1977: The beginning of the blind date with the daughter of the king

Chapter 606: Decentralization!

"Vic, are you going to France to study nuclear power technology now?"

Michael was a little surprised.

The promotion of their nuclear power plant has not even started yet, and there is no clear cooperation model yet, but the other party has already started to conduct an inspection?
"I have some friendship with the new French President Mitterrand, and the French Ministry of Commerce has just invited me to participate in one of their national exhibitions."

"I thought it would be a good idea to stop by and take a look. It's always good to be prepared for a rainy day and learn about the nuclear power technology in Europe and the United States in advance."

"How about it, Michael, are you interested?"

"Well, I need to go back and check my schedule, then tell you!"

Michael Kadoorie was a little surprised at Li Changhe's speed, but he still remembered his father's words and delayed it for a while.

I have to discuss this matter seriously with my father Lawrence when I get back.

"By the way, Vic, you just said there were two things. What is the other one?"

Michael changed the subject at this time and started asking Li Changhe about another matter.

Li Changhe did not continue to ask, but started talking about the second thing.

"Michael, I want to ask, is the Shanghai Hotel owned by your family interested in cooperating with the Mandarin Hotel?"

"Cooperation with Mandarin Hotel?"

Li Changhe's words startled Michael Kadoorie, and he looked at Li Changhe hesitantly.

Could it be that this young man wants to acquire the Shanghai Hotel Group?

Thinking of this, Michael was filled with nervousness.

There is no way. In fact, just like Hutchison Whampoa and Wharf Holdings, these older generation of British consortiums often raised funds by issuing a large number of shares when they listed their companies.

This also led to the fact that these British financial groups did not have a high degree of controlling stake in the industries they held, and often only 20 or 30 points of shares would make them major shareholders.

This person wouldn't want to acquire the Shanghai Hotel Group just like he did with Wharf Holdings and Hong Kong Properties, right?

As if he could see the fear in Michael's heart, Li Changhe was speechless.

"Don't worry, Michael, I have no intention of acquiring the Shanghai Hotel, nor have I purchased your shares on the stock market, and I have never contacted the Liang family!"

The Liang family, also known as the Liang Zhonghao family, is a well-known wealthy family in Hong Kong Island. The Liang family was once the first operator of the Macau Casino and one of the founders of Hang Seng Bank.

Now, the Liang family is also a shareholder of the Shanghai Hotel Company. In fact, their shares are more than those of the Kadoorie family. However, the Shanghai Hotel has been operated by the Kadoorie family for a long time, and Liang Zhonghao has no intention of seizing power. After all, the Liang family has many other industries.

"I mean, is The Peninsula Hotel interested in forming a hotel alliance with Culture Hotel to work together to go beyond Hong Kong Island and explore the global market?"

"To be honest, I will open another Mandarin Hotel in Paris and the United States as well."

"But if we only rely on Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the speed of expansion will be very slow, so I want to cooperate with Shanghai Hotel and Marco Polo Hotel of Wharf Hotels & Resorts."

“How about the three hotels forming a hotel alliance and jointly exploring the global market?”

Li Changhe spoke seriously to Michael Kadoorie.

High-end hotels are an asset-intensive industry. It often takes several years from planning to opening a hotel, and the global economic situation will not give Li Changhe the time to open one hotel after another.

Even if he is rich and can open Mandarin hotels in many cities at the same time, personnel management is still a big problem.

Li Changhe's idea is to integrate Marco Polo and Peninsula Hotels to form a hotel alliance and jointly explore the global market. At that time, everyone will divide the cities, you are in New York, I am in Los Angeles, he is in Tokyo, and so on, sharing resources and working together to complete the closed loop of cultural tourism cities.

Because many times, tourists are a common resource. Today they go to New York, and after a while they may go to London or Paris. For luxury hotels, these are actually sharable resources.

Moreover, this kind of hotel alliance can go a step further and even work together to create a common global brand.

Li Changhe is very clear that the focus of the Kadoorie family in the future will not be on the Peninsula Hotel. Although the Peninsula Hotel is famous, it actually only has a dozen stores around the world.

The same is true for Mandarin Oriental. In its previous life, the Jardine Matheson Group only had some chains in high-quality cities such as Hong Kong Island, Beijing and Shanghai.

The same is true for Marco Polo. These three companies have actually wasted the golden age of hotel development.

On the contrary, it was Guo Henian's Shangri-La that came from behind and developed into the largest luxury hotel group in Asia.

In addition, Li Changhe had another intention in doing this, which was to separate the Mandarin Hotel from Wei Li.

The current assets of the Swire Group are too huge. Although Wei Li has done a good job, it is not a good thing to have absolute control over everything.

Li Changhe doesn't mind professional managers, but he is not a fool and will not concentrate all resources in Wei Li's hands.

Therefore, forming a hotel alliance and moving the Mandarin Hotel away from Wei Li is also one of Li Changhe's means of decentralizing power.

Michael Kadoorie heaved a sigh of relief when he heard that Li Changhe was not planning to attack the Shanghai Hotel but was planning to win them over to form a hotel alliance.

He was really afraid that Li Changhe would take over the shares of Shanghai Hotel. With the other party's terrifying financial resources, they probably didn't have much ability to resist.

"Forming a hotel alliance?"

“Do those three hotels need to be merged?”

Michael Kadoorie asked thoughtfully at this time.

Li Changhe smiled and said: "I think we can adopt another way of merger."

"We separate ownership and operation rights. The ownership of the hotel still belongs to us, but for the operation rights of the hotel, how about the three of us jointly invest and establish an alliance operation company to uniformly operate the hotels under our umbrella?"

"We have integrated services and sales operations together and run them under a common company to create a unified membership service system, while the ownership of the hotel itself still belongs to us."

"Such an operating company can also be jointly supervised by the three parties. If it is found one day that the operating company has harmed the interests of one party, any party has the right to withdraw from the hotel alliance."

“I am actually very optimistic about the future integration of the global economy, especially the exchanges between the East and the West.”

"Luxury hotels are one of the most important bridges among them. I think there is no need for us to stay in a small place like Hong Kong Island and waste our time. The best route is for the three of us to join forces and go beyond Hong Kong Island and expand globally."

Li Changhe sincerely described his ideas to Michael Kadoorie.

After hearing this, Michael Kadoorie also felt a little moved.

He felt that what Li Changhe said made sense. Michael Garcia also had the ambition to expand, but was limited by the family's financial resources and development direction. They were powerless to expand the Peninsula Hotel.

However, if they can form a hotel alliance and expand together, the customer base and resources they bring to each other will actually be visible to the naked eye.

"Vic, I need to think about this matter seriously when I get back, and I must convene a board meeting to discuss it with other directors."

"But I am very excited about this plan. I think your concept is very advanced. There is really no need for us to compete with each other in Hong Kong Island."

Michael Kadoorie answered with the same seriousness.

(End of this chapter)