Chapter 706: Monopolising Three Industries

Xia Yu gave a faint smile and said, 'In that case, I will exercise my rights as the majority shareholder, take over the board of directors, and immediately start restructuring the company by divesting Hutchison Whampoa's non-performing assets.'

'I think it is necessary to separately divest the real estate, infrastructure, ports, and retail businesses for development, and financing and share expansion is a certainty.'

Although Xia Yu's words were spoken lightly, they sounded like thunder in Qi Dezun's ears, causing him to turn pale with anger.

'Mr Xia, are you threatening me?'

Qi Dezun was so angry that his face turned red, and his eyes were about to burst into flames.

At present, Hutchison Whampoa directly or indirectly controls more than 200 companies, but the three most eye-catching businesses are the ones that have contributed the most profits, and it is precisely these three businesses that have kept Hutchison Whampoa going until now.

These three major business sectors are real estate and infrastructure, needless to say. Relying on the huge land reserves of the British consortium, Hutchison Whampoa is one of the major landlords in Hong Kong, and it is among the top ten real estate developers.

The port business is even more the cornerstone of Hutchison Whampoa.

Among the 24 ports in Hong Kong, Hutchison Whampoa alone has 14 berths. In particular, Hutchison Whampoa accounts for the majority of container ports.

The port of Hong Kong is one of the world's busiest international container ports. It is also backed by the mainland and is a major hub port in the global supply chain. It has ranked first in the world in container throughput for several consecutive years.

From such data, one can imagine the terrifying profits Hutchison Whampoa makes and its powerful influence.

As for the third retail business, the main ones are Watsons and PARKnSHOP.

Xia Yu's Mannings pharmacies are now behind Watsons in Hong Kong, let alone outside Hong Kong!

As for PARKnSHOP, it was established in 1973 and was previously the largest supermarket chain in Hong Kong until the rise of Xia Yu's Wellcome supermarket, but PARKnSHOP is still slightly ahead of Wellcome.

If these three businesses are divested and then financing and share expansion is carried out, Keith can fully imagine that in the event that he cannot come up with the money himself, his shareholding ratio will continue to shrink and he will eventually be eliminated.

Xia Yu has both the money to fight him and absolute control of Hutchison Whampoa, so he simply cannot resist.

If Xia Yu is a bit more devious, he could simply split up Hutchison Whampoa and dump the non-performing assets on him, and he will be screwed then!

Xia Yu shook his head dismissively: 'Mr. Qi Dezun, this is not a threat, I'm just giving you a friendly reminder.'

As the saying goes, he who knows how to adapt to circumstances is a hero.

After Qi Dezun's anger had subsided, he gradually calmed down. He knew that if he tried to force his way in, he would definitely lose, so he could only try to persuade him with a last-ditch effort.

Qi Dezun said calmly, 'Mr Xia, you have already obtained so much of the company's shares, and I will not affect his control of the company. Moreover, Hutchison Whampoa has grown to its current level under my hands, and I know it very well. If we cooperate, I believe Hutchison Whampoa will definitely get out of the quagmire faster.'

There is no room for resistance at all, and he still wants Xia Yu to make money with him. What a pipe dream!

Xia Yu gives no face at all and says bluntly, 'Mr. Qi Dezun, I am a confident person and I don't need your help.'

'So just name your price!'

'By the way, I should add that HSBC sold me the shares at a discount of 80%. If you don't believe me, take a closer look at the contract!'

Qi Dezun looked at the contract with a bad face, and sure enough, the transfer price written on it was equivalent to about 80% of yesterday's stock price.

'Damn Shen Bo, damn HSBC, absolute British traitors! They should be hanged!'

Qi Dezun cursed in his heart.

If he had to transfer his equity, it would kill him, so how could he possibly transfer it at a low price? This was absolutely impossible!

He shook his head violently. 'Mr Xia, HSBC is HSBC, and I am me. If you want to buy my shares at the same price as HSBC, it is absolutely impossible. I would rather fight to the end with you. Anyway, when I die, I won't be able to take this money with me!'

Xia Yu was delighted. Qi Dezun's position had finally wavered. It was fine if he was willing to sell, it was just that the price wasn't satisfactory.

All that was needed was negotiation!

Next, Xia Yu began to negotiate the price with Qi Dezun.

The two sides traded blows back and forth, and in the end Xia Yu directly threatened to raise capital and expand the share capital.

Qi Dezun then relented, and finally made a last-ditch effort to transfer all his shares to Xia Yu at par, not based on today's share price, but rather the closing price from yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon, Xia Yu had already asked Wang Qi to suppress the share price. At that time, the total market value of Hutchison Whampoa at closing was 6.74 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Qi Dezun's shareholding ratio was 34.8%, worth 2.345 billion Hong Kong dollars.

At 4:20 p.m., all the trading procedures were finally completed, and more than 2 billion in liquid funds were added to his account. However, he was not happy at all.

Xia Yu could not care less about what Qi Dezun was feeling. At this time, he was counting his own fruits of victory.

After acquiring HSBC and Qi Dezun's shares, Jiuding Securities held a total of 89.3% of Hutchison Whampoa's shares.

The capital expenditure was 4.09 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Fortunately, he had previously deposited 3 billion US dollars in a special account at Jiuding Securities. Otherwise, no one in the entire Hong Kong could have come up with such a large sum of money in such a short period of time.

There are still 10.3% of the shares on the market, and Xia Yu is prepared to follow the same plan as before and privatise Hutchison Whampoa.

Of course, Hutchison Whampoa will definitely be listed in the future, but the current Hang Seng Index still falls far short of Xia Yu's expectations. Even if it is to be listed, it will have to wait another two years, and the company will be launched at its peak.

Before that, he will first spend his efforts integrating Hutchison Whampoa with his own assets to maximise the utilisation of resources.

Wharf originally owned three berths, and with Hutchison Whampoa owning fourteen, Xia Yu will have exclusive control of seventeen of the twenty-four berths in Hong Kong, more than 70%.

No matter what the shipping magnate is, as long as they want to do business, they have to do what Xia Yu says.

With the addition of Watson's and Mannings, which he already owned, Xia Yu instantly monopolised the retail market for Chinese medicine, cosmetics and health products in Hong Kong, with an estimated 80% market share.

He also owned the number one supermarket chain, PARKnSHOP, and the number two supermarket chain, Wellcome, controlling over 70% of Hong Kong's retail trade.

In other words, from the moment he acquired Hutchison Whampoa, he had substantially monopolised three industries in Hong Kong.

At the same time, Xia Yu arranged for Wang Qi to carry out the privatisation work, and instructed Standard Law Firm and Standard Accounting Firm to enter Hutchison Whampoa and take over the group's financial and legal affairs.

The next day, news of Hutchison Whampoa's application for privatisation spread, sending a shockwave through Xiangjiang. After inquiring about it, the various bigwigs were shocked by the handiwork of Jiuding Securities.

Xia Yu, however, quietly put Elena on the plane, and did not set off for the airport until after it had taken off.

The first thing he did when he got back was to go to Hutchison Whampoa to reassure everyone before urgently convening a meeting of the senior management of the Jiuding consortium.

The meeting had only one topic, and that was cake-sharing. The 200-plus companies that made up Hutchison Whampoa were selected, and the heads of each company were asked to pick the ones that would complement their own, in order to downsize and reduce the burden on Hutchison Whampoa.

Hutchison Whampoa was too bloated. Many of the companies were actually quite good, but they were losing money due to management problems or corruption. Xia Yu believed that after these companies were merged with companies under the Jiuding consortium, they should be able to regain their vitality.

The selection process took one month, and after one month, another meeting was held to formally divide them up.

After the meeting, there was a small incident. Lin Sen, the general manager of IKEA, reported to Xia Yu that the Swedish IKEA Group had rejected his request for acquisition and equity participation.

Xia Yu did not care and immediately approved the plan to launch his own brand, 'Juran Home'.

In the following days, while the outside world was still in an uproar, Xia Yu asked Wang Qi to deal with it, while he himself went low-key to his other financial company, Galaxy Fund.