Year: I had a good time when I was young

Chapter 764 You want my money, I want your shares

After the first batch of 10 Arabian horses were sold for 1 million US dollars, hundreds of buyers on the scene were shocked.

At the third auction at the end of the previous year, the average price of the Arabian horse was 20 pounds, which was 80 US dollars according to the exchange rate at the time.

This price was more expensive than most thoroughbred horses at the time.

But in 61, Wuzhui won the English Triple Crown, and the market was excited by Wuzhui's performance. In addition to the origin of the Arabian horse, there are only more than Arabian horses in Europe, America, and Southeast Asia.

The extreme seller's market led to the price of the Arabian horse being easily driven up to US$80.

In the past two years, although there were some champion horses among the Arabian horses sold by Chu Xiangqian, they all ran in second- and third-level races.

Therefore, many people estimate that the price of the Arabian horse may remain at 80 in this auction.

Of course, there are also many people who think that more than 100 million US dollars is normal.

After all, the horses sold by Chu Xiangqian have been tested and recognized by the market.

But Chu Xiangqian's auction started with 10 horses, which instantly left many horse owners without even the chance to participate.

We can only unite and hold up the signs together.

But when the bid really reached 1 million US dollars, most participants still felt it was too expensive.

Chu Xiangqian’s idea is actually very simple. Anyone who can buy 10 Arabian horses at one time must be a wealthy man who is not short of money.

After buying the horses, these people will definitely not sell them, but instead hope to be lucky and get a good horse.

If you are unlucky, you can still use it to breed foals.

After two or three years, these people also became supporters and sellers of the Arabian horse.

They would unite to maintain the price of the Arabian horse, or even push it up, without any hesitation.

As a result, the market demand for Arabian horses will be even higher.

As for a dozen or even dozens of years later, when the Arabian horses appear in large numbers internationally, Chu Xiangqian is not worried that the price of his horses will drop.

Even though purebred horses are worth millions or tens of millions, 9% of them are ordinary people.

Even meat horses.

Therefore, even if there are tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Arabian horses in the market, very few of them can be sold at a high price.

The horses produced in the Novice Village naturally have higher three-dimensional attributes than horses in the real world.

This means that the horses sold by Chu Xiangqian are at least mid-to-high-end grade.

Chu Xiangqian even hoped that the owners of the Ferghana horses from his hands would breed one or several champion horses in the future.

So this time he didn't care at all about what ordinary centaurs thought.

The next three lots, each with 10 horses, were all sold out in just an hour and a half.

The bidding process actually doesn't take that much time. The only reason it takes so long is because many people are worried about making a loss, so they keep looking for horse experts and observing the quality of the horses being auctioned.

And when the price soared to around 1 million, the only people who continued to bid were the Middle Eastern tycoons and a few buyers from Magnesium and Britain.

The reason why the rich people in the Middle East have to bid for these Arabian horses is simply because they want to become famous.

Although the desert tycoons are rich, the oil price has remained below $3 all year round.

Even the oil price has remained between $1.9 and $2.2 for seven or eight years, so these rich people have basically no presence in this era.

Since oil prices are stable, there is no need to ask the rich to sell more, nor to worry about them selling less.

In addition, the rich really have no shortage of money. If they spend 1 million to buy a pig for breeding, they can earn it back in just a few years.

If another champion-level Arabian horse appears, the market demand and pursuit for the Arabian horse will definitely be higher.

For some horses that perform extremely well, their valuations will skyrocket.

The ideas of buyers from the United States and Britain are also related to money.

Seeing that all four batches of Arabian horses were sold successfully, Chu Xiangqian happily received the three sellers' representatives.

While chatting, Chu Xiangqian's attention was more focused on whether the transfer had arrived.

Ten minutes later, Juan Montero, the head of Standard Chartered, walked up to Chu Xiangqian with a smile on his face, "Mr. Chu, a total of 4180 million US dollars has been successfully transferred to your special account at Standard Chartered."

After saying that, Juan Montero extended his hand very solemnly and said, "Congratulations, Mr. Chu."

Chu Xiangqian had an equally bright smile on his face. He shook hands firmly with Juan Montero and said "congratulations". He then turned his attention back to the three buyer representatives who had bought the 40 horses.

Seeing this, Juan Montero took two steps back and stood behind Chu Xiangqian.

It is foreseeable that the total amount of this auction will definitely exceed 6 million or even 7 million US dollars.

There are many benefits for Standard Chartered Bank to have such a large amount of cash deposited with it.

Not only does it increase the bank's ability to resist risks, but it can also use Chu Xiangqian's deposited cash to lend money to others.

With the loan interest rates of this era, if there is sufficient collateral, banks dare to lend to borrowers who seem unreliable but are willing to pay the bank 10% or even 12% interest.

Then the profit from interest would be six to seven million dollars every year.

After deducting the 3.6% interest paid to deposit customers each year, the net profit is still four to five million US dollars a year.

Moreover, in the past two years, a large amount of capital from Southeast Asia has continued to flow into Hong Kong Island, which has begun to slowly push up land and housing prices in Hong Kong Island.

The hotter the investment, the more capital will participate in the market.

Even the middle class began to follow suit.

So the market is not flooded with money, but rather short of money.

At the beginning of the year, a 4 square foot house in Causeway Bay was only or yuan. Now in April, the price has been pushed up to more than yuan.

Compared with the 60 or so when Chu Xiangqian first came to Hong Kong Island in 5, it has almost doubled.

涨的最多的，居然是尖沙咀，从从62年年初的500涨到63年4月1300。

The biggest driving force behind this is actually Chu Xiangqian.

The Oriental Daily bought a large amount of land, the snack street brought in a lot of people, and with the construction of a large number of stores facing the racecourse, there was even more traffic on Nathan Road.

This indirectly pushed up the surrounding housing prices. Even Tsim Sha Tsui was affected.

It is foreseeable that housing prices will continue to rise in the next few years until the bubble bursts.

Therefore, in order to persuade Chu Xiangqian not to withdraw the money right after the auction as he did in the past few times, several major shareholders of Standard Chartered flew to Hong Kong Island to participate in this auction before the auction.

Even Malay Securities, which had a conflict with Chu Xiangqian some time ago, had to put aside their grudges and fly to Hong Kong Island to find Chu Xiangqian to ease the relationship because it also held shares in Standard Chartered.

Moreover, among the three buyers who purchased 3 Arabian horses, one was a Middle Eastern tycoon, Ahmed, a member of the Omani royal family, who directly purchased 40 horses. The other two, one represented several shareholders of the British Royal Bank.

A horse farm that has a vague connection with JPMorgan Chase, but Chu Xiangqian knows that this horse farm in Magnesium is actually a horse farm controlled by a fund held by Morgan.

The richer the family in Europe and America, the more they hope to have a champion horse in their name.

If you really can't find one, or can't breed one yourself, then think of other ways.

Even Margaret's elder sister Elizabeth spent millions of pounds on horses over the years.

Both the Royal Bank of England and JPMorgan Chase are actually shareholders of Standard Chartered Hong Kong Island Branch.

These guys were optimistic about the market prospects of the Arabian horses. After spending money to buy 20 Arabian horses, they persuaded Chu Xiangqian to put the money behind Standard Chartered.

In name, the money belongs to Chu Xiangqian, but in reality, the right to use the money is still in the hands of Standard Chartered.

In a disguised way, it is still in the hands of these two banks and other shareholders.

Although Chu Xiangqian is also a member of Standard Chartered's board of directors, he only holds 5%.

On many decisions, he only has one vote and has little influence.

But his vote also became the target of other shareholders.

Chu Xiangqian naturally knew what these bankers were thinking, but he didn't deposit his money with Standard Chartered out of kindness.

If I remember correctly, there was a banking crisis in Hong Kong Island in 65. Even HSBC would have had a hard time by then. Even if Standard Chartered could survive the crisis, it would definitely face a shortage of funds.

By depositing money into Standard Chartered now, Chu Xiangqian believes that within two years, the money he has saved will definitely be used by the bank for loaning.

Once the crisis occurred, Chu Xiangqian asked to withdraw the money, but Standard Chartered was so shameless that it used a delaying policy to deal with him.

Otherwise, you can only find ways to borrow money to fill this hole.

Whether it is delaying or borrowing money from shareholders, it will be a huge trouble for Standard Chartered.

Moreover, during the crisis, the forces represented by the shareholders would most likely not lend money to Standard Chartered Hong Kong Island Branch when the future is uncertain.

Then Chu Xiangqian would have enough reasons to ask for cash in exchange for equity.

Even when Standard Chartered has no other choice, the board of directors will beg him to exchange deposits for shares.

And as a savior, he announced to the public how much cash he used to hold more Standard Chartered shares in order to stabilize the market's confidence in Standard Chartered.

By then, Chu Xiangqian's shares will soar from 5% to 15% or even more than 20%.

When the next crisis occurs, Chu Xiangqian will naturally have another chance to covet more Standard Chartered shares.

I just don’t believe that in a dozen, twenty or thirty years, I won’t be able to completely control the Standard Chartered board of directors.

By then, no matter it is Malayan Securities, Morgan or Royal Bank, they will have to behave themselves in their own right within the Hong Kong Island.

Chu Xiangqian’s future funds flowing in and out of Hong Kong will be much safer.
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After confirming that all the 4180 million US dollars had been deposited into the account, Chu Xiangqian couldn't help but shake hands with Ahmed.

By the way, Ahmed is an old customer. Two years ago, this guy and Rahman, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, competed for the Arabian horses and Arabian horses at that auction.

Moreover, the Arabian horse that Ahmed bought last year won the desert endurance race in the Middle East.

It's a pity that Rahman got nothing. Otherwise, if Rahman had come this year, he would definitely compete with Ahmed who bought 20 Arabian horses.

Even if the two of them reached an agreement and acted together, with each targeting half, Rahman and Ahmed would become competitors of the shareholders of Morgan and Royal Bank.

By then, there is an 8% chance that the average price of this Arabian horse will exceed 110 million US dollars.

Ahmed was actually quite happy. He directly offered a price of 10 million for the first batch of 1 Arabian horses, which scared off other buyers.

Because of his repeated offer, the prices of the next three batches of 3 horses exceeded 30 million per horse.

When the fourth batch of 10 horses was auctioned again, he bought them for just US$960 million.

Moreover, according to the observations and judgments of the six horse trainers invited by Ahmed, at least three of the 20 horses in the first and fourth batches are as strong as the champion horse in last year's Desert Endurance Rally.

If this judgment is correct, it means that with the three horses, the company can make back $3 to $ million.

If a horse really wins the endurance race again, the price will immediately soar to more than 500 million US dollars.

Chu Xiangqian really didn't know about this. After all, he was only concerned about the speed race.

In addition, due to the lack of information, few people care about events like endurance racing.

But for insiders, endurance race champions are often also excellent stallions.

More importantly, as a member of the Omani royal family, if the horses owned by Ahmed win again in the future, he will not only stand out more than his other brothers, but the public's support for him will also continue to rise.

So even though this guy spent 1960 million U.S. dollars, he didn't feel any pain at all.

If he could get a triple crown-level Arabian horse like Wuzhui, Ahmed would not hesitate to offer 40 or 50 million US dollars.

Of course, the actual value of Wuzhui could not be as expensive as Chu Xiangqian said, 1500 million pounds, which is nearly 6 million US dollars.

The reason why Chu Xiangqian offered such an outrageous price to Baifanyu was because he was certain that the political families on Luzon Island had political needs, so he asked for such a high price.

But the championship prize money that Wu Zhui won in the past two years is more than one million pounds, which is equivalent to four million US dollars.

Unfortunately, Chu Xiangqian sold 50% of Wuzhui's shares to Philips and Mountbatten, and the two guys have never solicited sponsorship fees or sold advertising space.

Otherwise, Wu Zhui's income in the next two years would have increased by at least several million dollars.

Once Wuzhui is truly retired, you can earn breeding fees for many years.

After five or ten years, ten million will be no problem at all.

The biggest potential source of income comes from the foals bred by Wuzhui at his own stable.

Although not all offspring of champion horses are champions, it has long been a market-recognized fact that the offspring of champions are more likely to produce champions.

Therefore, the offspring of champion horses are generally priced several times or even dozens of times higher than the market price from the moment they are born.

Chu Xiangqian sold 50% of Wuzhui's shares for 300 million pounds two years ago, so Philips and Mumba were not worried about losing money at all.

The past two years have also proved that the decision they made at the beginning was very wise.

This also indirectly boosted the popularity of the Arabian horse.
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After Ahmed and Chu Xiangqian exchanged pleasantries, they glanced at the two representatives who were also buyers. Seeing that they were shameless and refused to leave, they could only curse them in their hearts.

Then he whispered to Chu Xiangqian, "Chu, I heard that there is a family in Luzon Island who privately approached you to reserve a champion horse?"

After hearing this, Chu Xiangqian pretended to be angry, but he muttered to himself with a smile that he was the one who asked someone to spread the news.

Moreover, Ahmed was talking about the champion horse, not the Triple Crown horse, which shows that the outside world also has only a limited understanding.

(End of this chapter)