In Hong Kong, we build a global business empire
Chapter 385: Take over the Jardine Matheson Group for less than 50 billion!
As soon as Lin Haoran finished speaking, the entire hall fell into a brief silence.
Compared with the British consortium’s last words to Lin Haoran, reporters were more interested in Lin Haoran’s announcement to privatize the Hong Kong Land Group.
They looked at each other, seemingly trying to digest this sudden information.
The privatization of the Hong Kong Land Group was undoubtedly explosive news. Moreover, it was announced on the same day that the controlling stake of Jardine Matheson Group changed hands. Its impact can be imagined.
Most importantly, everyone present knew what the privatization of the Hutchison Whampoa Group meant.
That is a behemoth with a market value of 10 billion Hong Kong dollars. What does this mean? It means that if Lin Haoran wants to privatize this company, he will need to continue to invest at least several billion Hong Kong dollars, not counting the shares he has already acquired in the early stage.
Thinking of Lin Haoran’s words, “They gave too much, I would be a fool if I disagree,” the reporters immediately had a lot of thoughts.
Could it be that it was because Lin Haoran obtained unimaginable funds from the British financial group that he was able to privatize the Jardine Matheson Group?
No wonder Lin Haoran suddenly gave up Jardine Matheson.
Compared with controlling Jardine Matheson, there are obviously greater benefits in privatizing the Hong Kong Land Group.
The Hong Kong Land Group is a Hong Kong real estate giant known as the ‘King of Central’.
At this moment, compared with the domineering approach of privatizing the Hong Kong Land Group, what does it matter if Jardine Matheson returns to the hands of the British financial consortium?
Although Jardine Matheson is known as the “King of Foreign Firms”, everyone in Hong Kong knows that it is because Jardine Matheson used to own two giants, Wharf Holdings and Hong Kong Land Development.
Now, Jardine Matheson has lost Wharf Holdings and Hong Kong Land Development one after another. Its true value is really not as good as that of Hong Kong Land Development!
In fact, the current market value of Hutchison Whampoa is not much different from that of Jardine Matheson.
Although everyone does not know their specific transaction details and conditions, as Lin Haoran said, if given the choice between controlling Jardine Matheson and privatizing the Hutchison Whampoa Group, there is no doubt that the vast majority of people in Hong Kong will choose to privatize the Hutchison Whampoa Group.
However, the prerequisite is to have so much funds!
This time, the reporters were once again stunned by Lin Haoran’s financial strength.
Who would dare to think about privatizing the Hong Kong Land Group?
In an instant, this place, which was originally the home ground of Jardine Matheson, became Lin Haoran’s personal home ground.
The faces of several British people turned grim.
At this time, a foreign reporter stood up and asked in English: “Mr. Lin, can you tell us how much money you received from the British consortium to enable you to have enough strength to privatize the Hong Kong Land Group?”
“In commercial transactions, specific amounts are often considered confidential information. However, I can reveal that this transaction was fair and reasonable. During the negotiation process, both parties showed great sincerity and professionalism, which ultimately led to this win-win situation.
Some terms were clearly confidential at the beginning of the negotiations, so I cannot answer your question directly, but I can say with certainty that I have sufficient financial support for the privatization process of the Hong Kong Land Group.
In addition, I would like to announce an important piece of news: Jardine Matheson and Hong Kong Holdings have completed the re-exchange of their cross-holdings, which is also a key factor in Jardine Matheson’s return to the hands of the British consortium.
In other words, the 30.2% stake in Hutchison Whampoa Group previously held by Jardine Matheson has now returned to the hands of Hutchison Whampoa Group, and I plan to spend HK$30 billion to acquire this stake.
At present, the relevant acquisition procedures are proceeding in an orderly manner. Once the acquisition is completed, I will hold nearly 90% of the shares of Hong Kong Land Group, which will bring me closer to completing the privatization of Hong Kong Land Group!” Lin Haoran added with a smile.
Next, the reporters’ attention was almost focused on Lin Haoran, leaving the British tycoons looking at each other in bewilderment.
Whose home court is this?
Niu Bijian felt a little regretful at this moment. If he had known earlier, he would not have let Lin Haoran come here, and he should not have left Ma Shiming here.
As a result, now all reporters are concerned about Lin Haoran’s privatization of the Hutchison Whampoa Group, while the fact that their British consortium has regained control of Jardine Matheson seems to be no big deal.
“Ladies and gentlemen, today’s press conference is about to end. Please leave first. If there are any follow-up matters, we will discuss them later.” At this time, at the signal of Henry Keswick, Niu Bijian stood up and politely asked the reporters to leave.
It was said to be polite, but in fact, they rushed out before everyone finished the interview.
Originally, both Niu Bijian and Henry Keswick were fully prepared to answer various questions from reporters.
However, what was unexpected was that before they could finish what they wanted to say, the reporters’ attention had already shifted to Lin Haoran, leaving them aside. They naturally did not want to continue this press conference, which was a shame for them.
Lin Haoran was not surprised by Niu Bijian’s move.
Now that the information to be announced has been released, let’s just end the event.
Before the meeting ended, he announced to everyone: “Ladies and gentlemen, later on Universal Investments and Wal-Mart will also release an announcement regarding the privatization of the Jardine Matheson Group. Everyone is welcome to report on this. Thank you.” As Lin Haoran announced the end of the meeting, although the reporters were still reluctant to leave, they had no choice but to stand up and leave the lobby with their heads full of questions and excitement.
Lin Haoran’s words would surely be like a stone thrown into a calm lake, causing ripples and shaking the entire Hong Kong society.
The reporters who walked out of the lobby immediately started to get busy. Some hurried back to the editorial office to write reports, while others quickly made phone calls to verify more details with their respective sources.
More reporters went to the headquarters of the Winley Company, trying to obtain more detailed information about Lin Haoran’s privatization of the Hutchison Whampoa Group from the Winley Company.
As for Jardine Matheson, only a part of the British media remained, hoping to obtain some details from Jardine Matheson.
The news of the privatization of the Hong Kong Land Group spread like wildfire and quickly spread to every corner.
The British bosses who stayed where they were had different expressions on their faces. Some were angry, some were helpless, and more were afraid of Lin Haoran.
At this moment, the excitement of the British consortium in regaining control of Jardine Matheson seemed to have disappeared.
On the same day, Wal-Mart announced that Universal Investments’ privatization of Hutchison Whampoa Group had been approved and registered by the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission, and the privatization procedure had been carried out.
At the same time, Universal Investment Company officially announced that it had financed the 30% stake repurchased by the Hong Kong Land Group with HK$30.2 billion.
On the other hand, Hong Kong Electric Group also officially announced that it would sell 6% of its shares in Hong Kong Land Development to Universal Investment Company for HK$6 million.
Under the operation of the profitable company, a large amount of buying was carried out on the stock market that day, and most of the orders of the Jardine Matheson Group listed on the market were swept away.
On that day, the number of shares acquired by the company on the stock market reached a terrifying 4.8%.
At this point, Huanyu Investment Company actually already controls 93.7% of the shares of the Swire Group.
And in the secondary market, only 6.3% of the shares remain.
On the morning of November 11, the general manager of Deli announced that since Universal Investments already owned 26% of the issued shares of the Hong Kong Land Group, in accordance with the provisions of the Hong Kong Code on Takeovers and Mergers, Universal Investments would make a compulsory acquisition of the remaining shareholders of the Hong Kong Land Group.
As for the acquisition price, in accordance with the regulations marked in Hong Kong’s “Code on Takeovers and Mergers”, the price paid by the offeror to the shareholders who accept the offer must be in cash or cash alternative, and must not be less than the highest price paid by the offeror or its concert parties for the voting shares during the offer period and within six months before the start of the offer period.
In the previous six months, the highest share price of Swire Properties reached HK$116 billion.
Although it is a little higher compared to the current market value of just over 10 billion.
But now there are only 6.3% of the shares in the secondary market. Therefore, even if Lin Haoran acquires the shares based on the total market value of HK$116 billion, he will not have to spend much extra money. He will only have to spend about HK$ million more.
For him, spending tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars more is nothing compared to completely privatizing the Hong Kong Land Group.
At this point, Universal Investment Company can actually announce the successful privatization of Hutchison Whampoa Group.
However, Lin Haoran was not in a hurry about this matter.
Anyway, the Swire Group is no longer within his control, and the money borrowed from Citibank also has a loan period of one year.
In order to ensure that the privatized Hutchison Whampoa Group can operate stably and avoid legal disputes or impacts on the company’s normal operations due to opposition from minority shareholders, Lin Haoran believes that the more shares that can be recovered, the better.
As for those who are unwilling to sell in the end, Lin Haoran can’t control them. After the privatization is completed and announced as successful in the future, if the small number of shareholders who have not sold their shares come to him, he can just buy them back at the price at the time of privatization.
As for dividends?
Naturally, these have nothing to do with them. From now on, the Landmark Group will belong entirely to Lin Haoran personally.
After the privatization is successful, the billions of Hong Kong dollars in the account of the Swire Group, including the Hong Kong dollars he paid for the 30.2% stake, will all be his personal assets!
At that time, Lin Haoran would be able to easily get tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars in cash from the account of the Hong Kong Land Group.
By then, let alone repaying the HK$33 billion principal and interest to Citibank, even repaying the HK$20 billion and HK$2 million interest borrowed from Huifeng Bank a few months ago would not be a problem at all.
During this period, the Swire Group sold many projects and recovered a lot of funds, and the funds in the group’s account also increased.
These will become his personal assets after Lin Haoran completely privatizes the Jardine Matheson Group.
Therefore, in fact, the amount of money that Lin Haoran paid to privatize the Hong Kong Land Group was less than 5 billion Hong Kong dollars! (End of this chapter)