Year: I had a good time when I was young

Chapter 908 Cash Flow is King

By the way, why not renovate the house on the top of the mountain? After all, this villa has a history of more than 20 years.

Although the original design does not seem to be outdated now, in Chu Xiangqian's eyes, there are indeed many unreasonable design aspects.

But in this case, such a big thing would not be possible to build in two to three years, or even four to five years.

Chu Xiangqian thought about it and decided that he could only wait until the seaside land in Repulse Bay was built into a seaside villa before starting the renovation of the top of the mountain.

So Chu Xiangqian suddenly became more interested in the four-acre land in Repulse Bay.

It was previously given to Linda and Alyssa to find a team of designers to design it.

Chu Xiangqian was about to take it back, but then he thought, there aren’t many wealthy people living in Repulse Bay now.

It would be better to buy a larger piece of land while the land price is not expensive and build a larger beachfront villa or even a manor.

However, the manor can be big, but the house does not need to be too big.

Having this idea, Chu Xiangqian did not rush to act.

It was already June, so the banking crisis should not be far away.

Once a bank run occurs, Chinese banks will be the first to suffer.

A large number of Chinese banking families are facing bankruptcy crisis, which will inevitably form a domino effect.

The fall in land prices cannot be stopped.

On June 6, Chu Xiangqian was at Santa Maria Hospital, accompanying Xue Jinglan, who was already in a separate delivery room, to wait for her birth.

Zhang Tianzhi knocked on the door hurriedly and walked in, whispering in his ear, "Boss, Mr. Harder, Juan Carlos from Standard Chartered, and Mr. He Zanyuan from Hang Seng Bank are here together, and they are anxious to see you."

Chu Xiangqian turned his head and asked subconsciously, "What happened?"

Xue Jinglan, who was lying on the hospital bed, and several other women and Aiyuan who were accompanying her in the ward, all looked at Zhang Tianzhi in surprise.

Zhang Tianzhi nodded seriously.

After sorting out his thoughts, he continued, "I just called the newspaper office and learned from General Manager He Yisheng.

This morning, Mingde Silver Bank and Guangdong Trust Commercial Bank suddenly announced bankruptcy one after another.

By noon, customers lined up outside several Chinese banks, including Guang'an, Daoxing, Far East, and Wing Lung, waiting to withdraw money.

It seems that if these banks cannot come up with enough cash, there will be a run on the banks soon.”

Chu Xiangqian laughed after hearing this.

Seeing that he could still laugh at this time, women like Xue Jinglan, Feifei, Zheng Shufen and others all looked at him curiously.

Chu Xiangqian waved his hand at Zhang Tianzhi and said, "Tell Juan that if necessary, I can authorize Standard Chartered to use the cash I have deposited in Standard Chartered as a reserve fund to tide over this difficult time.

However, it doesn’t make sense. When Standard Chartered faced a potential crisis, I was the only shareholder who stepped forward to help.

If other shareholders do not take action, I will slowly acquire Standard Chartered shares from the market during this crisis.

Until the shares I hold reach more than 15%.

If everyone contributes money, let Juan tell the other shareholders.

This crisis is also an opportunity. We can take advantage of the opportunity to acquire the high-quality businesses and assets of Chinese banks, with everyone contributing in equal proportion.

As for Hader and He Zanyuan, just tell them that I am accompanying my wife to give birth and we can talk about it in a few days."

No matter what choice other shareholders make, everyone has to put up real money.

If Chu Xiangqian were to take advantage of the opportunity to acquire the company, he would actually need to spend the least amount of money.

After all, his shares in Standard Chartered are only 5%.

Other shareholders may be concerned that the crisis will spread to Southeast Asia or even Europe and the United States.

If you don’t dare to take out too much money, that’s easy.

Just increase the shares and sell them to yourself.

Chu Xiangqian wanted to buy Standard Chartered directly, but he knew very well that this was impossible.

Looking at Standard Chartered's shareholders, which include Malayan Securities, Standard Chartered Group, Royal Bank of Malaysia, Price Waterhouse and JPMorgan Chase, it is clear that these shareholders cannot allow him to control Standard Chartered and manage all of Standard Chartered's business in Southeast Asia.

But this did not prevent him from spending ten or twenty years to acquire more shares of Standard Chartered bit by bit.

As long as his shareholding exceeds 33.4%, this bank, whose main business is in Hong Kong Island and Southeast Asia, will basically be his private bank.

But Standard Chartered has no chance for the time being, while Hang Seng can take advantage of the opportunity to win it directly.

Not to mention, over the past few years, the Hang Seng Board of Directors has been worried that he would withdraw the gold deposited in Hang Seng.

He had no choice but to compromise, and after negotiation, he began to receive the interest generated from the gold he deposited with Hang Seng starting from 61.

Every year, a portion of Hang Seng’s shares will be sold according to its market value at the time to exempt Hang Seng from paying interest.

By this year, Chu Xiangqian already holds 26.5% of Hang Seng's shares.

If it takes another 24.5%, Hang Seng will be an absolute private bank.

But if Chu Xiangqian wants other Hang Seng shareholders to compromise again, he cannot stand up so quickly.

When a crisis really occurs, if you stand up again, it will be like providing timely assistance.

Otherwise, actively proposing to increase holdings at this time will be seen as taking advantage of the situation in the eyes of other shareholders.

Therefore, Chu Xiangqian would rather watch Hang Seng get run and its market value plummet than jump out at this time.

Zhang Tianzhi, Xue Jinglan and others certainly understood that Chu Xiangqian was dragging his feet to see how the situation would develop, and also to give Hader and He Zanyuan time to think.

It's impossible for Chu Xiangqian to put in effort and money and get nothing in the end.

As for the interest, Chu Xiangqian didn't care about that little money.

After Juan heard Chu Xiangqian's promise from Zhang Tianzhi, he immediately felt relieved.

It can be said that no matter whether Chu Xiangqian agrees to use the gold stored in Standard Chartered or to back up Standard Chartered with cash, this turmoil can be easily overcome.

Over the years, Chu Xiangqian has deposited a total of 50 tons of gold in Standard Chartered, based on the current price of US$180 million per ton of gold.

It is equal to 9 million US dollars, which is equivalent to 5.2 million Hong Kong dollars.

However, this gold had previously been used as gold reserve by Chow Tai Fook Gold Shop, which allowed Chow Tai Fook, which was controlled by Zheng Yutong, to more than double its market value in just over a year.

This also allowed Zheng Yutong's assets to directly cross the 100 million yuan club, making him one of the richest people in Hong Kong Island.

Of course, this is also one of the conditions for Chu Xiangqian to successfully acquire shares in Zhou Dafu and obtain a 30% stake.

Otherwise, it would not be so easy for Zheng Yutong and the Zhou family to let him hold so many shares.

Once Chu Xiangqian disobeys the moral obligation and quietly purchases Zhou Dafu's shares on the stock market, he will easily hold more than 34%, a number of shares that will give him a veto power.

Fortunately, Chu Xiangqian actually favors Zheng Yutong, not Zhou Dafu.

After talking about gold, let’s talk about Chu Xiangqian’s cash in Standard Chartered.

In March last year, his cash flow exceeded 64 million Hong Kong dollars alone.

After more than a year, companies in Hong Kong Island made a profit of HK$9400 million, more than HK$63 million more than in .

65年前5个月，港币又多了5千万，此时他手里持有的港币就超过3.8亿。而美元64年3月就有2.5亿。

Because Chu Xiangqian knew that the exchange rate of the pound would fall faster than that of the US dollar.

So in the past few years, he has tried his best to collect only US dollars and reduce the amount of British pounds he holds.

It was already June of 65. During the 6 months, Chu Xiangqian had made basically no large-scale investments except for a large investment in Tianzhu.

The bulk of the investment in Tianzhu was offset by tiger bone wine, and the money spent was actually just 4 million pounds to purchase 200 acres of fertile land from the Salma family.

And the money he made last year, just from the coal contracts held by the shipping company, brought in annual profits of more than $1 million.

When China paid back the $1.2 million it owed him, most of the profits from the coal business were taken away by China.

But Chu Xiangqian actually received the $1.2 million in debt.

After paying off his debts, Chu Xiangqian actually made a lot of money from coal.

After all, China's export price is only US$5.5 per ton.

The shipping cost in Tianjin is US$6 per ton and the export cost to Hong Kong Island is US$6.3. Chu Xiangqian ships the goods from Tianjin and ships them directly to Neon, with the landed price of US$8.2 per ton.

That’s $303 million in profit every month.

After 15 months, Chu Xiangqian was able to get half of the more than 4 million yuan earned from this.

The remaining 2 million or so were all taken away by various people with connections in this business, which allowed this business to continue so steadily.

So Chu Xiangqian gave the money willingly.

The money that China used to repay Chu Xiangqian was included in the US$6 export price.

It was agreed with China that out of the $6, $4.8 per ton of coal would be used by China to pay off the $1.2 million it owed.

Starting from 64, Chu Xiangqian could take $972 from this every month, which was $1.166 million a year.

And all the costs are included in the more than 4 million US dollars.

This $1.166 million is considered net income.

In fact, China is not at a loss either. While paying back the debt, it can also receive 243 million every month.

That’s 2916 million in a year.

After the money was paid off, starting from March this year, in the three months of March, April and May, the price of coal at US$3 per ton allowed China to earn US$4 million.

If this business continues in the future, it will earn 1.458 million US dollars a year.

This is roughly equivalent to 60% of the foreign exchange earned by China from all the goods exported to Hong Kong Island throughout the year.

So up to now, Chu Xiangqian has more than 2.4 million US dollars deposited in Standard Chartered.

Among them, 1.7 million was what he earned from coal, iron ore, cattle, sheep and marine fish in the past 15 months.

The other 7 million is also due to some past business that had to be settled through banks, so it had to be settled through Standard Chartered, so it is kept in Standard Chartered.

And in the Novice Village warehouse, there is $1.6 million in cash.

This money is basically his gray income.

Among them was the $5 million annual income from the pearl and ruby ​​business with J.P. Morgan Jr. and MacDonald.

To Chu Xiangqian, pearls and rubies were as good as free.

Although Zhou Dafu acted as the middleman in this business and took a 4% commission, the money could not be deposited into Standard Chartered in a legitimate way.

Although the money was clean, Chu Xiangqian did not dare to let the outside world know that the money was basically pure profit.

However, Chu Xiangqian has also been thinking recently that this 1.6 million yuan, and there will be more money in the future, will eventually have to be laundered.

Otherwise, the US dollar has changed its version, and it would be impossible for you to still have US dollar banknotes printed in the 1940s and 1950s after ten or twenty years.

Of course, a portion of this money can be taken out every year and laundered, and then a portion of it can be deposited into the Novice Village warehouse in new banknotes. After five or six years, all of it can be exchanged for new banknotes.

As for pounds, last year the sales of tiger bone wine alone amounted to 380 million pounds.

This does not include the 2.4 bottles that Tianzhu estimates for each year. After all, Chu Xiangqian still needs to exchange sugarcane forests with Singh and others.

Including business in England, annual revenue exceeds £900 million.

At this time, the amount of pounds in his hands once again exceeded 2 million.

Chu Xiangqian is now eager to take advantage of the pressure on the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate. People from all walks of life in Hong Kong are more eager to exchange Hong Kong dollars and assets into foreign currency.

Spend all the 2 million pounds.

With such a huge cash flow, let alone a run on Standard Chartered, even if all of Standard Chartered's customers came to withdraw their money.

The HK$3.8 million and GBP 2 million alone are enough for Standard Chartered to completely open up its withdrawal business and support it for one or two months.

It's not just Standard Chartered's customers who have this little deposit, but all of Standard Chartered's windows have opened cash withdrawal services, and it takes time to process the business.

As long as it can hold out for three days, or at most a week, the customers who are still queuing will see that the bank always has money, and will gradually have more and more confidence in Standard Chartered.

Ordinary people who have withdrawn money from other banks, seeing that Standard Chartered has such strong funds, will actually deposit their money in Standard Chartered.

At this time, if we can join forces with other shareholders to support Standard Chartered.

We all made a statement together that we would inject US$1 million into Standard Chartered if necessary. This is the best time to attract new customers and deposits.

In other words, with Chu Xiangqian's early sufficient cash support before the bank run began, Standard Chartered will not only avoid a crisis this time, but will turn the crisis into an opportunity.

In a market headwind, we grow against the trend.

That's why Juan was so happy.

As for Chu Xiangqian's request to continue to acquire Standard Chartered's shares afterwards, that is the board of directors' business.

In the final analysis, Juan is just the boss, that is, the general manager, and still a worker.

Other shareholders are hesitant at this time, or it is difficult to withdraw large amounts of funds to lend to Standard Chartered in a short period of time, so Juan will naturally turn to Chu Xiangqian.

Moreover, Chu Xiangqian did not snatch the shares from other shareholders. At this time, the more he increased his holdings of Standard Chartered shares in the stock market, the more the market price of Standard Chartered shares would be temporarily stabilized.

Even as he buys more and more, those investors and speculators will follow him and increase the number of shares they hold.

At this time, the other shareholders really had no reason to reject his conditions.

The best approach would be to follow his advice, issue new shares through a private placement, and sell them all to him.

In this way, we can obtain enough funds to acquire high-quality assets of other Chinese banks.

It also prevents speculators from making profits.

If any shareholder objects, you will put out the same proportion of money, and the board of directors will agree with you and purchase the same proportion of shares in the market.

Or issue new shares to you on a targeted basis.

If anyone secretly competes with Chu Xiangqian for stocks in the market and he finds out in the future, he will become his enemy.

Not only will the other shareholders not stand on that person's side, they will also help Chu Xiangqian suppress that person.

(End of this chapter)