Victor looked at the man in the crowd. He was in his forties, wearing a suit. His eyes were small but full of energy. Victor knew he was from the Li family in Hong Kong.

"No problem." Victor nodded.

When the others saw this, they realized that they had lost two production lines, and someone immediately shouted, "Mr. Victor, my name is Hu Xinrong, and I am willing to cooperate with the Hardy Group to open a rubber shoe factory."

"I am He Song, and I am willing to cooperate with you in opening a zipper factory."

"I......"

People here signed up one after another, making it impossible for Victor to hear clearly. He was not in a hurry. He pressed his hand to the crowd and waited until the voices became quieter before saying, "Everyone, there are still many details to be worked out for the cooperation. Let's take a look at the equipment first, and we'll discuss the details when we return to my company."

"As I said just now, the Hardy Group is involved in many industries, not just these. If you have anything you want to cooperate with us, you can take the initiative to bring it up, and then we will discuss the cooperation in detail."

After hearing what Victor said, everyone stopped competing. After all, this was not a small business. A factory might require an investment of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, so one should not be too blindly impulsive.

Maybe there are other better businesses, you can take a closer look.

After looking at the machines, these people came to Hardy's Auction House together. So many people poured in at once that the originally spacious company suddenly seemed a little crowded.

Victor gave everyone a list that listed the content of the machinery and equipment, the manufacturable models, annual production volume, etc.

Below are the investment amounts and cooperation details.

For example, the nail production line includes two polishing machines, two wire drawing machines, and thirty nail making machines. It can produce 6 models with an annual output of 4,000 tons.

Such a set of production equipment costs 120,000 US dollars, or 900,000 Hong Kong dollars.

Of course,

This is the normal price of a second-hand machine. Since Hardy buys it from the U.S. military warehouse, it is probably only slightly higher than the price of scrap iron, not to mention the cost.

Building a factory also requires land, factory buildings, workers, imported raw materials, etc., which also require funds. The total investment is about US$170,000.

If they want to cooperate, the other party can decide the investment amount by themselves. Hardy Group does not have to be the majority shareholder, but it must retain at least 40% of the shares.

One point that attracted many businessmen was that they would be responsible for the operation of these industries. In other words, Hardy Company was only responsible for investment and had the right to supervise the factories, but was not responsible for operation and management.

Come to think of it.

How could such a large group company spend time and energy on such small investments? When looking for partners, they naturally want to find people who can contribute.

In fact, they didn't know that Hardy was planning to use a batch of machines that were of little value elsewhere to raise a lot of golden chickens here.

"Everyone, I have given you the lowest price. You can go back and consider whether to cooperate. If you are interested in cooperation, you can come back to me."

"What if multiple companies are interested in the same industry?" someone asked.

"First come, first served." Victor answered very straightforwardly.

These people took the list back and prepared to discuss it, but some people were afraid of unnecessary trouble and proposed cooperation on the spot. Victor was also straightforward and signed the contract directly.

......

No matter what happens here.

Victor visits Governor Grantham.

Grantham was an old-fashioned gentleman with a well-mannered appearance and white hair. He was highly regarded by later generations. After Victor came to Hong Kong, he was constantly on the move, which naturally caught the attention of this Hong Kong butler. He even specially asked someone to find out more about the Hardy Group.

Knowing that the Hardy Group is a very powerful company that has emerged recently, they sent Victor here specifically with the intention of developing the Hong Kong market.

Hong Kong today is in a state of disrepair. The Japanese occupation brought great damage to Hong Kong, and then a large number of mainland citizens poured in, putting Hong Kong under tremendous pressure. Grantham was supportive of an American company coming to Hong Kong to develop.

Victor requested a visit from him, and Grantham immediately agreed.

Victor shook hands respectfully and the two sat down. Grantham looked at Victor and asked, "What do you want to talk to me about?"

Victor smiled and said, "We, the Hardy Group, want to build an industrial zone and hope to get the support of Governor Grantham."

"Industrial area?"

"We brought more than a dozen sets of factory production lines this time, including iron nails, rubber shoes, telephone wires, zippers, umbrellas, etc. We plan to cooperate with local businessmen to open factories. Once these factories are opened, they can provide employment for thousands of people."

"It can also help Hong Kong's economic development and increase tax revenue."

"Not only that, our Hadi Group also wants to build more factories in Hong Kong and make Hong Kong one of the manufacturing bases in the East, with products sold to Southeast Asia, China, Japan, North Korea and other countries."

“The total investment could be more than $50 million.”

It’s definitely not that much, but it doesn’t stop Victor from bragging. After all, this is a long-term plan and no one can calculate it all at once.

He originally wanted to say 100 million US dollars.

I was afraid that if I said too much, the other party wouldn’t believe me, so I just kept it to myself.

However, the amount of 50 million US dollars still shocked Grantham. You have to know that the annual output value of Hong Kong is only a few tens of millions of pounds.

"Are you really going to invest 50 million?" asked Grantham.

“Maybe more. The group headquarters is still optimistic about Hong Kong, but this requires the support of the government,” said Victor.

“What kind of support do you need?”

"We need land. The Hadi Group's plan is to build dozens or even hundreds of factories. We need a large piece of land to accommodate these factories, and we also need to build technical facilities, such as roads, water, electricity, etc." Victor said.

"How much land is needed?" asked Grantham.

"Each factory is of different sizes, and each one has supporting factory buildings and warehouses, as well as auxiliary facilities. I asked someone to roughly calculate that it would take about 500 acres of land," said Victor.

Hardy had previously instructed Victor to buy as much land as possible in Hong Kong. Now that he finally had the chance, Victor opened his mouth with a huge demand.

Moreover, when these lands are used to build factories, the land will not be sold. A real estate management company will be established to rent the land to the factories for use.

When Victor said he wanted 500 acres of land, Grantham was shocked. "500 acres, how can you use that much land?"

Victor said: "We need to build not only factories but also dormitories for workers. The most important thing is that if an industrial cluster is formed, it will attract other supporting factories to join. We can't have no land available by then."

"I don't know if you know the history of Ford Motor. When Ford built a new factory in 1914, it bought 2,000 acres of land. But later, as the business grew, the 2,000 acres of land were not enough, so it bought another 1,000 acres of land far away."

Victor's use of Ford as an example is just being a hooligan, especially since that is the United States, which has a vast territory, a sparse population and abundant land reserves. This is Hong Kong, which is so small in size and mostly mountainous, so there is no comparison.

"Where do you want to get the land?" asked Grantham.

"Kowloon, I think there's a lot of open space there, which is suitable for concentrated construction," said Victor.

Grantham asked, feeling slightly relieved. Fortunately, this guy didn't want Hong Kong Island. He really couldn't get him 500 acres of land in Hong Kong Island.

Grantham asked someone to call the head of the land planning department, and they studied it together. It was 1948, and land transactions were not that fierce. Most of the land was in the hands of the government. Hong Kong Island was a city, and Kowloon was a countryside, with large tracts of farmland.

However, even so, there was no way to find a whole piece of land of 500 acres. In the end, three pieces of land were allocated to Victor, one near the foot of Lion Rock, one in Kowloon Tong, and finally another piece of land by the sea. Victor could build this land into a dock warehouse area to facilitate the transportation of goods.

As for the price, the current land price is really cheap, and in order to attract investment from the Hardy Group, the Hong Kong government half-sold and half-gave the land away, and the 500 acres of land only cost more than 1 million US dollars.

Moreover, the government has to reinvest the more than 1 million US dollars, after all, it needs to build water, electricity, roads and a leveling project.

Victor has his own team, including people brought from the United States and local people hired in Hong Kong. The land contract has been signed, and the matter of obtaining the land has been handed over to his subordinates to track. Victor is also closely working on the second matter.

Dozens of large yarn mills in Hong Kong received invitations from Victor, inviting them to discuss cotton purchasing matters, claiming that they had a large supply of cotton.

These yarn factory owners worry about cotton every day. Now when they hear that someone has cotton, they immediately swarm over.

A teahouse in Hong Kong.

There were four guests sitting at each table. In front of them there was no tea or snacks but a pile of cotton. It seemed that no one had the heart to drink tea as they were all looking at the cotton in their hands.

"Hey guys, this is long-staple cotton from California. California's climate is suitable for growing cotton. The average length is long, the strength is high, the fineness is 4.2, and the uniformity is higher than 82%. The quality of cotton is the best in the world."

Finally, Victor named a price, which was 2 cents per pound higher than the current market price. However, if it was the market price, many people would not have enough cotton, and some people were already smuggling cotton into the country, so the price would definitely be higher than Victor's.

Moreover, the cotton here is indeed better than that from other places, and the quality of the cotton yarn produced should also be better, with a high yield rate, so the benefits will naturally increase.

"Okay, our Dafa Textile Factory wants 1,000 tons." Someone stood up and said.

"Our Nanfeng Textile Factory wants 600 tons." someone else shouted.

Victor waved his hand to stop everyone. "Everyone, this is not a one-shot deal. Hardy Group can supply cotton for a long time, and it's all American cotton. You can place orders as needed, and I will send a fleet here every month."

When people heard about this idea, they thought it was a good idea as it saved them a lot of trouble. Some people also thought that Victor's cotton was good and wanted to use this kind of cotton all the time.

People placed orders one after another, and after summarizing the total, Victor took a look and found that about 17,000 tons were needed each month, which was much more than he expected.

This business has nothing to do with the military. It is mainly related to the shipping company. Hardy asked if there was any shipping business here. Victor found that there was a shortage of cotton here and thought of this business. Shipping cotton from the United States to Hong Kong, after deducting costs and transportation fees, has a profit of about 35%. This business is worth doing in the long run.

......

A few more days passed.

Victor sent out invitations again, this time inviting some of Hong Kong's powerful large and medium-sized businesses, including British businesses.

Victor has been making a lot of moves these days, which has attracted a lot of attention. I wonder what business Victor is going to discuss this time.

It was a fine day and hundreds of people gathered at Victoria Harbour, including the presidents and managers of the four major British trading companies: Jardine Matheson, Swire, Hutchison Whampoa and Wheelock, as well as members of the Kadoorie family and the Ho Tung family.

There are also some other large Chinese firms.

They didn't know why Victor had called them to the dock. Victor smiled at everyone and said loudly, "Everyone, have you seen the two cargo ships anchored in the harbor? I wonder if anyone is interested."

Everyone was shocked.

"Is Mr. Victor planning to sell the cargo ship?" someone asked in surprise.

"Yes, our Hardy Group is preparing to sell this kind of large ocean freighter. The smaller one is called Liberty, with a load of 7,000 tons, and the larger one is called Victory, with a load of 15,000 tons. These ships were transport ships for the US military during World War II. The longest one was launched no more than 7 years ago, and the shortest was only 3 years ago."

"The Liberty ship cost 1.6 million US dollars, and the Victory ship cost 2.8 million US dollars. Now these ships are sold at super low prices, 800,000 US dollars for a Liberty ship, and 1.5 million US dollars for a Victory ship. I wonder if anyone is interested."

Many people were shocked and the price was directly cut in half.

The four major trading companies all had shipping businesses, and each owned dozens of ships. They were very interested in these Liberty and Victory ships.

"In addition to purchasing whole ships, our Hadi Group also has a leasing business, which provides captains and sailors, and can also fly the US flag to facilitate the transportation of goods."

Now more people are interested.

Some trading companies were not as wealthy as the Big Four, so it was indeed difficult for them to come up with so much money at once, especially since these people were thinking of getting more ships. Chartering a ship was a good option, and they could also fly the U.S. flag, and the crew and sailors were all complete, saving them a lot of trouble.

Even families that originally did not want to get involved in shipping began to consider doing so.

At this time, a small boat came over, and Victor smiled and asked everyone to get on board, "Come on, I'll take you to the Victory Wheel to have a look, it's more intuitive this way."

Crowds of people boarded the ship and were soon transported to the Victory. Everyone toured the ship together. The captain had been notified earlier and came out to accompany the tour.

Someone pointed to a pedestal and asked, "What is this for?"

"Oh, this is where the anti-aircraft guns were placed in the past. At that time, we had to guard against German sneak attacks every day. After the war, the military converted these ships to civilian use and the heavy weapons were dismantled." The captain said with a smile.

At this time, someone said, "Pirates are rampant outside now. It would be great if we kept these weapons on board to deal with pirates."

The captain laughed when he heard this, "Haha, we did encounter pirates on our way here, but they were all blown up and sank to the bottom of the sea to feed the fish."

Everyone was shocked.

"How did you fight the pirates?"

The captain asked someone to open the tarpaulin at the side, revealing a heavy machine gun inside. There was also a wooden box next to it, which contained bazooka rockets, and another box contained dozens of submachine guns.

The captain smiled and said, "Our company is equipped with these weapons. The boss has instructed us not to be polite when encountering pirates. We should just sink them. The people on our ship are all retired soldiers. We used to drive these ships to deal with the Germans. Some small pirates can't scare us."

Some people are more tempted.

If you hire a group of people to help you, you won't be afraid of encountering pirates. You should know that a cargo ship's two biggest enemies are wind and waves and pirates.

Someone looked at Victor and asked, "Mr. Victor, if we rent your company's ship, should we bring these weapons with us?"

Victor smiled softly: "Of course, equipped with a full set of weapons. What we lack the least is weapons. If possible, the boss said he wants to equip these ships with close-in weapon systems."

......