27 Wellington Street, Central, the headquarters of "Hong Kong Economic Times". "Did you take this photo?" President and Editor-in-Chief Mak Huazhang stared at the dozens of photos spread out on the table in front of him, and quickly raised his head to talk to the two hanging "Hong Kong Economic" in front of him. asked the young man at the daily press card. One of the tall, fat young men wearing glasses sniffed and smiled proudly: "Boss, aren't Big B and I tracking the news about the billions of foreign exchange of Kowloon Bank recently? I didn't expect that there were An unexpected bonus!" Another young man who was thinner than him kept his eyes rolling and looked very smart. Hearing this, Brother Fei and I thought there might be big news here. What do you think? Do you want us? Continue to follow up? " Mai Huazhang took a deep breath and looked at the dozen photos spread out on the table. The backgrounds of six or seven of them were in front of the same star-rated hotel. One of the scenes was shot A man in a suit who looked to be less than forty years old shook hands with another middle-aged man who looked like a successful person; in another scene, the man in a suit who was less than forty years old was photographed shaking hands with another man. An older, tall, thin white man walked into the hotel with a smile. Most of the remaining photos show three different luxury cars, but they are parked together. There was only one photo that vaguely captured the scene of three people standing together that appeared in the previous photo. It was only because of the darkness of the night and the distance between the people in the photo that it looked very blurry. The reason why I can't help but be excited is because the three people who appear in the photo, Mak Wah-chang, all know each other. Among them, the man in a suit who is less than 40 years old and appears most frequently is a very famous person in Hong Kong's financial and investment circles in recent years. Song Nianhui, the president of Kowloon Bank, and the other two are Wu Guangzheng, one of the top ten Chinese richest people in Hong Kong. As for the youngest and oldest tall and thin white man, his name is Su Haiwen, who is the chairman of the world shipping giant-Global Shipping Group. . It is very unusual for the latter two to appear together, because although Wu Guangzheng and Su Haiwen are both the sons-in-law of the recently deceased Chinese shipping king Bao Yugang. But in the past few years, in order to compete for the hundreds of billions of assets left by Bao Yugang, several of his sons-in-law almost went to court. In the end, although Wu Guangzheng and Su Haiwen fought for the two largest fortunes as they wished, the former lost his status as a shipping king, and the latter lost the tens of billions of real estate Bao Yugang had purchased in Hong Kong, so the two became brothers-in-law. , but the relationship has become extremely cold after Bao Yugang's death. In the past few years, except for a few charity galas and government receptions, they have almost never appeared together. The relationship between Wu Guangzheng and Su Haiwen is very bad. This is not a secret in Hong Kong. Mak Huazhang naturally knows it, so it is impossible for the two to get together without external reasons. There is no doubt that Song Nianhui, the president of Kowloon Bank, is the external factor that can make two people with a bad relationship sit together! "Behind Song Nianhui's Kowloon Bank is the Lin Xiaozhi family. Wu Guangzheng and Su Haiwen are also the top wealthy families in Hong Kong. For these three families to come together, there must be something behind it!" Mai Huazhang's head turned quickly, don't It seems that he is only 40 years old this year but he has been in the industry for a long time. After graduating from the European Literature Major of the University of Hong Kong in 1973, he applied to join "Wen Wei Po" as a reporter. Because of his excellent foreign language skills and understanding of Europe, after the European edition of "Wen Wei Po" was founded in 1981, he was transferred to Europe and first became the editor-in-chief. He was promoted to deputy editor in a few years, and by the time he was transferred back to Hong Kong in 1985, he was already the deputy general manager of Wen Wei Po. "Wen Wei Po" suffered heavy losses during the 1987 stock market crash. At that time, he already had the idea of ????starting his own business. At the invitation of his classmate Feng Shaobo and his friend Shi Jingquan, he readily agreed to cooperate to establish a brand new newspaper, the "Hong Kong Economic Daily", which not only owned After acquiring the shares, he also took over the important task of president and editor-in-chief of the newspaper. It is no exaggeration to say that without his efforts in the past few years, there would be no "Hong Kong Economic Times" from an unknown financial newspaper to now being inextricably linked with the established "Hong Kong Economic Times". In terms of readers The market share of the most powerful Hong Kong financial newspapers has exceeded 20%. The more he thought about it, the more weird it became. Mai Huazhang immediately made a decision, "Da Fei, Ah B, you two are the smartest. Since you discovered this news first, continue to follow it, and there will probably be big news soon!" After a pause, he immediately continued: "I will write a note later. You two can go to the accounting department and the five thousand yuan will be used as activity funds for you to use. If there is really big news, I will give you both a big red envelope." !¡± The income of media reporters also varies. Frontline reporters like them who need to travel around to find news almost all make money by finding red envelopes given by big news agencies. If I can't find news, my monthly salary is only a few thousand yuan, so the editor-in-chief allocates 5,000 yuan directly.The funds were at their own disposal, and the two of them were filled with joy. They hurriedly patted their chests and promised that they would go over and continue to follow him. Not to mention, as soon as the reporters of the "Hong Kong Economic Times" followed closely, they felt more and more that there must be something strange between the Kowloon Bank and the Lao Chuanwang family. With the tracking, more and more information was gathered into the hands of Mai Huazhang. After sorting out the seemingly messy information, Mai Huazhang quickly came up with an answer that excited the "Hong Kong Economic Daily" , Kowloon Bank is probably negotiating with the Lao Chuanwang family, trying to acquire its shares in Standard Chartered Bank. This conclusion is not a random guess. Mai Huazhang cited a lot of evidence. Since the release of the annual revenue report for the previous year in January this year, Standard Chartered Bank's performance was not good, but its shares listed on the London Stock Exchange only experienced a short-term decline. After that, the stock price gradually tended to rise steadily. If not Attention can be easily overlooked. If Mai Huazhang had not patiently dug out the Standard Chartered stock trading data of the past few months and then went back and compared it, he might have overlooked that Standard Chartered's stock price has risen steadily by 30% since its lowest point in November last year. ¡°For a listed bank like Standard Chartered, whose performance in the UK last year was not outstanding, it is not normal for the stock price to rise by more than 30% in just a few months. Then there is only one explanation. The number of circulating shares on the market is decreasing, and funds are secretly absorbing Standard Chartered shares. As a result, its stock price is slowly raised. ¡°And among the properties owned by the Lao Chuanwang family, there are really not many that can arouse Lin Xiaozhi¡¯s interest. Lin Xiaozhi will definitely not get involved in shipping easily, let alone real estate. Since his debut, he has expressed his displeasure with the real estate industry in the media more than once, and the Lin family has not invested in this area since he took over. Wu Guangzheng has a Wharf TV station under his name, which may arouse Lin Xiaozhi's interest, but not to mention that it is a paid limited TV station. Just because he already has ATV, a free TV station that has been on the rise in recent years, it is decisive. It is impossible to have another idea for Wharf TV. The Hong Kong government alone cannot pass the test and it is impossible to approve it. So what can the old ship Wang family have in their hands that makes Lin Xiaozhi, a new super rich man who has been in the limelight in Hong Kong in recent years, covet? In addition to the shares of Standard Chartered Bank currently held by Su Haiwen and Wu Guangzheng, Mak Wah Zhangzhen Can't guess what else is coming. It is completely normal for Kowloon Bank to want to acquire Standard Chartered. Standard Chartered Bank is no better than the giant HSBC, one of the world's top 500 companies (HSBC's turnover in 1992 was US$26.635 billion, with profits of US$1.78325 billion), and its total market capitalization is only ¡ê4.34 billion. (approximately HK$50 billion). Although the Bank of Kowloon is inferior in comparison, with Hong Kong media Financial Weekly estimating its market value at only over HK$1.3 billion, we cannot help but believe that behind the Bank of Kowloon stands the Lam Hsiao-chi family, one of the richest and top tycoons in Hong Kong. It is not impossible to swallow Standard Chartered! The benefits of swallowing up Standard Chartered Bank are obvious. Standard Chartered has 377 business outlets around the world and has collected nearly 230 billion Hong Kong dollars in customer deposits in Hong Kong alone. It is one of the largest banks in Hong Kong. At the same time, Standard Chartered is also one of the only two banks designated by the government to issue Hong Kong dollars. Although compared to HSBC, the Hong Kong dollars issued by Standard Chartered account for less than 13% of the currency in circulation, it is still a big piece of fat that everyone envies. As early as the mid-1980s, "Lloyds Bank", known as the British capital gangster, tried to acquire Standard Chartered in a hostile manner. It was because after the return of Hong Kong, if Standard Chartered Bank could continue to hold the qualification to issue banknotes, the value of its assets would surely rise. Will double and skyrocket. In the past Sino-British negotiations, London and Beijing have argued countless times over the issue of the qualifications for future Hong Kong dollar note issuance. Although the UK has several times offered benefits by investing in China and exporting precision machinery and advanced military technology that the mainland urgently needs, etc. license, forcing the mainland to reluctantly agree to retain HSBC's banknote-issuing qualifications for a period of time in the future. However, Beijing is very tough on the issue of whether it urgently needs to give Standard Chartered Bank's banknote-issuing qualifications. The British will definitely not give up on Standard Chartered easily. This country, which still barely retains the world's fourth largest economy and the world's third largest military power, has a lot of good cards in its hands. Therefore, it is not difficult for London to retain the qualification of Standard Chartered Bank to issue banknotes. However, if the Lin family, who has left the bank and is quite pro-communist, takes the opportunity to take over Standard Chartered, it may be the only change. More and more intelligence shows that Lin Xiaozhi is really attracted to Zha. Mak Huazhang is not in a hurry to break the news. The Hong Kong Economic Daily is different from general entertainment media. As a professional financial newspaper based on the middle and high-income classes, they More precise data are needed. Soon, with more digging, they finally got hold of a key piece of evidence. On May 17, Australian hotel giant Robert Home suddenly announced that he would order a 100-tonne jet from Bombardier of Canada.When asked by the media whether ordering a plane would affect the hotel¡¯s finances due to poor performance of his hotel last year, Robert Home proudly said with a smile, ¡°¡I have not used the hotel¡¯s funds. In fact, Not long ago, a Hong Kong bank just bought all my shares in Standard Chartered Bank." Although Robert Home did not identify the other party, the Hong Kong Economic Daily, which has been following the Kowloon Bank and the Lin family, knew that just a week ago the president of the Kowloon Bank had just gone to Australia in the name of a private vacation, and during the trip During his two-day stay in Singapore, he was even photographed by local media visiting Singapore's richest man, Khoo Teck Puat, who is now the largest private shareholder of Standard Chartered Bank! Combined with Song Nianhui's frequent meetings with members of the Lao Chuanwang family in Hong Kong, Mai Huazhang finally confirmed Lin Xiaozhi's coveting of Standard Chartered Bank. Ever since, in Hong Kong, which has just entered late May, the "Hong Kong Economic Daily" released another article The article that made the whole of Hong Kong excited - "Who will be the next white knight? Standard Chartered may change hands soon!"