Hong Kong's new giants

Chapter 549 [Two Amazons]

In mid-July, San Francisco.

On the site of an 'Amazon (Amazon)' shopping center that is being transformed, Amazon management is accompanying Lin Zuhui on inspection.

Amazon's management is almost all localized in the United States, and the president is a Jewish Steven, which is specially arranged by Lin Zuhui to "control barbarians from barbarians".Because he has great ambitions, that is to become the top three shopping mall brands in Europe and the United States, manage hundreds of shopping malls all over Europe and the United States, and have tens of billions of dollars in assets.

Therefore, the management rights of the entire Amazon shopping center are in the management team led by Steven, and Steven is equivalent to a professional manager.

Of course, New Era Shangguan has the right to supervise Amazon's management, and Lin Zuhui has the right to directly interfere in any matter of Amazon, including telling Steven and others to leave.

In terms of the company's management rights, Lin Zuhui is the only one of the big families in Hong Kong who handed over the president to an outsider. The presidents/general managers of New Era, Cheung Kong, Sun Hung Kai, and Henderson are actually all held by the four big families themselves.

The reason why he delegated power was because his son was too young to succeed in a short period of time; at the same time, he had too many group companies, unlike other big families who all classified their businesses under one big group.

He had also thought about merging all businesses into one group before, but found it difficult; first, the Hong Kong government stipulates that the TV license of ATV Group is not allowed to be held by subsidiaries; secondly, Octopus Financial Group and New Times Group are also Incompatible; in the end, all major groups seem to have great prospects for development, and the implementation of the "enfeoffment system" in the future is more in line with the Lin family.

As a professional manager, Steve didn't dare to take a peek at Lin Zuhui, who is the largest real estate developer in the world, so he stayed with him seriously.

Lin Zuhui pointed to the mark of 'Amazon' and said proudly: "Steve, you must keep in mind that it is the Amazon River that brings together countless life types, not countless life races, and creates the Amazon River."

An excellent entrepreneur, an entrepreneur who is in charge of tens of thousands of people, the most important thing for an enterprise is the soul.

Steve said seriously: "Boss is right! Our Amazon shopping center emphasizes on branding. He can bring customers from all over the world to come here instead of opening stores in the center of crowds. I always remember these words of yours. "

Lin Zuhui nodded in satisfaction, Amazon and Central Plaza are completely different; Central Plaza focuses on location, while Amazon focuses on convergence.

Then, Steve Hui reported: "We have formulated many strategies, such as increasing sales per unit area by introducing high-end brands; increasing occupancy rates by customizing properties for major tenants."

Lin Zuhui listened carefully, and after Steve finished speaking, he said: "When Amazon was founded, I told you to pay attention to Westfield Group in Australia and GGP Real Estate in the United States. They are our competition and learning objects. .At this point, how do you guys think we should compete with them?"

After thinking about it, Steve said: "We should expand the scale and determine how many Amazon shopping malls to build or renovate every year, especially to transform some traditional shopping malls into comprehensive shopping malls. With the advantage of scale expansion, we can It is better to establish a close cooperative relationship with large national chain enterprises, such as Macy's, Sears Holdings, JC Penny and other large department stores."

Indeed, only when your own strength is strong, others will be more willing to surround you.It’s like the United States, where the truth is under the fist, and the world is almost all his friends; it’s also like, the rich people and officials in the village of Lin Zuhui’s previous family, their friends and relationships, I don’t know if they are more ordinary/difficult than your family There are too many, a little trouble, a bunch of people come together to help.

Lin Zuhui nodded and said, "I support your idea! Amazon currently owns 19 shopping malls, but has almost no liabilities (acquisition debt is under the group's name), so you can come up with your expansion plan and hand it over to New Era I don’t care. This wave of economic growth in the United States is likely to last for more than ten years!”

Seeing Lin Zuhui's analysis of the U.S. economic trend, the surrounding executives were not surprised at all, and felt that it was very reasonable.The richest man in the world who is less than 30 years old does not rely on the technology industry, so what does that mean?It shows that other people's outlook on the general trend is very powerful, no worse than those economists.

Steve's confidence was greatly shaken. As a professional manager, what he likes most is to expand the company's scale and add an excellent resume to his career.

"Okay, I will arrange the renovation of the current 19 shopping malls, and plan the expansion plan for next year, and strive to set some goals to complete every year."

Lin Zuhui nodded. This is what he wanted. He remembered whether it was Xitian or GGP. Before Lehman, there were more than 200 shopping centers with an asset value of more than 300 billion US dollars.

From this point of view, I hope that Amazon will also have 150 to 200 shopping malls at some point.However, the development of Amazon, Xitian and GGP has a disadvantage, that is, Amazon will not support the 'real estate fund model'.

Therefore, Lin Zuhui said to Steve's management team: "Amazon's development can only be funded through loans and group support, instead of financing and real estate funds. Of course, you don't need to worry about the lack of funds, which will affect Development. The group’s cash has always been very sufficient, you just need to communicate in advance.”

Steve smiled and said, "No problem! But next year's expansion funds do not need group support. After all, we are currently a net worth company, and loans are very convenient."

In the short term, Amazon Shopping Center will not consider going public. If there is a good opportunity, Lin Zuhui will consider it, so as to maximize the benefits.

Next, after inspecting the renovation site, Lin Zuhui pointed to the surrounding vacant land (open-air parking lot, square), and suggested: "Those lands can consider adding apartments, hotels, and office buildings to improve land use efficiency. Of course, It's up to you to decide on a case-by-case basis, but I think most malls can do that."

As a real estate developer, he has a keen eye, and the United States does not have every inch of land. There is indeed a lot of land around the shopping center. If it can be used, it will be quite a profit.

To put it bluntly, shopping malls in the United States are built in empty places, and then there are people with cars in all directions. They gather here, and the population covered does not need to be too large. It is estimated that 2 people can build a shopping mall.

The Wal-Mart supermarket in the United States even claims that it can open a supermarket in a small town with a population of 5000, and can guarantee profits.

Sure enough, a group of high-level executives agreed one after another, thinking that Lin Zuhui's proposal was very good.

Steve immediately said: "BOSS's suggestion is very good. We will sort out this development strategy as soon as possible. In the future, it will be more efficient to use the surrounding land and ensure sufficient parking spaces."

It seems that only on-site inspections can we formulate strategies according to local conditions.

Lin Zuhui also has an idea that may help Amazon become more competitive in the future, that is, if he successfully invests in Bezos's Internet business, he will allow Bezos to change the company's name to 'Amazon'.I believe that Bezos will not realize that his company is very promising (it is a broken website) at the beginning, but intends to use the signboard of the 'Amazon' shopping center to start his own online bookstore.

Also, a good name is really hard to come by.

In this way, the Amazon Internet Bookstore and Amazon Shopping Center can be linked together.

In the end, the biggest beneficiary is of course the Amazon shopping mall.

After dealing with the Amazon shopping center, Lin Zuhui held a manager meeting of Jingwei Capital in Silicon Valley. Jingwei Capital (USA) does not have the position of president, only managers.

And these managers can look for investment projects, but they have no final investment decision, so all venture capital projects must be finalized by Lin Zuhui.

In fact, Lin Zuhui is just doing it for others to see. He only has 100 or [-] projects (China and the United States) that he wants to be in the limelight, but he has to create [-] projects to deceive people.

Of course, if these 100 cases are successful again, then it is the manager's credit.After they pick a project, they will state the reasons for the investment in the report, and Lin Zuhui will read it.In fact, he will also consider the investment cost, which is generally less than 500 million US dollars.Unless the manager can have a good reason or Lin Zuhui knows that the project has a good prospect, then it is possible to invest more.

(End of this chapter)