% of the shares is too little.

After all, the future value of the Swire Group is ridiculously high.

Why did the Hong Kong Land Development, which is well-known to everyone in later generations, suffer such a miserable situation despite owning so many high-quality properties in Hong Kong?
Isn’t the main reason the result of exploitation by the parent company, Jardine Matheson?

With profits constantly transferred to Jardine Matheson, and then through Jardine Matheson to British financial groups headed by the Keswick family, it would be strange if the Hong Kong Land Group could do well.

Moreover, without another major asset, Dairy Farm International, the annual revenue and profits of the Swire Group will plummet.

Otherwise, if the Hong Kong Land Group relies solely on its own development and can earn tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars in profits a year just by collecting rent, coupled with Dairy Farm International’s strong retail business, the value of the Hong Kong Land Group, in Lin Haoran’s opinion, is no worse than that of the future Bank of East Asia.

“The privatization of the Hong Kong Land Group can be used as an important bargaining chip in my negotiations with these British financial groups. Apart from the 30.2% of the Hong Kong Land Group shares held by Jardine Matheson, those British financial groups still hold about 10% of the Hong Kong Land Group shares.

I am determined to get this 10% of the shares. If I can add the 30.2% from Jardine Matheson, I will have nearly 87.5% of the shares of the Hong Kong Land Group. However, to achieve this goal, the capital investment required is not insignificant!” Lin Haoran was knocking on the table while thinking, his brows knitted.

Even if he acquired the 30.2% stake from Jardine Matheson through share swap, Lin Haoran still had to pay a certain price, but the money would not be paid directly to Jardine Matheson, but would flow into the account of the Hutchison Whampoa Group.

Together with the 6% stake in Hong Kong Electric Group, he currently controls a total of 47.3% of the shares of Hong Kong Land Development.

However, to completely privatize the Hong Kong Land Group, he still needs to acquire the remaining 52.7% of the shares. Even if he estimates it based on the total market value of HK$100 billion, he still needs to raise more than HK$ billion.

With such a huge capital demand, it would be difficult for him to raise the funds in the short term.

This is indeed a tricky problem!

The available cash on hand is only HK$13.85 billion, which was information Lin Haoran had previously learned from Huanyu Investment Company.

There is a huge gap between these billions and the required five billion.

What made him even more worried was that he still owed Jardine Matheson a debt of HK$2 billion, which, including interest, totaled to HK$2.2 billion.

Although he only took out this loan for one year and there are still seven months left before the repayment date, it does not seem urgent, but he still has to pay it off next year.

This huge debt undoubtedly added tremendous pressure to his fund-raising.

More than 5 billion Hong Kong dollars plus 2.2 billion Hong Kong dollars, this astronomical figure made Lin Haoran feel ashamed.

The funding demand of 70 to 80 billion Hong Kong dollars did make him feel stressed.

Looking back to two years ago, even funds of tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars required loans, but now, the scale of funds he is raising has easily reached tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars.

However, it is already November, which means the end of the year is approaching. If there is a need at the beginning of next year, Lin Haoran plans to raise funds from his subsidiaries such as Wanqing Group and Hong Kong Electric Group, and it is expected that he can easily raise more than 11 billion Hong Kong dollars.

However, even with the addition of these tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars, the total amount would only reach twenty to thirty billion Hong Kong dollars. Adding on his Jardine Matheson shares, he should be able to get about ten billion Hong Kong dollars. But even so, there is still a big gap compared to the seven or eight billion Hong Kong dollars he needs.

Even if we manage to raise 5 billion Hong Kong dollars first, it is still far from enough and there is still a considerable gap in funding needs.

There are too many complex factors involved. Lin Haoran thought about it over and over again, but still couldn’t find a clear solution.

“It’s better to rest early and gather my generals to discuss tomorrow.” Looking at the time, it was already past ten o’clock in the evening. Lin Haoran finally decided to put his thoughts aside and prepare to go to bed.

After all, he now has a number of experienced and capable assistants around him whose business insights are far better than his. Why should he worry alone?
(End of this chapter)