The Industrial Giant Reborn

Chapter 199 The Expansion of Retailing in Hong Kong

"Chen Sheng, Huodoli has agreed to be our financial advisor for the acquisition of Qizhou Yingni, and is ready to contact the major shareholders of Qizhou Yingni." Early in the morning, Zhou Jiayang brought the good news.

"Okay, then wait for the good news from Huodoli." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

Although the takeover war that broke out in the stock market seems to be full of prestige, and the two sides are fighting endlessly, but for the acquirer, it will definitely lose blood if it turns into a stock market takeover war.

For example, in the history of Bao Yugang’s acquisition of Wharf, it took two years of fighting between the two sides. In the end, Bao Yugang spent 21 billion Hong Kong dollars to acquire 20% of Wharf’s shares, successfully defeating Jardine Matheson, and in the entire Hong Kong The history of business has left a heavy pen and ink.

But what about the price?The total market value of Wharf has been directly raised from HK$100 billion before the acquisition to more than HK$20 billion at the end of the acquisition war. The 2% of the shares acquired in the last few days alone can buy the two Kowloons two years ago. The total market value of the warehouse, and after the acquisition of Wharf, the stock of Wharf was almost cut in half. It was just a book loss. Bao Yugang lost 2 million Hong Kong dollars in one day. In addition, the global interest rate was at a high level at that time. Hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars in losses.

Although in the long run, the acquisition of Wharf was less than that of the Bao Yugang family, it was the completion of the strategic goal of abandoning the boat and landing, but judging from the literal data at that time, it still suffered too much loss. The profits made in shipping for many years , a lot of money was spent on this acquisition.

If it hadn't been caught in a tug of war, maybe it wouldn't have needed to spend so much money at all.

Compared with another person's acquisition strategy, Li Jia has achieved a lot of success.

In the original history, Li Jiacheng was the first to acquire Yonggao Company, that is, in this life, Chen Zhiwen was the first to acquire the American company that owns the Hilton Hotel property. Like Chen Zhiwen a few years ago, Li Jiacheng's acquisition of Yonggao was also completed in a low-key way. The acquisition of Qizhou Yingni is also the acquisition of enough shares to become a shareholder, and then slowly replace the controlling family and obtain a controlling stake.

Cheung Kong Snake Tunxiang acquired Hutchison Whampoa, not to mention, relying on negotiations with HSBC, the white wolf basically obtained a market value of 25 billion Hong Kong dollars with a total asset of more than 60 billion Hong Kong dollars. Negotiated with Jardine at that time (the Jardine Group acquired HK Electric in the early 80s), and took advantage of Jardine's weakness to obtain HK Electric at a preferential price.

It can be said that Li Jiacheng's acquisitions were completed in a gentle manner. Even if there were struggles, they were outside the stock market. Although the momentum was far inferior to that of Bao Yugang, who confronted Jardine Harvest head-on, it cost the least cost and obtained Acquisition of assets larger than Wharf, this is a truly successful acquisition.

Chen Zhiwen will not spend a few years to complete the acquisition of Qizhou Yingni this time like Li Ka-shing, but in the early stage, it is still necessary to keep a low profile as much as possible. This is the purpose of entrusting Huodoli.

Chen Zhiwen went on to say: "Midea still has a lot of funds mobilized from overseas. Next, it will mainly develop ParknShop supermarkets or Watsons stores, directly buy properties in suitable places, and then open supermarkets. In this way, property management will As the real estate appreciates and makes profits, ParknShop does not need to pay rent every year.”

In the retail industry, in the Asian operating model, the biggest cost is often the rent. In the mainland of later generations, when many international giants entered the country in the 90s/00s, they used 15-20-year leases to operate. From a risk point of view, this logic is fine.

However, in terms of domestic real estate, Hong Kong learned from it. As a result, 20 years later, that is, around 2015, these international retail giants will face the situation of rent expiration and sharp rise in rent. In the end, many of them chose to close their doors.

On the contrary, domestic local retail companies or retail companies in the Bay Bay (RT-Mart, etc.) try their best to choose their own properties, or control the proportion of properties they own. Strong cost advantage.

Today's housing prices in Hong Kong have just started in this wave of rise. Now that we have some funds in hand, we can naturally purchase these properties. Anyway, as long as the housing prices are rising, even if we need money in the future, we can use these high-quality properties as collateral Come to borrow money, and because it has increased by two or three times, you can easily lend more funds than now.

"Okay, I'll buy two or three hundred properties first, and then open a supermarket, it will be a blow to other supermarkets." Zhou Jiayang said with a smile.

"Okay, but don't forget the Wellcome Supermarket under Hongkong Land. After buying milk, the investment in Wellcome is not low. Many properties are also owned by Hongkong Land." Chen Zhiwen said.

"In the future, our only opponent will probably be this Huikang." Zhou Jiayang nodded and said.

"Then let's fight for capital. It's not bad for us to consume the capital of the Jardine Department now." Chen Zhiwen said.

In the retail industry, especially in places like Hong Kong, the competition is still capital. After all, here is different from Europe and the United States. Those places in Europe and the United States are too large and the population is scattered. Although supermarkets cannot be built anywhere, they can choose Therefore, even if there are giants with a turnover of tens of billions of dollars such as Kmart and Sears in the past, Wal-Mart in the back will have a chance to rise.

But in a place like Hong Kong, where the population density is high, there are not many supermarkets to choose from. Once capital controls it, others will have no chance. Before the 70s, big capital still looked down on the scattered retail industry. But with the success of supermarket chains overseas, supermarkets in Hong Kong have also begun to capitalize.

Especially after Hongkong Land acquired Milk International, the Wellcome Supermarket under the original Milk International has gradually become one of the core businesses that Hongkong intends to develop.

Anyway, if I want to acquire Wharf in the future, I won't lose anything if I compete with Hongkong Land in other fields.

"Actually, with the development to the present, it will be a matter of time before we have business conflicts with several major foreign firms." Zhou Jiayang said after thinking for a while.

"Yes, let's try it first." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, after all, it is only a small city, and when it expands internally, conflicts will definitely happen sooner or later.

Tsim Sha Tsui:

This is one of the most commercially developed areas outside of Hong Kong Island.

On the ground floor of a 15-story building, a middle-aged bald man, with a few younger brothers, was cleaning up all kinds of decoration and construction waste in the first floor.

"Boss, the wooden floor here is so good, is it all smashed?" A contractor said with some reluctance.

"Nonsense, why don't you leave it here? The next boss here is going to open a supermarket. Your wooden floor can last for a few days to move goods?" the bald man said while smoking a cigar.

There used to be a hotel here, but the economy was not so good in the past two years, it closed down, and then it was closed for more than a year. I thought that the economy would be better and I could rent it out, but I didn’t expect to go directly to the gold owner to buy it, but The patron asked to clean up all the useless things here, so he naturally had to arrange for someone to clean it up.

"It's a pity." The contractor said with some regret.

"If you are reluctant, take it out carefully and slowly, maybe you can sell it for some money." The bald head laughed.

"Forget it. If you are careful, you can take it out without damaging it, but this kind of second-hand wooden floor can't be sold for a lot of money, and it will waste too much time." The contractor shook his head and said.

"Then don't go to work." The bald head raised his eyes, and the frightened contractor ran to direct his subordinates.

"Old Dong?" A familiar voice came from behind. The bald old Dong looked back and said with a smile, "Yo, Old Wu? What are you doing here?"

"What else can I do? As I said last time, we bought your house for 200 million Hong Kong dollars. How do you think about it?" Old Wu Gang finished speaking, looked around at the workers who were starting construction, and asked, "What do you think?" Is the house rented out again?"

"It's not rented out, but it's already sold. I'm just cleaning up the place so that my patron can take over smoothly." The bald old Dong said with a smile.

"What? You sold it? Who can offer a higher price than Landmark?" Lao Wu's heart bled suddenly. You must know that he could get almost 1 Hong Kong dollars as an intermediary fee from this transaction. He thought it was a surefire deal , I just want to sharpen my bald head again, and then I can earn a little more, but I didn't expect that such a big shop was sold in just a week.

"The price is higher and the money is more straightforward, so I naturally sold it. Old Wu, you are too greedy. I also want to thank you. If you were more straightforward, I would not be able to earn more than 10 Hong Kong dollars. Hahahaha." The bald old Dong laughed loudly.

"Then, who bought it?" Old Wu was very heartbroken, but he still had to know who cut off the beard. You must know that he was the one who promised Landmark. This store was very secure, but now something went wrong.

"I really don't know, but what I do know is that they are planning to open a supermarket just like the land behind you. As for which one, you will know when they open in the future." The bald old Dong shrugged. shrugged and said.

……

The same thing happened continuously in various districts of Hong Kong throughout August. Hutchison Capital began to acquire large-scale shops with a good location and an area of ​​about 8-5000 square feet, which still attracted some people's attention.

Hong Kong, Connaught Building:
This is currently the tallest building in Hong Kong. It is close to Victoria Harbor and belongs to Hongkong Land Group. This is the current headquarters of Jardine Matheson Group. The headquarters are here.

"Dong dong dong" came the sound of knocking on the door.

Niu Bijian was dealing with busy business affairs. After hearing the voice, he looked up and saw that it was Bao Fuda, the boss of Landmark, and quickly said, "Please come in."

Bao Fuda came over and said: "Nubijian, this is the news that the person in charge of Wellcome Supermarket has just reported to me. They are looking for suitable shops all over Hong Kong, and then make acquisitions or leases to open new supermarkets, but recently For a period of time, Hutchison was also acquiring a large number of such assets, and his funds could not compete with Hutchison, so he wanted the head office to provide some help.”

"He Huang? Is Chen Zhiwen ready to enter the retail market in Hong Kong?" Niu Bijian took the information and looked at it. It turned out that in less than half a month, the six potential store locations that Wellcome Supermarket had looked at were all It was directly acquired by Hutchison.

Hong Kong is not big, and there are actually not many locations that are suitable for opening supermarkets. When the two giants are thinking about expanding in this market, they will easily influence each other and even compete for properties. The 6 locations are only known, but I don’t know. I don't know how many there are.

"When Qi Dezun was still in control of Hutchison, he opened the ParknShop supermarket chain in 1970. When the real estate crisis broke out in 73, there were almost 20 or so small stores, and many of them were leased. Remember that it is in a debt crisis, and Baijia has basically not developed much. It was not until recently that it suddenly began to expand on a large scale. From what we know now, it seems that Hutchison has invested a lot of money and behaved in a hurry. It seems that there is no lease. They are all direct acquisitions of properties." Bao Fuda said with a frown.

After Landmark acquired Milk International, it took a year to sort out the various businesses of Dairy. Although the main purpose of Landmark’s acquisition of Dairy was for the large amount of land owned by Dairy in Causeway Bay and Pok Fu Lam, Dairy as a The companies that once ranked among the top [-] in Hong Kong also have many high-quality assets.

The Dairy Milk Company owns the largest ice factory in Hong Kong and the largest milk sales channel. There are more than 400 sales sites in Hong Kong, covering half of the population in Hong Kong. All of these commodity businesses are given to Maxim's Foods of Jardine Matheson Group.

The land of the Milk Company was naturally given to Landmark, but at the time of the real estate crisis, it was not developed for the time being, and the remaining business, Wellcome Supermarket, made Jardine very satisfied, which can be said to fill Jardine's retail business. Therefore, Jardine decided to invest more funds in Wellcome to develop it into the largest supermarket in Hong Kong, making it one of the main businesses of Jardine Group in Hong Kong.

However, the process is not in a hurry. After all, in Hong Kong now, there is no big capital to enter the retail supermarket industry, and Jardine's capital turnover in the past one or two years is not very satisfactory. Therefore, the expansion of Wellcome Supermarket is to be done slowly. The intention is to acquire or lease a property at the lowest possible cost.

But unexpectedly, he suddenly ran into He Huang.

"Chen Zhiwen is different from us. He doesn't seem to be interested in investing in many fields. Hutchison used to sell so many businesses, and he has almost sold them. His purpose should be to gather funds and develop in several fields. , His Midea and Red Bull are like this, and he has made a lot of money in Europe and America, and now he is suddenly buying supermarket properties, and he must be preparing for a large-scale investment." Niu Bijian thought for a while and said.

As a special figure who has suddenly risen in the history of Hong Kong business, Chen Zhiwen's development process has long been interpreted by many shopping mall elites. Naturally, they have also discovered Chen Zhiwen's business methods, which is to choose a few business directions, and then try their best to become bigger and stronger. It's not the same as the foreign firms in Hong Kong. After they grow up, they can't wait to develop hundreds of businesses.

As the head of the Jardines Group, Niu Bijian is also a rare non-Keswick family leader in the history of Jardines over 100 years ago. He has the ability to take the crown of Jardines from the Keswick family. He is naturally an elite figure in the business world. Misjudgments may be made in certain career decisions, but the analysis of things and people is still very strong.

"So what should we do now? Hong Kong's retail market is so big. If Hutchison Huang invests huge sums of money and gets a lot of high-quality positions first, we will be at an absolute disadvantage, especially the Galaxy Trading under Chen Zhiwen, whose main business direction is overseas. If the orders from retail giants allow them to successfully build supermarkets all over Hong Kong, it will be basically impossible for us to catch up in the future." Bao Fuda said worriedly.

Every supermarket has coverage. Once a supermarket is built in a place, people within a certain range will basically become its customers. Hutchison’s investment speed is obviously faster than Landmark. This may be the case in the whole of Hong Kong. Once the scale advantage is formed, coupled with the cheap goods of Xinghe Trade, then Jardine may need to pay more costs if it wants to grab the market again. This is basically equivalent to cutting off Jardine And the idea of ​​monopolizing retail was tied.

Unless now is just the beginning, fight for capital with the other party and grab high-quality positions.

"This is really troublesome. Now it's not just a matter of grabbing commercial land, but even if we invest about the same amount of money, it is impossible to defeat Hutchison. In the future, we will inevitably compete in the retail market together. This may not be how long There is a price war." Niu Bijian said with a frown.

Although last year, Newbikin used various opportunities to repel the Keswick family and obtained the supreme management of the Jardines Group, but the mess of the Jardines Group is getting bigger and bigger, and he needs to spend energy to deal with it all of these.

The huge loss of Jardine's overseas business has caused the capital chain in Hong Kong to become tense. If the land price in Hong Kong has not risen a little in the past year, it is very likely that Jardine will become the next Hutchison.

At this time, although Jardine does not need to stop expanding, it also prefers to choose businesses that do not have too much risk or do not require a lot of investment. The retail industry without giants entering the market is a good choice, but Hutchison Huang Entering the arena is another matter.

If it's just Hutchison, Niu Bijian is not afraid, but Chen Zhiwen behind Hutchison holds a large number of high-quality industries, and he doesn't know how strong he is in terms of capital. His overseas development is also very smooth, even some It is predicted that the export value of the entire company under Chen Zhiwen may reach 5% of the entire Hong Kong this year, which is a very scary proportion.

Jardine's situation is not very good now. It is obviously not worthwhile to go head-to-head with Hutchison Wong in the retail market, but Hongkong Land has invested a lot in Wellcome in the past two years. If it suddenly stops, the previous money, although not a blood loss , but it will definitely take a long time to pay back.

Bao Fuda thought for a while and said, "Why don't we talk to Chen Zhiwen? Although He Huang has obtained a lot of funds through weight loss, but still has such a heavy debt, Chen Zhiwen probably doesn't want to confront us."

"You can't expect Chen Zhiwen to give up after talking with us, right? I know his business strategy very well. Now that he has decided on it, he will definitely not give up. Moreover, he is still a young man. No matter how humble he is on the surface , I am also very proud in my heart." Niu Bijian said with a frown.

Bao Fuda said: "It is impossible for him to give up, but everyone should set a rule and do their own things, so it should be no problem."

"Alright, let's try it." Niu Bijian nodded and said.

PS: In the past few days, all orders have been made.

(End of this chapter)