Through the wealth life

Chapter 649 The Pressure from the Lee Consortium

Henry Keswick didn't make Li Guangyu wait any longer, and replied to Li Guangyu the next morning, asking their major investment companies to arrange personnel to go to the Jardine Group to negotiate the value of Dairy Milk International, and agreed to Li Guangyu's proposed shareholding plan.

This time, Jardine really does not want to continue to be hostile to the Li's consortium in Xiangjiang. They know very well that if this continues, their Jardines will probably be completely squeezed out of the Xiangjiang market by the Li's consortium.

The Jardine Group has always regarded Xiangjiang as the foundation of the group. If the Xiangjiang market is lost, it will be a huge blow to Jardine.

But this time Li Guangyu showed them goodwill, whether it was Henry Keswick or his cousin Jardine's family, they were willing to end the previous hostility and cooperate in some aspects.

Moreover, the Jardine Group's capital chain is already very scarce at present, and the transfer of 40% of the funds this time can effectively alleviate the current difficulties that the Jardine Group is facing.

Since he took over the Jardine Group for more than a year, Henry Keswick has been facing tremendous pressure from the Lee consortium, which has kept him from relaxing. He is always worried about which company he owns. Facing the suppression and targeting of Li's consortium.

Now he can finally relax and develop the Jardine Group's industry in a safe and stable manner.Henry Keswick still knows some of Li Guangyu's qualities, as long as he is willing to cooperate with you, then he will not stab you in the back.

Moreover, Jardine Group currently has no industry that the Li consortium will worry about anymore, and Li Guangyu doesn't care about Jardine Land Group at all.At present, they also hold shares in Dairy Milk International Company, and there are also many trading company Li's Consortium and its interest groups. As for the hotel group, the Peninsula Hotel is currently owned by their interest groups.

Henry Keswick felt sad when he thought about the companies that Jardine Group had lost in the past few years. The era when the four major foreign companies dominated Xiangjiang was completely gone forever.

Hutchison Whampoa and Wheelock Group were successively acquired by Lee's interest group, and Swire Group was half-crippled. If Li Guangyu didn't look down on Swire Group, it is estimated that Swire Group would disappear, and Swire Group would have to withdraw in despair. Xiangjiang market.

The Jardine Group is not much better than Swire. Wharf, Heungkong Telephone Group, Heungkong Electric Group, and Wellcome Supermarket have been transferred and closed one after another, causing them Jardine to suffer huge losses.

Fortunately, Li's consortium also seems to think that Xiangjiang would not be good without their British consortium. Now it seems that they have braked urgently and are ready to cooperate with them, so that their Jardine Group still has a chance to stand up.

But he also knows that it is impossible to return to the glorious era.In the future, Hong Kong will only be the era of the Lee consortium, and the following is the Jardine Group and Cheung Kong, Shau Kee, Sun Hung Kai and other groups competing for the position of the second group.

However, Henry Keswick let the Lee consortium take a stake in Dairy Milk International, which made Shen Bi, chairman of HSBC, very unhappy.They HSBC and Standard Chartered support the Jardine Group so much because they hope that the Jardine Group can stand in the front and help them withstand the pressure of the Li consortium.

Now Jardine is also cooperating with the Lee consortium. In the future, HSBC and Standard Chartered will be the direct opponents of the Li consortium in Hong Kong. The Li consortium will never give up suppressing them before they get the right to issue banknotes in Hong Kong dollars. two major banks.

Shen Bi understood Li Guangyu's personality very well, and he would never give up until his goal was achieved.

Just as he wanted to establish an airline company in Xiangjiang, when the government encountered difficulties in applying, they would think of directly acquiring Cathay Pacific Airways' parent company Swire.

Shen Bi couldn't guarantee whether Li Guangyu would do this in terms of the right to issue banknotes in Hong Kong dollars. The Li consortium had enough funds and strength to acquire Standard Chartered and HSBC, and Li Guangyu would dare to do so.

Moreover, no matter whether it is HSBC or Standard Chartered, affected by the current situation in Xiangjiang, the market value of the stock market has dropped very sharply.Once the Li's consortium conducts a bargain-hunting acquisition, it is not known whether the major shareholders behind will be able to withstand it.

Shen Bi was also at a loss for the rapid changes in the situation in Xiangjiang. After he became the chairman of HSBC, he still felt that the British consortium was strong, so he made friends with some Chinese families and gave them some support.

Even in the acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa, he deliberately favored the Chinese-funded family. He did not expect the situation to reverse so quickly, and the four major British-funded foreign firms completely lost their ability to compete with the Chinese-funded consortium in just a few years.

As HSBC and Standard Chartered, which are detached from the major groups, at this time, they have to worry about whether they will follow in the footsteps of these big foreign firms.

After the Jardine Group is no longer an enemy, the Li consortium can wholeheartedly deal with its two major banks in Xiangjiang. Facing the current Li consortium, even if they are called Standard Chartered and HSBC of the shadow central bank of Xiangjiang, they can't bear it.

Shen Bi contacted George Lavin of Standard Chartered Bank by phone, asked him to have morning tea, and discussed with him about the future situation.

In the box of a teahouse in Central, Shen Bi and George Lavin sat opposite each other.Shen Bi said with emotion: "More than a year ago, when we faced the Li's consortium, there were also the Shi Huaiya family, the Keswick family and the Marden family who discussed together. Now it is only the two of us. I don't know what will happen in the future. There won’t be even a single person to discuss.”

When George Lavin came to Xiangjiang to take over Standard Chartered Bank for more than a year, he only felt that he had jumped into a big pit, and nothing went his way.

The main business of Standard Chartered Bank is the British-funded consortium. Over the past year, the British-funded consortium has been continuously acquired by Chinese-funded families, which has caused their business to continue to decrease. The operating rate of Standard Chartered Bank in Xiangjiang has jumped off the cliff. of fall.

Jardine's decision today made him very annoyed. Like Shen Bi, he is very aware of the current situation in Xiangjiang. Next, Standard Chartered and HSBC will face the Li consortium. The blow of the consortium.

Fortunately, what reassures him is that the largest individual shareholder of Standard Chartered is Qiu Depuat, who is one of the core members of the Singapore Consortium, and the Singapore Consortium and the Lee Consortium are already in a cooperative relationship, and the Li Consortium should not Start with them first.

George Lavin said: "Shen Bi, there is no way around this. The Li's consortium is no longer something that a British consortium like Xiangjiang can resist. I don't think our two banks can withstand the financial strength of the Li's consortium." In particular, there are many shareholders behind our two banks, and they are also very miscellaneous. The Li’s consortium is not short of money, and our bank still has such a large list in its hands. It’s just us, Li’s The consortium can make billions of Hong Kong dollars in profits.”

How could Shen Bi not know about this? At the beginning of the establishment of HSBC Bank, there were [-] shareholder members. Later, although the foreign shareholders gradually withdrew, HSBC has been controlled by its own people in England.

However, the current number of shareholders has not decreased. Given the Li's consortium's acquisitions over the past few years and their strong financial resources, whether HSBC will be able to keep Shen Bi is uncertain.

Shen Bi said: "Lavin, in the future, we still hope that the two of us will strengthen communication and cooperation in finance. At present, our biggest enemy is the Li's consortium. We can't fight each other like before."

In the past, when Heung Kong had no other rivals, HSBC and Standard Chartered were basically two people on the same line. It was impossible for the two companies to cooperate. In order to compete for Heung Kong's customers, the two would compete fiercely.

Both HSBC and Standard Chartered use Xiangjiang as their main base and Asia as their important market, which has led them to accumulate countless grievances over the past few decades.

If it weren't for the rapid rise of Li's consortium, which made the two families feel a huge threat, it would be impossible for them to communicate and cooperate.

George Lavin also knew that Standard Chartered and HSBC would not continue to fight like this, and they must fully cooperate to deal with the pressure brought by the Li consortium.

……

(End of this chapter)