Wolf of Xiangjiang

Chapter 367: Layout in Europe
The Lin Zhengjie Foundation has always attached great importance to education and medical care, and has not been very interested in other aspects. After all, considering the principles of "helping in emergencies but not in poverty" and "it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish", donations to other areas are easily misappropriated.

Donating to education and medical care means first of all building visible buildings, purchasing visible equipment and resources, and visible improvements.

Donating to a university is of course the most reassuring. It cannot be said that this place is a 100% pure land, but Lin Zhengjie felt the benefits of higher education in his previous life. The interest rates of university loans in China alone are much more favorable than those in the United States. It is basically easy to pay off university loans in China, while loans from American universities may not be paid off even after working for ten years.

After the speech, it was time for questions.

During the meeting, a student suddenly asked Lin Zhengjie: "Mr. Lin, you said you support technology, but do you invest in technology companies?"

There was an uproar at the scene; this question was obviously very offensive.

In the media, it seems that Lin Zhengjie has no industry in the technology industry.

Of course, more people are angry. This classmate is so ignorant. Others are happily coming to donate money, but you go and expose their mistakes.

Lin Zhengjie said gracefully, "That depends on how you define it. You can check what inventions China has made in the world. Some of you must have mentioned gunpowder, printing, and other ancient things. But in fact, China has also invented some products in the past decade or so, such as VCDs, USB flash drives, and MP3s. You can check which company invented these products. I can tell you now that I have invested in this company."

He has never emphasized that he is an investor of Xiaomi, but that doesn't mean no one knows about it.

At least many people in Hong Kong know that even the boss of Xiaomi is Lin Zhengjie's lover.

The principal on the stage immediately took the microphone and said, "Mr. Lin is talking about Xiaomi. This company is amazing. Students, you can do some homework. I believe you will understand it better."

In fact, even if Lin Zhengjie did not mention Xiaomi, doesn’t TOM’s Internet cloud computing count as technology?

Obviously, everyone only cares about the fact that he is a real estate developer and financier, but ignores the fact that he has many trump cards in his hands.

Just when Lin Zhengjie was about to leave Beijing, he suddenly received an appointment. Someone from Huatou Huahui wanted to consult him!
Since it was a consultation, he had the final say on the location, so Lin Zhengjie arranged for us to stay in a hotel suite.
"Mr. Lin, excuse me!"

"Boss Lou, since you are in such a hurry to find me, it must be something important."

Director Lou nodded and then said, "I heard that Taifook Group is selling commercial real estate in North America and just completed a deal worth 55 billion US dollars."

Lin Zhengjie was a little curious, but he still said patiently: "Yes, there is such a thing. What is being sold is the outlet business."

Mr. Lou quickly asked, "Did you make this decision because you are not optimistic about the commercial real estate market in North America?"

Although the other party is very powerful, Lin Zhengjie is not afraid of him. In fact, Lin Zhengjie is not afraid of any senior officials because he has a large amount of "international assets", which is his confidence.

So he asked doubtfully: "Why do you ask this? Does Huatou Huahui plan to directly invest in commercial real estate in Europe and the United States?"

Mr. Lou said quickly, "No, it was Blackstone Group that offered us 10% of its shares. They are going to go public this year. The assets are worth 31 billion US dollars. I almost agreed. But I suddenly heard that you were selling your European and American business assets, so I asked you for advice!"

So that's what feelings are.

"Su Shimin is in Beijing?"

“It was there a week ago, and it’s still there now!”

Lin Zhengjie nodded and said, "From a long-term investment perspective, there is no problem with this investment. From a medium- to short-term perspective, this investment is very risky. I can only tell you that I also had the habit of listing and raising funds at the peak in my early years."

Mr. Lou understood, but he still said, "What do you think the crisis is?"

Forget it, let’s do it for the country and the people!

Lin Zhengjie said: "The US subprime mortgage crisis is very serious and may further drag down the world. Of course, this is just my personal analysis."

Mr. Lou was very willing to take it and put it aside. He bowed to Lin Zhengjie and said, "Thank you for your advice, Mr. Lin!"

Lin Zhengjie stood up and shook hands with him, saying, "You're welcome!"

The meeting lasted only fifteen minutes, and Mr. Lou came and left in a very low-key manner.

Lin Zhengjie looked at Mr. Lou's back as he left, and he fell into deep thought.

The Blackstone Group is also considered his competitor. After all, he will continue to develop commercial real estate in the future.

I just don’t know, without the US$31 billion from China Investment Capital, will Blackstone’s IPO be successful?
There are many rich people in the Middle East recently, after all, the price of oil has skyrocketed in recent years.

Lin Zhengjie knew about the past of Blackstone Group. Its market value was 350 billion US dollars when it went public in the middle of this year. Then, due to the subprime mortgage crisis and the financial crisis, its value dropped to only about 10%, which is equivalent to a drop of nearly 90%.

Although the price went back up in 2013, it took China Investment Corporation six or seven years to get its US$31 billion back, which was obviously not cost-effective.

Of course, whether to invest or not has nothing to do with him. He just revealed some information since you asked.

He never worried about anyone speculating on his actions because there were always many people who did not believe in him, and he had no way to influence global investors.

Two days later.

Blackstone Group's Stephen Schwarzman returned home disappointed. He never expected that China Investment Corporation, which had originally intended to invest, would suddenly change its attitude and claim that it was not a good time to invest in Europe and the United States.

Of course, he didn't know that Mr. Lou had a master's advice, so he could only leave in disappointment and continue to look for new investors. It was difficult to find investors for such a large investment, but Blackstone Group had to go public as soon as possible to avoid more trouble.

In March, Lin Zhengjie traveled to Europe without stopping to handle the affairs of the Bank of Bahrain.

"Welcome to London, Boss"

Bruce, President of Barings Bank, Jonathan, Vice President, and York, Vice President, were already waiting at the Barings Bank headquarters in Canary Wharf. Liang Botao, another vice president, was naturally in charge of Barings Bank's Asian business.

"Well, take me to say hello to everyone!"

"please"

With the arrival of Lin Zhengjie, the employees in the office building of the headquarters of Bahrain Bank looked at their boss curiously.

It is very strange. They think that Bahrain Bank is a wholly-owned Chinese company, but there are basically no Chinese people in their headquarters; is this boss so confident in their management?
However, the fact is that the management of Barings Bank worked very hard and was very committed to protecting the interests of the company.

Today, Barings Bank has become one of the world's top investment banks. Its representative case, Hilton Hotels Corporation, is of course not completely successful.

"Hello, Mr. Lin" "Hello, Charlie"

Lin Zhengjie did not forget to greet the old employees. Although many managers had few opportunities to meet him, they still felt the charm of their boss.

Barings Bank is a great company.

"Boss, you are so handsome!" a beautiful white female employee confessed boldly.

"Being handsome is the least valuable thing about me. I prefer wisdom!" Lin Zhengjie said humorously.

Everyone started laughing!

Although the white female employee is interested, Lin Zhengjie will never develop feelings for his subordinates. This is the bottom line.

Moreover, the "honey trap" in Europe and the United States is straightforward and has no solution. Even if you are the president, you have to pay money to settle the matter. Therefore, Lin Zhengjie never spends time alone with female employees in Europe and the United States, and he will not even have contact with them.

Moreover, the "honey trap" in Europe and the United States is quite "absurd". A woman who is as old as a grandmother may sue your boss for sexual harassment. The key is that judges always favor women and don't care about "absurdity". The result is that if you are involved in such a lawsuit, you have to pay money.

Of course there are benefits, and you will basically not go to jail.

There was a son of a wealthy Hong Kong tycoon named Yeung Chi-wan (Miramar Hotel). He was developing his career in the United States. As a result, in the 1990s, he was sued for sexual harassment by a white woman in her forties. It caused a lot of controversy, and he eventually had to pay compensation to settle the case.

After chatting with everyone for a while, Lin Zhengjie brought a dozen senior executives back to the conference room to prepare for a long meeting, which was also a relationship-building meeting.

"From now on, the real estate funds under Barings Bank will have to sell more than 30% of their bad properties. The subprime mortgage crisis in the United States began to emerge this year and has a tendency to spread further. Once it spreads to Europe, the impact will be global."

Bruce and others nodded, after all, they were all veterans.

"Well, we have recently been sorting out the assets that need to be sold, and we will start selling them soon!"

Lin Zhengjie nodded. He had already issued an order to sort out the assets last month!
In fact, the real estate managed by the Bank of Bahrain is basically the wealth of European investors. They just manage it, and its current value is more than 500 billion US dollars.

As a large global investment bank, Barings Bank manages funds worth hundreds of billions of US dollars, and Hilton Hotels Corporation alone is worth around 250 billion US dollars.

Now, both of its investments have begun to cash out. Hilton Hotels has also cashed out properties worth 20 billion US dollars, and the Waldorf Astoria alone sold for 12.5 billion US dollars.

The real estate funds managed by Bahrain Bank have also begun to deal with a batch of assets to avoid excessive book losses.

But then, Lin Zhengjie was in trouble.

York reported: "The Tussauds Group is interested in selling it. Boss, should we buy it now?"

It turns out that since Barings Bank acquired Merlin Entertainments of the UK, it has started to develop this company. It has previously acquired assets such as Legoland, Lego Tower, Castelnuovo Amusement Park, and several theme hotels.

Barings Bank has spent one billion pounds on this.

They have also been pursuing a takeover of Tussauds, which owns assets such as Tussauds, the London Eye, Chessington Worlds of Adventure, Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Hyatt Park.

Once the acquisition is successful, they will have completed the creation of an entertainment industry similar to Disney, although the scale and profits will be very different.

"This is a rare opportunity, so let's get ready to seize it! We can appropriately sell some of Merlin Entertainment's assets, such as the Lego Building. After all, this has little to do with our goals."

York nodded and said, "That's still a lot of profit."

Lin Zhengjie originally asked Merlin Entertainment Group to purchase some investment properties for the purpose of cashing out, and now it has indeed worked.

However, Merlin Entertainments had to acquire Madame Tussauds even though they knew that the financial crisis was coming, because the opportunity was rare. Without Madame Tussauds, the entertainment group they built would be missing something very important after the asset was acquired by others.

It is worth mentioning that Merlin Entertainment Group currently holds the IP of "Peppa Pig".

In fact, the media group owned by Lin Zhengjie is also developing businesses similar to Disney and Merlin Group, but he does not intend to merge it with Merlin Group.

Because Merlin Group is an investment of Barings Bank, its ultimate goal is to seek an opportunity to go public and cash out.

This is almost consistent with the idea of ​​Hilton Hotels Corporation.

Next, everyone talked a lot about the next actions. Bahrain Bank also had to take action and prepare to cash out and then prepare to buy at the bottom later.

Seventy percent of the properties invested by Barings Bank are in Europe and thirty percent are in North America, but finance is global, so it works just the same.

After dealing with the affairs of the Bank of Bahrain, Lin Zhengjie met with the senior management of Taifook Group (Europe) to inquire about the progress of cashing out.

Taifook Group (Europe) is mainly divided into two brands to invest in commercial real estate in Europe, namely Canary Wharf Group and Amazon Shopping Center.

Among them, the Canary Wharf Group not only controls the 'London Financial New City' of Canary Wharf, but also has invested in many properties in Europe; as for Amazon Shopping Center, it only develops shopping centers, and currently has more than 50 in six European countries.

However, this time, the assets that Taifook Group (Europe) is cashing out are probably only a little over 30%, which is about 100 billion US dollars.

After all, many assets, once sold, are difficult to buy back. More importantly, we cannot lose too much market share, as we still need to continue to develop in the future.

In this way, Taifook (Overseas) will probably cash out 300 billion US dollars!
This is not a lot. The most classic case that Lin Zhengjie remembers was the case in his previous life this year when Blackstone acquired EOP (Equity Office Properties Trust, the largest publicly listed office building/office property holding company in the United States), quickly resold half of the property within a quarter, and finally made more than double the profit.

The total amount of funds for this acquisition reached more than 300 billion US dollars, and it was sold out in one quarter.

Therefore, it is easy for Taifook Group to sell all the properties it has within a year.

Although Lin Zhengjie is reselling these property assets, he will eventually continue to invest in property assets in Europe and the United States, and will buy at the bottom after the financial crisis; he will wait until 2015 to slowly start selling again, and will sell until about 2020.

Then the remaining global property assets are at a value level that will basically not be sold.

At that time, Taifook Group had basically very low debt and very high cash flow, which was enough to prevent his descendants from ruining it.

Lin Zhengjie also plans to retire in the second half of the decade and let his sons go out to do the work.

It can only be semi-retired, and real retirement is unlikely. He still enjoys his work.

(End of this chapter)