Reborn as a tycoon in Hong Kong

The next day on Tuesday, Lin Baicheng came to Hutchison Whampoa.

Today Hutchison Whampoa will hold a board meeting to discuss the use of funds for Hutchison Whampoa's nearly US$1 billion in profits.

It is true that Lin Baicheng is the company's largest shareholder, and the company is also under his control, but with the decision on the use of capital totaling more than one billion US dollars, he must discuss it with other directors, and at least formally notify them , you cannot decide the use of funds on your own without saying hello.

If Lin Baicheng really wanted to do that, it was not impossible, but it would be equivalent to ignoring other directors and shareholders, and face was given to each other. If he doesn't give others face, he can't blame others for not giving him face in the future.

The board of directors convened at ten o'clock, and Lin Baicheng, who stayed in the office, was calculating his profits this time.

This time, Hutchison Whampoa, Bailong Trading Co., Ltd., Yum Fund and Lin Baicheng sold multiple gold futures orders with their own funds. For their own funds, Lin Baicheng has learned this morning that the international gold price has fallen below the US$400/ounce price. Lin Baicheng has told Vivien Kelly and others not to sell even if the gold price rebounds later.

The first is Hutchison Whampoa. Lin Baicheng's profit is 10% of the profit commission, which is 109.3 million U.S. dollars. Lin Baicheng gave Golden Fleece Company up to 1 million U.S. dollars as a bonus.

Then came Bailong Commercial Co., Ltd., which had a profit of more than 500 million US dollars. After dividends, Lin Baicheng got 204 million US dollars.

Then there is the Yum Fund, which received a total of 657 million Hong Kong dollars, which is a little over 156 million when converted into U.S. dollars.

I sold long gold futures orders with my own funds. During this period, I sold exactly 10 times leveraged long orders of US$100 million in principal. The cost price was US$241.7 per ounce, and the average selling price was US$409.75 per ounce. The increase was as high as about 69.53%, with a profit of US$695.3 million.

The annual interest rate of this leveraged financing is 9%, but the duration is only 5 months. The total interest is US$37.5 million, and the profit after deducting the leverage interest is US$657.8 million.

In terms of tax payment, the accounts of these funds are also offshore companies with special tax avoidance means. They only need to pay taxes of US$26.5 million.

As a result, the final profit was US$6.313, plus the principal, which equaled US$731.3 million in funds, which were deposited in more than a dozen accounts at multiple companies.

US$109.2 million plus US$204 million plus US$156 million, plus US$731.3 million, for a total of US$1.2005 billion. These are all the funds that Lin Baicheng can use after this harvest.

Of these funds, Lin Baicheng has already returned US$251.7 million to Mitsubishi Bank, so the remaining available funds are now just over US$950 million.

Of the remaining funds, Lin Baicheng plans to repay the US$100 million loan from Goldman Sachs and take back the shares of Galaxy Games that were pledged to Goldman Sachs. This loan was taken out by Lin Baicheng in November 1977. For nearly two years, Lin Baicheng paid nearly 17 million US dollars in annual interest of 9%.

Now that Lin Baicheng is not short of funds for the time being, he naturally chooses to pay off the loan to avoid having to pay interest every day. When you are really short of money, you can take the shares of Galaxy Games to the bank for a loan. With the current market value of the company, you can get more funds with less mortgage.

After repaying bank loans from Goldman Sachs and Mitsubishi, not counting corporate loans, Lin Baicheng himself still owes HSBC 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollars, equivalent to a loan of a little more than 350 million US dollars.

However, Lin Baicheng is not planning to repay the 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollar loan from HSBC for the time being, but continues to owe it. Lin Baicheng has a general direction of using the remaining US$850 million.

First of all, in terms of investment, the reason why Lin Baicheng closed his long order of US$1 billion when he knew that the international gold price would rise sharply in the future was because he planned to allocate part of his funds to go long oil futures and shift the battlefield.

This time, Lin Baicheng planned to spend 200 million US dollars to be long oil futures, also using ten times the leverage. However, these funds would not be handed over to people from Golden Fleece Company for operation. Lin Baicheng planned to let Yuan Tianfan lead a team to operate the funds.

As a result, Lin Baicheng only has 650 million U.S. dollars left at his disposal, and the school he plans to build will cost a huge amount of money. The initial land purchase and school construction will cost at least 100 to 200 million U.S. dollars. After the school is completed, there will be advanced equipment. There is still money to be spent on the purchase of equipment, the recruitment of outstanding teachers and professors, etc., but that is a matter later.

For the time being, the school only counts US$150 million in expenses, which leaves only US$500 million.

Lin Baicheng, who knows the future development, is very clear about the great potential of the mobile phone industry. Although mobile phones have been developed, they have not yet been commercialized. Although Lin Baicheng may not be able to catch up with Motorola if he enters the market now, he will definitely be able to win the market if he enters the market early. It is as close as Motorola, and at the same time, it can hold some key patents in hand.

Therefore, Lin Baicheng is preparing to invest US$400 million of the US$500 million in the mobile phone industry. Whether it is acquiring companies with relevant technology patents or recruiting industry leaders for research and development, the funds required will definitely not be small, and an investment of US$400 million is definitely not too much.

However, the US$400 million in this era is not the US$400 million in a few decades. The purchasing power is still very strong, not to mention that the investment of US$400 million is only an initial investment. If necessary, Lin Baicheng will definitely continue to invest in the future. .

Nowadays, Lin Baicheng only has plans to enter the mobile phone industry, but has not taken any action yet. He needs to find an industry leader. If he takes the lead, he doesn't know which year it will take for the company to develop a mobile phone.

It is better to leave professional matters to professionals.

Lin Baicheng has already made plans to use the remaining US$100 million, and he also attaches great importance to the investment there.

When ten o'clock was approaching, secretary Chen Huixiang came to inform Lin Baicheng to go to the meeting.

In the conference room, all directors took their seats.

"The theme of today's meeting is to discuss the direction of use of a total of US$1.183 billion in funds."

"Let me talk about my thoughts first. The company has made a huge profit of US$983 million through investment this time. Therefore, it is necessary to continue investing. I decided to entrust a third-party institution with US$200 million in funds to invest. Maybe there will be a high rate of return by then.”

Lin Baicheng, who presided over the meeting, was the first to say that the board of directors said they were discussing with each other, but in fact they were expressing opinions on his decision-making, not discussing how to use the funds.

After hearing this, Guo Henian said: "Lin Sheng, Hutchison Whampoa has a total of nearly 1.2 billion U.S. dollars of funds available. I very much agree with the decision to continue investing, but is the investment of 200 million U.S. dollars too small? The company has sufficient funds and is completely You can increase the amount of funds you can invest.”

With a principal of 200 million US dollars, he can earn nearly 5 times the profit. The more the principal, the more he will earn. Guo Henian naturally wants to use more principal for investment, so that he can earn more money by then. many.

"The company has obtained high returns on investment many times, so it can increase its investment and increase its principal. The principal of US$300.4 billion is fine."

As an honorary director, Richard said very fairly that he would do whatever was beneficial to the development of the company.

Lin Baicheng looked at the others after hearing this: "What do you say?"

"As long as the principal invested does not exceed US$500 million, then there is no problem." "The investment of US$200 million is not a small amount, but it is not much compared to the funds the company can use, and more investment is acceptable." I’m in favor of investing more principal.”.

Other directors expressed their opinions one after another and agreed to allocate more funds for investment. It was obvious that the previous profits from many investments made everyone feel that there was much to be done.

"Since everyone thinks so, let's discuss how much money to invest."

Lin Baicheng saw that everyone had the same opinion and did not refute.

Afterwards, the directors discussed it. This time, everyone's opinions should be combined, rather than one person's opinion being the main one.

A few minutes later, the specific amount was decided, and Hutchison Whampoa came up with $400 million as an investment.

Lin Baicheng continued: "The remaining US$783 million will definitely be invested in the company's industrial development. The three major industries of real estate, retail and medicine are the main investment directions."

Richard said: "Mr. Lin, the company's expansion in Xiangjiang has slowly reached its limit. The market is only so big. If we want to expand again, we must wait until the economy in Xiangjiang gets better, or expand overseas."

Wei Li followed: "The real estate is not bad. The company has a lot of land and can continue to develop it."

Richard: "The land area in Xiangjiang is limited. For the company's long-term development, the company should not develop the land too quickly. Furthermore, the real estate developed by the company is rarely sold, so the speed of withdrawing funds is too slow, which will It affects the development of the company.”

"As for real estate, I want Hutchison Whampoa to expand to Japan and cooperate with local companies in the country to develop real estate together. What do you think?"

Lin Baicheng provided a direction. Japan's real estate industry will have great potential after 1985. He wants Hutchison Whampoa to develop it in advance and then make a fortune in the real estate bubble. This can be said to be a one-time transaction. After the real estate bubble ends, Hutchison Whampoa will no longer need to develop the real estate industry in Japan. The main development direction in the future will be Hong Kong and the mainland.

"Why would Lin Sheng want to expand to Japan? Although Japan's real estate industry has recovered in recent years, it does not have much development potential. Instead of investing in Japan, it is better to go to the United States. After all, the United States is the world's largest economy. the most developed country."

Guo Henian has a different view. In his opinion, since it is expanding to overseas countries, it is better to choose Japan than the United States. The development potential of the real estate industry in the United States is greater than that in Japan. After all, Americans are richer.

"The reason for choosing Japan over the United States is very simple. Japan has less land and more people, while the United States has less land and more people. As far as the real estate industry is concerned, Japan's potential will only be greater than that of the United States."

Lin Baicheng explained aloud, paused and then said: "Just like our city in Hong Kong, the fundamental reason why I am optimistic about the real estate industry in Hong Kong is that we have more people and less land in Hong Kong. With the development of the economy, everyone is getting richer, and everyone must be rich. I want to live in a better place, so housing prices will get higher and higher.”

"That's true."

Guo Henian nodded slightly, feeling that Lin Baicheng's words made sense.

Richard said: "Mr. Lin, what you said is correct, but I still don't agree with expanding to Japan. After all, we are a foreign company. If we want to develop in Japan, we need to pay a price, and Japan's real estate industry It’s not necessarily better than the local ones in Xiangjiang. Instead of expanding to Japan, it’s better to vigorously develop the local real estate industry.”

Cheng Yufeng reminded aloud: "Director Richard, you just said that the company should not be too fast in real estate development."

Richard nodded: "I did say that, but I would rather invest funds in local real estate development than expand overseas."

"Everyone should share his or her own opinion."

Lin Baicheng nodded slightly and looked at the other directors. It is still early in 1985, and there are still five or six years to go. Therefore, Lin Baicheng does not insist on expanding Hutchison Whampoa's real estate business to Japan immediately. If most directors think that expansion is not suitable, he will choose to do what is good and talk about it later.

"The development of the real estate industry is inseparable from administrative relationships, so I am not in favor of the industry developing overseas."

"No matter what industry you are in, if you want to grow, you can't just stay in a corner. Expanding overseas is a development path that may bring more revenue and profits to the company. However, overseas expansion should not be too hasty, but should be slow. Take your time, and it’s best not to invest too much at the beginning so that the company can accept any losses.”

“If it’s just a small investment, it would be acceptable.”

"I also agree to expand outward, but the expansion direction is not Japan, but the Bay Island. The Bay Island has a closer relationship with our Hong Kong, and development there will be smoother."

"In addition to the Bay Island, countries with development potential in Southeast Asia are also options. The more average a country's economy is now, the greater the increase in real estate prices will be when the country's economy develops, and the profits that the company can earn will be the same. more."

"..."

The directors expressed their opinions.

After the meeting, Lin Baicheng took everyone's opinions into consideration and decided to expand outwards. However, we will discuss where to expand and how much investment to invest next time. Don't make a decision in a hurry.

The real estate expansion has not been decided yet, but the company still has nearly 800 million US dollars in funds at its disposal, so Lin Baicheng and others continued to discuss it.

This meeting lasted for more than an hour, and there were still many bills that had not been decided.

During the meeting, the directors decided to grant Watsons US$100 million to expand to Europe and the United States. The supermarkets that Watsons is currently operating have brought a lot of profits to Watsons. This is an industry that is constantly improving. Everyone is optimistic about the development prospects of the industry, so they will naturally increase investment.

The pharmaceutical, Kowloon Bus and other industries have invested a total of US$100 million, which is enough.

The remaining nearly 600 million U.S. dollars have not yet been decided. After the real estate investment direction and the scale of capital investment are decided, the direction of use of the remaining funds will be decided. But one thing is certain, that is, part of the funds will be returned to the bank. Hutchison Whampoa's liabilities are still very high. Now that the company has not expanded significantly, it is necessary to repay part of the loans to reduce its liabilities.