I lost my vegetative state, and I became the richest man in the world

Chapter 781 Fortresses are often breached from the inside first!

In the mid-20s, Wheelock had become one of the four major British foreign firms in Hong Kong, with 70 subsidiaries directly under it, including listed companies Real Estate Trust, Commonwealth Land, Harriman Development, Lane Crawford, and Wheelock Shipping business, joint ventures and Baofu Development, etc.

And these subsidiaries have about 180 affiliated companies and 20 private companies, forming a huge diversified comprehensive enterprise group.

During this period, Wheelock's operations have covered investment holding, merchant banking, finance, securities, futures trading, shipping, trade, wholesale and retail, real estate, aviation, tourism, insurance, and manufacturing, and the scope of investment has also extended from the Far East. To Southeast Asia, Australia and North and South America.

However, generally speaking, the core business of the group at that time was still Heung Kong's real estate and shipping.

In other words, the scale of Wheelock & Co. is very large.

Wheelock can rank third among the four major foreign firms in Hong Kong, so its strength should not be underestimated.

Before Chen Songqing's Carrian Group went bankrupt and liquidated, it claimed to be on the same scale as Wheelock and Swire.

In fact, Chen Songqing's Carrian Group is only a superficial figure, and when compared with Wheelock, it is still far behind.

Historically, Wheelock was swallowed up by Bao Yugang.

This time, for Wheelock & Co., Yang Ming had been preparing for four years.

Moreover, the plan to swallow up Wheelock & Co., except for a few people such as Yang Ming and Meris, did not know about it at all.

At this time, many people were concerned about the safety of Chen Songqing and Carrian Group. For Yang Ming, it was officially the best opportunity to swallow up Wheelock & Company.

Two major shareholders of Wheelock & Co.

The largest shareholder is the Zhang family.

The second largest shareholder, John Maseng, is also the head of Wheelock & Company.

Since the 70s, other consortiums have been trying to swallow Wheelock & Co.

But there was never a chance.

The funniest is the two major shareholders of Wheelock.

In 1976, due to international and domestic influences, the business and annual profit of Wheelock were greatly affected. He wanted to sell Wheelock & Co.

In 1981 in history, the Zhang family also wanted to sell the shares of Wheelock & Co. due to internal competition for family property.

However, none of this worked.

On the contrary, through the way of A shares and B shares, the Zhang family and John Maseng have been holding Wheelock & Co. Ltd. for a long time.

After the late 20s and 80s, the investment strategy of Wheelock's board of directors seemed to turn positive again.

At that time, Hong Kong's economy entered the rising stage of a new round of economic cycle, and the real estate market flourished again.

Real estate companies such as Wheelock's Real Estate Trust, United Real Estate, Harriman Development, and Baofu Development have successively launched huge real estate development businesses, and they have done impressively.

However, Wheelock's investment strategy is actually to demolish and rebuild the group's land properties, sell them at high prices during the real estate boom, and then borrow funds to actively develop the shipping industry, order a large number of bulk ships, and expand the fleet.

Behind this strategy is still John Madden, the boss of Wheelock, who lacks confidence in the future of Xiangjiang. He is worried that Xiangjiang will return to China sooner or later, so he implements a strategic transfer of assets to make it "float on the high seas" as a safe strategy.

It can be said that this is completely opposite to Bao Yugang's abandonment of the boat and landing in history.

Bao Yugang abandoned the boat and landed.

John. The horse stool is to abandon the land and board the boat.

This also led to Bao Yugang in history being able to swallow Wheelock & Co.

According to statistics, by 1983, Wheelock Shipping was the only shipping company under Wheelock Shipping, and its fleet had increased to 29 ships with a deadweight of 139 million tons.

Unfortunately, in the 20s, the world's shipping industry has gradually fallen into recession, and Wheelock Group was hit hard by it.

In 1981, Wheelock's pre-tax profit was 14.31 billion Hong Kong dollars, but by 1983 it had plummeted to 3.68 million Hong Kong dollars.

In that year, John Madden announced solemnly in the company's annual report: "The main shipping subsidiary of the Group, Wheelock Shipping International Co., Ltd. has experienced the most difficult year."

Historically, in 1984, Wheelock Shipping, which was heavily in debt and facing the threat of liquidation, was forced to sell the ships it owned at a low price.The plight of Wheelock Shipping has triggered conflicts between the Madden family and the Zhang Yuliang family, the two major shareholders of the Wheelock Group.

It turned out that in 1981, Wheelock Shipping had ordered two freighters from Denmark with a total value of more than 4 million US dollars. However, the ships were still under construction, and global shipping had entered a recession. Wheelock Shipping was under pressure.

In 1983, Wheelock Shipping wanted to seek financial support of about US$1200 million from the real estate trust of the same department, but was rejected by the real estate trust with the Zhang Yuliang family as the major shareholder, forcing Wheelock Shipping to borrow 400 million from the parent company US dollars to meet urgent needs.For this reason, the conflict between the two major shareholders of Wheelock has intensified.

In 1984, an important member of the Zhang family voluntarily resigned from his position as a director of Wheelock, on the grounds that he would centralize the management of the property trust companies under Wheelock.

In this way, the division of labor between the two major families within the Wheelock Group has been formed. The Madden family is in charge of Wheelock, Wheelock Shipping, United Enterprises, Lane Crawford, etc.; Cultural development and other real estate companies.

Although this is the case on the surface, the inside is eyeing, and the two families are gradually turning into fire and water.

At that time, although a key member of the Zhang family had resigned as a director of Wheelock, the Zhang family still had considerable influence on the board of directors. In terms of voting rights, the Zhang family had 10% more than the Madden family.

At that time, John Maseng could no longer control the board of directors of Wheelock. At the end of 1984, it was rumored that the two families would officially separate and Wheelock would reorganize.

Due to lack of confidence in the future of Xiangjiang, John Maseng invested all his energy in the shipping industry, trying to avoid political risks with a fleet registered overseas and assets flowing.

It's a pity that it's not as good as the sky. The low tide of the world shipping industry has brought Wheelock Shipping to the verge of bankruptcy and triggered conflicts between the two major shareholders.

In addition to being frustrated, coupled with his advanced age, Ma Deng once again lost his interest and thought of quitting.He sold all his shares in Wheelock to Qiu Teck Puat, a consortium of wealthy Nanyang businessmen.

Now Wheelock & Co. is actually even worse.

Because of the serious real estate crisis that broke out last year, Wheelock & Co. lost a lot of real estate, and basically did not have much money to return, let alone any profit.

On the other hand, John Maseng put many of the properties sold before 1982 into the shipping industry. However, the global shipping industry is now greatly affected even Baojia's global shipping.

So much so that in 1982, the annual profit of Wheelock & Co. had exceeded 1 million Hong Kong dollars.

From nearly 1981 billion Hong Kong dollars in 15, the annual profit fell to 1982 million Hong Kong dollars in 1.

In addition, I still owe more than 1000 million US dollars in debt. I hope the Zhang family will support it. The Zhang family has long been in conflict with John Maseng's dedication to the development of the shipping industry. He has been very opposed to it, and now he is in debt. , even less likely to support.

It is precisely because of this.

At this time, whether it is John Maseng or the Zhang family, the conflicts between the two sides are very deep.

Moreover, both parties intend to withdraw from Wheelock & Co.

Yang Ming handed the materials he had collected to Meris, who was very surprised after reading it.

"Boss, it seems that the time to acquire Wheelock & Co. is indeed ripe."

　Chapter 2!

　　Please subscribe! !

　　
　
(End of this chapter)