Henry Keswick also did not get the good news he expected from Standard Chartered, and in the face of such a situation, he felt an indescribable loss in his heart.

At the beginning, these two said very well, and they would support their own competition between Wellcome and the Li consortium, but now when they come to the door, these two will not be able to call the shots themselves.

Henry Keswick, after returning to the group, immediately instructed his assistant to inform the shareholders of Jardine Matheson Holding Group to convene a shareholders' meeting at 3 p.m. to discuss the current problems facing Jardine Matheson.

Similarly, George Lavine of Standard Chartered Bank also asked his assistant to contact the board of directors of Heung Kong to discuss the issue of Wellcome.

What is more troublesome for them than HSBC is that the resolution here still needs the approval of the London headquarters, especially this time to eat the shares in the hands of the minority shareholders of the Jardine Matheson Group, such a large amount of capital investment, without the approval of the headquarters, is impossible.

At the meeting of the board of directors of HSBC, Shen Bi said to the present: "Ladies and gentlemen, you all know the current situation in Xiangjiang, the Li consortium is ambitious, our British-funded consortium continues to retreat, and now only the Jardine family is left in front of the Li consortium to face the suppression and struggle to support, and now they need our HSBC and Standard Chartered to give them some help." ”

Then Shen Bi took out the plan proposed by Henry Keswick and asked the directors present for their opinions.

When these directors heard that HSBC and Standard Chartered had joined hands to eat the shares in the hands of those small and medium-sized shareholders and face the suppression of the Li consortium together, they immediately quit.

They are quite familiar with the situation of Jardine Matheson, and now they mainly make profits in real estate and dairy international companies, and Wellcome, the former money-absorbing machine, has now become a money-losing product. Although Dairy International has a monopoly on the milk supply in Xiangjiang, the current profit is not too much, and its main assets are still in real estate.

If a year or two ago, let them eat some shares of Jardine Group, they don't have any opinions, but at this juncture, several groups of Chinese families are selling their properties, which makes them feel that the future of Xiangjiang Real Estate is a little bad, and it is not their bank's business to take over at this time.

Even though Shen Bi had some preparations in his heart, he was still very irritable in the face of the opposition of the group.

Shen Bi said: "Please also consider it, once Jardine falls, we HSBC face the suppression of the Li consortium, do we have a chance of winning, if we don't help Jardine at this time, who do you expect to help us at that time." You don't naively think that the Li consortium will turn a blind eye to us, haven't you seen clearly Li Guangyu's wolf ambitions, he wants to become the only overlord of Xiangjiang, and any group that threatens him is the target he wants to eliminate. ”

It's not that these directors don't understand the threat of the Lee consortium, but there is nothing to do, they are not willing to lose their own interests, as for the current situation of Jardine Matheson, they are not concerned with their own high mentality, let them lose their own interests to help Jardine Matheson, they said that they can't do it.

A director said: "Shen Bi, even if we join in, what's the use, Wellcome Supermarket has no power to return to the sky, the Li consortium will not stop there, why should we compete with the Li consortium for financial resources, on this we HSBC and Standard Chartered and Jardine Matheson can't fight them together, why do you hold on to Wellcome?"

Shen Bi was quite angry when he heard this, and he said: "Then according to what you mean, the Li consortium has strong financial resources, and if we compete with HSBC in the future, we don't have to do anything, just surrender directly." ”

These directors knew that Shen Bi was expecting him and others to support him in taking the shares in the hands of those minority shareholders of Jardine Holding Group.

A shareholder considered that once Jardine Matheson fell, HSBC was indeed under great pressure, and although investing in Jardine Matheson Holding Group was not very profitable, at least there would be no losses, and the losses on Wellcome's side could be recovered by other companies, but they could not make a profit.

He said to Shen Bi: "How much do we need to invest in Jardine Matheson, some of the situation of their group still needs to be further understood, now the loss of Wellcome supermarket is not much, if we don't invest too much, in order to reduce the pressure on our HSBC by the Li consortium, we can still invest." ”

Shen Bi's serious expression finally relaxed, and with this director speaking, several directors said similar words, asking Shen Bi to discuss the profit of Jardine and the amount of this investment in the conference room after finalizing it.

Some of the shareholders who were interested in opposing it no longer objected to this, and anyway, they didn't decide to invest now, they just asked Shen Bi to come up with a plan, and they didn't bother to oppose it at this time.

Shen Bi said happily when he saw this: "Thank you for your support, I will contact Henry Keswick and George LaVine to negotiate this matter and come up with a plan as soon as possible for everyone to make a resolution." ”

Shen Bi's side is not bad, in the conference room of Standard Chartered Bank, when George LaVine proposed to buy the shares in the hands of the minority shareholders of Jardine Matheson to cope with the pressure of the Li consortium, he was unanimously opposed by the senior management of Standard Chartered Bank Xiangjiang.

They believe that investing in Jardine Matheson at this time is rather unwise and not in the interests of Standard Chartered. Even George LaVine's account of the collapse of Jardine Matheson, the Lee consortium's threats to Standard Chartered were useless.

Standard Chartered Bank is different from HSBC, HSBC is headquartered in Xiangjiang, and this is their roots. And the loss of the Standard Chartered Xiangjiang Market is not a big deal for them, anyway, they are headquartered in London, and the Xiangjiang Market will not be able to kill them if it is gone.

There are countless retreats for this high-level executive, and as long as they don't have a decision-making loss here, they can move to a higher position. Now the proposal proposed by George LaVine is clearly not in their interests.

As for the pressure of the Lee consortium, they selectively ignored it. They knew that the Lee consortium would definitely not be their Standard Chartered target first, and HSBC would be their target, because HSBC's headquarters was in Xiangjiang.

The Li consortium, which is also based in Xiangjiang, will certainly not allow the existence of another financial group that can threaten his position.

In the Jardine Matheson conference room, Henry Keswick was also discussing the issue of Wellcome with the directors of the group.

Henry Keswick told the directors about the day, and asked them to give him an extra week to dispose of Wellcome if HSBC and Standard Chartered were unwilling to intervene.

One of the directors said: "Keswick, in the past few months, we have given you time and again, and you asked us not to transfer our shares for the time being, and we agreed. Now it's been three months, and you're asking us to give you another week, and you're not going to let us give you another week a week later. ”

Now not only Henry Keswick is very worried, but these small shareholders are also anxious, if it drags on like this, the value of the shares in their hands will be greatly reduced, and they are all worried that the shares of Jardine will finally be smashed in their hands, and it will be too late to regret it when the time comes.

At the same time, they also envy the small shareholders of Hutchison Whampoa, who were eaten by the Xiangjiang Zhonghua Investment Company before they even thought about selling.

……