Chapter 134: Coveting Jardine and Hongkong Land
To that end, Lin Haoran specifically rented a car from a rental agency in downtown New York. Over the next few days, he toured New York and the surrounding areas.
Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, New York's Chinatown, and many other places all bore the footprints of Lin Haoran and his companions.
The enormous American market was extremely tempting. Sooner or later, he would make large-scale investments there and earn a fortune—but now was not the right time.
Although he had a considerable amount of available capital, it would be better to keep it in Hong Kong for now and use it to strengthen his influence in Hong Kong's business world.
Once he had harvested enough funds from the gold market, he would then be able to invest freely in the business world.
For now, steady development was the best course. Even in Hong Kong, he was not yet among the very top. His position on his own turf was not yet secure, so why rush to invest everywhere?
Although he stayed in New York mainly to relax, he still checked international gold prices from time to time. Buying a newspaper in the morning was enough to see the daily price movements.
Sure enough, after he bought 1.9763 million ounces of gold futures, prices continued rising every day—sometimes by 1 to 2 dollars per ounce, sometimes by 3 to 5 dollars per ounce.
As expected, January 1980 would be the peak of gold prices. Once the United States began suppressing gold, prices would start to plunge.
So he had already made up his mind to hold the gold only until January, when he would look for an opportunity to sell.
During the first two trading days of 1980, gold reached 634 dollars. U.S. Treasury Secretary Miller announced that the Treasury would no longer sell gold, and within less than thirty minutes, the price surged another 30 dollars to 715 dollars. On January 21, it reached a historic high of 850 dollars.
Lin Haoran knew he could not sell at the absolute peak because the highest price would not last long. Still, if he could sell his gold for over 700 dollars per ounce, he would already be very satisfied.
After all, one shouldn't be too greedy.
Even if he sold at around 750 dollars per ounce, he would still earn roughly three times his investment from this spectacular gold rally.
It was only June now. He merely had to wait another six months before another harvest season arrived—and this one would be bigger than ever before, far bigger.
It wasn't until the morning of June 9 that Lin Haoran and the others appeared once again at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Two days later, their flight landed smoothly at Hong Kong's Kai Tak International Airport, and Lin Haoran headed straight back to the Deep Water Bay villa.
He still had not bought a villa of his own. Although Hengfeng Building had a residence that belonged entirely to him, living in a villa was obviously much more comfortable.
Besides, the Deep Water Bay villa had servants, and he also wanted to visit his parents, making it the most suitable place to stay.
After Lin Wan'an retired from Wan'an Group for a while, Lin Haoran noticed that his complexion had improved considerably. Without endless social engagements and exhausting work, and by following the doctor's dietary advice, there was a real chance his health could recover.
"Haoran, did you really go to America just for sightseeing?" Lin Wan'an asked skeptically when he returned.
Although he no longer had to worry much about Wan'an Group, his son had only recently inherited the company and then immediately went traveling? He found it hard to believe.
However, Lin Haoran's huge profits from crude oil investments had never been made public. Only a handful of people knew about it, so Lin Wan'an naturally had no idea.
Otherwise, he would certainly have guessed that his son had gone to America to make investments.
Looking at Lin Haoran's path of development, nearly all of it had been based on short-term investments yielding enormous profits. His objectives in each investment had always been straightforward, making them easy to understand.
"Yes, Dad. I specifically went to New York for a vacation this time. I took lots of photos too—Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, New York's Chinatown, and so on. Just wait a moment, I'll show them to you," Lin Haoran said with a smile.
He took out a stack of photographs from his backpack and handed them to Lin Wan'an.
Madam Lin also came over to look at the pictures.
Sitting on the sofa, Lin Haoran recounted amusing stories from his time in America.
Everything at home remained unchanged. Lin Wan'an continued recuperating at home, and Madam Lin's smile had clearly become much more frequent.
...
After resting at home for another two days to adjust to the time difference, Lin Haoran finally went back to work.
He had not visited Qingzhou Yingni Company or Wan'an Group for ten days, but neither company had changed much. With two highly capable managers keeping operations running, his brief absence had no impact.
Moreover, while he was in America, he called Burton and Yang Mingyi every day or two to ask whether they had encountered any issues they could not resolve on their own.
Sitting in his office at Qingzhou Yingni Company, Lin Haoran pondered his next move.
He still had 90 million U.S. dollars on hand, equivalent to about HK$477 million—a truly enormous sum.
Should he continue investing in real estate, buying land before property prices peaked and profiting from the appreciation?
It was certainly a good idea and the easiest approach. Since it was June 1979, by 1981 he could at least double or triple his money.
But it would take too much time.
For others, earning two or three times their investment in just one or two years would be an incredible windfall.
Lin Haoran, however, saw things differently.
He had been transported to this era less than a year ago, yet his assets had already multiplied dozens of times. Spending nearly two years just to earn two or three times more was far from satisfying.
Rather than chasing those returns, he would rather do something more practical.
Should he try acquiring Hutchison Whampoa? With the funds he currently had, there was no way he could leverage enough capital to take over that British giant.
More importantly, Lin Haoran knew that Li Ka-shing had abandoned his pursuit of Wharf because Pao Yue-kong had promised to fully support his acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa. In addition, Michael Sandberg had also promised to sell it to him when the opportunity arose.
He had arrived in this era too late. If he had come two years earlier, he would have done everything possible to acquire Wharf and even Hutchison Whampoa.
But now, it was obvious that they had already decided who Hutchison Whampoa's next owner would be.
So Lin Haoran knew that his chances of successfully acquiring Hutchison Whampoa were slim.
After all, HSBC was Hutchison Whampoa's largest shareholder. HSBC could sell it to whomever it wished. Could he persuade Michael Sandberg to break his earlier promise?
At present, Lin Haoran simply did not have that kind of influence.
However, just because Hutchison Whampoa was unsuitable did not mean other British trading houses could not be acquired. Hong Kong had far more quality companies than Hutchison Whampoa alone.
In fact, most British-owned enterprises controlled enormous amounts of land and property, including Wheelock, Hongkong Land, Swire, Hongkong Electric, and even Jardine Matheson.
Lin Haoran also knew that a few years later, Hongkong Land would suffer a major financial crisis. Forced to sell off assets, its stock price would plunge, perhaps creating an opportunity for him.
By 1980, Jardine chairman Simon Keswick, fearing that Chinese-funded conglomerates coveted the company and worried that the Wharf Holdings might repeat itself, came up with a plan.
He proposed cross-shareholding between Jardine and Hongkong Land to defend control over Hongkong Land. The ultimate goal was for Jardine and Hongkong Land each to own 40% of the other's shares.
However, when Hong Kong's property market later collapsed, this cross-shareholding became a heavy burden on the Jardine-Hongkong Land group.
That would be Lin Haoran's best opportunity to gain control of Hongkong Land and thereby indirectly control Jardine.
The odds of success were low, but he had a fallback plan. With the wealth he expected to possess six months later, even if he failed to acquire Jardine, he could still acquire Hongkong Land.
As for whether HSBC or even the Hong Kong colonial government would oppose or obstruct his acquisition, that was certainly possible. But by then, he believed he would have ways to deal with it.
At present, his influence in the business world was still too limited, leaving him with too few options for handling such special situations.
In fact, to Lin Haoran, Hongkong Land was even more valuable than Jardine.
Even if he failed and only acquired Hongkong Land, he would still be extremely satisfied.
Of course, he was not yet strong enough. He lacked both capital and connections. It was unrealistic for an ant to swallow an elephant.
Only after earning a massive fortune from the gold market would he have the capital to set his sights on Hongkong Land and even Jardine Matheson.
Picking up the latest newspaper his assistant had prepared, Lin Haoran leaned back in his executive chair and began reading.
"Yesterday, Hong Kong's stock market continued its strong rally. Market experts predict that Hong Kong is entering another major bull market. The biggest gainer was Hongkong Electric, which rose 3.72%, pushing its total market capitalization above HK$1.5 billion."
It was an issue of the Hong Kong Business Daily, and the headline reported on the previous day's stock market performance.
During this oil crisis, global stock markets behaved completely differently from the 1973 oil crisis.
Although the economy still suffered from stagflation, the U.S. stock market did not plunge. Instead, it rose.
Between 1979 and 1980, the S&P 500 gained a cumulative 41%, clearly reflecting a bull market.
Most other major stock markets around the world also rose. Among them, Hong Kong performed the best, with the Hang Seng Index soaring a cumulative 197% over two years—a full-fledged bull market.
Lin Haoran had been incredibly fortunate to acquire Qingzhou Yingni before Hong Kong's bull market began.
Otherwise, trying to acquire it now would probably cost twice as much. With trading volume surging and many more minority shareholders, taking over Qingzhou Yingni so easily would have become much more difficult.
At that moment, Lin Haoran's attention was drawn to another company mentioned in the newspaper.
Hongkong Electric?
Wasn't this the company Li Ka-shing would acquire a few years later?
(End of Chapter)
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