The Industrial Giant Reborn - Chapter 609

c601 A successful journey to the west

The signing of Japan’s “Plaza Accord” has a huge impact on the world, but for Hong Kong, except for a very few people with outstanding vision, others basically don’t care. Of course, the impact itself is not big, even because the Hong Kong dollar is tied to Fixed the U.S. dollar, but led to the further expansion of Hong Kong’s exports, which can be regarded as the benefit of being tied to the U.S. dollar.

Time soon came to November. The joint business team of Disney Group and Land Group finally reached an agreement with the Hong Kong government and decided to build the world’s fourth Disneyland on a land of about 1.15 square kilometers on the west side of Sai Kung District.

The location here is very close to Kwun Tong District, about 3km away, and about 3.5km south to the seaside. In the past, there were some factories and several villages as well as some fertile fields and hills. After the news was announced by the Hong Kong government, Everyone living here was immediately happy and wanted to hold a three-day banquet. Even the people nearby were the same. Although they would not be demolished, once the Disneyland was built, their houses would be nearby, whether they were used as residences or shops. All of them will inevitably see a surge in housing prices, which is much higher than the average increase in Hong Kong.

The construction of Disneyland is naturally the responsibility of the American Disney Company, and Land Land is cooperating. The first thing is naturally to demolish all the residents on the Disneyland land. The requirements given are also very generous. If If you want money, you can directly pay 160% of the current house price in cash. If you want a nearby house, you can collect the rent first, rent the house yourself, and then wait for Land to build a house on the nearby land before completing the transfer transaction. And if you want to take this opportunity to leave Sai Kung and go elsewhere, that’s fine. You can choose from Land’s residential properties across Hong Kong. Of course, the price gap here will still have to be paid back.

Although Chen Zhiwen does not want real estate companies such as Land, Hutchison Whampoa, and even Wharf and Jiawang to be involved in too many residential properties, these companies are all British giants in Hong Kong with a century-old history. They have owned many large-area land or properties over the past century. These lands can’t remain undeveloped, right? Office buildings are naturally developed in good locations, and those suitable for residential buildings must also be developed. However, after all, there is a lot of land and it is impossible to develop it all in a short time. From a profit perspective, it is more cost-effective to leave some of it for later.

There are also some Hong Kong aborigines who have Ding rights. If this area is demolished normally, the losses will naturally be great. However, Disneyland is also a large-scale project of the Hong Kong government, and the government came forward and finally approved new rights for these people in other places. Land, Land and Investment will build new houses for them.

Under these high-quality compensation measures, the vast majority of the indigenous people chose to agree. Only a few hard-core households clearly wanted to make another big profit. However, Land Land did not tolerate them and directly resorted to legal proceedings. Hong Kong The law follows British law and has clear regulations on demolition. If 90% of people agree to a transaction, the remaining 10% must also agree, otherwise the court will take compulsory measures.

Similar laws like this exist in various countries. Although individual wishes must be respected, without such mandatory regulations, any development project will encounter one or even several people asking for a high price, and their asking prices will lead to any There is no hope of starting the project. If this is the case, let alone normal commercial real estate, that is, various highways, railways, and circuit infrastructure will not be built.

Dong Youwei was very efficient. In less than a month, all the indigenous people were moved away. Later, a large number of construction teams officially entered the scene and began to level the land. Disney’s team also brought various professionals Engineers, just waiting for the completion of civil construction, immediately started building the paradise.

The entire Hong Kong Disneyland project has entered a new step. In this step, the boss Chen Zhiwen only needs to focus on finances. The rest is to wait for the day when the project is completed.

In today’s Hong Kong, labor is not expensive, far less expensive than in 1999 in history, or in Europe at the same time. Therefore, the entire park project is operated on a 24-hour basis, with people stopping and machines running. Although For workers, it is a bit tiring, but the income will naturally be greatly improved, and it can also create more jobs.

Although Hong Kong’s real estate market began to rebound in 1985, the number of new real estate projects started was still not as good as the peak a few years ago. Moreover, due to the increase in labor and land prices in Hong Kong and the huge labor cost advantage of the mainland next door, Hong Kong’s industry is also becoming more and more expensive. Yes, there is an urgent need to rely on the real estate industry to drive economic development and employment. The Disneyland project can more or less create employment for thousands of people, both during construction and during operation after completion.

In the last period of 1985, there were generally no major events. Chen Zhiwen’s main time was also to accompany his children. He could make more money, but his children’s childhood was one day less, especially when they were young. That kind of cuteness cannot be accurately described in words.

However, there are also some small things. For example, after being funded by TVB, the filming team of “Journey to the West” in the Mainland had enough funds to make the filming progress faster. Therefore, at the beginning of this year, the filming of “Journey to the West” was completed and It appeared on CCTV, and subsequently broke the highest ratings record for domestic television, even surpassing Xinwen Lianbo.

According to the original agreement, TVB owns all the overseas copyrights of “Journey to the West”, so it will naturally be broadcast in Hong Kong, and it has also achieved impressive results. Of course, in Hong Kong today, TVB is absolutely the only one, and any TV series Basically, they can succeed. The former Li’s has been defeated long ago. In the original history, there were still people to acquire it. But now facing TVB with such strong capital behind it, no businessman is willing to take over such a mess. Naturally, was eliminated, but in order to prevent TVB from becoming a monopoly, the Hong Kong government finally entrusted HSBC to save Lai’s. However, without professional management, Shen Bi would not be able to invest on a large scale. Lai’s existence is just a sense of existence.

After being popular in Hong Kong, it was immediately sent to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and other regions, and they also achieved great results. However, the popularity in these places only allowed TVB to earn a little licensing fee, and there was no practical effect. The real benefit of sex is that “Journey to the West” is broadcast on TVB’s satellite TV stations in Southeast Asia. Through satellite signals, theoretically, most countries in Southeast Asia and even India can receive TVB’s signals. There are also many Chinese people. It is a free TV station, and the Hong Kong programs are not bad, which naturally attracts some people to watch, but it is not very good. After all, it is still difficult to grab jobs.

However, “Journey to the West”, a TV series that was painstakingly produced by countless people in the Mainland, and whose background is the most familiar immortal figure to the Chinese in ancient times, naturally became a hit. In just two months, TVB’s satellite TV won A large number of users.

Hong Kong, TVB Building, 36th floor, in an independent large luxury office.

This is the TVB Group. In 1983, taking advantage of the cheap land price, it bought a piece of land in Kwun Tong with an area of ​​more than 80,000 square feet. Later, it also built a 38-story building. This floor was even larger than the previous one in mainland China. It’s just a small county town, but in today’s Hong Kong, even if it is placed in Central, which is full of buildings, it is not too short. After all, Hong Kong’s former tallest building, Connaught Building, only has 52 floors. In Kwun Tong, this is definitely number 1, and It should maintain this position for a long time to come.

Building such a building is naturally Chen Zhiwen’s request. The first is that he knows the future land price and his own company needs to build a new headquarters, so naturally it must be built better, bigger, and higher. The second is that for him, TVB It is not just a company that makes profits, but an external mouthpiece, controlling a core channel of the media. For the future, even if it does not make money, it must expand TVB’s influence. Therefore, TVB’s performance in the future will definitely be better than the original history. If the company is much stronger, it will naturally require more employees, so it is natural to build a larger headquarters.

“Sheng Chen, this is the active number of our TVB overseas satellite TV stations in the past month. Take a look.” Liang Shuyi, the head of TVB Group, was sitting opposite Chen Zhiwen at the moment. After handing over the document in her hand, she seemed more reserved. Although she is already a strong woman in Hong Kong and has been rated as one of the strongest businesswomen by the Hong Kong media, she does not dare to be careless in front of Chen Zhiwen because she knows that although TVB is no longer a small company in Hong Kong, But within the group, it is nothing. Even within Hutchison Whampoa, there are no less than 10 subsidiaries, far exceeding TVB in scale. Zhou Jiayang, the head of Hutchison Whampoa, can talk to her boss casually, but she cannot. Under normal circumstances, she may not see her boss two or three times a year, and most of them are in public places.

“Oh, 10 million people?” Chen Zhiwen was also shocked when he saw the number above.

There are only 5 million people in Hong Kong as a whole, but we need to get rid of many old people and children, and we also need to get rid of many people who cannot afford TVs, and then we have to get rid of them several times, because a normal family only has one TV set, so Hong Kong The real number of users is between 1 million and 1.5 million.

“Among them, almost two to three million are from Wanwan, and the others are from different countries in Southeast Asia. We commissioned Watsons’ branches in various countries to conduct a survey. Basically, they are all local Chinese. There are billions of people in Southeast Asia. , although the proportion of Chinese is not very large, most of them have pretty good family conditions and a high proportion of people with TVs at home, so it is normal for tens of millions of people to watch our TV. In fact, we have also distributed through RT-Mart before. Advertising, to guide local Chinese, has attracted about 2 million users. This is really thanks to Watsons for helping. After the subsequent broadcast of “Journey to the West”, it was able to quickly acquire so many active users. Maybe it was also because it already had The 2 million users were spread by them, otherwise, it would be really difficult for us to succeed, even if we have ten good TV series, it will be useless.” Liang Shuyi said.

This is true. No matter how good the company’s TV series is and how strong its management and operations are, it is very difficult to promote the TV station in so many countries. If you want to advertise, don’t dream about it. Local TV stations can still give you competitors. Can’t help? As for newspapers, even if they can, the effect is very poor. Who reads newspapers to see such advertisements?

But Watsons is different. After so many years of development in Southeast Asia, RT-Mart, a subsidiary of Watsons, has more than 200 stores in Southeast Asia. PARKnSHOP has even more stores, and they are basically all in big cities. In total, they serve dozens of customers. Tens of millions of people, including many Chinese.

Because it is a Chinese supermarket, although it is as localized as possible, it will still have a Chinese operation model, and many of the suppliers are mainland or Hong Kong goods provided by Hong Kong Galaxy Trading. This is also more suitable for the Chinese group in Southeast Asia. After a long time, many Chinese Naturally, he became an old customer of Watsons.

Through appropriate small gifts and other methods, Watsons spent half a year to gain millions of users for TVB satellite TV station. Then there was another leap forward with the help of “Journey to the West”. Otherwise, under normal circumstances, it would be almost impossible for outsiders to find large chain groups to promote themselves. Supermarkets are not media, and they do not have this kind of promotion business.

“It’s good to make the best use of everything. If TVB’s satellite TV station can really grow, it will also be of great benefit to Watsons.” Chen Zhiwen said with a smile. He actually didn’t expect that Watsons could actually have this role, but It is also normal. When a large company develops to a large scale anywhere, it will have amazing resource calling capabilities. For supermarkets, customers are actually the biggest resource, similar to the users of later Internet companies, and they are all The kind that consumes frequently, and the location chosen by Watsons is not bad, these people can be considered middle class, at least.

“I also hope that soon we will be able to help our brother companies.” Liang Shuyi said with a smile: “But, Chen Sheng, although there are tens of millions of active users, from the data analysis, there is still a big difference from the general situation. difference.

These users are only active in large numbers when “Journey to the West” is being played, and too few stay at other times. This shows that they are just for this TV series and are not loyal users. What we need now is I have to try my best to keep them, but I have used a lot of Hong Kong TVB TV programs, but there are only a few TV series, so some people have been retained. ”

“This is normal. How can it be so easy to obtain stable users of tens of millions? Even millions are difficult.” Chen Zhiwen nodded and asked: “Which TV series in Hong Kong are effective?”

“The Legend of the Condor Heroes, “The Legend of Heaven and Dragon Sword”, “Xiao Li Fei Dao” and other martial arts TV series are very popular in these places, but they are not as good as “Journey to the West”.” Liang Shuyi replied.

“Normally, there is a reason why Li Xiaolong was so popular back then.” Chen Zhiwen nodded and said: “Well, first, continue to invest in large-scale domestic shooting projects, especially those remakes of more famous stories. Second, here in Hong Kong, continue Remake other novels by Jin Yong and Gu Long. In addition, we also need to create some martial arts TV series of our own. It is impossible to remake novels in a lifetime. We need such a team or talents.” (End of this chapter)