Chapter 309 - Surprising Gain
Translator: Lav
Editor: Red
Hu Xiaohua nodded and smiled, “Manager Wang, let me introduce everyone. This is Jiang Yuan who came with me, this is Shi Lei, who also comes from Run Zhou like me, but lives in Wudong right now. I had lunch with him, so we are catching up.”
Manager Wang quickly shook hands with Jiang Yuan. Without a doubt, Jiang Yuan wouldn’t be lower in social status if he could drink tea with a rich second-generation like Hu Xiaohua.
“Hello, Young Master Jiang…” He also reached his hands towards Shi Lei, but didn’t know how to address him. Normally, he would have to call Shi Lei Young Master Shi, but he had interacted with Shi Lei before. Shi Lei said that his Armani clothes were fake and his car was booked online. If Shi Lei was just an ordinary person like what he said, wasn’t he slapping his own face if he called Shi Lei Young Master Shi?
Shi Lei felt slightly awkward, too, as he never thought that he would encounter Wang Kaiming again…
Mhm, Wang Kaiming, Shi Lei felt like he didn’t remember it wrong.
Wang Kaiming was the manager for big clients at the stock exchange office where Shi Lei opened a new account. Hu Xiaohua called him Manager Wang probably only out of politeness. Of course, it could be because he had another post, or perhaps was promoted recently.
Because Shi Lei came in a Cadillac worth over a million yuan and a full set of Armani clothes, Wang Kaiming thought he was a big client and hence greeted Shi Lei himself. But he never imagined that Shi Lei only wanted to open an account and said that the Cadillac was booked online and his Armani clothes were fake. He also paid some attention to Shi Lei’s account, and it was indeed just funds around 100,000 yuan which made him give up the thought.
He never expected to meet Shi Lei here, and Wang Kaiming knew that Shi Lei’s jacket was Givenchy’s new design at first glance. Now that Shi Lei was sitting with someone like Hu Xiaohua, Shi Lei felt awkward. Wasn’t it obvious that he had been lying to Wang Kaiming?
Luckily Wang Kaiming was good with handling people. He thought that Shi Lei didn’t want to expose his identity at the first meeting, he stretched out his hands and smiled, “Young Master Shi, we meet again.”
Shi Lei coughed awkwardly and shook hands with him.
Hu Xiaohua smiled, “Manager Wang, do you know Shi Lei?”
Wang Kaiming couldn’t say too much as he laughed dryly, “Young Master Shi opened an account at my office, and I was one who greeted him.”
“Oh!”
Shi Lei scratched his head and briefly explained what happened that day. Hu Xiaohua and Jiang Yuan laughed at it. In fact, they felt strange too; Shi Lei’s family was indeed ordinary, but his friends were all either noble or wealthy, and they were people of high social status which even Hu Xiaohua and Jiang Yuan couldn’t climb up to. However, they couldn’t ask about it as they let it slip.
Seeing that Hu Xiaohua and Wang Kaiming seemed to be familiar with each other, Shi Lei began to think.
They didn’t really have any substantial conversations. Like Hu Xiaohua said, he was just in charge of getting in touch with him first, then Hu Jianjun would have to come himself. Shi Lei paid close attention to it and researched about privatizing companies.
He entered the main search words: company, privatizing, and then clicked into the Baidu wikipedia.
The so-called privatizing a company meant that after a company had operated in the market for a while, the biggest shareholder with control over the company decided to buy all the stock from the other shareholders back. It allowed the company to leave the stock market and change from a public company to a private company.
Normally, there were two reason behind the decision to privatize the company.
The first reason was that the stock was cheap, which was unfavorable to the company overall. But the company’s shareholders and management saw potential in the company’s development, so privatizing the company would be more beneficial for the company’s future development.
The second reason was because the relationship between the stocks was rather simple. The big shareholder had complete control over the company and privatizing would provide a better environment for the company’s operation.
Because Hu Xiaohua said that his father wanted to adjust the investments for the future, so Shi Lei assumed that Hu Jianjun was doing it for the second reason.
After researching, Shi Lei briefly understood that it was difficult for the company and the big shareholder to take out so much cash to purchase the stock back when privatizing the company, otherwise they wouldn’t need to work with the stock exchange. The majority of the time, the process of privatizing the company required them to borrow cash from the exchange office, which was the same principle as asking for leverage when speculating in stocks.
Because this kind of action required an enormous amount of cash, they needed a good relationship with the exchange office. The company had to have a good reputation in order to receive a large amount of leverage from the exchange office.
He could see that Hu Xiaohua and Wang Kaiming were just talking casually, but Jiang Yuan cut in once a while and he sounded more professional.
Shi Lei asked Jiang Yuan, “Are you in the area of stocks and bonds?”
Jiang Yuan shook his head, “I’m studying finance, but I do know slightly about this kind of thing. Compared to Xiaohua, I’m more familiar with the exchange office.”
“So you have a good relationship with the stock exchange people?”
“Not really, we just come in touch quite often. My dad is a shareholder for Manager Wang’s company. Why? Are you interested? Tell me how much leverage you want and I’ll speak for you. If the fund is below five million, I can get you five or six times that amount of leverage.”
Shi Lei seemed embarrassed as he whispered, “I don’t need leverage, I just want to do something related to stocks.”
“What can you do without leverage? Although it looks less risky with your own funds without the possibility of forcefully ending the contract, but the profit is low too, it’s no different than speculating stocks.”
“You know my family’s situation. I’m just lucky to make friends with wealthy people like you. How would I dare to ask for leverage, I might be bankrupt if I use the amount of money I have.”
“Then what do you want to do?” Jiang Yuan was curious, as he thought that Shi Lei wanted to borrow from him to get more leverage. Although he knew that Shi Lei had an ordinary family background, judging the relationship Shi Lei had with Song Miaomiao and Wei Qing, Jiang Yuan really wasn’t worried that Shi Lei would have too much of a problem. And, leverage was leverage, the office would forcefully end the contract if it was too risky for the office, too. As long as the funds weren’t too much, he could help Shi Lei with it.
Shi Lei dragged Jiang Yuan outside the room in embarrassment and spoke, “Well, you know that there’s a basic amount of funds I need before I can start. It’s not like stocks where I can start playing with it with a few 100,000 yuan. But I only have a few 100,000 yuan and it’s not enough to meet the basic requirements. If it’s not too troublesome, can you speak for me? Although I may not have much money and I don’t want leverage, just make me a special case and let me have a play.”
Jiang Yuan looked at Shi Lei with strange expression and shook his head, “Don’t tell me you really need such a small amount of money?”
Shi Lei replied seriously, “My parents are just ordinary workers. Oh oh oh, thanks to you guys, my dad is now the president. But we really don’t get much. Even this 100,000 yuan, I put in so much effort to earn it.”
Jiang Yuan looked speechless. “That’s not a problem. I’ll talk to them later and you can contact Wang Kaiming. I have limited power for leverage, but with your amount of funds, ten times shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I don’t need leverage, it’s fine as long as they allow me into the market.” Shi Lei smiled in satisfaction.