Chapter 344 Desperate Counterattack
Li Changhe was unaware of Zhu Lin's predicament at the moment.

After all, in his opinion, awards are full of inside stories, not to mention that audience awards like the Hundred Flowers Awards have little credibility in later generations.

So he didn't take this matter to heart at all.

At this moment, his focus is still on the acquisition of Jardine Matheson.

Although he had envisioned many contingency plans, in the end, it would still depend on Jardine Matheson's own response.

As for Swire Properties, Jardine Matheson is determined not to let go. After all, it is its most stable goose that lays golden eggs.

It can be said that the reason why Jardine Matheson has been able to incur losses overseas without restraint in recent years is all thanks to the transfusions provided by Hutchison Whampoa.

Whenever funds were scarce, selling a building owned by the company could often bring in tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

In the past two days, Jardine Matheson reacted strongly to Li Changhe's acquisition.

Li Changhe started offering HK$15 to buy Hutchison Whampoa's shares on Tuesday, and that evening, Jardine Matheson announced that it would buy back the shares at HK$16.

So on Wednesday morning, Li Changhe raised the price to HK$17, but he did not expect that in the afternoon, Jardine Matheson responded again.

This time, Jardine Matheson did not hesitate and directly raised the price of Hutchison Whampoa’s shares to 20 yuan!
"Yihe is crazy!"

Inside the villa, Li Changhe shook his head and said with emotion after seeing the quotation of Jardine Matheson in the evening paper.

"Vic, shall we continue following?"

Jim asked Li Changhe curiously.

Li Changhe nodded: "Of course, we will continue to follow. The offer price tomorrow is 21 Hong Kong dollars per share."

21 yuan, compared to the initial stock price of 12.2 yuan, the price is almost doubled.

For Hutchison Whampoa's stock, this price is already crazy.

"Vic, if we continue to follow this, the cost will be too high for us."

"According to your goal, we want to acquire 30% of Hong Kong's shares. Even at the normal price before, we will have to spend about billion Hong Kong dollars."

"Now that the price has gone up, we have to spend about 53 billion Hong Kong dollars, which is close to billion U.S. dollars."

"Vic, you don't have that much money."

Jim said to Li Changhe seriously.

Li Changhe heard what Jim said, smiled and waved his hand: "Jim, this acquisition is not calculated in this way."

"Although our goal is to acquire 49 percent of Hong Kong Land, this does not mean we have to acquire all of it at once."

"This is just the most conservative target, but realistically, I estimate that if we acquire 30 to 40 percent, that should be enough."

"Because Hong Kong Island's companies are majority shareholders, as long as we become the largest shareholder of Hong Kong Land, we can control Hong Kong Land."

“And the most important point is that you should not consider our funds, you should consider Jardine’s funds.”

"As far as I know, Jardine Matheson only has about 20 billion Hong Kong dollars at most. The price of is actually their last resort."

"On the one hand, he wanted to use this price to scare off our acquisition or to make it more difficult for us to acquire the company."

"On the other hand, Jardine Matheson wants to take this opportunity to quickly buy back Hutchison Whampoa shares."

“As long as he continues to repurchase 10%, if the shares he holds can approach 30%, then it will be a victory for Jardine Matheson.”

"Nearly 30 percent of the shares is already a big obstacle for the acquirer."

"That means they can't maintain this price for long?"

Jim said thoughtfully.

"Of course, they don't have cash. I guess Jardine Matheson is probably looking for financial support all over the world."

"Don't worry, we'll just take our time with it."

"Oh, Jim, let's continue to make public our current holdings of Hutchison Whampoa shares to put pressure on Jardine Matheson."

"Vic, what are you doing?"

"Let the outside world see the number of shares we hold. This is also a signal to the outside world."

"Jardine Matheson is now panicking and is trying to find funds, either by borrowing or selling its assets."

"But no matter which one it is, at this time, capital will not be polite to it, and kicking it when it's down is inevitable."

"I want to see if Jardine Matheson is willing to make a sacrifice."

Li Changhe said with a sneer at this moment.

Jardine Matheson itself is highly indebted, and its overseas industries now account for more than 60% of the company, but these industries are very unprofitable.

At this time, when Jardine Matheson borrows money, it can only use its best core assets as collateral.

After losing Wharf Holdings, all it could mortgage was, to put it bluntly, the land and assets of Hong Kong Holdings. Apart from that, nothing else could be recovered.

Even if a bank accepts its mortgage, the interest rate at this time will definitely not be low. Jardine Matheson will inevitably be burdened with high-interest debts. For Jardine Matheson, which already has limited funds, this is definitely adding insult to injury.

Of course, Jardine Matheson has another option, which is to sell assets, such as continuing to sell land for money and then repurchasing stocks.

But this also has disadvantages.

First of all, if the land is sold at this time, the price will definitely be lowered. If a building originally worth 1 billion can be sold for 700 million, it means that other businessmen have a conscience.

Li Changhe believed that at this time, people like Li Jiacheng and Li Zhaoji were probably just waiting for Jardine Matheson to open their mouths and sell the land to others.

They would surround Jardine Matheson like sharks, and then tear off a piece of fat from him.

But this is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that if Jardine Matheson does this, it will be a huge loss for shareholders.

Because shareholders hold shares of Hutchison Whampoa, once Jardine Matheson sells Hutchison Whampoa's properties, it will actually reduce the market value of Hutchison Whampoa in disguise.

To put it bluntly, I originally bought your company's stock because you owned 10 buildings, but now you have sold all of them and only have seven or eight left, so the value of the company has actually fallen.

If this happens, the value of the stock will inevitably fall, and your wealth will shrink invisibly.

Therefore, in this situation, for most investors, cashing out at high prices is inevitable.

By the way, Li Changhe is still waiting for Jardine Matheson to sell the land. As long as it dares to leak the news, Li Changhe's articles will immediately appear all over the newspapers to weaken the confidence of shareholders.

This is the purpose of Li Changhe’s announcement of the number of shares held, so that the entire Hong Kong Island can see the weakness of Jardine Matheson.

When one whale dies, all things come to life!

Today, Jardine Matheson is the giant whale of Hong Kong Island. Countless sharks are staring at it covetously, wanting to tear this behemoth into pieces.

Li Changhe is now leading the charge, and is the first to show Yihe's wounds to everyone.

In the Kangle Building, the president of the real estate company, Bedford, hurried into Newby's office.

"Taipei, their latest offer is 21 Hong Kong dollars."

After hearing this, Niu Bijian's face changed and he slammed the table hard.

"Damn, how come these guys are so rich?"

"The boss has also announced the number of shares he holds. So far, he owns 16.7% of Hong Kong Land."

Bedford said anxiously to Newbijian at this moment.

Upon hearing this, Niubijian sighed.

"Some shareholders have started selling their shares."

Given the size of Hong Kong Land, it would be impossible to acquire so much if it simply purchased from the market. The shares that Jardine Matheson bought back in the past two days were only 2%.

The fact that China Eastern International can hold so many shares can only mean that some shareholders with large holdings have started selling their shares.

For example, many of the shareholders of the Milk Company at that time held a large number of shares, often hundreds of millions or even tens of millions, because of the one-for-two and one-for-five splits by Swire Properties.

Only if these people take action would so many shares appear in the hands of Oriental International.

"Big class, can we?"

Bedford hesitated for a moment and asked Newbijian tentatively.

They can actually buy back from those shareholders.

And Newbyjian smiled miserably and shook his head: "No hope, they won't sell it to us."

Jardine Matheson acquired the Dairy Farm Company by exchanging shares, but it soon encountered the stock market crash in 73 and the share price plummeted.

Later, although the stock market recovered, Jardines, by virtue of its status as a major shareholder, began to continuously absorb funds from Swire Properties to provide blood transfusions to Jardines.

This operation actually uses the power of major shareholders to damage the interests of small shareholders, reduce the profits and market value of Hutchison Whampoa, and transfer assets to Jardine Matheson.

However, at that time, Jardine Matheson was the uncrowned king of Hong Kong Island. How could it possibly care about those small shareholders relying on its status as a foreigner?

Therefore, those small shareholders knew that they were cheated by Jardine Matheson back then, but they dared not speak out. After all, they had no say in front of Jardine Matheson.

But now that Jardine Matheson has fallen into such a situation, Newby is very clear that even if he speaks up, those small shareholders may not necessarily pay attention to him.

The reason why China Eastern International was able to receive so many shares, apart from the high price, is probably because many shareholders were taking revenge on Jardine Matheson.

When Bedford heard what Newbijian said, he also sighed.

As the president of Jardine Matheson, he is actually aware of this.

"Master, Mr. Henry is here."

Just at this moment, the secretary rushed in and spoke anxiously to Newbijian.

Upon hearing this, Newbijian and Bedford hurried out.

As soon as the two people arrived at the elevator entrance, they saw the elevator door open and a group of people walked out.

The middle-aged man walking in front was wearing a bowler hat and carrying a walking stick, dressed like a British gentleman.

And he is Henry Keswick, the current head of the Keswick family, the controlling family behind Jardine Matheson.

It was under the leadership of Henry Keswick that Swire acquired the Dairy Farm Company without spending a penny, completing a grand acquisition.

However, after that, he gradually withdrew from the management of the group and became the person in charge of the entire family business.

Now, the company was facing a life-and-death crisis. Henry Keswick, who had received the news, could no longer sit still and flew to Hong Kong Island overnight.

"Mr. Henry"

Seeing Henry Keswick, Newbijian was the first to speak to Henry Keswick.

"David, stop talking nonsense and tell me directly, what is our current situation?"

Henry Keswick simply waved his hand, then sat down in Newbyken's office and asked.

Upon hearing this, Niubijian shook his head: "The situation is not good."

"The other party came prepared. I pushed up the price of Hong Kong Land's shares to HK$20 per share yesterday. I wanted to take this opportunity to buy back some shares and at the same time deter the other party."

"But now it seems that the other party is not scared by us."

"I suspect that the other party either has a grasp of our financial situation or has sufficient funds to deal with our response."

At this moment, Newbijian said helplessly to Henry Keswick.

Generally speaking, a company's financial situation is confidential. Moreover, most of Jardine Matheson's assets are overseas, so its cash flow is not very clear to the outside world, who can only see a rough outline.

But now, the other party's step-by-step response made Newby feel that the other party seemed to have seen through Jardine Matheson's tricks.

"This step is not a very good response. We just lost Wharf Holdings. Even a fool knows that we are short of funds, otherwise we would not have lost Wharf Holdings."

"At this point, it's hard to scare the other party by responding by raising the stock price."

"But your idea is not wrong. If we can take advantage of the situation to buy back shares at this price, we will have more initiative."

"But the other party came prepared and the price rose decisively, which now puts us in a difficult situation."

As the price went up, the number of shares that Jardines could receive with the funds in its hands decreased. For Jardines, this was actually an operation that hurt the enemy by a thousand and hurt itself by eight hundred.

"Mr. Henry, this time, it is said that the Rockefeller family took action. If it is really them, I am afraid it will be difficult for us to compete with them in terms of financial volume."

Newbijian hesitated and asked Henry Keswick.

Henry Keswick sighed when he heard this.

"Before I came here, I had already found an intermediary to help me consult the Rockefeller family. The other party replied that they didn't know and that this was most likely an acquisition decision made by the subsidiary company itself."

"So, it's impossible for you to ask the other party to stop."

Rockefeller's reply was actually just a perfunctory response to the Keswick family.

But Henry Keswick had no choice. After all, they had no cooperation with Rockefeller. Their main industrial lines were in Hong Kong Island, Southeast Asia, the United States, Europe and the United States, and there was very little investment.

In Hong Kong Island, the Keswick family may be a giant, but in mainland Britain, they are not considered powerful.

And compared with Rockefeller, he was nothing.

"Then we must find a new source of funds, otherwise, the cash we have will not last for a few days."

Newbijian said hesitantly.

"Have you contacted the bank?"

Henry Keswick asked Newbijian.

Newby nodded: "I haven't contacted too many people. I have only asked Standard Chartered Bank so far. I haven't asked Hang Seng Bank and HSBC yet."

"I'm afraid that if too many banks consult us and the news gets out, it will be even more disadvantageous for us."

"But Standard Chartered has not responded to us yet. Obviously, they are also very cautious at this time."

HSBC had just helped Bao Yugang swallow up Hutchison Whampoa. No matter what happened at this time, Newbijian would not ask HSBC for help.

Henry Keswick nodded: "We should not contact HSBC directly."

"I have submitted my application to Mr. Murray MacLehose and will visit him at Government House later."

The implication is that they still want to use the Hong Kong Governor's Office to put pressure on HSBC.

Hearing Henry Keswick's words, Newbijian smiled and nodded.

"With the Hong Kong government stepping in, this matter will be easy."

Over the years, Jardine Matheson has been able to gradually become the king of foreign firms in Hong Kong Island, and the support of the Hong Kong government has played an indispensable role.

It can be said that this is the last trump card in Jardine Matheson's hand and the basis for their desperate counterattack.

Newbikin might not be able to reach an agreement with HSBC, but if the Hong Kong government steps in, HSBC will have to go.

After all, in Hong Kong Island, who dares not to give face to the Hong Kong government?

(End of this chapter)