The Industrial Giant Reborn - Chapter 656

c647 U.S. Imperial Assets Cash Out

The future of Hong Kong’s aviation industry will inevitably be a long-term battle. Because of the restrictions of the aviation law, it is impossible to rely on funds to forcibly defeat the original Cathay Pacific. This is completely different from the real estate industry. Just like Hong Kong’s Businesses such as power generation, gas, and public transportation all have similar monopoly licenses.

Of course, now that Cathay Pacific is also listed, just like China Power and Dragonair, it is possible to be acquired by other large capitals, but the premise is that the original major shareholders reduce their shares, and the company’s poor management, outside talents Have the opportunity.

But obviously, the Swire family will not give outsiders such an opportunity, especially since Hong Kong has learned too many lessons from the past. In the original history, after entering the late 1990s, the capital of Li Jiacheng, Li Shauji and others had exceeded the original The Swire Group has never taken action against Cathay Pacific, for this reason.

Because after the listing of Cathay Pacific, the Swire Group controlled 39.9% of Cathay Pacific’s shares within the legal limit. Together with the shares secretly controlled by other foreign investors and even Swire itself, the total amount is estimated to exceed 50%. Even Chen Zhiwen has no way to do anything about it. .

Different from the original history, Dragonair can still operate normally instead of being acquired by Cathay Pacific, which is already a great success. From now on, the two companies will compete and develop together, which will be good for Hong Kong’s economy and people’s wallets. Probably the best.

Time soon came to 1995, and Chen Zhiwen had another son.

The Chen family now has two sons and two daughters. The twins have also entered a wealthy private elementary school in Hong Kong and are receiving the highest education.

This primary school was built by Chen Zhiwen and led by some wealthy people in Hong Kong. Just like the Huagang Hospital, it specializes in catering for Hong Kong’s wealthy families. Those who don’t have a net worth of more than 500 million can’t even think of entering here.

Now that the Chen family has reached its current scale, the most important thing is no longer how much money to make, but the in-depth training of the next generation. Even if the next generation in the future is not as good as the entrepreneurial generation, they must at least have the ability to defend the country. Although it is possible Hire a professional manager, but you also need to be somewhat competent.

This is just like the emperors in ancient times. Even if they are assisted by the prime minister or the cabinet, their own abilities are still very important. The prosperous dynasties are basically founded by such emperors. They can only do well by being pure hands-off shopkeepers.

However, in the early years, Chen Zhiwen invested a lot in the global market. Today, it has almost begun to bear fruit, and it is time to harvest.

Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York, USA:

Chen Zhiwen stood in the presidential suite on the highest floor of this old and not very high hotel, looking at the World Trade Center in the distance.

If these two buildings were to “click” in another six years in their original history, I don’t know if my appearance will change such a thing. Logically speaking, the probability should be low. My influence is mainly on The business world, not the Z world, however, may also affect the time before and after. After all, the butterfly effect began 20 years ago.

“Mr. Chen.” While Chen Zhiwen was thinking, a standard London accent came from behind.

“Brian, long time no see.” Chen Zhiwen came to his senses, then walked indoors and said with a smile: “Sit down, what do you want to drink?”

Brian is the person in charge of many financial investments in the United States today, including the stocks of many large companies such as IT companies, which are all operated through him.

“Coffee will do, cappuccino,” Brian said.

Without Chen Zhiwen’s instructions, a beautiful blonde assistant next to him immediately walked aside to prepare.

“How’s the investment in Yahoo going?” Chen Zhiwen asked.

Regarding the Internet industry, Chen Zhiwen plans to learn from Sequoia Capital and focus on investment, which will maximize his interests. However, global business has been greatly affected by him, especially the electronics industry, which has been around since the late 1970s. Affected by him, the Internet industry can be said to be a continuation of the electronics industry.

The main development of the electronics industry occurred in the early 1970s and the late 1980s. During that time, many potential giants in the future were established or prepared to be established. Chen Zhiwen’s influence was not very great, but the Internet was born in the mid-1990s, so it is difficult to say .

Originally, he thought that too many historical adaptations would have a great impact on the Internet industry, and companies in the future might not appear. But what he didn’t expect was that Yahoo actually appeared anyway. It seems that his butterfly effect will have a great impact on Yang Zhiyuan’s life. The impact on development may not be that great, but there is still a high possibility that capable people will start their own businesses.

After learning about this, Chen Zhiwen arranged for Brian to contact Yahoo to see if he could make an investment.

“I have negotiated with Yahoo’s founders David, Jerry Yang, and Ai Luo. They have not explicitly rejected our investment, but now Sequoia Capital is also talking, especially the news that we want to invest in Yahoo has been leaked. , and now there are a lot of other capitals that want to invest in Yahoo, and David and others probably don’t have to worry about not having investors, so they are holding us back.” Brian explained.

“It’s probably the news they released.” Chen Zhiwen smiled and asked: “In terms of the amount, are we the highest?”

The person with the highest investment achievements in the world in this life is no longer Buffett or even Soros, but Chen Zhiwen.

When the scale of assets increases, many things cannot be hidden. For example, Chen Zhiwen is the major shareholder of top American companies such as Coca-Cola, General Electric, Pepsi, Nike, and Wal-Mart. He also owns Costco, Companies such as Best Buy and Disney are also small shareholders (owning 4.99% of shares) of technology giants such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Dell. The combined assets of so much wealth are astonishing.

Looking back at Chen Zhiwen’s investment time, we can find that he basically stepped on the most suitable time point. Once or twice can be said to be accidental, but so many times, it is definitely strength. Today, Chen Zhiwen’s status in the investment community is somewhat similar to that of Sequoia Capital or Masayoshi Son in the IT industry in later generations. It is even higher, and he is multi-disciplinary.

“It’s possible that they are not fools. Another thing is that this kind of thing cannot be hidden. Wall Street is always watching our movements.” Brian said: “In terms of price, the price we gave is not low, but there are still a few It’s similar to other companies. Although we have strong capital, this is just a small investment. If other companies really don’t give up, they won’t be able to spend less money than us, and we can’t really increase the price indefinitely.”

“Price is actually secondary. Generally speaking, this kind of enterprise needs resources more,” Chen Zhiwen said.

Whether it is an Internet company or other start-up companies, the purpose of initial financing is for rapid expansion later. In this process, funds are of course necessary, but it is not the most important. The most important thing is how to expand quickly. When the time comes To a certain extent, expansion begins to slow down and become sluggish, and more funds are needed to optimize your business, etc. At this time, funds may become more important.

“Yes, but we can’t help much with the Internet. At most, we can borrow Midea’s computers to push ads? But Weiruan may not agree,” Brian said.

“Weisoft will not agree. Now that they are targeted by antitrust agencies, how can they dare to do such a thing of forcibly pushing advertisements.” Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

In the Internet era, many companies may be different from what Chen Zhiwen remembers, but the general development path is similar. Browsers are the first explosive products in the Internet industry. With a large number of computers that can access the Internet, browsers Businesses quickly controlled the flow.

This has attracted the attention of system software giant Weiruan, because their operating system can be said to be a platform based on the computer, and the browser is a platform based on the operating system. Although it relies on itself, it will suck away Due to its own traffic, many people go online and spend a lot of time and energy on the browser instead of the operating system itself. This is a huge threat and a new opportunity.

So Weiruan used coercive means to force users to choose not to use other browsers but to use its IE. This caused public outrage. Although Weiruan has a strong resource background, those whose interests have been infringed are not vegetarians. In addition, Weisoft’s move itself is a real abuse of monopoly power, and the White House originally wanted to use this to suppress domestic high-tech companies. Therefore, the antitrust agency began to investigate Weisoft.

“Then we can only compensate in other aspects.” Brian said.

“Well, it’s okay to increase the price appropriately, or I can arrange for banks to provide them with interest-free loans and technical support, and try to get part of the equity of this company.” Chen Zhiwen added.

In fact, Yahoo’s future achievements in its original history are not very high. Chen Zhiwen doesn’t care much about whether he can invest. He will sell it later during the Internet bubble period. It is just a transaction to make a lot of money. Even this time If you don’t invest in Yahoo, you can still invest in Yahoo when it first goes public. At most, you will make slightly less money later.

Although history is different and Google may not appear, there is a high probability that Yahoo will not be able to capture the search market because it is difficult to change its own life. When Yahoo becomes a portal giant, even if they know that search engines are the future, it will be difficult for them. Abolition of its main business to focus on search. Historically, after the rise of Google, Yahoo still insisted not to do search, blindly believing that portals were the future.

In the history of human business, there are only a handful of large companies that have been able to revolutionize themselves, such as Kodak, Nokia, and Motorola. Everyone knew they were going to die, but they couldn’t save themselves because the internal interest chain was the biggest resistance.

“Okay, let me combine the resources within the group to see if we can reach an agreement with Yahoo management.” Brian said. He could feel that the boss was still a little concerned about this matter. Before this, there were only a few Only a few companies can enjoy such treatment.

“Yes.” Chen Zhiwen nodded and said: “Bryan, I came to the United States to find you this time. Secondly, I want to invest in Yahoo. There is also a more important thing that you need to do. I want to cash out the Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola in my hands. , General Electric and Nike shares, and convert all of these shares into cash.”

“Sell them all?” Brian’s eyes were full of surprise. You must know that these companies are the most highly praised projects among Chen Zhiwen’s investments.

From the early 1980s, the market value of companies such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and General Electric has increased more than ten times to today. This number does not seem to be much. To achieve such results, Nasdaq can grab it with one hand. There are a lot of them, but the key point is scale. It is easy to double from 1 to 100 and grow continuously, but it is difficult to go from 100 million to 1 billion. And these investments range from several billions to hundreds of billions. .

It is rare for many large capitals to achieve a growth of more than ten times with a huge amount of original capital, not to mention that these companies still pay generous dividends every year.

Nike was Chen Zhiwen’s direct investment in the early stages. The rate of return is even greater, hundreds or even thousands of times. Today, Nike has become the largest sports shoe brand in the United States.

Being a major shareholder in so many high-quality Fortune 500 companies is a dream for many large funds. If ordinary investment funds own stocks of these companies, they will probably only hold them for a long time.

“These companies are all good companies with strong businesses, but they are no longer suitable as high-quality investment targets because they are approaching their ceiling,” Chen Zhiwen said.

Whether a company has a future or not has nothing to do with whether it is a good investment object. When the company develops to a large enough scale, its business and profits will no longer grow exponentially. In other words, the future is bright, but there is no upside. This situation is very suitable for some low-risk and low-return investments, but it is not in line with Chen Zhiwen’s goals.

Just like Buffett later sold his stocks when BYD began to dominate the electric vehicle market, although BYD is awesome, its stock growth is unlikely to increase several times in the future, and people like Buffett naturally pursue high returns.

Of course, there may be factors such as decoupling.

“Okay, I will arrange this, but cashing out on this scale will take some time.” Brian asked again: “Does the cash have to be transferred out of the United States?”

“Part of the need, the specific amount, depends on the situation, I can’t be sure now.” Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

In addition to cashing out stocks whose growth potential has been exhausted, the more important purpose is that he needs enough cash, because in two or three years, hedge funds headed by Soros will attack Hong Kong’s currency.

As the richest man in Hong Kong and the goal of Chinese people in Hong Kong and around the world, he naturally wants to protect the Hong Kong dollar and the wealth that Hong Kong has accumulated over countless years.

Although the state took action in history, it also damaged the reputation of the Hong Kong government as a “free market”, which is still a bit bad.

But if you take action yourself, there is no such thing. It is all a free market. You are personally optimistic about the Hong Kong dollar, stabilizing the Hong Kong dollar or even raising the Hong Kong dollar. This is personal freedom. And in this process, there are actually certain benefits.

Historically, after the Hong Kong government used the Exchange Fund and mainland foreign exchange to maintain the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate, it also became the major shareholder of a large number of Hong Kong blue-chip companies. After selling them a few years later, they still made a small profit, although not a lot.

“Okay, as long as I pay taxes legally, I can transfer the money out. Even on the surface, I may have to take care of the US government’s face. Take your time.” Brian said.

“Okay, it will be almost in place before 1998.” Chen Zhiwen nodded and said. No country would like a large amount of capital to leave, but fortunately, as long as it is not illegal, it is not easy to publicly stop it at the national level.

Otherwise, it will only destroy its “free market” cloak. Although there is no freedom at all in many aspects, this cloak still needs to be maintained, otherwise who would dare to invest! Naturally, large-scale transfers of funds need to be done slowly. Otherwise, applying for tens of billions of dollars in one go would be a slap in the face of the government! (End of chapter)