Chapter 724 - Soaring Stock Price!
Chapter 724: Soaring Stock Price!
“Liaocheng?”
Cao Qiguang’s friend was stunned. He did not know what was going on.
Cao Qiguang said, “I’m only gonna say it this once. Once you’re out of this room, no matter who you tell, I will never admit to ever saying it..”
His friend said, “Do you still not trust me? Relax.”
Cao Qiguang smiled and said, “In 2005, there was a man named Zheng Ming in Liaocheng. This man had established a drilling company and spent three years developing a new drilling technology.
“Some local organizations discovered this and felt that his technology was exceptional, so they wanted to cooperate with him. However, he thought that his technology was priceless and wanted to monopolize it, so he rejected everyone’s offer.
“In the end, a big boss’s child took a fancy to his company and wanted to invest in it, but he still refused.
“Therefore, under the leadership of this big boss’s son, several local organizations worked together to capture him and locked him up for five years.
“During those five years, a few organizations claimed to be his creditors to enter into his company. Then, through some share transfer, they finally managed to have his technology’s patent transferred to themselves.
After Cao Qiguang finished speaking, he leisurely added, “What do you think of this method?”
Cao Qiguang’s friend was stunned and said, “Isn’t this illegal?”
Cao Qiguang laughed. “Old Zhang, you really are dense. We aren’t the ones who broke the law, it’s this Zheng Ming person and Su Yang. We have to believe in the law’s judgment.”
Cao Qiguang’s friend did not speak for a while before he finally said, “Old Cao, will this tactic really work?”
Cao Qiguang did not say for sure. Instead, he only said, “If neither of us put in the effort, how are we supposed to fight for a piece of the pie?
“Are you going to wait for it to drop from the sky?
“Stop being naive, Old Zhang. Being a capitalist is bloody. It’s a man-eat-man world out there!”
Old Zhang hesitated for a long time before finally saying, “Old Cao, I’ll pretend that I’ve never heard of this. You can also pretend that you’ve never told me about it. To be honest, I feel that this method is too inhumane.”
Perhaps because he knew how dangerous Cao Qiguang was, Old Zhang did not dare to hang up the phone. He was afraid that Cao Qiguang would suspect that he was going to snitch on the latter, so Old Zhang purposely said a few things that he had done that were illegal or could not be publicly known.
When Cao Qiguang heard that Old Zhang had rejected him, he did have some thoughts. However, after Old Zhang exposed his own weakness, Cao Qiguang chose to believe him in the end.
After all, the fact that he had told Old Zhang about this first meant that the two of them had a good relationship and a certain trust for each other.
After hanging up, Cao Qiguang thought for a long time before he picked up his phone and called another person.
This time, he had learned his lesson based on his previous conversation with Old Zhang, so he did not tell him about this piece of news. Instead, he first tried to talk to his friend about the context of it very vaguely.
After realizing that his friend was more accepting than Old Zhang, Cao Qiguang told this friend about the news, which the latter was interested
Therefore, Cao Qiguang was considered to have found his first ally.
The reason why he wanted to look for other allies was because, just like what Old Zhang had said, they were going to cross the line. If there was only one person at play, it was very likely that the plan would end up with a failure.
In fact, even if Cao Qiguang did manage to pull it off himself, the subsequent backlash from both Su Yang and the people backing him up would be troublesome.
Furthermore, even if Su Yang was taken down by him, there was no way he could reap all the benefits for himself.
Since he was going to have to split the profits in the end anyway, Cao Qiguang thought he might as well use those profits to lure the other families in and work together.
As expected of a self-made boss, Cao Qiguang did have a great plan.
Very soon, under Cao Qiguang’s collaboration, another small organization was born under the “Anti-Su Alliance”. This organization was not as loose as its predecessor, but everyone knew exactly what was going on and how private it had to be. Therefore, this also led to the organization being very secretive and not known to the outside world.
Of course… Su Yang did not belong to the outside world.
After all, he had Janet with him, who had shrunk his body as much as possible and transformed into a drop of water. Then, while Cao Qiguang was asleep, he snuck into his hair and hid in it.
This way, he would be able to know everything that Cao Qiguang was doing, who he was meeting and what he was up to in secret.
Therefore, Cao Qiguang’s organization, which he thought was very secretive, was actually under Janet’s, or rather… Su Yang’s strict surveillance.
After gathering a few people to form this small interest group, everything was more or less ready. Cao Qiguang also had to report to the person who was backing him up and ask for that person’s opinion.
Strictly speaking, Cao Qiguang was not considered a local in Shanghai. When he was young, he had indeed lived in Shanghai. However, in order to develop and improve his living conditions, his parents had sold their houses in Shanghai and bought a few houses in Hangzhou, which had yet to develop.
Looking at the value of the houses on both sides, it was hard to say whether it would be a profit or a loss. However, based on Cao Qiguang’s development and his family’s life over the years, it was going to be a profit.
Growing up in Hangzhou, Cao Qiguang naturally had his own network and connections. Ever since he started his business, he had been supported by a big boss in Hangzhou.
Even the data processing center for Xinli Education was built in Hangzhou. Under the jurisdiction of the big boss, he enjoyed a series of benefits.
This was also why he believed that his contributions to the company were no less than Zhao Licheng’s.
While Cao Qiguang was progressing step by step, the big boss was also a rising star. He was one of the top three big shots in Zhejiang Province at the time and was an influential figure in the country.
In fact, he was the reason why Cao Qiguang was always arrogant.
Therefore, after everything was ready, Cao Qiguang felt that he should ask for his opinion.
Before heading to Hangzhou, Cao Qiguang called the big shot and asked for his availability.
Unfortunately, that big boss was on a business trip in another city and was not in Hangzhou.
The fortunate thing was however, the big shot would be returning the day after tomorrow.
To be safe, the two never talked about certain topics over the phone, so Cao Qiguang said that he would visit the day after tomorrow.
…
At the same time, in Hong Kong, Su Yang’s Trader, Wei Lin, was also on the move.
Over the past few days, Su Yang’s 1.6 billion yuan had been transferred to Hong Kong. 1.6 billion yuan might seem like a lot, but it was nothing to the major banks. Therefore, with the help of insiders, this sum of money was transferred to Wei Lin without any delay.
Although Wei Lin had suddenly gained so much money, his mood was not affected at all. Instead, he appeared extremely calm.
Su Yang had his own connections in the mainland, while Wei Lin had his own connections in Hong Kong. After all, he had lived in Hong Kong for a few years and worked at a trading center.
Even though he was only doing administrative work, under his influence, he still understood the various rules better than someone who was not in the industry.
Relying on the resources that he had left behind when he was alive, he found several organizations that held Xinli Education stocks. Then, he borrowed these stocks from them in batches to build up his leverage to empty out Xinli Education.
These steps were all carried out secretly. Since the market value of Xinli Education was not high and it was not considered a big public listed company, it did not attract any attention.
After obtaining a large number of shares, Wei Lin hired people to borrow a small portion of the shares from other organizations.
While Wei Lin was absorbing Xinli Education’s stocks, he was also closely monitoring the transfer flow of Xinli Education’s stocks.
After all, emptying a company is a very dangerous and complicated thing to do.
Theoretically, it would be to find some organizations that had “held a certain company’s stock for a long time” and give them enough deposit before obtaining the corresponding stock.
For an organization that had been holding this company for a long time, they did not need to gamble with the person who was going to empty out the company since they were going to earn a huge amount from the transaction fee.
Furthermore, because of the existence of the deposit, the organization’s risk is infinitely close to zero.
For example, Wei Lin used 1,000 yuan to buy the right to use 100 shares of Xinli Education’s stock (10 yuan per share) from the institution and then gave them a deposit of 500 yuan in return. Then, the organization would automatically pay the bill. Thus, when the stock rises from 10 yuan to 15 yuan, it would be bought automatically.
When the stock price rises to 15 yuan, the organization would automatically buy 100 shares without any risk. Of course, Wei Lin’s side would be in trouble. The stock would explode, and it was highly likely that Wei Lin would lose his entire capital.
Based on this, one could see the danger of emptying out a company. The moment a stock doesn’t fall as expected, they would most likely lose all of their capital.
However, this was not the worst part of it.
Sometimes, when the stocks fall, it would still cause the person who was emptying the company to lose everything as well.
This is because when the market was empty, the price of the stock would drop drastically. If it ends up lower than its original value, then there is a high chance that someone or an organization would take the opportunity to absorb the stock at a low price. In fact, there is also a chance that the emptied company would also repurchase their stocks.
On top of that, the total stock of a company is fixed. Once there are too few stocks circulating on the market, even fewer than the number of stocks borrowed by the person who emptied them, even if the company’s stock fell to 0.01 yuan, the person who emptied it would still lose all their capital. Worse, they might even go bankrupt or drown in heavy debts.
For example, Xinli Education had a total of 1,000 shares. The company had 500 shares and the stock market had 500 shares. Wei Lin wanted to empty out the company, so he borrowed 200 shares. When the share price fell, he sold them all.
At the same time, other people and companies bought back 310 shares, so there would only be 190 shares remaining in the market.
At that moment, even if Wei Lin spent one trillion yuan, he would only be able to buy back 190 shares. He would not be able to return the shares that he had borrowed. Therefore, he could only spend a high price and propose a bunch of tall terms to buy these 10 shares so that he would not break the contract.
There was a professional term in stock trading called “short-squeeze.”
There was once a financial tycoon in Europe who lost more than 6 billion yuan because of a short-squeeze and went bankrupt.
Therefore, Wei Lin, who had rich experience in trading and had successfully advanced to [Advanced Stock Trading Ability], would naturally not ignore the risk of being short-squeezed.
Especially since Xinli Education had just been listed, most of their shares were being locked. Hence, there were not many shares in circulation, so the risk was even greater.
And as he calculated the shares of Xinli Education, an idea came to Wei Lin’s mind. ‘Hmm… This might be a better way to handle it.’
…
The next day, Cao Qiguang did not go to the company but went to Hangzhou to wait for the big boss who was backing him up.
On the other hand, Mr. Wang was having a meeting in another city and did not rush back to the office.
The deputy director of the finance department had submitted the financial report to the company’s investor relations department and prepared to upload it.
At the same time, Wei Lin had just given Su Yang a call and reported his idea. After obtaining Su Yang’s approval, Wei Lin started to get to work.
…
On the third day, at 10 am…
As it was a quarterly financial report submitted at the last minute, there was no need for the board of directors and the supervisors to approve it. With the signatures and stamps of the finance department and the chairman, the investor relations department easily verified the manuscript and passed the final review of the financial report.
After the internal financial report, the investor relations department began to go to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s reservation system and release the required disclosure media.
Since Hong Kong Stock Exchange did not require the company to disclose quarterly financial reports, there were not many companies waiting in line to release their reports at the beginning of April. Therefore, within just 10 minutes, the upload was completed and successfully released.
So, not long after the stock market opened in Hong Kong, Xinli Education caused a huge ripple in a dead lake.
The death of the founder of Xinli Education company, which was on the verge of going public and the change in the management’s future development’s direction after going public actually left the investors feeling less optimistic. As a result, the stock price fell from 40 yuan to about 30 yuan, which was almost a quarter of the market value.
However, the quarterly financial report that Xinli Education just released was a huge slap to everyone’s faces.
The report showed that although Xinli Education had invested heavily in opening branches, it had successfully attracted potential local users. In three months, 56 branches had successfully opened, bringing a considerable amount of traffic and a rising income to its offline classes.
This led to total revenues of 2.15 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2015, up by 73.7% from its previous year; a gross profit of 830 million yuan, up by 44.3% from its previous year; a net profit of 190 million yuan, up by 21.9% from the previous year. All in all, its data were all higher than the market expectations.
At the end of the quarterly financial report, Cao Qiguang, the CEO of Xinli Education, stated this. ‘In 2015, Xinli Education will continue to invest money into the opening of branches and adopt two types of additions and direct operations to establish hundreds of branches across the country.
‘While these branches will increase the net income of Xinli Education’s offline classes, it will also attract more users to online lessons as well.
‘Xinli Education will introduce more experienced teachers, improve the quality of the lessons, diversify the curriculum and continue to nurture and strengthen online education platforms and user communities.
‘On top of that, Xinli Education is also optimizing the income structure of the corporation and increasing the entire group’s income.
‘I believe these measures will help strengthen the company’s competitive advantage and provide strong support for long-term sustainable development.’
Undoubtedly, Cao Qiguang’s explanation was able to bluff everyone easily. Based on his explanation, there was a branch under Xinli Education that was about to become the number one private education institution in the country.
Therefore, when the financial report and announcement were released, Xinli Education’s stocks soared by 8%.