Year: I had a good time when I was young

Chapter 748 The Second License

He Zanyuan and He Chaosheng waved their hands repeatedly and said polite words like "it's not a hard job".

However, since Chu Xiangqian was inviting them to dinner, the two of them would definitely not miss it.

As for why Chu Xiangqian did not go to Lisbon to sign the license himself.

He Zanyuan, He Chaosheng, Zheng Yutong and Bridge also realized that although Chu Xiangqian was the president and chairman of the board of directors of the new hotel, he was really not suitable to continue to appear in front of the media at this time.

I don't want to be in the spotlight at this time.

It's normal to think about it. Chu Xiangqian has become notorious this time. Not only his own Oriental newspapers and magazines, but also several Kuala Lumpur families have been slandered to death in order to support their boss.

Even the discord among the other party members and the shoddy workmanship on the project were exposed. Not only did they completely break off relations, but many families and companies in Hong Kong were also afraid that Chu Xiangqian would let the Oriental series of newspapers and magazines report on the engineering projects they were in charge of.

Once the real evidence is exposed, not only will there be huge financial losses, but the main person in charge may even have to go to jail.

Even family businesses are likely to experience a chain reaction, being dragged down by real estate companies and experiencing capital shortages or even bankruptcy.

Moreover, Chu Xiangqian was willing to spend money, throwing out millions of Hong Kong dollars.

In addition, he has very good relations with the Hong Kong government and London, and the bosses behind several other major media in Hong Kong are eager to give him face, so the vast majority of media in Hong Kong also overwhelmingly support him.

In addition, several small newspapers and magazines received money from Kuala Lumpur and came out to slander Chu Xiangqian.

The police and gangs across Hong Kong are looking for trouble with these newspapers and magazines 24 hours a day, day and night.

Even the Chief Secretary and the Information Agency have stepped in to investigate whether these tabloids and magazines have violated any regulations.

Then two newspapers were directly ordered to suspend publication and rectify. Only God knows when they can reopen.

Now everyone inside and outside Hong Kong Island understands that Chu Xiangqian is popular with both blacks and whites and foreigners in Hong Kong Island.

At this time, it was reported that he had entered the gambling industry, and there was no problem with it legally.

But in terms of reputation, it's really not good.

No matter how the gambling operators package themselves, they cannot escape the fact that if you make money, someone else will lose everything.

So the new Great Wall Hotel does not nominally have its own casino.

Instead, after the hotel is built, the lower floors of the hotel, which are specially designed for casinos, are rented to gaming companies on a lease basis.

Although nominally the casino is located in the new building of the hotel, it has no direct relationship with the hotel.

But secretly, the hotel and casino licenses belonged to an offshore company. Chu Xiangqian also held 60% of the shares of this offshore company.

With an offshore company as a cover, it is very difficult to find out the specific shareholders and investment ratios.

Hotels and casinos are not under the same jurisdiction, so even if the authorities want to investigate, it will take at least three to five months.

For several years, I couldn't even figure out the share distribution and the hierarchy here.

After a year or so, even though the media revealed that Chu Xiangqian was the largest shareholder of the new hotel and casino, the heat of this war of words had long passed.

However, when Chu Xiangqian pushed He Zanyuan and He Chaosheng out to manage the hotel and casino, he also attracted pressure from public opinion, so naturally he had to give them some benefits.

Moreover, the family behind He Zanyuan and the other two is indeed a local tyrant in Macau. It is safer for them to run the new hotel and casino than for Chu Xiangqian to send people over.

Of course, Chu Xiangqian would intervene in finance, personnel, and even security.

No matter how good a friendship or favor is, it will deteriorate over time. The wisest thing to do is to prevent He Zanyuan and He Chaosheng from having the opportunity to dominate from the beginning.

Not to mention the possibility of giving them exclusive control over the hotel and casino.

Any possibility of this happening must be eliminated immediately.

This is the right attitude for long-term cooperation.

Just when Chu Xiangqian was still considering whether to give dividends to He Zanyuan and He Chaosheng for management shares, that is, only getting dividends from 5% of the shares but not owning these 5% of the shares.

He Zanyuan hesitated for a few seconds before asking in a low voice, "Mr. Chu, I heard from my eldest brother that the reason why we were able to get the new photo so easily this time was because Her Highness Margaret was entrusted by Her Majesty Eliza to visit Lisbon.

After Asheng and I sign the contract in Lisbon, should we go to London to thank Her Royal Highness Margaret?"

Zheng Yutong and Bridge were stunned, then immediately realized that He Zanyuan and He Chaosheng wanted to take the opportunity to establish a relationship with the royal family.

If they could meet Margaret, or even have a photo of them taken together reported in the newspaper and sent back to Hong Kong, it would be beneficial to both of them and even the family behind them.

Zheng Yutong and Bridge couldn't help but feel envious.

Chu Xiangqian laughed. It was no problem to simply take a photo with Margaret. Even if it was Philip, he could just call him and invite him to the dinner and take a few photos.

Anyway, Chu Xiangqian has been one of Philips' major financial backers in the past two years, so he will definitely be given face.

But Margaret's visit to Lisbon was not that simple.

Margaret was easy to deal with. She promised to go to London as soon as possible to spend some time with her, and the girl ran off to find her sister.

But it is not so easy to invite Philip and Eliza.

However, Chu Xiangqian knew Philip's character and promised to sell him 36 tons of iron ore in two batches in the next two months.

Another 36 tons of iron ore was sold by Philips to several families behind the steel industry in Lisbon.

This easily convinced the Lisbon authorities to award the second photo to the offshore company behind the Great Wall Hotel Group.

As for the first license, it is actually also in the hands of the casino where Chu Xiangqian and He Chaosheng cooperated.

Moreover, Chu Xiangqian holds a 30% stake, and together with the shares held by He Chaosheng, it directly exceeds 61%.

The other two shareholders of this casino actually don't care much about the business, and since He Chaosheng has Chu Xiangqian as his financial backer, the shares given to other shareholders are reduced.

Like Mr. Huo, he is basically the same as Chu Xiangqian in that he has no involvement at all in this company, which only owns a company specializing in "ticket shop" and "white pigeon ticket".

The so-called lottery tickets, to put it simply, are the lottery draws that were popular in the late Qing Dynasty.

The white pigeon ticket is a race for 80 pigeons, and the customers' bets are similar to those in horse racing.

In the final analysis, this ticket-selling company is actually a ticket-selling stall with a legal license, just like the popular calligraphy and painting stalls in Hong Kong Island.

It has basically nothing to do with a real casino.

Otherwise, no matter how easy-going Mr. Huo and Ye Han were, they would not allow Chu Xiangqian and He Chaosheng to steal business from the ticket stall in which they held shares.

However, although it is said that the business has not been taken away, it will still affect the ticket sales. After all, there are only so many customers and they are attracted away by the big hotels.

Naturally, there are fewer customers going to the ticket stalls.

But the two companies were operating different businesses, and there was no apparent competition. If they didn't allow this, it would make Mr. Huo and Ye Han seem too overbearing. Moreover, Chu Xiangqian relied on the relationship between London and Lisbon. Otherwise, he might not be able to get the second license just by bribing the Portuguese in Macau.

So after hearing the news, Mr. Huo had already given up on this business.

Ye Han didn't say it, but in his heart he was very dissatisfied with Chu Xiangqian and He Chaosheng for leaving him out and building a hotel and a new-style casino.

However, Ye Han was concerned about Chu Xiangqian's power and his relationship with the foreigners. He did not dare to go against Chu Xiangqian openly, but that did not stop him from eyeing the offshore casino business.

He Chaosheng has to be blamed for this. This guy hasn't become rich yet, and he doesn't have enough confidence to go to Bai Fanyu alone and buy his shares in Zhenbaofang.

Only then did they bring Ye Han and Mr. Huo in, but Mr. Huo's life was actually not that easy right now.

Since the 1950s, the Yingguo people have been suppressing Mr. Huo. Although Chu Xiangqian admires them, he knows that it is best for him not to have anything to do with them.

To avoid doing bad things with good intentions, and Mr. Huo has been famous in Hong Kong and Macau for decades on his own, and he doesn't need Chu Xiangqian's help.

Mr. Huo didn't want to offend Baifanyu and Renault. After all, many of them actually depended on him for their livelihood.

It is not worth it to offend the Chief Chinese Detective Lei Luo.

After rejecting He Chaosheng, He Chaosheng could only talk to Ye Han about the idea of ​​transforming the Treasure House.

Now He Chaosheng has given up on Zhenbaofang and turned to Chu Xiangqian, without dragging Ye Han along. Everyone must be resentful.

Moreover, Chu Xiangqian was also a shareholder of the ticket shop, and he also didn't say anything, which made it clear that he looked down on Ye Han.

Ye Han couldn't swallow this humiliation if he didn't cause some trouble for Chu Xiangqian and He Chaosheng.

Of course, Ye Han still has a clear vision of himself. He can't afford to offend Chu Xiangqian, but that doesn't stop him from causing trouble for He Chaosheng.

But he didn't know that Chu Xiangqian had actually set his sights on this first license plate.

So he will definitely try to destroy the ticket booths openly or secretly.

Of course, if Chu Xiangqian had patience, he would just have to wait.

Whether it is ticket spreading or word flower stalls, these are ways of playing that will not be eliminated by the market.

In the past two years, the two brothers, Da Ma and Xiao Ma, have focused most of their thoughts and energy on dog racing because the business of dog racing has become increasingly difficult.

This actually has a lot to do with the increasingly developed information. As more and more newspapers appear, competition becomes increasingly fierce. Some journalists and newspapers have begun to expose the dirty tricks used to cheat people in order to increase sales.

Their underwear has been stripped off, and the betting of the Jockey Club is becoming more and more popular among citizens. Not to mention the gambling stalls, even the social organization gambling stalls in Hong Kong Island are seeing their business shrink.

In other words, after Chu Xiangqian has been on the stage for three to five years, Ye Han and Mr. Huo will have to accept the fact that the ticket-selling business will be unsustainable.

By then, this license plate will become useless.

Unless the business scope can be expanded, Chu Xiangqian, He Chaosheng, Zheng Yutong, and Bridge will definitely try their best to stop it at that time.

By the time Ye Han and Mr. Huo were out of options, seven years later, the ten-year operating period of the license was about to expire. They had to either sell their shares to someone else or sell them to Chu Xiangqian and He Chaosheng.

When the contract was signed, it stated that "under the same conditions and prices", shareholders had the right of first refusal.

Even if the bid was HK$1 million, Chu Xiangqian would buy the 39% shares held by Ye Han and Mr. Huo in total.

Of course, from now on, buying only this amount of shares for 1 million is definitely a big mistake.

But by the 70s, that 39% stake might have been worth tens of millions.

By the 80s, 1 million might not even buy 5%.
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Chu Xiangqian thought so much, but it was actually just a fleeting thought in his mind.

Back to the transaction with Philips, at the beginning of 63, the price of iron ore was US$12.7 per ton, and Chu Xiangqian got a discount of US$0.5.

12.2 tons of iron ore were sold to Philips at 72 per ton. Philips then sold it to steel companies in Britain and Portugal, with a direct profit of US$36.

The hidden benefit is that Philips has the ability to buy top-quality iron ore with an iron content of 70%, which is of great benefit to the steel companies in Yingguo and Grape.

Firstly, it reduces the refining cost, and secondly, it provides an additional purchasing channel, which means that there are fewer restrictions from iron ore companies.

Even the bargaining power will be greatly improved. With the confidence to bargain, the procurement cost can naturally be reduced a lot.

In the future, the competitiveness of finished steel produced by the steel companies of the two countries in domestic sales and exports will become stronger.

So Philips made a lot of money by taking kickbacks from both Chu Xiangqian and the steel company.

Only then did they persuade Philip and Eliza, a couple who had once been involved in foreign trade between the two countries, to allow Margaret to visit Lisbon.

Chu Xiangqian naturally knew what He Zanyuan and He Chaosheng were thinking, and introducing Margaret to them was tantamount to repaying their favor.

Chu Xiangqian smiled and said, “After the horse race auction is over, I have to go to London.

If you two are still in Lisbon, I will invite you both to visit my ranch outside London.

If we are lucky, Philips might also be there. How you two can talk then will depend on your eloquence.”

He Zanyuan and He Chaosheng were overjoyed. They thought that only Margaret would be there, but unexpectedly Chu Xiangqian hinted that Philip would definitely attend.

Now, let alone hiding the shareholding ratio from Chu Xiangqian, he would have no problem accepting all the accusations from the media and the public.

Even the time when the contract was signed was earlier than Chu Xiangqian's trip to London.

At worst, I can go back to Macau to preside over the early construction of the hotel. When the arrangements are almost done and Chu Xiangqian's horse racing auction is over, I can fly to Lisbon to stay for a few days and wait for his invitation.

Seeing this, Zheng Yutong and Bridge took the initiative to ask Chu Xiangqian for an invitation to the London banquet.

Chu Xiangqian didn't care about it. After all, Philip was just a mascot this time.

As for He Zanyuan and the other four, whether they were fooled by Philips is their own business.

However, based on Chu Xiangqian's understanding of Philips, it would not be easy for this guy to fool He Zanyuan, He Chaosheng, and Zheng Yutong.
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After returning from Macau, Chu Xiangqian walked out of the dock and got into his Rolls-Royce, and Zheng Yutong followed him in the car.

Chu Xiangqian immediately knew that this guy had something to say to him.

He patted the back of the driver's seat where Zhang Tianzhi was sitting and said, "Let's go to the Yau Ma Tei Wushu Association."

Then he looked at Zheng Yutong and asked, "What's the matter?"

Zheng Yutong chuckled, "I heard from Bridge that you have a place in the Jockey Club?"

Chu Xiangqian nodded. He understood immediately. He thought that maybe it was because he had the chance to go to London to meet Philip and Margaret that they thought of becoming a horse owner.

To avoid being embarrassed when talking about horse racing and suddenly realizing that you are not the only horse owner.

You may even be looked down upon.

(End of this chapter)