It was not just Lu Jianchao and Han Shaorong who had not yet left Africa to return to China who were paying attention to Cao Mo's departure.
"Many people think that in this poor and backward land, the people are so ignorant and lazy that apart from oil, gold and diamonds, they can no longer dig out any valuable wealth, but they never thought that a humble Chinese boy could
Making such a big noise on the shores of Lake Cornero..."
A tall and handsome young man of Anglo-Saxon descent, with bright blond hair, wearing a wrinkled white shirt, jeans, a pair of Martin boots with frayed edges, and a bulky long-lens camera hanging in front of him.
But it seemed that a reporter from the media invited by the event party was standing in the corner of the hall, commenting with another young man next to Cao Mo as he left.
"In the past few years, we have also come into contact with many Chinese investors. Most of them are vulgar, greedy, and have no foresight. But this Chinese guy is terrifyingly cautious. Stephen has been investigating Chinese businessmen's placer gold mining in the Disujin Valley for some time.
, this time the hillside collapsed, blocked the river, and burst open, causing so many casualties. It was definitely a God-given opportunity to detonate public opinion. However, I didn’t want him to get the news, so I rushed to Mangba with reporters from the Associated Press. I didn’t expect that Mangba would go up and down.
They are all short-sighted fools, and they were bought by this Chinese boy with such a small amount of money; and the truly valuable news materials were also washed away by the flood. Stephen and the others published several newsletters afterwards, but now the world
Everyone is paying attention to the earthquake in China, and a few insignificant newsletters were silently drowned by the countless information surges every day." The young man next to him has short brown hair, although he also looks like a
He was dressed like a media reporter, but with a cynical look on his face, he was looking at the people in the hall who said, "I'll come on stage after you sing."
"Don't think that Chinese investors are greedy or rude, so you should not feel contempt for them. This is exactly a manifestation of the unimaginable vitality that China has exploded in recent years. Think about it, six or seven years ago when we first arrived in Kanem
, can you imagine that even as far away as West Africa, Chinese businessmen are active everywhere? Can you imagine that Chinese businessmen will one day invest hundreds of millions of dollars in project construction in such a far away place? It is a pity that most idiots do not realize that
When the crisis comes, I think that if I control the oil in this land, everything will be fine, and everything else is just minutiae. Yes, the scale of investment by Chinese businessmen in this land is still very limited. Compared with the billions of dollars of oil investment, it is still a little
Their penetration into society and politics is still very shallow, but have they ever thought that in addition to oil, wealth in other fields will one day not be able to satisfy the appetite of Chinese businessmen? By then, Gong is afraid that it will be too late to be alert.
"Yes," the blond young man said, "More importantly, the Chinese government's direct penetration and control of the economic field is a big drawback in the eyes of many people, but it has shown strong action when it expands externally.
And execution is something we shouldn’t ignore.”
"During this period, the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, UBS, the British Bank of Canada, etc. have all cut interest rates, released reserves, and injected large amounts of funds into their respective domestic banking industries. The U.S. Congress has also approved a housing market with a total value of 300 billion U.S. dollars.
The aid plan does not seem to be able to reverse the current situation of credit crunch and economic stagnation. We really need to be more careful. It seems like what you said, there will be a more serious crisis coming..." said the brown-haired young man.
“If you look at the crude oil futures that have been soaring in the past two months, you will know that so many speculators, well-dressed financiers, and bankers around the world are short-sighted. Not only do they not realize the abyss,
Even if a crisis comes, it will even break out more violently because of these short-sighted fools..."
The blond young man said disdainfully,
"The construction of Cornero Marina New City has officially started. You go to see Nitz Oppenheimer in the evening and say that Atlantic Bank can provide all necessary construction funds for Cornero Marina New City, but it requires Taihua Group to get the refinery and science and technology.
Mortgage of shares in the Port of Lake Nairo..."
"OK!"
The two young men talked in the corner for a while, then walked out of the hall when no one was paying attention, got on a Mitsubishi SUV and headed towards downtown Draculamore.
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Draculamore has gathered one-tenth of the population of the country Kanem. It is the most impressive, but the most incomprehensible thing is probably the bad traffic conditions, and the fact that Cao Mo has never seen a light after arriving in Africa.
traffic lights.
"In all the years you have been in Africa, have you ever seen the traffic light at the intersection of Dracula Mo?" Xiao Jun was also very confused by this phenomenon. He sat in the passenger seat and turned to ask Cao Mo.
"On the streets of Draculamore, any street has to be blocked for several hours every day. It makes no difference whether there is a traffic light or not; if there is a traffic light, it is better to just turn it off to save some electricity." Cao Mo was not surprised.
, said indifferently.
Although it was the rainy season in Kanem, the air was slightly wafted by the salty smell from the Atlantic Ocean. However, the high humidity of 367-7 degrees Celsius under the scorching sun made them feel miserable sitting in an old pickup truck with ineffective air conditioning.
Fortunately, there are people everywhere on the street carrying large bags of ice-cold mineral water and selling ice cubes.
Seeing the blond young man and the short brown-haired young man parking their Mitsubishi SUV in front of an old European-style building, Cao Mo asked Orlu to park the car on the side of the road, roll down the window, and call over to a man selling ice water on the side of the road.
The hawker took out the change and bought a few bags of iced mineral water and handed them to Xiao Jun, Oru.
It is said to be mineral water, but in fact it is just pure water sealed in a plastic bag.
There are several such small factories in the Conero Lake Industrial Park, and they do not have any filtration and water purification equipment. They just use tap water supplied by the park's water plant for packaging.
A small bag is equivalent to RMB 50 cents when it is pure, and it is equivalent to RMB 2 when it is chilled and sold on the street. It is considered a luxury product for ordinary local people.
However, with such hot weather and the worrying quality of local tap water, this small package of purified water is still very popular among the several small purified water plants in the Conero Lake Industrial Park.
, living a very comfortable life, which is completely unreasonable in China.
"Ade, follow me and see if they just happened to go into Atlantic Bank to do something..." Seeing the blond young man and the brown-haired youth walking into the building under the scorching sun, Cao Mo looked at the "Atlantic Bank" sign in front of the building in confusion.
In English, through the intercom, he asked Ade, who was riding in another car, to follow him into the building and take a look.
After a while, Ade walked out of the building. Cao Mo signaled Oru to drive into a small alley next to him and pick Ade up.
"After the two young men entered the building, they went directly into the work area. They are indeed not ordinary media reporters!" Ade said, "I have left their video information and will collect their information as soon as possible!"
"Don't forget, the key point is to investigate the background of Atlantic Bank!" Cao Mo said with a frown.
"How did you know there was something wrong with these two boys?" Xiao Jun couldn't help but asked curiously.
After coming out of the New Taihua Resort Hotel, Cao Mo suddenly called over an old pickup truck, got in the car and stood guard outside the parking lot of the New Taihua Resort Hotel, and then followed the Mitsubishi off-road vehicle into Dracula Motor.
urban area.
This shows that in Cao Mo's eyes, these two reporters are definitely not just simple problems. Otherwise, Cao Mo could just send two people to investigate their situation. There is no need to go out of his way to find an old shabby car in person.
Take a trip?
"I also accidentally saw the short brown-haired man making eye contact with Nsangge, and I became a little suspicious; and when we just walked out of the New Taihua Resort Hotel, these two people kept looking at me in the corner.
I'm sure I haven't met these two before. I kept a low profile today and didn't bother to trouble Lu Jianchao, Han Shaorong and the others. I don't think they look like normal reporters." Cao Mo couldn't explain some things in his spiritual intuition.
, digressing into the details, he said, "Where the funds for Fulkov's investment come from has been bothering me for too long. Maybe Atlantic Bank is the key. You need to investigate them carefully."
data of."
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As the financial and trade center of West Africa, Draculamo includes branches of European and American banks in Canem, as well as hundreds of large and small banks and insurance companies.
However, with a clear goal, it is not that difficult to investigate the basic information of a bank in Kanem, where the Internet is far from developed.
Three days later, the information about Atlantic Bank was placed on Cao Mo's desk.
Atlantic Bank is not a branch directly established by European and American financial institutions in Kanem. It was once a state-owned bank directly under the central government of Kanem. After the end of the military rule, the democratically elected government promoted the privatization process and took control of Atlantic Bank.
It completely fell from the federal government into the hands of private capital.
“...After the privatization of Atlantic Bank, the controlling stake fell into the hands of foreign capital. According to current public information, the top three shareholders are all from the United Kingdom. However, it is not yet possible to determine whether there is any connection between the three British shareholders.
The investigation does not want to alert the public, and I do not recommend hiring a third-party commercial company to conduct an investigation now. Bank Atlantic’s capital is not large. Publicly available information shows that its tier one capital is less than one billion U.S. dollars, and its branches are only located in the Gulf of Guinea.
Theoretically speaking, in the major cities along the coast, Atlantic Bank, which has little roots and has encountered operational difficulties, can hardly compete with the branches of major international banks in Draculamore in many businesses. The survival situation should not be
That’s great, but their business scale in recent years, especially the international business scale, is quite large..."
Zhou Han showed Cao Mo the information he had collected in the past three days.
Cao Mo opened the thick stack of materials and saw that there was information about the blond young man in it. He took out his materials and took a closer look with interest.
Teskin Foster is only 30 years old this year. After the bank completed its privatization six years ago, at the age of 24, he served as executive vice president of Bank Atlantic on behalf of Foster Corporation, the largest investor.
Cao Mo's development in West Africa in recent years has been jaw-dropping, but he himself also felt that he lacked knowledge and experience in many aspects.
Banking and financial business are even more complex than cement production and gold mining.
When Teskin Foster was twenty-four years old, he went to work for Atlantic Bank on behalf of Tester, the largest investor, and even controlled the core international business department. It can be seen that his ability was deeply influenced by the company or the company at that time.
Said he was highly trusted by his family.
Data also shows that the international business department of Atlantic Bank is developing the fastest. Last year, the scale of international settlement business was nearly 8 billion US dollars.
Throughout West Africa, the scale of international settlement business in one year is very limited, and Bank Atlantic, which is little known, has far lower strength and trust than major international banks, and does not have the endorsement of the local government, has been able to develop such an international settlement business.
On such a large scale, the only thing Cao Mo could think of was that they provided channels for entry and exit and laundering of a lot of shady funds, such as crime, corruption, bribery, tax evasion, smuggling and other illegal income.
The data also shows that at the beginning of the privatization of Atlantic Bank, the scale of tier-one capital was even smaller, only 200 million US dollars. It was precisely the international business that Teskin was responsible for that brought a large amount of profits to Atlantic Bank in recent years, making its core business
Capital expanded five-fold in just five or six years and established a foothold in the international settlement business in West Africa.
"If the person behind Furkov Investment is really Sturgeon Foster, it is not difficult to explain why he must hide behind the scenes and not show up," Zhou Han said with some excitement, "One day
On the one hand, Fulkov Investment used shady gray funds this time, and on the other hand, Sturgeon Foster’s method of using these funds from Atlantic Bank was also shady..."
As a bank with both merchant investment properties (similar to domestic trust companies and securities companies), Atlantic Bank could have established trust funds openly or directly used its own capital to invest in equity and other aspects of the corresponding industries.
Sturgeon Foster
He tried every means to hide behind the scenes and took risks to embezzle funds using shady means, which meant that his expectations for the south shore of Lake Cornero were extremely high, and what he was seeking was by no means normal business profits.
As for Sturgeon Foster, she concealed her identity two days ago, pretended to be a reporter, and entered the signing ceremony of the new city of Cornero Marina. No matter how you look at it, it seems that you have ulterior motives.
This is what Zhou Han is excited about.
She had previously thought that Han Shaorong was the person with ulterior motives around the Lu family, but she did not expect that there was a more greedy mouth hidden behind Fulkov's investment, especially since Sturgeon controlled Atlantic Bank and Atlantic United Oil Trading Company.
Can set deeper and more hidden traps for the Lu family from both ends:
For example, Western Union Petroleum provides a longer account period to the New Taihua Refinery, increasing the short-term debt scale of the New Taihua Refinery and the Taihua Group...
Cao Mo put a stack of materials on the corner of the table and wanted to put the matter behind him for the time being. Zhou Han walked up behind him, hugged his neck from behind the building, slapped his forehead, and said, "Can you please stop?"
Just give me an advantage when you need something from me?"
"Then I'll tell you honestly, will you agree?" Zhou Han walked up to Cao Mo and said, leaning on the desk.
Zhou Han was wearing a white silk shirt and black slim-fitting trousers. The simple outfit made her slim and slender. Cao Mo couldn't help but put his arms around her waist and said, "Tell me.
Have you come up with another bad idea?"
"Can you use some of your funds now to secretly absorb Taihua Group's stocks in China?" Zhou Han asked.
She has confirmed that an important means for the Lu family to prepare funds is to pledge their shares in the listed company Taihua Group and borrow large amounts of construction funds from major financial institutions.
There is a certain range for financial institutions to accept shareholders of listed companies using their stocks as collateral for loans.
If the stock price falls beyond the lower limit of the pledge ratio, financial institutions have the right to require the borrower to supplement new pledged assets or deposits, or to directly repay the loan.
If shareholders of a listed company have no money to repay and cannot replenish new pledged assets, financial institutions have the right to sell pledged stocks to realize cash to offset corresponding claims.
They are now secretly absorbing the shares of Taihua Group, in order to push the price of Taihua shares at some point in the future to break through the lower limit of the pledge rate of the Lu family for borrowing from financial institutions with shares of listed companies, triggering a larger-scale liquidation.
sell off.
After the domestic stock market historically broke through the peak of 6,300 points in mid-October last year, it ushered in a long adjustment period of seven months. It is currently oscillating back to around 3,500 points. Many people have given up the money they earned in the bull market.
The market value of a considerable part of listed companies has been reduced back to its original shape.
The market value of Taihua Group peaked at 20 billion, but has now fallen back to around 10 billion.
There is currently no mature short-selling mechanism in China. If they want to have direct means to suppress Taihua's stock price at some point in the future, they can only secretly absorb Taihua's shares now.
Cao Mo held his chin and thought for a moment, then said to Zhou Han: "Send a text message to Ge Jun and ask him if he has time for a video call at this time?"
"Do you want to tell Ge Jun all this key information?" Zhou Han asked.
"Taihua Group currently has a market capitalization of 10 billion. To absorb stocks that can hit its stock price at some point in the future, no matter how small it is, it needs 3.5 billion in funds, right?" Cao Mo said, "I
It's not that I care about the possible losses, but the problem is that I really want to use Tianyue's account to absorb Taihua's stocks. Lu Jianchao, how could Lu Jiancheng not notice it? And at a certain moment, we forced too hard, Lu Jianchao,
If Lu Jiancheng has no other choice, will he directly hand over the control of Taihua to Han Shaorong? We don’t want the Lu family to have an easy time, but we must also prevent Han Shaorong from taking advantage of the situation..."
Zhou Han nodded. Looking at the time in China, it was around ten o'clock at night. It was not clear whether Ge Jun could spare the time to discuss this issue with them, so he sent a text message first.
Ge Jun was socializing outside at this time, but he quickly found a quiet place and got on the phone with Cao Mo.
Cao Mo told Ge Jun some information about Sturgeon West and Atlantic Bank, and also mentioned that Zhou Han had just talked about the idea of absorbing stocks first and then hitting Taihua's stock price within a certain period of time, doubling the damage.
.
"I suggest not to take any action for the time being," Ge Jun said after pondering for a long time. "With such a deep adjustment in the domestic stock market, many people have judged that there will be a considerable rebound in the future. However, the crisis caused by U.S. real estate subprime credit
The crisis has not yet shown any signs of easing. Instead, it is getting worse. Now all the major financial outlets in the country are quietly tightening their belts."
Cao Mo glanced at Zhou Han.
As a professional, Ge Jun has judged that the domestic stock market is likely to fall further, which means that if they really want to secretly absorb the share price of Taihua Group, they should not be in a hurry.
Zhou Han spread his hands and waited all these years, so of course he would not be in a hurry.
"I just wanted to talk to you about futures hedging..." Ge Jun said on the other end of the phone.
In order to maintain the stability of operations, Ibogu Mining is so large at the same time. It has long-term cooperation with gold import and export trading companies and conducts spot transactions based on the average futures price of the month.
However, even if the international gold futures price tends to rise in the long term, it will fluctuate up and down in a short period of time. In theory, there is a certain amount of arbitrage space in the futures market through long and short operations, combined with spot trading.
Of course, Song Yuqing, Chen Feng and others do not have such in-depth research on the international economic situation, precious metals and futures trading, and Jiaying is far from being able to do this. Although Yibogu Mining has spot production, which can offset the biggest risks,
It is impossible to accurately capture the trading time, and it is not very meaningful.
So Cao Mo thought of handing part of the funds to the professional team of Dongjiang Securities to conduct corresponding futures operations based on the actual operating conditions of Yibogu Mining...