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Lin Haoran glanced at the Governor and knew clearly what he was expecting.

Isn't it just asking him to announce the privatization of Bank of East Asia?

Once he makes the announcement, all the pressure faced by the Governor's Office will disappear because Lin Haoran will take the initiative to step up.

"Everyone, if you have read the latest financial report of Bank of East Asia, you should all know that if Bank of East Asia encounters a bank run, the capital shortage will be as high as 3 billion Hong Kong dollars. These funds have been invested by Bank of East Asia in the form of loans and corporate investments, and the funds cannot be recovered in the short term. Therefore, the current situation of Bank of East Asia is very critical, which is why I don't want to get involved in the affairs of Bank of East Asia.

It has been less than a month since I became a major shareholder of Bank of East Asia, but I have encountered such a thing. Not only am I facing various pressures from the outside world, but even the core figures within the bank, the Li family, have left. This made me decide to give up Bank of East Asia and wait for it to develop naturally. I have already lost more than ten billion Hong Kong dollars in Bank of East Asia, and I just hope to stop the loss in time.

However, at the request of the Governor, I am fully aware that with great ability comes great responsibility, so I finally decided to step forward and take on this heavy burden that should not have been borne entirely by me.

In order to prevent the long-established Chinese bank, Bank of East Asia, from disappearing, I have indeed decided to privatize it. However, as everyone knows, the current situation of Bank of East Asia is not good. The unscrupulous competition from Bank of East Asia has left it in ruins.

Especially now that Bank of East Asia is facing a bank run, and the bank's existing funds are far from enough to cope with this run. This means that if I privatize Bank of East Asia, I need to pay for the gap myself.

Therefore, I cannot offer too high a price to acquire Bank of East Asia shares. I hope everyone can understand this.”

What Lin Haoran wants is to stand on the greater good.

At this moment, there are many citizens in Hong Kong watching this live broadcast.

In particular, in the halls of the four major stock exchanges, there were televisions broadcasting this incident.

Therefore, Lin Haoran's words were like a heavy hammer, instantly silencing those shareholders who tried to take advantage of the acquisition opportunity to drive up prices and take advantage of the situation.

If Lin Haoran privatizes the Bank of East Asia, the price he will have to pay will be extremely huge.

He is already under a lot of pressure and risks. Under such circumstances, why should he raise the price further to complete the acquisition?

Now, he has resolutely stepped forward to acquire this company that has long been unpopular among the general public, and he has done the utmost.

Still want to take advantage of the situation?

"Mr. Lin, what price do you plan to offer to privatize Bank of East Asia?" asked a reporter standing in the front.

"I have thought this through. I will entrust the privatization work to Galaxy Securities, a subsidiary of Hong Kong Land Group, with the share price not exceeding HK$6. I will inject capital into Bank of East Asia until it is fully privatized, so as to help it survive this bank run."

Lin Haoran had already thought carefully about this price before.

If the offer is too high, he will definitely not agree.

But if it is too low, that would not be appropriate.

And all orders below HK$6 were directly absorbed by Galaxy Securities for more than million shares, indicating that everyone can still accept this price.

So, there is absolutely nothing wrong with offering this price.

Today, there are approximately 50 million shares left on the market, including the nearly 10 million shares held by Li Peicai's family.

If the number is calculated as an integer, he only needs to come up with another 3 million Hong Kong dollars to completely privatize the Bank of East Asia.

In addition to the approximately HK$51 billion he had previously paid to acquire 13% of the shares of Bank of East Asia, which was equivalent to the complete privatization of this old bank, the total cost Lin Haoran spent was approximately HK$16 billion.

When he set his sights on Bank of East Asia, the market value of Bank of East Asia was already around HK$26 billion, and at that time the Li Peicai family had no intention of giving up Bank of East Asia, so there was no chance of privatization of Bank of East Asia at all.

Now, he only spent about HK$16 billion and used the threat from Bank of East Asia to completely privatize Bank of East Asia.

It can be said that this was a complete surprise.

Is Bank of East Asia still worth HK$16 billion today?

In Lin Haoran's opinion, it is worth it, even super cost-effective.

Its complete operating system and deep customer base alone contain immeasurable potential value.

After years of development, Bank of East Asia has already established a solid reputation in the Hong Kong financial community. Its brand influence cannot be easily measured.

In addition, Bank of East Asia also has a certain business layout and resource network overseas. These overseas assets and business channels are like treasures hidden in the deep sea. Once they are reasonably developed and utilized, they will bring new development opportunities to Bank of East Asia.

Although Bank of East Asia is currently facing severe challenges from a bank run, as well as being squeezed out by Bank of East Asia and other banks in Hong Kong.

However, as long as it successfully overcomes this difficulty, it will not be difficult to regain vitality with its industry experience accumulated over the years, its team of professional talents, and its numerous branches across Hong Kong.

By that time, let alone HK$16 billion, in Lin Haoran's view, it would not be a problem at all to make Bank of East Asia surpass Hang Seng Bank in strength.

And now, the market value of Hang Seng Bank is as high as HK$152 billion!
Therefore, Lin Haoran felt that it was well worthwhile to spend more than one billion Hong Kong dollars to completely privatize the old bank, Bank of East Asia.

As for the privatization price of HK$6, Lin Haoran doesn't care whether the shareholders agree or not. They have to agree even if they don't agree.

What's more, when he holds a certain amount of shares, he can apply to the Securities Regulatory Commission for forced privatization. At that time, those people will only have two options: one is to sell, and the other is to hold a pile of waste paper.

MacLehose had promised him that he would have all government departments cooperate with him in the privatization of the Bank of East Asia, and that everything would be kept simple, meaning that he hoped he could succeed in privatization as soon as possible.

At the same time, in the Mid-Levels villa area, Li Fushu, Li Guobin and others were watching the live broadcast. When they heard Lin Haoran’s answer of 6 Hong Kong dollars, they were so sad that they could not cry.

A few days ago, Lin Haoran, for the sake of the Li family, was willing to buy the shares at a price of HK$20 per share.

But, they refused.

But now, the other party is only willing to offer HK$6 per share?
In other words, the stocks they hold are now worth less than 60 million Hong Kong dollars.

This loss is not small.

But Li Fushu understood that Lin Haoran no longer gave him face. Did he want to negotiate a good price with the other party?
This will only bring trouble to yourself.

When the Li family decided to give up the Bank of East Asia, Lin Haoran gradually became estranged from them.

It was the Li family who was the first to wrong the other party.

Thinking of this, Li Fushu sighed.

"Dad, do we really have to sell it to the other party at HK$6 per share?" Li Guobin asked.

"What if they don't sell? After the outbreak of the tens of thousands of citizens gathering today, the Governor's Office obviously wants Lin Haoran to be completely privatized successfully, so that there will be no more stocks that no one buys, and the shareholders will stop making trouble.

In addition, the bank run faced by Bank of East Asia will be resolved because of Lin Haoran’s capital injection, as customers will no longer have to worry about not having money, and the queues will no longer be so serious, and the crisis will naturally be resolved.

Therefore, even if we insist on not selling, Lin Haoran can still initiate a forced acquisition. At that time, even if we want to continue holding on to the shares, we will not be able to do so. We will still be forced to acquire them, and the price will still be HK$6 per share, not a cent more.

Rather than being forced to buy out and ending up in disgrace, it would be better to agree now, at least we can still maintain some dignity." Li Fushu shook his head helplessly, his eyes full of regret.

One decision caused the Li family to lose more than 100 million Hong Kong dollars. It would be a lie to say that they did not regret it.

But who made them greedy?

Li Fushu had already called Lin Haoran privately once, and they parted on bad terms.

Now, if he goes to look for it again, it will not lead to any good result.

Bank of East Asia Headquarters Building.

Governor MacLehose was very satisfied with Lin Haoran's answer.

Lin Haoran said that he was willing to privatize the Bank of East Asia, and that was a decision he made after being persuaded by the Governor.

This is enough to show that this matter was initiated by him, and for him, this is undoubtedly a brilliant political achievement.

Successfully promoting the smooth transition of a long-established but crisis-ridden Chinese bank to privatization can not only demonstrate his ability to resolve crises, but also show the public his determination to maintain financial stability, while also fulfilling his promise to the citizens gathered at noon.

As for how much money Lin Haoran spent on the privatization of Bank of East Asia, what does that have to do with him?
Mai Lihao smiled and nodded slightly, his eyes revealing approval of Lin Haoran.

At this moment, Mai Lihao's assistant quickly walked to Mai Lihao's side and whispered something in his ear.

Then, Mai Lihao frowned, stood up from his seat, and said to Lin Haoran: "Mr. Lin, our Governor's Office will do its best to cooperate with you on the forced privatization of the Bank of East Asia. Everything will be given the green light. Don't worry about that. I have important matters to deal with at the Governor's Office, so I will leave first."

Lin Haoran has personally announced his decision on the privatization of Bank of East Asia through live broadcast, so he is naturally no longer worried about those people gathering together to cause trouble.

"In that case, please take care, Mr. Governor!" Lin Haoran was a little surprised, but also a little pleasantly surprised to hear that Mai Lihao was leaving.

With Mai Lihao here, he couldn't speak freely after all.

But if the other party leaves, he can carry out his plans and methods more freely.

Next, it is time to make all the crimes of Huifeng Bank public one by one.

Since Huifeng Bank is not letting Bank of East Asia have an easy time, he will also make things difficult for Huifeng Bank!
After the Governor disappeared at the door of the conference room, Lin Haoran did not rush to continue speaking, but said to Dashan beside him: "Send someone to bring Mr. Zhang Lei up!"

"Okay, boss!" Dashan nodded and quickly left the scene.

Zhang Lei was the account manager of the Causeway Bay branch of Bank of East Asia who took the initiative to tell Lin Haoran about Huifeng Bank's secret poaching of people.

Originally, Lin Haoran thought that he would have to wait for a while before he could be of use.

I didn't expect that it would be put to use so soon. This is good. The earlier the bad behavior of Huifeng Bank is disclosed, the earlier the public can see the true face of Huifeng Bank, and win more public support for Bank of East Asia, thus reversing the current unfavorable situation.

After a while, Dashan brought Zhang Lei back to the scene.

Zhang Lei looked a little nervous. After all, he knew that once he appeared here, it would be equivalent to completely offending Huifeng Bank.

If he fails to leave Hong Kong smoothly, the fate that awaits him will be very miserable.

But now that things have come to this, he can only bite the bullet and go to the end, and can only hope that Lin Haoran can really save his life!

At this moment, everyone at the scene was confused.

I don’t understand why Lin Haoran asked a strange young man to come up.

"Mr. Zhang, don't worry. After this incident, I will arrange for you to leave Hong Kong. Huifeng Bank will not have any chance to deal with you!" Seeing that Zhang Lei's face was a little pale, Lin Haoran knew what the other party was thinking.
Zhang Lei's nervousness eased a little after hearing this. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down.

Then, Lin Haoran pushed the microphone in front of him.

"Hello everyone, I am the account manager of the Causeway Bay Branch of Bank of East Asia. If you have done business in the Causeway Bay Branch, you may have an impression of me. I am here this time because there is something very important that needs to be made public!" Zhang Lei took a deep breath and then said slowly.

All of a sudden, the reporters at the scene became excited. They were keenly aware that a shocking revelation might be revealed next.

The live camera lenses of TVB and ATV were now also aimed at Zhang Lei, presenting this young man to television viewers throughout Hong Kong.

At this moment, senior executives such as Shen Bi, Bao John, and Pu Weishi who were in a conference room at the headquarters of Huifeng Bank did not recognize Zhang Lei who appeared on TV, so they did not know that the matter would be brought upon them soon.

However, just because they don’t know each other doesn’t mean that Paul Harvey, President of the Human Resources Department of Huifeng Bank, doesn’t know Zhang Lei.

After all, he had personally met with Zhang Lei before, and Zhang Lei had agreed to join Huifeng Bank at that time.

But now that Zhang Lei has appeared in this live broadcast, the meaning behind it has become very clear.

He really couldn't understand it. It was obvious that no one could resist the temptation of the conditions he offered, but why did Zhang Lei change his mind at the last minute and even choose to stand on Lin Haoran's side?
"Everyone, our plan may have been exposed. This young man is one of the people I met before!" He stood up and said to everyone in a deep voice.

All the people he personally interviewed had been strictly screened, and now that something like this had happened, he was fully aware of the seriousness of the matter.

However, Shen Bi and others did not agree with what he said.

It is normal for companies to poach people from each other. If one person jumps out and says something, it will not pose any threat to Huifeng Bank.

On the TV screen, Zhang Lei continued: "I was invited by the president of the HR department of Huifeng Bank, hoping that I could switch to Huifeng Bank. And as far as I know, Huifeng Bank is currently poaching people from Bank of East Asia on a large scale, and I am just one of them.

Their purpose is not simply to poach people, but to create trouble for the Bank of East Asia, and even for the customers of the Bank of East Asia, so that the Bank of East Asia cannot withdraw cash smoothly. In fact, the Hong Kong citizens gathered to make trouble today, which is actually the result of Huifeng Bank! "

As soon as these words were spoken, the reporters at the scene were in an uproar, and the entire conference room was instantly filled with noisy discussions.

The audience in front of the live camera also widened their eyes, unable to believe what they heard.

The fact that Huifeng Bank, a major player in Hong Kong's financial world, was accused of such heinous behavior was undoubtedly a bombshell that instantly caused an uproar in Hong Kong's financial circle and even the entire society.

Although Huifeng Bank had previously joined forces with other banks to force everyone to choose between the two, everyone knows that this is very common in business wars.

But now, creating trouble and getting citizens to gather and protest is of a completely different nature.

The relaxed expressions of Shen Bi, Bao Yuehan, Pu Weishi and other senior executives of Huifeng Bank froze in an instant, and were replaced by shock and anger.

Shen Bi slammed the table, stood up, pointed at Zhang Lei on the TV screen, and was so angry that he couldn't speak.

"Mr. Zhang, this matter can be a big deal or a small one. Do you really have evidence to prove what you said?" a reporter immediately asked.

"Of course!" Zhang Lei said confidently, and slowly took out a tape from his pocket. "Here is a recording of my conversation with Mr. Paul Harvey, the president of the HR department of Huifeng Bank. This recording is enough to prove that what I said about being poached by Huifeng Bank is absolutely true.

Moreover, after I pretended to agree to Mr. Paul Harvey's job change, he not only asked me to secretly lobby more core employees of Bank of East Asia to join them, but also instructed those employees who had secretly signed the job-changing agreement to deliberately find various excuses to delay business processing and treat customers with poor service attitude when Bank of East Asia was facing a run, so that customers began to feel increasingly dissatisfied with Bank of East Asia.

These are all real audio records! Some people here must be familiar with Paul Harvey and his voice.

The purpose of Huifeng Bank doing this is to create huge trouble for Bank of East Asia, completely ruin the reputation of Bank of East Asia, and make more people strongly dissatisfied with Bank of East Asia.

Everyone has seen the scene of tens of thousands of people gathering to cause trouble at noon, which is the best evidence. Next, I will ask the staff to play this recording!"

In fact, Lin Haoran already had a backup of the tape.

Now that Zhang Lei has taken it out of his pocket himself, it will be more convincing and allow the public to feel the authenticity of the matter more intuitively.

The atmosphere at the scene suddenly became solemn, and everyone's eyes were focused on the tape.

Soon, a staff member took the tape, put it into a tape recorder on the spot, and pressed the play button.

The conversation, which lasted for more than ten minutes, echoed clearly in every corner of the conference room and was also broadcast live on television to thousands of households in Hong Kong.

Just as what Zhang Lei said, it was fully reflected in the recording.

Until the end of the playback, the entire scene remained silent in the recording.

Unexpectedly, Huifeng Bank was so cruel. In order to completely defeat Bank of East Asia, it deliberately arranged for people to create cash flow problems for Bank of East Asia's customers, making them dissatisfied with Bank of East Asia and causing them to gather in crowds to cause trouble. Such behavior was simply outrageous!
The reporters at the scene looked at each other with shock and indignation in their eyes. Their pens and cameras were busy recording this scandal that was enough to shake the entire Hong Kong financial community.

A reporter who is close to Huifeng Bank asked at this time: "Mr. Zhang, a recording alone is not enough to prove that this is a conspiracy led by Huifeng Bank. After all, recordings can also be forged. Do you have any other more powerful evidence?"

The reporter tried to salvage the situation for Huifeng Bank, but his voice seemed powerless amid the uproar.

Zhang Lei was unable to respond to this matter, but his role was enough.

"Mr. Zhang, you can leave now. I will arrange for someone to secretly escort you out of Hong Kong immediately." At this time, Dashan came to Zhang Lei and whispered.

Zhang Lei was immediately surprised and at this moment he just wanted to escape from Hong Kong as soon as possible.

After Zhang Lei left, Lin Haoran walked back to the microphone.

Suddenly, everyone's attention was focused on Lin Haoran again.

"Everyone, you want more evidence. What a coincidence, I have it here." Lin Haoran said with a smile.

Immediately afterwards, a staff member took out a stack of A4 paper and began distributing it to the reporters on the scene.

The reporters took the A4 papers in confusion. Each one had several pages with densely packed names on them.

If you count carefully, there are more than one hundred and fifty names on the list, and their job positions are written behind each name.

Everyone was surprised to find that more than half of the people here were tellers from major branches of Bank of East Asia.

Up to this point, no one understands what this list means and why it is said that this list is a piece of evidence.

Soon, Lin Haoran gave the answer.

“Everyone, I have a list of 158 people in my hand. They have all been secretly persuaded by Huifeng Bank and successfully switched jobs. However, at present, these people are still working in various branches of Bank of East Asia as usual.

In the afternoon, the head office of Bank of East Asia confirmed through communication with the presidents of each branch that it was these poached employees who were secretly doing bad things.

Although I had thought about giving up Bank of East Asia before, I also clearly asked the senior management of Bank of East Asia that before the reserve funds were exhausted, all branches must provide good services and meet customers' needs for cash withdrawals as much as possible. I never intended to deliberately stop it.

In fact, the current reserve funds of Bank of East Asia are very sufficient and are far from the point where it cannot withdraw money. Therefore, it is completely unnecessary for us to delay the cash withdrawal time for customers.

In addition, I have collected a lot of evidence about these employees, which is sufficient to show that they have signed job-hopping agreements with Huifeng Bank. I will make this evidence public at the appropriate time.

At the same time, Bank of East Asia will also file lawsuits against these employees. Their malicious acts have seriously tarnished the reputation of Bank of East Asia and they will definitely be punished by law!

I don't need to say much about what to do next, I think everyone should know what to do. "Lin Haoran explained to everyone in a calm tone.

Those people who had gathered to cause trouble at noon were now staring at the live broadcast on TV.

It was not until then that they suddenly realized that they had become pawns that could be manipulated at will by Huifeng Bank.

In other words, their commotion in the morning was completely a pawn used by Huifeng Bank, and they were fooled around.

The Huifeng Bank was creating a terrorist incident. If it weren't for the Governor, Mr. MacLehose, stepping in, the consequences would have been absolutely disastrous, and there might even have been serious bloodshed.

Wasn't the Governor's Office unwilling to take action against Huifeng Bank? Then, he would make all the information he collected public, and he wanted to drag the Governor's Office into the water.

This matter was bound to get more and more serious, and he wanted to see how the Governor's Office could stay out of the incident!

When the Hong Kong Banking Association was first established, Shen Bi's reason for dealing with the Bank of East Asia was that the Bank of East Asia had repeatedly deviated from established industry norms in its business strategies, harming the interests of its customers, and this was without any evidence.

But now, Lin Haoran has sufficient evidence to prove that Huifeng Bank is the real culprit behind the scenes that is stirring up trouble, damaging the interests of customers and disrupting the order of the industry.

In order to pursue private gains, Huifeng Bank did not hesitate to poach talents secretly, maliciously sabotage the operations of rival banks, and even use innocent people to create chaos. Its behavior is so bad that it is outrageous.

He wanted to see how Huifeng Bank would deal with these things after he made the matter public.

Huifeng Bank defamed Bank of East Asia without any evidence, so he would use sufficient evidence to prove that Huifeng Bank was the villain who trampled on industry rules, ignored business ethics, and discarded customer rights. (End of this chapter)