In less than half a month, hundreds of millions of dollars were spent like water, but it also allowed Gu Kun to completely sort out and integrate the interests of Lan Fang.
These more than 500 million U.S. dollars were not transferred between Gu Kun and Zhu Youdong, but were actually distributed to civilians, even foreign insurance companies, and real estate developers in Sarawak. This money will be used in the future.
In the Hong Kong dollar crisis, it will no longer be possible for Gu Kun to use it as ammunition to organize, and if it is dispersed, it will be dispersed.
If someone in this world had a God's perspective and could know twenty years in advance and twenty years in the future, then he might question whether it was worthwhile for Gu Kun to spend so much money at this juncture.
After all, reborn people know history and know that the Southeast Asian financial crisis and even the peak of the Internet stock bubble in 1999 are major events that can double assets by multiples. If there are hundreds of millions more funds now, there may be hundreds of millions more bases for doubling in the future.
However, Gu Kun obviously fully considered all these possibilities and still insisted on doing so.
Because he firmly believes that there will never be such a good opportunity for internal integration in the future. Lanfang is currently at a low point of financial crisis, whether it is persuading immigrants or integrating land resources.
If there had not been this crisis, maybe if you spent 1 billion US dollars or even 2 billion US dollars to completely rectify the country, you might not be able to achieve such high efficiency and consistency.
Gu Kun's overall view was further hampered.
Therefore, in order to clean up and reshuffle internally, we must seize the financial crisis as the best opportunity for resource integration.
Of course, in addition to subsidies to immigrant civilians and foreign insurance/real estate companies, Gu Kun also had an expenditure of approximately more than 200 million US dollars during this period, which belonged to the left hand and the right hand - that is, it came from his personal assets.
, paid to the royal family and relevant departments of the Lanzhou government.
This money was used to buy land.
The reason why Zhu Youdong wanted to sell the land was mainly because of the large financial gap caused by the national income tax reform in Lanfang.
The Lanzhou authorities already have a series of government construction and national security projects, all of which require large sums of money. During the financial crisis, government expenditures became even more scarce.
Therefore, during this series of subsidizing charitable acts, the relevant departments did not have enough money to spend, so they accelerated the sale of land.
As we all know, the surrounding desert islands in Lanzhou were not very expensive in the past few years. When Gu Kun bought the Benma Atoll, the 8.5 square kilometers of land was sold for only three to four million ringgit. According to the exchange rate at that time, it was only one thousand ringgit.
Thousands of RMB.
However, that price is a transfer of profits during the judicial auction, and the discount is very large. Under normal circumstances, the selling price of the concession development rights for uninhabited islands with water sources and vegetation is always millions of dollars per square kilometer, and this does not include territorial waters.
and rights and interests in the exclusive economic zone.
This time, because the economic crisis caused the price of land to plummet, and Gu Kun had such a good relationship with the royal family, it was half sale and half free. Gu Kun finally spent more than 200 million US dollars to acquire a series of outlying islands in eastern Lanfang at once.
It has a total land area of more than 100 square kilometers, as well as the accompanying marine economic exclusive zone rights.
However, Zhu Youdong still held back. He always felt that Gu Kun had something up his sleeve, so he proposed some profit sharing for state-owned shares: for all future profits from operating in the above-mentioned areas, the government would collect 30% from the revenue as sharing and tax, and the royal family would occupy
15%, developers can only get the remaining 55%.
Gu Kun finally accepted this condition.
It’s not that he is not greedy enough, but he knows that if oil is discovered in the future, he will not be able to swallow it all. Even if a company from Oceania or Brittany invests, it will have to pay taxes according to regulations, right?
Most of the revenue of oil companies is profits, and the corporate income tax in most countries is 25%.
The corporate income tax in Lanfang was very low before. This was because there were no big companies in Lanfang before and it wanted to attract foreign investment. Therefore, the corporate income tax was as low as in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands and Panama, making it almost a tax haven.
But if there is indeed oil, then a new set of national policies will definitely be needed.
Gu Kun directly blocked the mouth of the Lan Fang authorities with 30% tax and tax sharing, and confirmed the rights and responsibilities. There is nothing wrong with that.
…
After Gu Kun finished all this in Lanfang, it was already mid-December 1997.
It has been more than ten days since Soros criticized him in the media.
The depreciation of the Malaysian ringgit has almost passed and has stabilized. Now Soros's focus has shifted to attacking the Philippine peso and Indonesian rupiah at the same time.
And because Gu Kun spent all his dirty money on the right path, he felt that he could finally respond to Soros head-on.
On the same day, he said he would accept public interviews with Thai national television in Bangkok and some Malaysian media in Kuala Lumpur.
The media in Southeast Asian countries, of course, also wanted to see someone confront Soros, so they were very efficient and immediately arranged a schedule for Gu Kun.
On Friday, December 12th, Gu Kun went to Kuala Lumpur and participated in a weekend evening talk show, similar to CNN's "Larry King Live" in Oceania. The Malays also specially sent the most beautiful and charming people on national television.
The popular female host Danni Gran provided Gu Kun with the stage.
Most mainland audiences have never heard of the name Dani Gran, but they must have seen her face, because in the late 1990s and early 21st century, when I saw the Olay advertisement, the one above was so white and smooth that it shone brightly.
The face is that of Dani Grant. She is a mixture of Chinese and Malay locals, with a bit of Irish blood. She went to Xiangjiang to train as a supermodel.
However, it is only 1997, and she is still a 20-year-old newcomer who has just debuted. In Malaysia, a country that does not produce many beauties, such a face is already overwhelming.
The program is not broadcast live, but recorded and broadcast live, so the atmosphere is more relaxed, and you can cut out any inappropriate questions.
Gu Kun would not deliberately pursue the effect of live broadcast, because Soros's response back then was just an audio and video.
That afternoon, Gu Kun rushed to the studio and made preparations.
With all the lights and cameras in place, hostess Danni Gran followed the script and first asked the question that the audience was most concerned about:
"Mr. Gu Kun, I believe many viewers would like to know why you disappeared for so long before responding after Soros responded to your criticism last time?"
Gu Kun subconsciously touched his tie. It seemed that he was very close to the people and did not usually wear a tie: "Really? When did you know that Soros responded to me?"
Dani: "That was 12 days ago."
Gu Kun: "That's really unfortunate. I only heard about it a few days ago, three days at most. Maybe I was too busy and didn't notice it - but that's okay. After I choked last time, Mr. Soros
It must have been a long time before you responded, right?
So I got impatient and didn’t pay attention, thinking that he wouldn’t respond. I believe that most ordinary people don’t pay attention to financial news all the time.”
No matter what the content is, the gesture of "I look down on you" must be made first.
Dani did not continue to pester, and immediately asked: "Mr. Soros said that you and he are the same as each other. You criticize him, but your actions are the same as him, focusing on shorting the ringgit. He also said that at best, he is just the same on the outside.
Villain, and you are a hypocrite, do you have any explanation for this?"
Gu Kun laughed: "This is very ridiculous. I said that I would not agree with him if I criticized his destructive behavior. As for me buying a short position in the ringgit, it was just a coincidence because the ringgit was originally a member of the Lanfang Kingdom.
As one of the local currencies, I bought some hedging protection based on the total amount of national financial assets, which has nothing to do with speculation.
I have two pieces of evidence. First, my profits were indeed the actions of the Langan government and were used for hedging in the country. Second, Soros should have also made moves on the Philippine peso and the Indonesian rupiah, but on those two currencies
, I didn’t take any action.”
Dani's eyes lit up, half in admiration and half in disbelief: "Can you prove where those proceeds were used? Did you start doing this after he criticized you? Or did you start doing it before?"
Gu Kun didn't fall for the trap at all: "I don't know when he criticized me."
The hostess took a look at the information at hand: "Mr. Soros publicly refuted you on the Fox TV station in Atlanta on November 28th."
Gu Kun smiled easily: "There is no doubt that I was earlier than him. Around November 25, I had already started to use the proceeds from risk hedging for national hedging."
As for the destination of Gu Kun's hedging profits, Gu Kun also showed some evidence in public that was sufficiently probative.
The female host was very cooperative and cross-examined each case one by one, finally clearing up all the doubts in this regard.
Then, the show entered the rhythm of Gu Kun's full-scale counterattack against Soros and exposing his opponent's background.
"... Soros keeps saying that he is a philosopher, and his investment behavior is just to 'teach the world to correctly understand the world.' Then I have to remind him that the so-called 'philosophy' he upholds is just what he wants.
It's just an absolute free market concept that is promoted. The success or failure of an investment proves nothing at all.
According to him, is it the time when his investment failed miserably that proved that absolute financial freedom is just a ridiculous conjecture? If he maintains such a sanctimonious attitude and can represent the official attitude of Oceania, then he doesn’t know that Southeast Asia
Is the country's move from absolute financial freedom to financial macro-control also part of his calculation?
If he thinks so, then I want to congratulate the Oceania authorities. Wall Street has successfully used a lackey to force a group of allies who originally believed in absolute financial freedom to the opposite side. And Soros is not a philosopher at all. He just used the allies once.
Goodwill and trust only succeed by chance.
Just like in the Chinese history that we are familiar with, Han Xin may have had many military exploits in his life, but his successful sneak attack on Qi was not a glorious achievement, because the reason why Qi was attacked was because King Qi had already trusted Li Shiqi, the envoy of King Han.
Convinced, ready to surrender to the Han's sphere of influence.
Soros’s so-called freedom is just consuming the trust of allies. This kind of trust has been easily gained by Oceania’s strong position in globalization since the disintegration of Lucia in 1991, so Oceania does not cherish it.”