It took less than three years from Li Xuan's eighty-third year to the official completion of the Oriental Building. In contrast, HSBC's new headquarters building was designed as early as 1976 and construction began in 1981, but it was a week later than the Oriental Tower.

Of course, this is also related to the relatively simple architectural structure of the Oriental Building, unlike the HSBC Building, where most of the components need to be prefabricated, and it can even be dismantled into modules in the future and shipped away, and then rebuilt in other places.

Of course, Li Xuan paid tens of millions of dollars in design fees and invited the world's top architectural firms to participate in the bidding, so he naturally did not want to gain a mediocre building. And the Oriental Building has indeed met his requirements, and it has the strength to make people unforgettable.

The whole milky white edifice seems to be made up of seven huge boxes of different orientations, imbued with a distinct post-modernist style, which stands out in the high-rise Central. (Refer to the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York)

HSBC's upcoming headquarters building, with a total investment of up to 700 million US dollars, is claimed to be the most expensive building in the world. The total construction cost of the Oriental Tower is 300 million US dollars, but it is actually not cheaper than the HSBC Tower.

You must know that the area of the Oriental Building is less than half of the HSBC Building, and the height of the building is only two-thirds of it. It's just that the Oriental Building is not as exaggerated as the HSBC Building, using 30,000 tons of steel and 4,500 tons of aluminum, but has spent a lot of money on the intelligent transformation of the entire building.

Li Xuan's office is located on the top floor of the Oriental Tower, outside the glass curtain wall of the living room, facing the stunning sea view of Victoria Harbour. Hong Kong in 1986. The Oriental Tower, which is only 128 meters high, is already a skyscraper. and later on the Hong Kong skyline. Those buildings that are three or four hundred meters away are still missing!

On the first day of Li Xuan's office in the new building, he received the first wave of guests. It was John Swire, Chairman of the Swire Group, who introduced him last night to the two guests who had come all the way from London.

"Mr. Li, Standard Chartered has failed to make a profit of more than £1 million for three consecutive quarters. This is undoubtedly a very failure for a bank with total assets of more than 40 billion pounds!

And our pre-tax earnings for the past three quarters have been above £150 million. Although it will take some time for the final financial results to be released last year, the pre-tax profit for the full year will definitely be above 600 million pounds.

The management of Standard Chartered Bank has been slow to come up with a new plan to improve its profitability. We at Rice Bank are more than willing to send the best management team. to assist Standard Chartered in improving the current inefficient business level!

What's more, the business layout of our Rice Bank is mainly based in the United Kingdom, which is just complementary to Standard Chartered Bank, which has a large number of overseas outlets! The merger of the two banks can easily achieve a win-win situation.

So in my opinion, letting Rice Bank acquire Standard Chartered is a solution worth looking forward to for all shareholders of Standard Chartered!" The British, who tried to persuade Li Xuan to sell his stake in Standard Chartered, was Mr. Smith, a director of Rice Bank.

Rice Bank is one of the largest businesses in the UK, with total assets of over £50 billion. There are more than 2,700 branches across the UK. It has just received approval from the UK Takeovers and Mergers Panel to take action with Standard Chartered.

As one of the major shareholders of Standard Chartered Bank, Li Xuan holds as much as 17.5% of Standard Chartered shares, so he is naturally one of the priority targets of Rice Bank's persuasion. looked at Li Xuan's somewhat noncommittal expression. Another man, who had flown in from London to Hong Kong with Director Smith, also spoke up.

"As far as we know, Mr. Li, you are a director of Standard Chartered Bank. But the position on the board has been marginalized! If you agree to sell your stake in Standard Chartered, we are willing to buy it for cash.

And if you want to continue to hold these shares. Then just choose to support our M&A actions. After the merger is completed, Rice Bank is willing to exchange them for shares in the new combined company! and we are committed to the new Rice Bank's board of directors. Reserve a seat on the board of directors for you. All your suggestions for the development of the company will be given priority!" The Englishman who went on to persuade was a senior vice president at Rice Bank.

It's just that the promise of this vice president is like a lotus, which is almost like a fart in Li Xuan's opinion. Rice Bank's core business is the UK home market, and it bought Standard Chartered to make up for the shortcomings of its overseas business. In the Standard Chartered board of directors, which attaches more importance to overseas business, it is difficult for Li Xuan to promote his own proposals, let alone influence the decision-making of Rice Bank's senior management!

His previous purpose in acquiring Standard Chartered shares was not originally for dividends. Therefore, these two executives of Rice Bank want to use the reason to improve the performance of Standard Chartered to convince him, which is not reliable at all. However, since the other party came to the door, Li Xuan did not hesitate to make an offer.

"Mr. Director and Mr. Vice President, I am very touched by the sincerity of coming all the way from London, but I would like to say that Standard Chartered has 2,000 outlets outside of the UK, of which more than 100 are in Hong Kong.

However, these 5 percent of the outlets in Hong Kong can contribute more than 50 million pounds of profit to the Standard Chartered Group every year! The profits that the Hong Kong market has continuously created for Standard Chartered have been used by the bank's senior management to make up for the losses in other places, which is very unfair to the Hong Kong economy.

As a shareholder of Standard Chartered and a Hong Kong native, I have been pushing the proposal on the Standard Chartered board. It is hoped that the Standard Chartered Hong Kong branch can be independently split and listed on the Hong Kong stock market, so that Standard Chartered Bank can better integrate into Hong Kong's economic development!

If Rice Bank can support my request and agree to convert the equity in my current hand into the equity of the Hong Kong branch when I am listed on Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, then I can consider supporting your acquisition!" Li Xuan smiled and put forward his request.

Although Hong Kong's stock market and property market plummeted in the past two years, Standard Chartered Bank still achieved a very good level of profitability by relying on large-scale credit to Hong Kong's fast-growing electronics industry.

Standard Chartered Hong Kong should be regarded as the entire Standard Chartered Group. One of the most eye-catching branches. It is precisely because of this that the board of directors of Standard Chartered will put forward a request to Li Xuan to list Standard Chartered Hong Kong independently. Ignored all the time.

The annual profit of Standard Chartered Branch in Hong Kong has reached one-sixteenth of the annual profit of Rice Bank. Against the backdrop of weak overall earnings at Standard Chartered Bank. It is a good illustration that Standard Chartered Hong Kong is one of the most high-quality assets in the entire group.

Li Xuan's ambition to take control of Standard Chartered's Hong Kong branch has been revealed. The two representatives sent by Rice Bank naturally did not have the right to directly make promises on behalf of Rice Bank, so they had to submit their resignation to Li Xuan for the time being.

And not long after Li Xuan sent the two guests away from the Oriental Building, Sir Goldon's phone call also came in. He invited Li Xuan to lunch, and at the same time conveyed to Li Xuan a notice from the headquarters of Standard Chartered Bank in London, hoping that he would be able to go to London in person to attend the special board meeting of Standard Chartered Bank in a few days.

Large-scale mergers and acquisitions between companies. Usually the acquirer communicates with the management of the acquired company first. If the management of the acquired company can be persuaded to accept the merger plan, then they can help convince the board of directors of the acquired company to have a much better chance of success.

When the Oriental Group acquired RCA Corporation, it was in this way. Not long ago, Heung Kong Holdings' acquisition of Hongkong Land Group was very simple and rude, and it was directly forced to merge from the secondary market. This is because Hongkong Land's board of directors and top management positions have been firmly held by the majority shareholder Jardine Matheson for many years, and there is no possibility of being convinced.

However, in the capital markets of Europe and the United States, it is different, and the majority shareholders of many large companies are usually various investment funds. They are less in control of listed companies. What is more important is the return on stocks. Therefore, as long as the price is right, these major shareholders will not hesitate to transfer their shares.

Li Xuan didn't expect that when Goldton invited him to lunch, there was also Sir Bonet, the CEO of Standard Chartered Bank. The other party should have just gotten off the plane, and his face could not hide the tiredness of a long journey.

"Lee. I think you should know what I mean, Rice Bank has launched a hostile takeover of our Standard Chartered! On behalf of the bank's management, I hope to get the support of shareholders!" As soon as he came up, he said straight to the point.

At this critical moment of turmoil, Bonnart, the CEO, unexpectedly left London. Did a dozen disappearing planes to meet him in person. Li Xuan could guess that there must have been a major change on the side of Standard Chartered Bank that he didn't know.

Standard Chartered executives are naturally reluctant. Standard Chartered was swallowed up by Rice Bank, especially now that Standard Chartered is not doing well. Because once the two banks merge, the original Standard Chartered executives are likely to be directly abandoned.

No one wants to be swept away from the power themselves. Therefore, Li Xuan guessed that it was likely that some directors of the Standard Chartered board of directors made decisions that were unfavorable to the management.

Guessing in this direction, Li Xuan quickly guessed eight or nine. Li Xuan holds a 17.5% stake in Standard Chartered Bank, but is not the largest shareholder of Standard Chartered. Standard Chartered's largest shareholder is a large pension fund that holds a 17.9% stake in Standard Chartered. Below Li Xuan, there are 2 institutional shareholders holding more than 5% of the shares.

Each of the four shareholders has one executive director seat on the board, while Standard Chartered's management has three other executive director seats.

The only reason Bonett, the chief executive, flew to Hong Kong so impatiently was that the largest shareholder of Standard Chartered Bank had decided to support Rice Bank's acquisition plan. Only in this case will Li Xuan be extremely important. Because if he is also persuaded by Rice Bank first, then Rice Bank's stake will suddenly exceed 35%.

Standard Chartered's equity concentration is relatively high. And the reason for all this is the influence of Li Xuan's butterfly. Because he has continued to increase his stake in Standard Chartered in the past few years, the senior management of Standard Chartered is quite wary of him. In fact, Standard Chartered is now the largest shareholder, with a original shareholding ratio of only 12.9%.

However, another institutional shareholder was ready to reduce his holdings of Standard Chartered shares by 5%, and Li Xuan immediately sent a purchase intention to the other party. However, the management of Standard Chartered did not want to see that Li Xuan's shares continued to rise. So they tried to persuade the large pension fund, which already held 12.9% of the shares, to replace Li Xuan to take over the deal.

Standard Chartered Bank's earnings in the past two years have been very poor, not only the company's dividends have plummeted, but even the stock price has continued to be sluggish. As a result, the pension fund is now ready to take advantage of the opportunity of the merger and acquisition of Rice Bank to resell Standard Chartered's shares at a high price. By the way, the company with an unsatisfactory return on investment is excluded from its own investment portfolio!

Mr. Smith told me that Standard Chartered will only be able to reverse its performance if it fundamentally reinvents its current inefficient governance model.

I don't know what you think of him?After all, Standard Chartered's operating performance in the past period of time is indeed very disappointing!I wonder if there is a new profit plan for the company's management?" Li Xuan asked unhurriedly.

Bonnate's face changed, he didn't expect Rice Bank to move so quickly. Fortunately, he flew to Hong Kong immediately, otherwise if the person in front of him was also moved by the other party, then he would have gone.

"Lee, Rice Bank is a standard British bank, and it has no business in the Far East at all. If Standard Chartered is acquired by Rice, it will use the British local business method to adjust its overseas operations, and its overseas business, including Hong Kong, will inevitably suffer a major setback!

This will not only be detrimental to all shareholders of Standard Chartered, but will also cause a lot of unnecessary trouble for Standard Chartered's Asian customers!" Bonnet immediately began to explain his reasons for his objection.

"I agree with your point of view too!" Li Xuan nodded, but before Bonet could be happy, he immediately continued, "So I suggested that Director Smith consider splitting the Hong Kong Standard Chartered Company from the entire Standard Chartered Group and listing it independently in Hong Kong, and the other party said that it could be considered!"

Bonnart's face immediately turned bad again, and the business in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia has always been the most important core market for the entire Standard Chartered Group. He understood that Li Xuan was putting forward conditions to himself, and it was not the first time that Li Xuan had proposed the plan of splitting and listing Hong Kong Standard Chartered independently.

"Standard Chartered Bank, as one of the two note-issuing banks in Hong Kong, is indeed not suitable to continue to develop in Hong Kong as a British bank in the context of Hong Kong's imminent secession from the United Kingdom. We will focus on Standard Chartered's localization strategy in Hong Kong. And the independent listing of Standard Chartered Hong Kong on the Hong Kong stock market is undoubtedly a good solution!" Bonet frowned and finally spoke.

Li Xuan smiled silently, in the current unfavorable situation, the old fox on the other side finally began to loosen his mouth. But Li Xuan's goal is not only to make Standard Chartered's Hong Kong branch an independent listing, but also to have full control of Standard Chartered, the second largest bank in Hong Kong. (To be continued......)