Chapter 950: Ascending the throne of the British media king

Because the market was closed, the work atmosphere at Jiuding Securities was not particularly urgent. When Xia Yu returned to the company, Wang Qi was drinking tea and reading reports, enjoying himself.

When he saw Xia Yu come back, Wang Qi immediately put down his teacup and the report and stood up to say hello:

"Chairman, you're back.'

Xia Yu smiled and nodded, teasing, "Well, Wang Qi, judging from your appearance, I think you had a good day.'

Wang Qi gave a modest smile and said, "The results weren't particularly great, but I did complete the plan I set this morning.'

Xia Yu sat down on the sofa with a sigh, stretching his shoulders a little and saying, 'Tell me.'

After saying that, he picked up a grape from the fruit bowl on the coffee table, peeled it and threw it into his mouth. The refreshing sweet and sour taste with the fragrance of the grape set off his taste buds.

Wang Qi directly told him about the results of the day: 'Today, I bought 7.51 million shares from the secondary market, accounting for 8.16% of the total share capital of Kowloon Motor Bus, at a total cost of HK$22.83 million.'

Xia Yu's eyes narrowed slightly, and he muttered, '8.16 percent, hmm...'

Before the morning started, Wang Qi had reported to him that Jiuding Securities had acquired a total of 34.08 percent of the equity.

Together with the acquisition in the secondary market, Jiuding Securities now owned 42.24 percent of the equity.

And if you add the 9.75 percent bought from Deng Zhaojian that he had in his bag,

the final total was 51.99 percent!

He has already completed a de facto takeover of Kowloon Motor Bus!

This morning, Wang Qi said that he planned to complete a 50% takeover within two days, but now it has been completed in just one day.

Xia Yu could not help but smile.

Wang Qi, who had been watching Xia Yu, had a fairly certain guess in his mind when he saw the smile on the chairman's face. He asked, 'Chairman, have you also obtained Deng Zhaojian's shares?'

Xia Yu looked at him and nodded with a smile, saying, 'I have already obtained them, they are in my bag!'

Saying this, Xia Yu opened his briefcase and threw the equity contract and certificate to Wang Qi, saying, 'You put these away, you will need them when the equity is transferred to Jiuding Transport Group.'

Wang Qi immediately caught them, opened the transaction contract and equity certificate and glanced at them, then took them with a smile, saying, 'Okay, I'll put them in the safe now.'

He said, and immediately got up, went to the closet behind the desk, opened it to reveal a safe embedded in the wall, opened the safe after some manipulation, put the documents in and locked it again, then returned to Xia Yu and sat down.

'Chairman, so it seems that we now have a stake of over 50%, so should we go directly to Lui Juekun and initiate a share acquisition?'

Xia Yu thought for a moment and asked, 'Today is a bargain-hunting day, and the trading volume of Kowloon Motor Bus has skyrocketed. Someone must have started entering the market, right?'

Wang Qi nodded with a smile on his face, "Yes, I have already asked someone to find out. For the time being, it is not certain whether it is Lui Juekun who is bargain-hunting.'

Xia Yu continued, "Never mind, we will buy for another day tomorrow. We are still about 15% short of the 67% mark, so let's try harder!

'The day after tomorrow, you should arrange another meeting with Lei Juekun. The company should have some shares in Kowloon Development, so you should swap them with him. It would be great if he's willing to sell, but it's fine if he's not. I don't plan to buy Kowloon Motor Bus outright anyway, so there's no need to make things so difficult. After all, he did give me face a few times.'

'Oh, and if he asks to meet with me, you can agree to it. If he doesn't mention it, that would be best.'

Wang Qi nodded and said, 'Okay.'

Then there was a moment of silence in the office.

Xia Yu took a sip of tea and then thought about the Zhonghua Motors incident again. He asked Wang Qi, 'How is the stock acquisition going for Zhonghua Motors?'

Wang Qi also had this figure in mind, and he stated directly, 'Chairman, in one day, we have acquired 7.68% of the equity from the secondary market, and the acquisition efforts are not too great.'

'And according to your instructions, we have not contacted those institutions for the time being, but the preliminary acquisition plan has been formulated and we can launch a large-scale acquisition at any time.'

Xia Yu frowned and thought for a moment. Considering that the progress of the Kowloon Motor Bus acquisition was going more smoothly than expected and moving faster, some adjustments to the plan would have to be made.

He instructed Wang Qi, 'In that case, speed up the progress of the China Motor Bus acquisition as well. You can go directly to the Yan and Huang families now and proceed simultaneously, identifying their weaknesses and striving for success at once.'

Wang Qi nodded with a smile, 'Okay.'

After thinking carefully, he found that there was nothing else to do. Xia Yu looked at his watch and found that it was getting late. He got up and said, 'Let's go, it's getting late, you should go home too, go home early to spend time with your family.'

'Chairman, I'll clean up a bit and I'll go back later.'

'Well, I'll go first then!'

After saying that, Xia Yu got up and walked outside.

...

In the next few days, Xia Yu's main focus was on the Jiuding Building.

However, Wang Qi would call Xia Yu every day after the market closed to report on the progress.

Overall, things were going quite smoothly. The situation with Lei Juekun, who had been causing some concern, did not develop as Xia Yu had expected.

Perhaps knowing that he could not win against such a powerful opponent, Lei Juekun, after talking to Xia Yu on the phone, brazenly chose to sell the 20.38% of his shares directly to Jiuding Securities, although at a higher price.

Considering that Lei Juekun was very sensible and vaguely heard Lei Juekun's complaints, Xia Yu did not excessively exploit Lei Juekun.

At Xia Yu's suggestion, the result of the negotiations was that Kowloon Motor Bus would use 330 million Hong Kong dollars as the base, and Lei Juekun would sell his 20.38% stake for 67.2 million Hong Kong dollars, in exchange for a portion of the shares of Kowloon Development, plus 31 million Hong Kong dollars in cash.

After Lei Juekun, the largest shareholder, had made the compromise, there was no resistance in the secondary market.

In order to maximise profits, Wang Qi did not update the shareholding information immediately, but instead let the share price of KMB continue to fall, and then bought shares at a low price.

It was not until the stock market closed on Friday afternoon that Jiuding Transport Group announced that it held 45% of KMB's shares, becoming the largest shareholder of KMB, and Liu Sanquan, the general manager of Jiuding Transport Group, took over the company under the leadership of Deng Zhaojian, the chairman of the board of KMB.

As soon as the news was announced, it immediately attracted heated discussion, and reporters from all walks of life flocked to the Kowloon Motor Bus headquarters.

When Liu Sanquan came out, he was surrounded by a large group of reporters. After answering some questions, he seized the opportunity to announce that he would increase investment in Kowloon Motor Bus, purchase 500 new buses, and strengthen management as well as driver professional ethics and skills training. Blah, blah, blah, in short, the reporters who arrived were full of gains.

In fact, in addition to the 45% stake held by Jiuding Transportation Group, there is also the remaining 36.55% stake.

According to the regulations of the Hong Kong stock market, an acquisition of more than 35% will trigger a mandatory takeover provision, and Jiuding Transportation Group will have to apply to the exchange for a waiver. With the power of the word 'Jiuding', the application for a waiver will be no difficulty.

As for the remaining shares, some were placed under the umbrella of Jiuding Securities and some were transferred to Jiuding Bank.

On the new board of directors of Kowloon Motor Bus, only the Ng family remained. Xia Yu didn't bother to move him, because anyway, with the shares held by the Ng family, he simply didn't have any say, and was just a puppet director.

If the Ng family could bear it, then so be it; if not, then let them cash out and leave as they wished, Xia Yu didn't care.

Having settled the Kowloon Motor Bus Company, decisive progress was also made with China Motor Bus Company Limited.

The Yan and Wong families, who had no intention of running China Motor Bus Company Limited, decisively raised the white flag in the face of Jiuding Securities' carrot and stick.

The two families' combined 46.86% stake was transferred directly to Jiuding Securities.

After the acquisition was complete, Wang Qi immediately disposed of the shares as instructed by Xia Yu.

Of these, 34.99% were transferred to Xia Yu's newly established Xiangjiang Tourism Investment Group.

The remaining 33.13% was also dispersed.

In fact, Xia Yu's side effectively controlled 68.12% of Zhonghua Automobile's equity, more than two-thirds, and the board of directors was controlled by Xiangjiang Tourism Investment Group.

Xia Yu also had no intention of acquiring the remaining more than 30% of the equity.

Anyway, given the current situation of Zhonghua Automobile Co., Ltd., there are too many old buses, and a large-scale replacement of buses is definitely necessary, as well as the need to open new routes, which requires a considerable amount of capital.

As a listed company, China Motor Bus is not suitable for Xia Yu to invest money casually. Without borrowing from the bank, the only way is to issue new shares to raise funds, and Xia Yu's shareholding ratio will continue to rise.

On Sunday, Xia Yu took Li Qian and He Chaoqiong out for a sea trip. After returning, he learned that Yan Wenhan, who had returned from the UK, was looking for him.

Thinking that the acquisition by Thames Media Holdings should have come to a result, Xia Yu directly asked Yan Wenhan to come to the house.

After listening to Yan Wenhan's account, Xia Yu also learned about the twists and turns encountered in the acquisition.

Although Rupert Murdoch was very difficult and had many tricks up his sleeve, Yan Wenhan made full use of his own advantages, especially Chairman Xia Yu's connections in the UK, to achieve final victory.

The Times Newspaper Holdings Limited was bought for £13 million, and there was no hindrance from the British government.

Rupert Murdoch ended up in a sorry state.

Nine Dings Press Company, on the other hand, became one of the giants of the British media industry.

In this way, in the British media industry, Xia Yu had three pillars: the Mirror Group, the Financial Times Group and Thames Press Holdings Limited, firmly securing his throne as the king of the British media.

However, all three companies were hidden through convoluted shareholdings, and Xia Yu did not want his enemies to guide public opinion and use public opinion to force the British government to impose anti-monopoly sanctions on him.

Between reputation and power, he chose the latter...