People in Hong Kong create super chaebols

Arriving at the underground parking lot of the Wheelock Group headquarters, Su Cheng took the elevator with his bodyguards and went directly to John Madden's office.

At this moment, it is only 9:40 in the morning and there are still 20 minutes before the meeting, so there is no rush to go to the meeting room.

Moreover, the conference room is on the same floor as the chairman’s office, just a few steps away.

"Good morning, Mr. Su." John Madden greeted Su Cheng when he saw him.

"Good morning, Mr. John." Su Cheng smiled.

However, at this moment, Su Cheng could feel that John Madden was in a bad mood, and the smile on his face was just forced.

Su Cheng can also understand that John Madden bears the greatest responsibility for the current situation of Wheelock Group.

In fact, all the responsibilities can be placed on him.

After all, John Madden is the chairman of the board of directors of the entire Wheelock Group, while the two major shareholders, Su Cheng and Zhang Yulong, have no say in the matter.

In other words, Wheelock Group is completely controlled by John Madden.

Now, the company's development strategy has failed, resulting in serious losses for the group, and this responsibility naturally lies with John Madden.

Today, Zhang Yulong proposed to hold this meeting, which is obviously to hold John Madden accountable!

Speaking of which, John Madden was quite grateful to Sioux City.

It has been a long time since Suzhou City became a major shareholder of Wheelock Group.

However, Sioux City has never blamed John Madden for his management decisions, nor has it blamed him for the sharp drop in Wheelock Group's profits. In every board meeting, it has directly stated that it will not participate in any decision-making.

Even now, when the Zhang family couldn't help but publicly blame John Madden, Su Cheng never expressed any attitude from beginning to end.

This attitude is a kind of support for John Madden!
"Mr. John, what is the purpose of this meeting?" Su Cheng asked, pretending not to know the reason.

"Mr. Su, you will know at the meeting." John Madden didn't want to say more on this issue.

For him, Zhang Yulong came here today to target him, so he naturally didn't want to say more about it.

"Mr. Zhang hasn't arrived yet?" Su Cheng continued to ask.

Su Cheng has actually never met Zhang Yulong, because Zhang Yulong has been in Australia for a long time and rarely returns to Hong Kong.

Even if I return to Hong Kong, I will not come to Wheelock.

There are also directors from the Zhang family on the board of directors of Wheelock, and usually the Zhang family is represented by directors from the Zhang family.

"I'm here. I'm already in the conference room," John Madden replied.

Su Cheng nodded.

Soon, it was ten o'clock, and Su Cheng and John Madden came to the conference room.

There were already more than a dozen people sitting in the conference room.

These are all board members of the Wheelock Group, and every major event of the group is decided by these people.

Of course, much of the decision was made by John Madden, and few people objected to his decisions.

During this period, Wheelock Group had a difficult time.

The saddest one is Wheelock Shipping Company.

Many ships, with no business, can only dock at the pier.

However, Wheelock Shipping's massive expansion also came at a great cost.

Although a large portion of the funds were transferred from Wheelock's headquarters, another portion was borrowed from banks.

The reckless expansion of ships has resulted in a very high debt ratio for Wheelock Shipping.

With so many ships and no business, not only do we have to pay huge employee salaries, port docking fees, maintenance costs, etc., but we also have to repay huge loans and interest.

Therefore, it can be said that Wheelock Shipping's expenditure today far exceeds its income.

John Madden was so ambitious at the beginning.

Now, he is so destitute.

A Wheelock Shipping Company may even be able to drag down the entire Wheelock Group in the future.

“Hello, colleagues. I proposed to hold this board meeting today. I believe you all know the reason. Under the chairmanship of Mr. John, our Wheelock Group has been aggressively expanding in the shipping industry and investing huge amounts of profits in shipping companies.

However, the shipping company not only failed to give our group enough returns, but is now heavily in debt and requires subsidies from our Wheelock Group every month. If this continues, it will sooner or later drag down our Wheelock Group. Mr. John must bear the greatest responsibility for this matter.

Although I am not in charge of the group's affairs, as a shareholder of the group, this has already involved my interests, so I would like to ask Mr. Madden, what explanation do you have for this matter?
My non-participation in management does not mean that I will ignore Wheelock Group. If Mr. John does not have a good explanation, then don’t blame our Zhang family for making a corresponding decision on this matter! "Zhang Yulong started to make trouble as soon as the meeting started.

"What Mr. Zhang said is indeed true. I have no need to explain. As the decision maker of the group, I would like to apologize to all the people in the Wheelock Group. The most important thing for us now is not how to hold people accountable, but how to save the Wheelock Group and get it out of its predicament." John Madden did not quarrel with Zhang Yulong because of his attack. Instead, he easily resolved Zhang Yulong's most difficult problem and avoided talking about the issue of accountability.

After all, he couldn't shirk his responsibility, and there was nothing to talk about.

Should we just let him resign?
Now that he holds so many shares, John Madden will definitely not resign.

However, at this moment he had the idea of ​​withdrawing from the Wheelock Group.

He had this idea in 1976, but he did not successfully withdraw that time.

Now, it is obvious that he has triggered a conflict with the Zhang family, and this conflict will be difficult to resolve.

At this moment, coupled with John Madden's advanced age, he gradually began to think about leaving the Wheelock Group and retiring.

"Then tell me, how are you going to save the Wheelock Group? If we continue to subsidize Wheelock Shipping Company, no matter how much money our Wheelock Group makes, it will eventually slip away through Wheelock Shipping Company. This will not only cause serious losses to the group, but also to the shareholders of our Wheelock Group, our Zhang family, Mr. Su, and all shareholders!" Zhang Yulong continued.

"So, we should discuss carefully how to deal with this matter. Mr. Zhang, do you have any good ideas?" John Madden threw the question back to Zhang Yulong.

"Wheelock Shipping is responsible for so many things now, and it can't be sold. There is no one to take over. What can I do? I think Mr. John should resign as the chairman of Wheelock Group and then recruit a more talented professional manager. I think Mr. Su should support me in this matter!" Zhang Yulong looked at Su Cheng at this time. From beginning to end, Su Cheng didn't say a word, just watching the development of the situation.

"I believe that the depression in the shipping industry is only temporary. As long as we persist for a period of time, there will definitely be a day of reapment," said John Madden.

Although he put the Wheelock Group into trouble, he still felt that the depression in the shipping industry was just the end of the bad luck!
Su Cheng was a little confused. He came here just to do some leisure time and had no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of the Wheelock Group. Unexpectedly, Zhang Yulong asked him about it.

Since he was asked, it would be disrespectful for him not to answer, so Su Cheng was going to just talk about it casually.

"Mr. Zhang, Mr. John, I have no way of commenting on this matter. As everyone knows, I own too many companies. Although I am a major shareholder of Wheelock Group, I have never participated in the business here, and I have not even sent a director.

I have great faith in Mr. John's management ability. I believe that no one wants to see the current situation. Not only the shipping industry is in recession, but the real estate industry is also in recession. The overall environment is not good, and we can only hold on. No one can say whether the Wheelock Group can hold on. I also don't know how long this shipping industry crisis will last. It depends on luck.

If I were the head of Wheelock Group, I would definitely send in many talented managers to find ways to improve the situation of Wheelock Group, but I am just a shareholder now, so if you ask me, I don’t know what to do. You decide, and I won’t hinder your decision too much. "However, Su Cheng did not come up with any useful solutions.

Improve Wheelock Group? What a joke. Doesn't that mean he has no chance of taking over Wheelock Group?

Only if John Madden and the Zhang family are completely disappointed will he have the opportunity to take over the Wheelock Group.

With Su Cheng's current shares, whether it is John Madden or Zhang Yulong, if either of them sells their shares to him and withdraws from the Wheelock Group, Su Cheng can directly control Wheelock.

Before this, he couldn't care so much. Saving the Wheelock Group? That was even more impossible.

If it is saved, it means that the Wheelock Group is on the right track of development and profits are increasing again. At this time, no matter whether it is John Madden or the Zhang family, who would want to sell shares?
Therefore, Su Cheng was waiting for one of the two opponents to give up first, and then he would buy the other party's shares and take control of the group.

Next, the meeting shifted from accountability to discussing how to save the group.

However, the biggest dilemma facing Wheelock today is the huge debt ratio of Wheelock Shipping.

It is not easy to solve this problem.

There is actually a simplest solution, and it was proposed at the meeting.

That is to sell the ships of Wheelock Shipping Company.

However, this method is difficult to implement at this time.

At this time, unless you sell it at a serious loss, you won’t be able to sell it at all.

The market is not good now. Maintaining these ships is like supporting ancestors. Even if you buy them, you won't get any business. Who would do such a stupid thing?
Even if you sell it at half price or give it away for free, you may not be able to find a buyer.

So, this is the problem. It is basically a dead end and there is no way to solve it for the time being.

Judging from the current situation, the market conditions next year may be even worse.

In fact, the market conditions in 1984 were not much better than those in 1983.

The shipping industry is in a recession due to many factors including the decline of the world economy, an oversupply of ships, and rising oil prices.

These cannot be recovered in a short period of time.

In fact, if Wheelock Shipping Company was Su Cheng, he would not have to worry about Wheelock Shipping Company making losses, because even in the current bad brokerage market, the various businesses under Su Cheng, although slightly reduced, are still very good.

His business spans the globe.

In other words, the companies under Sioux City are actually very dependent on the shipping industry.

The shipping industry has so many advantages. It can ship a lot of goods at one time, and when spread out, the transportation cost of each piece of goods is greatly reduced.

If it is transported by air, the cost will be too high.

Therefore, in Su Cheng's view, it is not difficult to solve the current predicament of the Wheelock Group.

The board of directors discussed for a long time, but ultimately failed to reach a conclusion.

Even if John Madden wanted to retire, he would not quit completely this year. According to the information he got from Xiao Ai, John Madden would not quit Wheelock Group completely until the end of 1984.

Therefore, even if he has the idea of ​​quitting now, it is not very strong yet.

It is also because of this that Su Cheng does not intend to interfere too much in the internal affairs of the Wheelock Group.

In Su Cheng's view, it doesn't matter if Wheelock Group loses money. The loss is Wheelock's loss, not his. He just doesn't have any dividends temporarily.

The meeting was over, and just as Su Cheng was about to leave, he was stopped by Zhang Yulong.

"Mr. Su, can I talk to you?" Zhang Yulong asked.

Zhang Yulong knew that the gap between himself and Su Cheng was too big.

In the eyes of many people, Wheelock Group is a giant group, but Zhang Yulong knows that in Su Cheng's eyes, Wheelock Group may be just a not very important enterprise.

After all, there are many companies under Suzhou City, such as Suzhou Group, Hutchison Whampoa Group, Hong Kong Electric Group, etc., which are larger than Wheelock Group.

"Is there anything I can help you with, Mr. Zhang?" Su Cheng stopped and turned around to ask in confusion.

"Let's find a place to chat and talk slowly." Zhang Yulong said this without rushing to speak.

"Okay, I don't have anything to do today, so let's find a place to sit down and chat. To be honest, I'm not very familiar with Mr. Zhang." Su Cheng said with a smile.

He was indeed not familiar with him. Although he knew Zhang Yulong when he acquired shares in Wheelock Group, he only had a brief understanding of him.

Moreover, today was the first time he met Zhang Yulong in person.

"I have admired Mr. Su for a long time. Mr. Su's name is well-known all over the world." Zhang Yulong said with emotion.

"Then let's talk in the conference room?" Su Cheng did not continue Zhang Yulong's topic, but asked.

"Why don't we find a place to sit down and have a good chat? This is not a good place to chat." However, Zhang Yulong shook his head and said.

"Okay, why don't we go to Xiyuelai Restaurant? It's my restaurant, and Mr. Zhang can say whatever he wants without worry." Su Cheng said with a smile.

He probably guessed that Zhang Yulong wanted to talk to him about something he didn't want others to know. (End of this chapter)