Chapter 330: The Battle of Kowloon Warehouse
"Starting tomorrow, construction workers will come in to make improvements to the house."

“What you have to do is to supervise them and let them make repairs and rearrange them according to the design drawings.”

"This is the first task I give you!"

Li Changhe brought Guan Jiahui into the villa and gave her instructions.

Originally, the house was ready for occupancy, but Pierre Cardin came to take a look around and then complained about it for a long time.

After complaining, they gave some very practical suggestions for renovation. There was no need for major work, just a small rest would be enough.

Pierre Cardin was very considerate and provided the retouched pictures, and Li Changhe refused.

“Is this your villa?”

After Guan Jiahui came in, she looked at the huge villa and asked with some surprise.

"That's right"

"By the way, you should be able to read this kind of construction drawings. If not, take the time to find someone to train you today."

Li Changhe handed the construction drawings of the house to Guan Jiahui and asked casually.

Guan Jiahui took the construction drawing and curled her lips.

"Who am I looking down on? Of course I will look at you."

"Let me tell you, my earliest dream was actually to be a designer. I learned about it in the interest club at school."

Guan Jiahui said proudly to Li Changhe at this time.

"That's great. Let them make the changes according to the design and you keep an eye on it."

"Here's the key."

"I have other things to do these days. Your job is to fix this place up."

Wells went to France, and happened to have no one available.

Li Changhe originally planned to let Richard keep an eye on it, but he never expected that Guan Jiahui would come to him on her own initiative, and she was someone who could understand the design drawings.

This can be regarded as a case of finding something without any effort after searching for it for a long time.

"Okay, boss, just leave it to me."

"So this is your home in Hong Kong Island?"

Guan Jiahui asked Li Changhe with a smile at this moment.

"That's it!"

This is a crappy house, at best it's just a temporary residence.

But there's no need to tell her about this.

After letting Guan Jiahui get familiar with the place, Li Changhe took her back to the Peninsula Hotel.

Then after leaving her behind, Li Changhe left again.

He was going to the Mandarin Hotel next, so it would not be convenient for him to bring Guan Jiahui with him.

Mandarin Hotel is the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, but now they haven’t added the word Oriental, so it’s just called Mandarin Hotel.

Li Changhe walked into the hotel's conference room.

The reason why he can still come to the Mandarin Hotel openly is mainly because the current hotel has no surveillance system.

There are surveillance systems and color cameras in the world at present, but all current surveillance cameras are real-time monitoring and cannot store information.

Li Changhe didn’t know whether he had invented a closed-circuit surveillance system that could store information, but at least there was none in the hotels in Hong Kong Island.

In the conference room, when Li Changhe came in, several blond men with closed eyes were making phone calls.

"Hey, Vic!"

"Wait me a moment!"

"Listen, help me buy $200,000 worth of U.S. Treasury bonds. Yes, I'm still shorting it, and the time is of course until the end of the year."

After finishing speaking, the other party put down the phone and looked at Li Changhe.

"Vic, really, you should have joined us in shorting US bonds. You know my profit this year has exceeded 70%!"

"Jim, your bank is really crazy now."

Li Changhe said speechlessly.

Jim Capson, a manager in the securities department of Chase Manhattan Bank.

What they are doing now is shorting U.S. bonds, and it is not just Jim who is doing this, but the entire Chase Manhattan Bank is doing it.

The reason is that shorting U.S. Treasuries is now a financial model that is almost guaranteed to make money for financial companies.

The reason is that there is a loophole in the current U.S. Treasury bonds, or the entire U.S. repurchase market, which was discovered by these financial speculators.

This loophole is the mortgage interest rate spread!
Simply put, many people hold U.S. Treasury bonds, and when they need to exchange them for cash, they will mortgage them in the market to exchange for cash. This market is called the repurchase market.

Later, someone discovered that the interest payment dates for U.S. Treasury bonds are fixed, once on June 6 and December 31 each year, and the interest is paid every six months.

During this period, because the transactions are mortgage transactions, the interest payable on the bonds is not calculated. Therefore, the bonds obtained from the repurchase market can often earn interest paid by the Federal Reserve.

This creates room for interest rate spread profit for U.S. Treasuries themselves.

Coupled with the continued decline of US bonds, short selling itself is a kind of profit. Then some institutions joined forces with Chase Bank and began to short US bonds on a large scale.

Because in this way, holders can make a profit whether the price of U.S. Treasury bonds falls or remains the same.

Holders will only lose money if the price of U.S. Treasury bonds rises.

With a two-thirds chance of making a profit, Chase Manhattan Bank directly spent 300 million US dollars to help the securities company short US bonds, and at the same time began to help the other party purchase US bonds on the market on a large scale.

Three hundred million U.S. dollars, with no guarantee or mortgage, relying on this loophole, Chase Bank placed all its bets, and even its employees followed suit to make the most of U.S. debt.

That’s why Li Changhe said that Chase Manhattan Bank has gone crazy!
"Vic, believe me, this is definitely one of the most profitable investment methods right now. You have so much money. Instead of acquiring a real estate company in Hong Kong Island, you might as well invest in the U.S. bond market."

Jim was still trying to persuade Li Changhe earnestly.

Li Changhe shook his head: "Believe me, Jim, it won't be long before the price of US bonds will rise."

The price of U.S. debt is actually closely related to the economic development of the United States and the oil crisis.

Although Li Changhe did not understand the history of U.S. debt, he knew that by next year at the latest, the U.S. economic and oil crisis would be resolved. By then, U.S. debt would surely rebound strongly and prices would rise.

If these short-selling institutions do not get out in time, they will definitely suffer a huge loss.

"Vic, we have completely different judgments on this point."

"Well, I think we should not discuss this anymore. We should talk about our cooperation."

"Are you here to tell me that the takeover war is about to begin?"

Jim then asked Li Changhe seriously.

Li Changhe nodded: "Yes, I guess it will be these few days."

"Get your men ready!"

"I will give you instructions at any time."

"Of course, we have been prepared for this. You know, it is really meaningless to play around in the securities market of Hong Kong Island!"

Compared with the U.S. financial market, the market in Hong Kong is indeed not big.

"Don't worry, it's only a few days away!"

Li Changhe said with a smile.

In fact, Jardine Matheson did not disappoint Li Changhe.

On May 5, the third day after Bao Yugang left Hong Kong, Jardine Matheson launched a surprise attack and started a fierce battle for Kowloon Wharf. This was more than a month earlier than the time when Jardine Matheson started the battle for Kowloon Wharf in history!
Jardine Matheson announced that it would exchange two shares of Hutchison Whampoa worth HK$12.2 plus a 75.6% weekly interest bond with a face value of HK$10, with a total market value of HK$, for one share of Wharf Holdings!
This news not only appeared in major morning newspapers on Friday morning, but also appeared in front of major companies under Jardine Matheson Land.

Huge banners were hung in prime locations in Central and Kowloon, showing Jardine Matheson’s determination to the people of Hong Kong Island.

You should know that even after the fight between Jardine Matheson and the Pao family, the price of Hutchison Whampoa's shares is only around HK$70.

This is actually an inflated price. According to Li Ka-shing's valuation, the actual price of Hutchison Whampoa shares is around HK$50.

As soon as Jardine Matheson made a move, it directly raised the price by another 30, raising the stock market value directly to HK$100 per share!
As soon as this price was announced, investors across Hong Kong Island were instantly excited.

Jardine Matheson is worthy of being Jardine Matheson. It was generous at its first move and directly raised the share price of Hutchison Whampoa by more than 30%. For many people, this was directly doubling the price.

After all, when many securities companies and investors rushed to buy Hutchison Whampoa shares, the price was only thirty or forty yuan per share.

Peninsula Hotel, looking at the headlines on major newspapers, Li Changhe shook his head.

"Sure enough, he's so poor that he can't even take out some cash!"

Stocks + bonds, to put it simply, are a sum of 100 Hong Kong dollars, but in essence it is not 100 Hong Kong dollars.

Not to mention the shares of Jardine Matheson, bonds are like IOUs, which are risky.

On the other hand, Wu Guangzheng naturally saw the news in the newspaper early in the morning.

As expected, Yihe took action, and chose Friday exactly as Aba and Ayang had predicted.

"Gather everyone immediately and come to my office for a meeting!"

The moment he saw the newspaper, Wu Guangzheng decisively gave instructions to his secretary.

Soon, the group of people he had prepared long ago arrived at Wu Guangzheng's office.

"David, send an urgent telegram to the chairman immediately, saying 'Jardine Matheson is selling it for $100, return it immediately!' After sending the telegram, arrange for someone to call the chairman non-stop until the call goes through."

Wu Guangzheng made two preparations for contacting Bao Yugang, issuing telegrams and telephone calls at the same time to avoid the unexpected situation of not being able to contact Bao Yugang.

"Alice, send this manuscript to all major newspapers immediately. You must get all the pages in today's evening edition, no matter how high the price!"

"I want the entire Hong Kong Island, including the advertisements in those gossip and entertainment newspapers, all for this article!"

Since Jardine Matheson launched a surprise attack, it also focused on publicity, so it placed advertisements in the morning newspaper and put up banners in various prime areas in Hong Kong Island. In fact, it was certain that Pao would not be able to find the resources for publicity.

The morning paper had already been distributed in the morning. If Bao wanted to respond, he could only rely on the evening paper at the earliest.

In this way, even if the evening paper is published, it is equivalent to one day late for Jardines, and Jardines still has the advantage.

But Wu Guangzheng was not in a hurry, he had a backup plan!
As for this back-up plan, it was Li Changhe who taught him that night.

Although this method is a bit unsatisfactory, Wu Guangzheng knows that it will definitely be effective.

(besides!)

(End of this chapter)