Chapter 596 Korea Development Bank

   "No, we can't be so passive, we have to think of a way!"

Dick Foud, the CEO of Raymond Brothers, yelled with a gloomy face, waved his hand towards the wall, and the screen went off, and then he viciously threw the remote control in his hand on the table, making a loud "bang" sound. ring.

  As for the other directors of Raymond Brothers in this conference room, although they didn't react as violently as Dick Foud, most of them were also sinking and full of displeasure.

  In the CNBC program just now, the host broadcast a piece of news about Lehman Brothers, specifically an unfounded rumor: Lehman Brothers has a liquidity crisis and is planning to use the Federal Reserve’s rediscount window for financing. In fact, Leimen Brothers did not intend to do so.

  Since David Einhorn began to publicly sing about Raymond Brothers, all kinds of bad news about Raymond Brothers in the market have sprung up one after another like mushrooms after rain. In just two or three trading days, the stock price of Lehman Brothers has fallen by more than 20%. This figure shocked the management of Lehman Brothers. They never expected that people like David Einhorn It has such a strong market appeal.

   For this reason, Dick Foud has ordered the "Wall Street Journal" to be blocked, but the negative news about Raymond Brothers continues to appear in the media, which makes him very angry.

   “How are we going with the UBS, HSBC and GE talks?”

  After losing his temper angrily, Dick Foud finally had to calm down and face the current mess that he had fought for all his life.

  On June 9th, Raymond Brothers will announce its financial statements for the first quarter to the market. Everyone present knows the final result, a loss of US$2.9 billion. If the market did not have a situation similar to David Einhorn's blatant shorting, Lehman Brothers would be able to withstand the pressure on the stock price, but Einhorn's speech pushed Lehman Brothers to the forefront. In this case they have to fight back against these short sellers by being able to find new sources of funding during this time.

  Otherwise, when the financial statement on the 9th is released, we still don’t know how the stock price of Leimen Brothers will fall. Everyone here is very aware of this fact.

In fact, Lehman Brothers’ self-rescue began after the disclosure of the report in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year (March 2008). It coincided with the instant collapse of Bear Stearns, and the management of Leihman Brothers was frightened. They started Look for targets in the global market that may be injected into or even acquired, among which groups such as HSBC, UBS, General Electric and American International Group are the most likely.

  Syndicates such as UBS and HSBC are naturally interested in Leihman Brothers in order to enter the North American investment banking market. As for General Electric and American International Group, it is purely from Dick Foud's personal relationship. He has a good relationship with the CEOs of the two companies and wants to get their capital injection through personal relationship.

  But friendship is friendship, and business is business. At this time, it is obviously impossible to rely on friendship. Therefore, Dick Foud's words were out of his mouth for a long time, and no one answered his words. Obviously, the negotiations with the above-mentioned consortium were not ideal.

   "Maybe we should try another way!" After a long silence, someone finally spoke up, "South Korea should be a good choice."

The person who spoke was the chief strategy officer of Raymond Brothers, David Goldfarb. This middle-aged man who wore a red tie all the year round pushed his glasses on the bridge of his nose and said solemnly: "The South Korean government has recently introduced a policy , the general content is a major restructuring of the financial industry and further opening up of financial markets. I think in this context, they will be interested in institutions like ours, because this is what they need. And most importantly Yes, the CEO of the Korea Development Bank used to work at Leimen Korea, and he has a very good relationship with our people there, and I think we can take advantage of this.”

"Of course, I personally still prefer the capital injection of General Electric or American International Group, but South Korea can be used as an option, at least as an option after the above two companies reject us. If possible, I think it is time to negotiate with The South Korean side started to contact, lest the stock price fall in time, and lose the initiative to negotiate."

"If we can really bring in $5 billion from South Korea, the first thing we need to do is take out $2 billion to repurchase stocks and give these short-selling **** a hard blow Let them know how powerful we are." Finally, David Goldfarb said viciously.

Since David Goldfarb has always appeared in front of everyone as a humble gentleman, when he said "son of a bitch", everyone froze and looked at him strangely glance. However, they quickly thought of the precarious situation that the Leimen Brothers were facing, so everyone was relieved again.

  The shrinking of the stock market value means that the wealth of everyone here has shrunk. In this case, it is strange to be in a good mood and speak well to the short sellers.

   "Okay, let's discuss the negotiation with South Korea now!"

   Without the slightest hesitation, Dick Foud immediately agreed to the plan.

In fact, although Leimen Brothers has a branch in Seoul, this company is basically equivalent to nothing. It's kind of a balance of payments. However, in order to maintain a good relationship with the government and at the same time show that Leimen Brothers attaches great importance to the Korean market, this branch has always been retained. But now a strange thing happened. The former CEO of Leimen Korea was appointed as the CEO of the Development Bank of Korea. Even the people in the headquarters of Leimen Brothers were surprised by this news.

This shows that at least in the high-level operations of South Korea's financial circles, the efforts of the people in Leimen Korea have not been in vain, because the Korea Development Bank is the only policy bank in South Korea, and it has inextricably linked with the top government, far more than other consortiums. closer to the decision-making level.

  These thoughts just flashed in Dick Foud's mind, and he decisively decided to make contact with South Korea. Today, if he can catch a straw, he will treat it as a towering tree.

  …

  Two hours later, a group of people set off from the underground garage of Raymond Brothers, aiming for New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson River. Among this group of people were Lehman Brothers' global legal advisors, M&A experts, financial experts, and people from law firms. The reason why they didn't leave from JFK Airport was that they were afraid of being caught by reporters and leaking the news. At the airport in New Jersey, there was a plane waiting for them.

  At the same time, Zhao Jianhao, the CEO of Leimen Brothers Korea, also urgently contacted people from the Development Bank of Korea and Hana Financial Group, preparing to finalize the negotiations between the two parties. But to his dismay, the other side's top executives seemed to be entertaining other people, and they couldn't spare time to receive guests from New York within a day or two. After repeated negotiations, they agreed to let the middle managers attend the negotiation meeting first.

   After all, there is still close to a day before the negotiation. Zhao Jianhao comforted himself in this way. As for who the other party received, he did not ask in detail. After all, it has little to do with him.

   But in fact, if he knew who the other party was receiving, he might not think so.

   "Sure enough, it's a good place!"

  When Zhong Shi’s plane landed at Incheon International Airport in South Korea, he walked out of the VIP passage and was quickly taken to Quando Plaza in the center of Seoul by several Mercedes-Benz cars.

  The headquarters building of the Korea Development Bank is located on the east side of Jeondo Plaza. Because it is close to the Han River and the National Assembly Building, Jeondo Plaza is the heart of downtown Seoul. And being able to build a building with a scale of 1 million square feet in such a place, the status of the Korean Development Bank in South Korea is self-evident.

  The Korea Development Bank Building, which started construction in 1995, took 4 years to build, and was finally completed in 1999. During this period, due to the outbreak of the financial crisis, it almost became an unfinished building. However, due to the capital injection of foreign consortia, it was finally completed without any risk. The overall shape of the building is boxy, and it looks like a standard cuboid from the outside, only a part is vacant in the northern corner, replaced by a spring-like spiral staircase. It is said that this design was inspired by ancient Korean jade seals, but this claim has not been confirmed. However, this also reflects the status of the Korea Development Bank in South Korea's economic activities from the side.

  As the only policy bank in South Korea, the Korea Development Bank has injected "blood" into the Korean economy since the 1950s. Over the years, from the import and export industry to the manufacturing industry, it has nurtured generations of Korean companies. However, in 1997, due to the impact of the Asian financial crisis, the Development Bank of Korea suddenly fell into the point of accumulating bad debts. Not only could it not provide fresh "blood" to enterprises, but it needed supplementary funds from the government. At this time, the South Korean government has allocated a huge amount of funds to rescue the economy because it has dealt with the bankruptcy and reorganization of various domestic enterprises, so there is no more liquidity injected into this bank, especially US dollars and foreign currencies.

At this time, the voice of transferring part of the Development Bank of Korea sounded at the right time. This view holds that as long as it maintains a 51% controlling stake, the Development Bank of Korea can transfer part of its equity to outsiders, but this part of equity can only be used for foreign investment. The first is to open up, because firstly, overseas markets can be expanded, and secondly, at that time, US dollar capital was scarce, and being able to raise US dollar capital can resist the risk of fluctuations in the exchange rate of the local currency.

   It was under such circumstances that Zhong Shi and his Tianyu Fund exchanged US$2.5 billion for an 11% stake in the Development Bank of Korea, becoming the second largest shareholder after the South Korean government.

  Although Zhongshi has reduced his share to 5.6% after several reductions over the years, he is still the majority shareholder of the Development Bank of Korea. Therefore, as soon as the news of his arrival in Seoul came out, the people from the Korea Development Bank took him to the office building.

As for Hana Financial Group, the largest bank holding company in South Korea, the person in charge also rushed to the airport after learning that Jong-seok was coming to Seoul, but he was a step late, and Jong-seok had already been handed over by people from the Development Bank of Korea. picked up. In desperation, President Kim Jong-dae and his entourage could only drive to the headquarters of the Development Bank of Korea.

  The reason for this is naturally that Zhong Shi also holds shares in this company. Tianyu Fund, which owns 3.1% of the shares, is the second shareholder of Hana Financial Group, second only to Goodman Corporation in the United States. Different from Goodman Company, Tianyu Fund has always maintained a good relationship with Korean equity representatives, and has not been involved in the company's internal strife, so they have a good reputation within Hana Financial Corporation, which is why Kim Jong-un One of the reasons why the freshman went to greet Jong-seok in Seoul without hesitation.

"Of course, this is the highest level of design in the Republic of Korea!" Min Yusheng, who was in charge of the reception, replied proudly, but his face changed quickly, and the arrogance was swept away, and he said humbly, "Of course, this is just a Korean design." standard. In fact, I think it’s pretty average.”

  Zhong Shi smiled slightly and didn't say anything more.

   After visiting the interior of the Development Bank of Korea, Min Yusheng led Zhongshi to the outside. Although he is well versed in East Asian culture, although he doesn't understand the purpose of Zhong Shi's trip, drinking and eating is an inevitable procedure.

   Thanks to the book friends who are very human, I was not the one who voted for the monthly ticket last night! Thanks to the book friends for my money and rewards! Today is much better, continue to work hard to write books~ I found that many of the voters and rewards are familiar names, I hope other book friends can give a little bit of support, the results of this book need everyone's joint efforts! It is a great honor for this book to be recommended by excellent selected works on the catalog page tomorrow. Friends who like this book should vote more and recommend more. I hope this book will achieve better results~

  

  

  (end of this chapter)