Hong Kong's new giants

Chapter 698 [Thousand tons of gold]

Central, Octopus Bank Building.

Lin Zuhui and his wife Wang Lingyin came to the Octopus Bank's vault. After going through layers of security, a titanium alloy door weighing 38 tons came into view.

With the cooperation of Octopus Bank Chairman He Changhong and the person in charge of the treasury, the door of the treasury was finally opened.

Next, is the moment that shocks the soul.

I saw a large number of gold nuggets piled up into a square cylinder about 1.5 meters high. The golden color dazzles the eyes.

"Boss, there are currently a total of 1155 tons of gold here." He Changhonghui reported.

Lin Zuhui has stepped down as chairman of the board of directors, and He Changhong will take over. Lin Zuhui no longer holds any position in Octopus Bank.Of course, he is also the chairman of Octopus Financial Group and the absolute majority shareholder of Octopus Bank.

At this time, Octopus Bank's net assets were about 680 billion Hong Kong dollars, and its deposits exceeded 5000 billion Hong Kong dollars (Lin Zuhui personally had 1000 billion), and it had branches or offices in many countries and regions in Asia.

Octopus also has a shortcoming, that is, it cannot carry out RMB business in the mainland. It is not that Lin Zuhui does not have enough connections, but the mainland requires an asset value of 1600 billion RMB.

Zhong Chuyi took Lin Zuhui's private jet for the first time, and he couldn't help but be secretly surprised by its luxury. On the contrary, Yuan Tianfan took it for granted. He is also a rich man in Hong Kong. In early 1999, he succeeded in acquiring Hong Kong Telecom. As soon as the unbundling period for telecom stocks came up, Yuan Tianfan sold them for 1 million yuan.

"Mr. Lin, the board of directors has agreed to sell 17.5% of the new shares to your two companies, and get you 7300 million US dollars in cash; at the same time, you can also get a board seat." Jeffrey said.

"Brother Hui!"

Money begets money, it's so easy.

In fact, the founder Walker had to leave Priceline.

They are very clear about Lin Zuhui's name, and now the world's richest man and technology tycoon is interested in Priceline, which is definitely exciting news.

Lin Zuhui thought for a while and said: "If you want to survive the cold winter of the Internet, you must reduce costs. Lay off staff, reduce office space, suspend the expansion of new businesses, and focus the company's energy on air tickets and hotel reservation services. In addition, the company also optimized The quality of its own service reduces the time to respond to customer orders from the original 1 hour to 15 minutes, and 8% of emails must be replied within 3 hours. Through these reforms, Priceline can smoothly survive a period of downturn. When the market value of Priceline increases In the future, when the general environment is good, we can take the opportunity to acquire overseas companies and globalize Priceline."

In fact, several core executives of the New Era Group have earned hundreds of millions of dollars every year; of course, almost all of them are rewarded in the form of "bonuses" to avoid excessive taxation.

Everyone looked at Yuan Tianfan. The senior executives of the New Era Group are wealthy people who live in a detached house on the top of the mountain, with an annual income of no less than 1 million yuan; Some investment news; and Yuan Tianfan's wife, Li Huiling, who is also the vice president of Octopus Bank, is a well-known real estate speculator in Hong Kong and has made a lot of money.

Lin Zuhui said with a smile: "I bought about 1000 tons and deposited them in the Octopus Bank as a long-term investment."

Priceline is an Internet company that sells tickets online in the United States, which is equivalent to Ctrip in China; of course, Priceline is the teacher of Ctrip.

After a brief greeting, everyone came to Priceline's meeting room.

Lin Zuhui and his team came to the Priceline headquarters at the first stop.

"Mr. Lin, welcome to Priceline!" the new president, Jeffrey, stretched out his hand happily.

Meanwhile, Priceline executives were all grinning.

Wang Lingyin smiled and said, "I like it!"

Jeffrey nodded. He knew about it, because he joined Priceline in 1999. Walker told him about it, and Walker was very proud of it.Now it seems that Walker should be happy too early.

The two of them tacitly agreed that about 1020 tons of gold was deposited by Lin Zuhui, of course in the name of a registered company, and only a few core management members of Octopus Bank knew about it.

mid-December.

The two were flirting like young people. He Changhong and the other three stood far away, pretending not to hear.

At that time, Priceline invented a patent of "customer self-pricing system", which can be described as a very powerful existence. In that year, it received 1 million US dollars in venture capital, including the co-founder of Microsoft.And Jingwei Capital wanted to invest more because it missed the opportunity, and its founder Walker directly called out a sky-high price, which meant that you should either invest according to my price, or give up by yourself.

After a long time, she nodded without asking further questions.

This is because New Era Group itself is cooperating with Priceline to expand Priceline's business to Asia, and the two parties have established a joint venture.In addition, Lin Zuhui can't eat alone, so it is easy to make people wonder why his investment is so precise.

At this time, several high-level people were sitting in the living room on the first floor, while the boss was already resting on the second floor, and the atmosphere became a little more lively.

Walking out of the vault gate, Lin Zuhui and Wang Lingyin returned to the office.

Just as Lin Zuhui finished speaking, the applause rang out again.

Seeing Wang Lingyin picking up a gold nugget to admire, Lin Zuhui walked over and said, "Do you like it?"

Jeffrey said happily: "With the guidance of Mr. Lin, we believe that we will definitely get out of the trough."

At that time, although Lin Zuhui told his subordinates in private that there was a day when Priceline couldn't laugh, he still didn't give up on cooperating with Priceline and introducing it to Asia for development.

Lin Zuhui said directly: "The bursting of the Internet bubble does not mean that the Internet disappears or slumps. On the contrary, the bubble is only aimed at the reduction of high price-earnings ratios, and the Internet itself is still developing with each passing day. Therefore, the Internet industry still has unlimited prospects."

Jeffrey took the opportunity to ask again: "What advice does Mr. Lin have for Priceline?"

"52 tons"

Lin Zuhui, Yuan Tianfan, Zhong Chuyi and others took his private plane to the United States.

To be honest, Lin Zuhui is already very satisfied that Jingwei Capital has future industry giants such as Apple, Amazon, Kingston, Ali, and Penguin.

There was applause in the conference room, and everyone felt confident in Lin Zuhui's statement from the bottom of their hearts.

The important thing is that they were originally rewarded with 1.5 million shares, but when they cashed out, they were often more than [-] million.

At this time, the London gold price was only US$270 per ounce, and a meal was about US$952 million (7400 million Hong Kong dollars); while the average price of 1020 tons of gold purchased by Lin Zuhui was around US$280 per ounce, and the cost was less than 800 billion Hong Kong dollars, which was quite Cheap.

Suddenly, Wang Lingyin was dumbfounded.

In fact, Lin Zuhui is not talking nonsense. The Internet bubble burst in the past year, and Priceline has also suffered a catastrophe. The stock price has fallen from a maximum of 80 US dollars per share to the current 6.5 US dollars per share.

"Well, how much gold does Octopus Bank itself own?"

The most mysterious thing, of course, is Hengjin Investment. Lin Zuhui never told anyone, although he has a wealth of about 4000 billion.

Yuan Tianfan is the vice president of New Era Group, a core executive in charge of emerging industries and mergers and acquisitions, while Zhong Chuyi is the head of mergers and acquisitions and investment business of Xiangjiang Telecom.

Even so, Wang Lingyin also knows that her husband's money is an astronomical figure. Only Hengjin Real Estate in her hand already has more than 600 billion properties and stocks; in addition, Wang Lingyin also knows that the assets of the family office have reached 2000 billion About; Jingwei Capital, she also probably knows a little bit, about 1000 billion.

After all the agreements were signed, Yuan Tianfan became a director of Priceline, representing New Era Group.

"Then I will arrange for you to be the treasury administrator!"

Yuan Tianfan saw his colleagues joking, shook his head with a smile, and said: "I don't want to take this free one, why should I buy a private jet, besides, the boss's private jet, I dare not expect extravagantly, even the annual maintenance costs are frighteningly high , all worth hundreds of millions."

In order to buy so much gold, it has taken three years, and the gold holdings will continue to increase to 1200 tons to 1300 tons.

Of course, Lin Zuhui doesn't have that much time, and he serves as the director of too many companies.

He doesn't think it's a waste to save some soup and water to invest in his subsidiaries.

Lin Zuhui waved his hand modestly!
Next, the two parties signed the contract. The reason why Lin Zuhui made the joint investment of New Times Group and Heung Kong Telecom for the stake in Priceline this time was not the direct investment of Jingwei Capital.

Everyone secretly smacked their tongues, but they were not envious, after all, these things are not something they can expect.Although everyone has an annual salary of several million or even tens of millions, they are far from the real rich.

After finishing the Priceline matter, Lin Zuhui continued to arrange for Yuan Tianfan and Zhong Chuyi.

Prior to this, Yuan Tianfan, as Lin Zuhui's representative, had already conducted consultations.

The development of Octopus Bank has been fast enough. When it was listed, its asset value was only more than 300 billion, and it had doubled in less than four years.There are many reasons for the doubling of asset value, such as: more deposits and more loans, bargain hunting in the Korean financial industry, and the acquisition of a small Thai bank.

Seeing that there were no outsiders, Wang Lingyin asked curiously, "Brother Hui, why does Octopus Bank have so much gold?"

Priceline executives listened and memorized, with admiration on their faces.

"Mr. Lin, since you are so optimistic about Priceline, you must also know the current situation of the company. The market value is only less than one-tenth of the peak period. To be honest, it is very difficult." After finishing speaking, Jeffrey and others looked at Lin Zuhui , I hope this excellent business tycoon can have a good suggestion of his own.

"President Yuan, did you also buy a private jet that day?" Zhong Chuyi said with a smile.

Lin Zuhui nodded and said, "No problem, I'm very happy to join Priceline. I can see the future from this company. You know, I proposed to Mr. Walker to buy shares, but unfortunately no agreement was reached at that time."

To be honest, she didn't know how much money her husband had, she never asked, and Lin Zuhui only revealed part of it.

"Walker, the founder of Priceline, still has a large amount of shares in his hands. Go and negotiate with him, and strive to increase our shareholding to more than 30%. Become the real major shareholder of Priceline and increase the number of director seats to 2 seat."

Yuan Tianfan nodded and said, "Okay! Presumably Walker won't miss Priceline now that he has left."

Lin Zuhui said: "It can only be said that he has bad luck and no sense of risk!"

Yuan Tianfan and Zhong Chuyi couldn't help but think of their boss, who used to be like this from time to time, but then began to pay attention to cash flow and debt issues.Of course, the vision of my boss is absolutely top-notch.

(End of this chapter)