Chapter 471: The Second Largest Shareholder of Bank of East Asia
"To be honest, I have quite a few game ideas. I believe they could become global hits, though I'd need to register patents first. If there's an opportunity, we can discuss them in depth sometime," Lin Haoran said with a smile.
Truthfully, his understanding of the gaming industry of this era was quite limited. In his previous life, he had mostly played large-scale games such as Honor of Kings, Peacekeeper Elite, and Genshin Impact.
When it came to this era, his deepest memory was probably the Little Tyrant game console, where a single cartridge could contain many games.
However, that belonged to the post-21st-century era.
Still, he remembered quite a number of classic mini-games, such as Tetris, Super Mario, Contra, Battle City, Street Fighter, Pac-Man, Snow Bros., Bubble Bobble, Bomberman, and many others.
There were truly quite a few memorable games etched into his memory, and most importantly, none of them had yet appeared in this era.
Just imagine it—these games would one day become popular across the entire world, and even by the 21st century they had not been eliminated by changing times. That alone was enough to prove their value.
Moreover, given the relative simplicity of these games, developing them would not be particularly difficult. If he failed to patent them, it would truly be a waste.
Across from him, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi was visibly stunned for a moment, thinking Lin Haoran was joking.
Game ideas?
When it came to game creativity, he believed Japan ranked number one, with nowhere else even close—not even the United States.
The reason Japan's gaming market had risen so rapidly was precisely because of its abundance of creative game concepts.
So hearing Lin Haoran say such things, he found it almost laughable.
He simply did not believe Lin Haoran possessed any incredible game ideas, much less ideas valuable enough to exchange for equity investment.
"Mr. Lin, to be frank with you, Nintendo is never lacking in game ideas. Every day, our company receives all kinds of game proposals, but only a tiny few truly stand out and are ultimately adopted and developed into actual games.
"If you are very confident in your game concepts, I can help review them preliminarily. However, Mr. Lin, I still must advise you not to hold overly high expectations." If not for wanting to preserve Lin Haoran's dignity, Yamauchi would have nearly laughed aloud.
It wasn't that he looked down on Lin Haoran, but as one of the top figures in the video game industry, even though Lin Haoran far surpassed him in business influence, he simply did not believe Lin Haoran could produce any gaming idea worthy of his attention.
Hearing what was practically a direct rejection, Lin Haoran did not mind much.
After all, it had merely been a spur-of-the-moment idea.
It was only Nintendo. Whether he invested in them or not was no big deal.
As he thought about it further, Lin Haoran suddenly changed his mind. Handing these games over to Nintendo as a form of investment would actually be too much of a loss.
Since Nintendo was already a publicly listed company, if he wanted to invest, he could simply use money. Nintendo's stock price at this stage was probably not very high yet, so there was no need to use those games as capital.
Instead, once he found people to develop the games, he could cooperate with Nintendo or other video game hardware manufacturers later and earn royalties per copy sold. If the games sold tens of millions of copies, the profits in his hands would still be enormous.
At first, after meeting Nintendo's current president, he had believed himself unfamiliar with the gaming industry of this era.
But at this moment, Lin Haoran changed his thinking again.
With the wealth he currently possessed, why bother with technological equity investment?
Since he remembered the gameplay of so many classic mini-games, he could simply develop them himself!
If Hong Kong lacked the necessary talent, then he could simply establish operations in Japan. In any case, he already had plans to aggressively enter the Japanese market.
If one were to ask which economy would develop the fastest and most explosively over the next ten years, some might say the United States.
But that would be wrong.
It would be Japan.
By the end of the 1980s, Japan's economy would be at the peak of its bubble economy era, with the wealth accumulation of Japanese citizens reaching unprecedented heights.
In his previous life, Lin Haoran had once read an article stating that in 1989, a single plot of land in Tokyo's Ginza district was worth more than all the land in California combined. There was even a saying that "selling Tokyo could buy the entire United States."
That alone showed just how crazily Japan's economy developed during the 1980s.
And now, it was only the early 1980s. Japan's economy was already rising rapidly, but it had not yet reached the insane heights of later years.
This period was absolutely a perfect time to invest.
Perhaps it was time to make a trip to Japan.
The last time he returned from the United States, he had also transferred through Tokyo, but at the time he had not gone out and instead returned directly to Hong Kong.
"Since Mr. Yamauchi isn't interested, then let's forget about it," Lin Haoran said with a smile.
"Mr. Lin, regarding the sales channel cooperation between our two sides, what are your thoughts?" Yamauchi felt nervous inwardly, worried that his earlier words may have offended Lin Haoran and that he might now reject the partnership outright.
However, Lin Haoran laughed openly and replied, "In principle, I agree with your cooperation proposal. As for the specific details, you may continue discussing them with Mr. Ma Shimin and Mr. Chan Sau-lin. I won't interfere too much."
Hearing this, the heavy burden in Yamauchi's heart was immediately lifted, and he let out a long sigh of relief.
Throughout Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia, Jardine Matheson had once possessed extremely powerful sales channels.
However, by now, nearly all of those channels had already fallen into Lin Haoran's hands.
Because of this, Yamauchi understood very clearly that the opportunity to cooperate with Lin Haoran absolutely could not be missed.
After all, Hongkong Land Group's current market influence was no longer limited to Hong Kong alone; it also possessed significant reach and strength throughout Southeast Asia.
"Thank you, thank you very much, Mr. Lin! If you ever have time, please visit our Nintendo headquarters in Kyoto. I will personally receive you with the utmost hospitality!" Yamauchi excitedly stood up and gave Lin Haoran a deep bow.
"Of course. If I have time, I'll definitely pay you a visit. You are giants in the video game industry, and there's much I can learn from you," Lin Haoran laughed.
Afterward, Lin Haoran did not continue the discussion with them and instead left the office.
Standing outside the doorway, he thought for a moment before deciding to head over to Wanching Building.
The relocation of Global Investment Company also needed to be implemented as soon as possible.
Ma Shimin had already told him that he could vacate two floors at any time for Global Investment Company's use.
With the company's current staff size, not to mention two floors, even half a floor would be sufficient.
However, there were many industry elites from Jardine Securities waiting to be absorbed, so relocating now was actually perfect timing.
Once the employee scale expanded, they would also conveniently absorb many of Jardine Securities' market operations.
More than ten minutes later, Lin Haoran appeared at Wanching Building.
He first went to Burton's office, only to learn from another executive that Burton had gone on a business trip that morning—and quite far away at that, to Bangkok.
After conducting a brief inspection of Wanching Group's headquarters and paying particular attention to the loyalty of the middle and senior management, finding no major issues, Lin Haoran once again took the elevator up to the 31st floor.
Inside the office, every employee was immersed in their work, busy and focused.
Global Investment Company's Hong Kong office currently had only around one hundred employees, making it much quieter than before.
Even so, since taking on external securities trading operations, their workload had increased significantly, leaving everyone especially busy.
As Lin Haoran passed the reception desk, he instructed the receptionist to inform Dai Shi to come to his office before walking directly into his workspace.
Not long afterward, Dai Shi hurried into Lin Haoran's office.
"Boss, you were looking for me?" Dai Shi asked respectfully.
"Yes, there's something important. You seem quite busy lately—did some good opportunity appear?" Lin Haoran asked with a smile.
"Yes, Boss, your intuition is spot on. Today, Bank of East Asia's stock experienced unusual activity. An unidentified shareholder is dumping a large number of shares, which presents an excellent opportunity for us.
"So I've already organized the team to closely monitor Bank of East Asia's stock movements and secretly accumulate shares. Opportunities like this disappear in an instant—we absolutely can't miss it," Dai Shi reported in detail.
Before departing for the United States, Lin Haoran had already conceived the idea of acquiring a local Hong Kong bank, and Bank of East Asia ultimately became his target.
However, acquiring Bank of East Asia was far from easy. It was almost completely controlled by the Li family, making it even more complicated than acquiring ordinary companies.
Most importantly, Bank of East Asia's stock trading volume was nowhere near as active as stocks in industries like real estate, which undoubtedly increased the difficulty of accumulating shares.
Still, Lin Haoran was not in a hurry, so he did not mind if the acquisition process progressed slowly.
At present, they were still in the gradual accumulation stage because he knew very clearly that the upcoming real estate crisis more than a year later would affect the banking industry as well. At that time, it would become the best opportunity for him to take control of Bank of East Asia.
Of course, if he could seize control ahead of schedule, that would naturally be even better.
"Mm, what percentage of Bank of East Asia shares do we secretly hold at the moment?" Lin Haoran asked.
"Boss, as of yesterday, we already held 7.84% of Bank of East Asia's shares. And today, because an unknown shareholder is heavily dumping stock, if our team operates properly, we have a very good chance of raising our holdings to 10%. At that point, we would become Bank of East Asia's second-largest shareholder!" Dai Shi reported.
(End of Chapter)