Chapter 156: A Rival for the Acquisition of Hongkong Electric Holdings Appears
In fact, there wasn't much negotiation needed with Apple — both sides were willing parties regarding the financing deal.
Thus, the discussion was brief, and they quickly moved on to drafting the contract. Everything went smoothly.
After signing the contract, Lin Haoran straightforwardly transferred the $10 million into Apple's account.
With this, he officially became a shareholder of Apple Inc.
Now that he owned 10% of Apple's shares, Lin Haoran's business in the United States was basically complete.
Steve Jobs, intrigued by how young this important Citibank partner was, couldn't help but be curious.
He knew that it had been a senior vice president of Citibank who personally contacted them about this investment opportunity.
Although Apple had become a Silicon Valley star in recent years and attracted attention from many investors, they had still not won Citibank's favor.
Yet here was a young Chinese investor who had clearly earned Citibank's respect.
Thus, Lin Haoran appeared particularly mysterious in the eyes of Steve Jobs and Apple's senior leadership.
Of course, Lin Haoran didn't reveal too much, only mentioning that he was an entrepreneur from Hong Kong who had multiple major partnerships with Citibank.
As for the real reason — the huge profits from gold futures — he kept it hidden.
Now that he held 10% of Apple's equity, Lin Haoran was, technically, one of its bosses.
He deliberately stayed at Apple until the afternoon, chatting at length with Jobs and the others.
Although Lin Haoran had already decided not to interfere with Apple's operations, during their conversations he couldn't help but discuss some "future trends" in the computer industry with Jobs and the others.
They were shocked that this young man from Hong Kong had so many innovative ideas about the future of computing.
Steve Jobs even tried to recruit Lin Haoran into Apple's senior management, believing that Lin's imaginative thinking would be a tremendous asset to the company's development.
However, Lin Haoran firmly declined.
It was laughable — how could he possibly join Apple's executive team when he had so many of his own matters to manage?
His plan for Apple was simple: let it grow naturally while he sat back and reaped the rewards.
Even if it took thirty years, what did it matter?
At just twenty-five or twenty-six years old now, he would only be in his fifties thirty years later.
Plenty of time.
Without interference, Apple would surely follow its historical path and become a tech giant.
Trying to "help" Apple might accidentally alter its destiny, and that could easily backfire.
After all, Lin Haoran only had a rough understanding of the computer industry's general direction — he wasn't truly an expert.
By the time Lin Haoran left Apple's headquarters, it was already past 4 PM.
There were many notable companies in Silicon Valley — HP, Intel, Fairchild Semiconductor, among others.
However, compared to what Silicon Valley would become in the 1990s, it was still not at its peak.
Lin Haoran wasn't interested in visiting those companies, so he simply took a cab back to the luxury hotel near San Francisco's Chinatown.
He wasn't in a rush to return to Hong Kong.
After all, it would be a shame to visit California and leave hastily.
Thus, Lin Haoran stayed in San Francisco for another three days.
During these three days, he rented a car and visited many famous attractions:
the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Fisherman's Wharf, Lombard Street, and more.
Time flew by quickly and pleasantly.
Originally, Lin Haoran had planned to fly a few hundred kilometers to Los Angeles —
maybe he could even meet a famous actress from that era in Hollywood.
However, unexpected news forced him to cut his California trip short.
It was related to Jardine Matheson and Wheelock & Co.
Since Lin Haoran had sold his shares in Wheelock & Co., he hadn't paid much attention to it.
However, the struggle between Jardine Matheson and Pao Yue-Kong had continued.
Perhaps Lin Haoran's earlier intervention had sped things up, because Pao Yue-Kong's takeover of Wheelock, originally expected around June 1980, happened earlier.
At the start of January, Pao Yue-Kong announced a bold move:
he would invest HK$2.1 billion, using his own name and his family's, offering HK$105 per share to acquire another 20 million shares of Wheelock.
He entrusted all acquisition operations to Wardley Limited.
Naturally, Pao Yue-Kong succeeded, raising his family's holdings to 49%, effectively taking control of Wheelock.
In reality, over half of these 20 million shares were secretly sold by Land Holdings under Jardine Matheson.
They recognized they had lost the battle the moment Pao Yue-Kong offered HK$105 per share.
At that price, Wheelock's market value jumped to over HK$10 billion —
Jardine Matheson and Land Holdings decided to retreat and maximize their profit.
They sold more than 10 million shares, recovering over HK$1 billion in cash.
Thus, while Jardine Matheson lost Wheelock, they didn't lose overall — they made a fortune.
The news shook all of Hong Kong.
Compared to Lin Haoran's earlier acquisition of Qingzhou Cement, Pao Yue-Kong's victory over Wheelock was on a whole different scale.
For half a month, it dominated the headlines.
Lin Haoran had already heard about it.
He had regular updates from Hong Kong and knew the major events.
However, at that time, he was completely focused on monitoring gold prices, so he hadn't paid much attention.
Wheelock was no longer his concern.
Still, what Lin Haoran hadn't expected was that Land Holdings, flush with cash after selling Wheelock shares, had set its sights on Hongkong Electric Holdings.
This wasn't publicly known — it was Lin Haoran's deduction.
On the night of January 25, Su Zhixue called him.
He reported that Hongkong Electric's trading volume had suddenly doubled over the past few days, and the stock price was rising faster.
Given Su Zhixue's day-to-day involvement, he immediately sensed that a new major player had entered the field.
He quickly informed Lin Haoran.
Since arriving in San Francisco, Lin Haoran had given his hotel contact details to Su Zhixue.
Hearing the news, and recalling the recent Wheelock takeover, Lin Haoran quickly guessed that Land Holdings was behind it.
Now, Land Holdings had more than HK$1 billion in fresh cash and was looking for a major investment target.
Hongkong Electric Holdings became their next objective.
Lin Haoran instructed Su Zhixue to increase their share acquisition efforts and decided to cancel his Los Angeles trip.
He immediately bought a plane ticket from San Francisco back to Hong Kong.
San Francisco, being one of the major Chinese-populated cities in the U.S., had direct flights to Hong Kong.
On the afternoon of January 27, Lin Haoran and his two bodyguards, Li Weiguo and Li Weidong, successfully returned to Hong Kong.
This American trip had lasted a full month.
Upon returning, Lin Haoran didn't go home to visit his parents first.
Instead, he went straight to the Wan'an Group Building, heading directly to Huanyu Investment Company's office.
He urgently needed to know the latest about Hongkong Electric Holdings.
Now, Land Holdings had more than HK$1 billion from Wheelock's shares.
If they aggressively bought into Hongkong Electric, it could pose a real threat.
Thus, he had to act fast.
The simplest way to counter Land Holdings' move was to rapidly increase his stake to over 40% — ideally, to 49.9%.
That way, no competitor could shake his control.
Today was Sunday, and Hong Kong's four stock exchanges were closed.
However, Su Zhixue, knowing that Lin Haoran would return today, had come to the office specially to wait.
"What's the situation?" Lin Haoran asked as soon as he entered.
Phone updates were too inefficient; he wanted the full report in person.
"Boss, here's our acquisition progress and recent Hongkong Electric data. I've highlighted everything," Su Zhixue said, handing him a report.
Lin Haoran nodded, took the report, and reviewed it carefully.
They had wired HK$500 million to the trading account on January 22 New York time, meaning Huanyu Investment resumed operations on January 23 and had traded for three days that week.
In three days, they spent over HK$35 million and acquired nearly 10 million Hongkong Electric shares.
This acquisition speed was far faster than before.
However, 10 million shares only added about 1.588% to Lin Haoran's holdings.
Previously, he held about 24.5%.
Even with this new batch, he was still far from 30%, let alone 40% or 49.9%.
"Can you estimate how many shares the other side has acquired?" Lin Haoran asked, setting down the report.
"Boss, I estimate they've bought about 13 million shares — noticeably faster than us.
And on the third day, their pace increased sharply.
Clearly, they plan to speed up their acquisition," Su Zhixue analyzed.
Lin Haoran nodded thoughtfully.
He already suspected it was Land Holdings.
Since he knew, there was no need to panic.
With his control of over 11 billion HKD in funds, Lin Haoran was confident he could maintain dominance over Hongkong Electric.
Still, Land Holdings' involvement would inevitably push the stock price up faster.
Thus, securing Hongkong Electric as quickly as possible was now critical.
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