Arriving at the underground parking lot of Wheelock Group's headquarters, Su Cheng took the elevator with his bodyguards directly to John Madden's office.
At this moment, it is only 9:40 in the morning, and there are still twenty minutes before the meeting, so there is no rush to go to the conference room.
And the conference room is also on the same floor as the chairman's office, just a few steps away.
"Good morning, Mr. Su." John Madden greeted Su City when he saw it.
"Good morning, Mr. John." Su Cheng smiled.
However, Su Cheng could feel at this moment that John Madden was in a bad mood, and the smile on his face was just forced out.
Sioux City can also understand that John Madden bears the greatest responsibility for Wheelock Group’s current situation.
Even, all the responsibility can fall on him.
After all, in the entire Wheelock Group, John Madden is the chairman of the board of directors, while Su Cheng and Zhang Yulong, the two major shareholders, have no business at all.
In other words, the Wheelock Group is entirely controlled by John Madden.
Now, the company's development policy has failed, resulting in serious losses for the group. This responsibility naturally falls on John Madden.
And today Zhang Yulong proposed to convene this meeting, which is obviously to hold John Madden accountable!
Speaking of which, John Madden was very grateful to Sioux City.
Su City has been the majority shareholder of Wheelock Group for a long time.
However, Sioux City has never blamed John Madden for his management decisions, nor has he blamed him for the plummeting profit of Wheelock Group. In every board meeting, he has directly stated that he will not participate in any decision-making. .
Even now, when even the Zhang family can't help but publicly blame John Madden, Su Cheng has never expressed any attitude from the beginning to the end.
This attitude is a kind of support for John Madden!
"Mr. John, what is the purpose of this meeting?" Su Cheng asked, pretending not to know the reason.
"Mr. Su, you will know at the meeting." John Madden did not want to say more on this issue.
For him, Zhang Yulong's visit today was aimed at him, so naturally he didn't want to say more about it.
"Mr. Zhang hasn't come yet?" Lin Haoran continued to ask.
Su Cheng has actually never met Zhang Yulong, because Zhang Yulong has been in Australia for a long time and rarely returns to Xiangjiang.
Even if I go back to Xiangjiang, I will never come to Wheelock.
On Wheelock's board of directors, there are also directors from the Zhang family. Generally, directors from the Zhang family represent the Zhang family.
“Here, we’ve already gone to the conference room.” John Madden replied.
Su Cheng nodded.
Soon, ten o'clock arrived, and Sioux City and John Madden also came to the conference room.
There are already more than a dozen people sitting in the conference room.
These are all board members of Wheelock Group. Every major event of the group is decided by these people.
Of course, it was actually more decided by John Madden, and few people objected to the decisions he made.
During this time, things were very difficult for Wheelock Group.
The saddest thing is Wheelock Shipping Company.
Many ships, with no business, can only dock at the dock.
However, Wheelock Shipping’s aggressive expansion also comes at a high cost.
Although a lot of the funds were transferred from Wheelock headquarters, some of the funds were borrowed from banks.
The wanton expansion of ships has left Wheelock Shipping with a very high debt ratio.
With so many ships and no business, they not only have to pay huge employee wages, port docking fees, maintenance fees, etc., but also have to pay back huge loans and interest.
So, today’s Wheelock Shipping can be said to have far greater expenses than income.
At the beginning, John Madden was so ambitious.
How downcast he is now.
A Wheelock shipping company may even be able to bring down the entire Wheelock Group in the future.
“Hello, colleagues, today’s board meeting was convened by me. I believe the reason is very clear to you. Under the chairmanship of Mr. John, our Wheelock Group has been aggressively attacking the shipping industry. Expansion, investing a lot of profits into the shipping company
But after all, the shipping company not only failed to give our group enough returns, but is now heavily in debt, paying every month. Our Wheelock Group provides subsidies. If this continues, our Wheelock Group will be brought down sooner or later. Mr. John will bear the greatest responsibility for this matter.
Although I don't care about the group's affairs, as a member of the group. Shareholders, this has already involved my interests, so I would like to ask Mr. Madden, what kind of explanation do you want to give on this matter?
Just because I am not involved in management does not mean that I am responsible for Wheelock Group. Ignore it, if Mr. John doesn't have a good explanation, then don't blame our Zhang family for making a corresponding decision on this matter!" As soon as the meeting began, Zhang Yulong started to get angry.
"What Mr. Zhang said is indeed true. I have nothing to explain. As the group's decision-maker, I would like to apologize to all Wheelock Group. The most important thing for us now is not how to hold people accountable, but We should think about how we can save Wheelock Group and get it out of trouble." John Madden did not quarrel with the other party because of Zhang Yulong's attack, but easily resolved Zhang Yulong's most difficult issue of accountability. Things are avoided.
After all, he can't shirk responsibility and has nothing to talk about.
Should he resign directly?
Now that he holds so many shares, John Madden will definitely not resign.
However, at this moment, he had the idea of quitting the Wheelock Group.
He had this idea in 1976, but he did not quit successfully that time.
Now, it is obvious that he has triggered a conflict with the Zhang family, which is difficult to resolve.
At this moment, coupled with John Madden's advanced age, he gradually began to have the idea of quitting the Wheelock Group and retreating from the world.
"Then tell me, how do you save Wheelock Group? If you continue to subsidize Wheelock Shipping Company, no matter how we make money as Wheelock Group, we will eventually slip through Wheelock Shipping Company If it flows out, this will not only cause serious losses to the group, but also cause serious losses to our shareholders of Wheelock Group, our Zhang family, Mr. Su, and all shareholders!" Zhang Yulong continued.
"So, everyone should discuss how to deal with this matter. Mr. Zhang, do you have any good ideas?" John Madden threw the question back to Zhang Yulong.
"Now Wheelock Shipping is responsible for so much, but it can't be sold, and there is no successor. What can I do? I think Mr. John should resign as chairman of Wheelock Group and then recruit a new replacement." A talented professional manager, I think Mr. Su will support me in this matter!" Zhang Yulong looked at Su Cheng at this time. From beginning to end, Su Cheng didn't say a word and just watched the development of the situation.
“I believe that the depression in the shipping industry is only short-lived. As long as we persist for a period of time, there will definitely be a day of harvest.” John Madden said this.
Although he put the Wheelock Group into trouble, he still felt that the depression in the shipping industry was just the end of luck!
Su Cheng was a little confused. He came here just to paddle, and had no intention of interfering with the internal affairs of Wheelock Group. Unexpectedly, Zhang Jade Dragon asked him about it.
Since he was asked, it would be disrespectful for him not to answer, so Su Cheng was prepared to talk casually.
"Mr. Zhang, Mr. John, I have no way to comment on this matter. Everyone knows that I own too many companies. Although I am the major shareholder of Wheelock Group, I have never participated in this matter. There are not even directors assigned to the side business.
I have great faith in Mr. John’s management ability. I believe that no one wants to see this situation. Not only is the shipping industry in depression now, The real estate industry is also in recession, and the general environment is not good, so we can only persevere. No one can say whether Wheelock Group can survive. I don’t know how long this shipping industry crisis will last. It depends on luck. .
If I were in charge of Wheelock Group, I would definitely send many talented managers in to find ways to improve the situation of Wheelock Group, but I am just a shareholder now, so If you ask me, I don’t know what to do. You decide, and I won’t stand in the way of your decision.” However, Su Cheng didn’t come up with any useful solutions.
Improving Wheelock Group? What a joke, then wouldn’t he have no chance of joining the Wheelock Group?
Only by completely disappointing John Madden and the Zhang family would he have the opportunity to join the Wheelock Group.
With Sioux City’s current shares, whether it is John Madden or Zhang Yulong, if any company sells its shares to him and withdraws from the Wheelock Group, Sioux City can directly control Wheelock.
Before this, he couldn't have taken care of so much. How could he save Wheelock Group? That's even more impossible.
If it is saved, it means that Wheelock Group is on the right track of development, and profits have increased again. At this time, whether it is John Madden or the Zhang family, who wants to sell shares?
So, Su Cheng waited for whoever of the other two could not persist first, then he would acquire the other's shares and then take control of the group.
Next, the meeting shifted from seeking responsibility to discussing how to save the group.
However, Wheelock's biggest dilemma today is Wheelock Shipping Company's huge debt ratio.
It is not easy to solve this problem.
The simplest solution actually exists, and someone also proposed it at the meeting.
That is to sell the Wheelock Shipping Company ships.
However, this method is difficult to implement at this time.
At this time, unless you sell at a serious loss, you will not be able to sell it at all.
The market is not good. Keeping these boats is like supporting your little ancestors. You won’t get any business even if you buy them. Who would do such a stupid thing?
Even if it is half sold and half given away, you may not be able to find a buyer.
So, this is the problem. It is basically a dead end, and it is impossible to solve this dead end for the time being.
Judging from the current situation, the market situation next year may be even worse.
In fact, the market situation in 1984 was not much better than the market situation in 1983.
The depression in the shipping industry is caused by many factors such as the decline of the world economy, the excess of ships, and the rise in oil prices.
These cannot be restored in a short time.
In fact, if Wheelock Shipping Company was from Sioux City, he would not have to worry about Wheelock Shipping Company losing money at all, because even under the current bad brokerage market, Sioux City's Although various businesses have shrunk slightly, they are still very good.
His career spans the world.
In other words, the companies under Sioux City are actually very dependent on the shipping industry.
The shipping industry has so many advantages. It can transport a lot of goods at one time. When divided equally, the transportation cost of each piece of goods is greatly reduced.
If it is transported by air, the cost will be too high.
So, in Suzhou City’s view, there is no problem at all to solve Wheelock Group’s current predicament.
The board meeting deliberated for a long time, but in the end no result was reached.
Even if John Madden intends to retire, he probably will not completely withdraw from the Wheelock Group this year. According to the information he obtained from Xiao Ai, John Madden will not completely withdraw from the Wheelock Group until the end of 1984. .
So, even if he has the intention to quit now, it is not very strong.
Because of this, Sioux City does not intend to interfere too much in the internal affairs of Wheelock Group.
From Su Cheng's point of view, it doesn't matter if the Wheelock Group loses money. The small amount of money it loses is Wheelock's loss, and it is not his loss. He just has no dividends for the time being.
The meeting was over, and just when Su Cheng was about to leave, he was stopped by Zhang Yulong.
"Mr. Su, can I talk to you?" Zhang Yulong asked.
Zhang Yulong knew that the gap between himself and Su Cheng was too big.
In the eyes of many people, Wheelock Group is a giant group, but Zhang Yulong knows that Wheelock Group may be just a not very important company in the eyes of Suzhou City.
After all, Sioux City’s Su Group, Hutchison Whampoa Group, Hong Kong Electric Group, etc. are many companies that are larger than Wheelock Group.
"What's wrong, Mr. Zhang?" Su Cheng stopped and turned around in confusion.
"Let's find a place to chat and talk slowly." Zhang Yulong said this without being in a hurry to say it.
"Okay, I just don't have anything to do today, so let's find a place to sit down and chat. Speaking of which, I'm not very familiar with Mr. Zhang." Su Cheng said with a smile.
It is true that he is not familiar with it. Although he knew Zhang Yulong when he acquired the shares of Wheelock Group, he only knew it briefly.
Moreover, today he saw Zhang Yulong himself for the first time.
"I have admired Mr. Su for a long time. Mr. Su's name is famous all over the world." Zhang Yulong said with emotion.
"Then let's talk in the conference room?" Su Cheng asked without picking up Zhang Yulong's topic.
"Why don't we find a place to sit down and have a good chat? This is not a good place to chat." However, Zhang Yulong shook his head and said.
"Okay, how about we go to Joy Lai Restaurant? It's a restaurant owned by me. Mr. Zhang can feel free to say whatever he wants." Su Cheng said with a smile.
He probably guessed that Zhang Yulong wanted to talk to him about something he didn't want others to know. (End of chapter)