How A Ride-Hailing Driver Comes To Dominate The World? [EN]: Chapter 426

Holding Jinbai Oil and Gas Company

The shareholders and executives of Jinbai Oil and Gas Company were shocked by the short-selling reports from Starlight Investment and Berkshire Hathaway.

Why?

Because Starlight Investment’s short-selling report detailed how the company’s shareholders and executives secretly embezzled a portion of the profits by underreporting revenue.

While other companies commit financial fraud to inflate revenue and profits, Jinbai Oil and Gas Company commits financial fraud to conceal a portion of its profits. This is what sets a wealthy company apart from the rest.

If they truthfully reported revenue and profits, the money earned would have to be shared with all shareholders.

However, by concealing a portion, that portion could be distributed among a select few.

For a large company with trillions of dollars in annual revenue and hundreds of billions of dollars in net profit, even a small amount of concealment could be quite alarming.

For example, according to Starlight Investment’s short-selling report, the company concealed approximately $36 billion in revenue last year. This money was distributed among more than 20 royal family members, including the old man Hillman who tried to force Maya into marriage.

Corruption exists everywhere, and people weren’t so much shocked by the money itself, but by Starlight Investment’s intelligence capabilities.

Who would have thought that an investment company’s ability to gather intelligence would be stronger than that of a national intelligence agency?

This seemed almost unbelievable.

Of course, it would be impossible to obtain such accurate data solely relying on Starlight Investment’s researchers.

However, Starlight Defense’s intelligence department possessed this capability. They obtained data through methods such as network intrusion and handed it over to Starlight Investment, which then used its researchers to organize the data and create the short-selling report.

It could be said that worldwide, apart from some powerful countries’ government departments, only Yang Chen had the individual ability to do this.

Even the researchers at Berkshire Hathaway, as strong as Warren Buffett, could only analyze based on public data and couldn’t find the specific data and names of those involved in Jinbai Oil and Gas Company’s embezzlement.

Faced with such a precise short-selling report, the shareholders of Jinbai Oil and Gas Company could no longer remain passive.

Investment institutions and retail investors, who were originally prepared to stand with the royal family members, lost confidence and rushed to sell their shares.

Once the entire market turned bearish, it was truly difficult to reverse the situation.

Unless the royal family member shareholders could raise nearly a trillion dollars in a short period to completely prop up the price.

Although they were indeed rich, they absolutely couldn’t quickly raise such a large amount of cash. Even powerful countries like China and the United States couldn’t raise so much cash in a short period.

By the close of trading, Jinbai Oil and Gas Company’s stock price plummeted by 50%.

Originally, this was a good opportunity for royal family members to buy the dip and increase their holdings, but they simply didn’t have the wherewithal to do so.

At this time, they were arguing at the shareholders’ meeting.

Those shareholders and executives who didn’t embezzle demanded that those who did return the money they had embezzled over the years. With that money, they could buy the dip and increase their holdings.

But how could they give back what they had already taken?

Those shareholders and executives who embezzled simply denied it, saying they had no money and would return it when they had it.

Was this a joke?

How could the other shareholders agree?

The two sides argued more and more fiercely, and finally, they even started fighting.

After this fight, institutional investors applied to the local Securities Regulatory Commission to freeze the accounts of all shareholders and executives suspected of embezzlement, and then refund the money from these frozen accounts after the investigation was clear.

With this matter becoming so big, the local Securities Regulatory Commission and the police, of course, had to take action.

Whether or not to return the money was another matter, but at least they had to put on a show of investigating, otherwise, it would affect the business reputation of Jinbai and even the entire UAE [United Arab Emirates].

And what Yang Chen was waiting for was for these people’s accounts to be frozen, so they could only watch Yang Chen and Buffett buy the dip.

At this time, it was 11 p.m. in China.

Poor Lansheed was sued by the bar for not being able to pay the bill, and the relevant departments detained Lansheed’s and others’ documents, not allowing them to leave China at will.

Jinbai was in chaos again, and all the accounts at home were frozen. Lansheed could only find a way to transfer money from the Swiss bank to pay the bill.

Originally, he wanted the embassy to help pay the bill, but the embassy didn’t have so much cash available.

And Maya didn’t care about him, so he could only rely on himself.

The bar manager had already reminded him that if he didn’t pay the bill by 12 noon, he would have to pay an additional 1 million late fee for every hour he was late.

He could refuse to pay, but then he would have to be prepared to deal with the mercenary assassination of Starlight Defense Group.

Therefore, Lansheed was particularly anxious now, and kept urging the Swiss bank to hurry up. The more he delayed, the more he would have to pay a million.

The next morning, news came from Russia again.

“Russia and India have reached a strategic cooperation agreement. India will purchase no less than 100 million barrels of crude oil from Russia in batches, with the price including freight between 30-35 US dollars per barrel.”

As soon as this news came out, it immediately detonated the entire crude oil market.

Yesterday, they said that Russia had overturned the table, but today they did even more, directly smashing the pot, so that no one could eat.

Even twenty years ago, it was difficult to buy at this price.

What exactly did Russia mean?

Who made the decision, why was it selling so cheaply?

After a closer look at the news, the inside story became clearer.

The oil exported by Russia is called Ural oil, and the quality is very poor. It cannot be directly used for industrial production and must be purified to obtain usable oil.

What China imports is light oil, which is more expensive, but the quality is very high and can be used to directly process various oil products.

However, only industry insiders or people with more experience can understand this. Ordinary people simply do not understand the difference between crude oil, petroleum, and gasoline.

They just think that Russia has suppressed the oil price to 30-35 US dollars a barrel, and the international oil price will definitely collapse.

Therefore, those ordinary retail investors did not hesitate to put up orders to sell and quickly clear their positions.

Yang Chen and Buffett agreed that they would wait for retail investors to panic and sell to suppress the price when the market opened today. When the price came to around 3 US dollars, both parties would immediately enter the market to buy.

Yang Chen went all in this time. All the funds of his personal and Starlight Investment overseas were transferred, totaling about 500 billion US dollars.

However, Starlight Investment also shorted the futures market and more than 30 oil companies at the same time. They had to leave half of the funds for later buying to close their positions.

Therefore, they only had 250 billion US dollars available, but they leveraged these funds 2-3 times at various banks and securities companies, raising approximately 600 billion US dollars in available funds.

Buffett also urgently raised 150 billion US dollars. As long as the two companies cooperated well, this money was enough to control Jinbai Oil and Gas Company after the big drop.

The stock market opened.

Unsurprisingly, the entire oil sector fell sharply.

Because of the fight yesterday, many royal family member shareholders who did not get a share of the embezzled money also began to sell their holdings.

Once they sold too many of their shares, it would directly lead to the royal family losing control of the company.

With the “efforts” of most investors, Jinbai Oil and Gas Company’s stock price fell below 3 US dollars in just three minutes.

According to the plan, Yang Chen and Buffett began to secretly buy in batches.

When the stock price fell to 2.5 US dollars, it stopped falling. Then, Yang Chen and Buffett’s funds began to enter the market in large quantities, directly eating up all the stocks they had put up for sale before the investors who had put up the sell orders could react.

The stock price of Jinbai Oil and Gas Company showed a straight upward line, rising from the lowest point of 2.5 US dollars to 6 US dollars in one breath.

The whole process took less than three minutes, and the speed of buying was quite fast. Many investors wanted to withdraw their sell orders when they saw the stock price rebound, but it was too late.

At this time, Buffett’s 150 billion US dollars had been exhausted, and Yang Chen’s 600 billion US dollars had used up 500 billion.

Originally, he was aiming for control, so Yang Chen did not keep the remaining 100 billion US dollars and ordered Jin Ming to buy them all.

The outcome was settled, and the royal family member shareholders of Jinbai Oil and Gas Company belatedly realized that something was wrong.

But at this time, there were not many sell orders on the market, and the stock price fluctuated around 7.5 US dollars.

Even if the royal family members raised sufficient funds now, they would not be able to buy many stocks.

Starlight Investment and Berkshire Hathaway began to count the results.

Starlight Investment spent 600 billion US dollars and acquired a total of 55% of the shares of Jinbai Oil and Gas Company.

Berkshire Hathaway spent 150 billion US dollars and acquired a total of about 10% of the shares of Jinbai Oil and Gas Company.

Obviously, even without Buffett’s share, Yang Chen’s Starlight Investment could already control Jinbai Oil and Gas Company.

However, Yang Chen is a man of his word. He said that he would buy back Buffett’s shares at a 20% premium when the funds were turned around in the future, and he would definitely do what he said.

Without Buffett’s help this time, it would have been impossible for Yang Chen to suppress the stock price of Jinbai Oil and Gas Company so thoroughly.

After all, the title of “stock god” is there, and his name is indeed more useful than Yang Chen’s.

But!

That was before.

From now on, Starlight Investment will surpass Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway to become the most famous investment company in the world.

Shorting and controlling Jinbai Oil and Gas Company will definitely become Starlight Investment’s battle to ascend the throne.

At this time, Jin Ming was still nervously directing the traders to carry out buying operations.

Because Starlight Investment shorted crude oil futures and major oil company stocks worldwide before the official plunge in oil prices.

Now, it needs to buy at a low price to close the shorted futures and stocks. This operation to harvest the global oil market is considered complete.

Due to the time difference, the closing work took two days, with a total profit of 150 billion US dollars and a return rate of 60%.

After this part of the funds was recovered, Yang Chen immediately proposed to buy Berkshire Hathaway’s shares in Jinbai Oil and Gas Company from Buffett.

But!

Buffett actually refused.

Why?

Because Buffett originally thought that Yang Chen’s funds would not be too much, at most about 200 billion US dollars.

The equity that Yang Chen could buy with this money would account for about 20%.

The equity purchased by Berkshire Hathaway’s 150 billion US dollars should account for between 10% and 15%.

In this case, even if Berkshire Hathaway sells all the shares it bought to Yang Chen, Yang Chen’s total shareholding ratio would not be enough to control Jinbai Oil and Gas Company.

As long as Yang Chen cannot control Jinbai Oil and Gas Company, the money he invested may be wasted at any time.

Why?

Because the Jinbai royal family member shareholders can dilute Yang Chen’s shareholding by issuing additional shares, ultimately leading to Yang Chen investing a huge amount of money but failing to achieve the goal of controlling Jinbai Oil and Gas Company, and can only act as a financial investor waiting for dividends.

But now the situation is different, exceeding Buffett’s imagination.

Yang Chen already holds 55% of the shares, and no one can influence him.

If Buffett sells Berkshire Hathaway’s 10% stake to Yang Chen, and Yang Chen spends a little more money to buy about 2% of the shares, he will achieve absolute control of Jinbai Oil and Gas Company.

Once Yang Chen absolutely controls Jinbai Oil and Gas Company, it will not only be a simple investment income issue, but also a matter of oil strategy, and even international relations and the global economic pattern.

Yang Chen wants Jinbai Oil and Gas Company to sell cheap oil and natural gas to China, and then sell it to other countries at high prices to subsidize the parts that are less profitable or even loss-making in China. Wouldn’t that be other countries’ people supporting the Chinese people?

How can this be allowed?

This situation must not be allowed to happen.

Therefore, Buffett rejected Yang Chen’s request to acquire that 10% stake and said that he would not sell it no matter how much money he was offered.

However, after this battle, Buffett was completely convinced by Yang Chen.

Therefore, he specially invited Yang Chen to meet and explain.

“Some things are not easy for me to say clearly, but I believe Mr. Yang should be able to understand my difficulties. If I sell this part of the equity to you, I will be investigated when I go back. I am very sorry that I broke my promise, and I express my sincere apologies to Mr. Yang,” Buffett said embarrassedly.

To be honest, Yang Chen did not expect that he could acquire so many shares at the beginning.

Now that he is only 10% of Buffett’s shares away from absolutely controlling Jinbai Oil and Gas Company, Yang Chen certainly does not want to miss such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“I can probably understand what Mr. Buffett means. However, I still hope that Mr. Buffett can sell me that 10%. The price is negotiable, how about a 50% premium?” Yang Chen asked.

Buffett: “Mr. Yang, this is not a matter of money. To be honest, I have received orders from our country to protect this 10% stake and absolutely not let you get it. So, I really can’t sell it to you. Not to mention a 50% premium, even if you offer a 5 times premium, I can’t sell it to you. Many things in strategy cannot be bought with money. However, I really admire Mr. Yang’s methods. This battle has greatly exceeded my expectations. To be honest, if I had expected this situation, I would never have helped you. You are too terrible. I think in the near future, you will definitely become a man who conquers the world.”

Yang Chen: “Mr. Buffett, don’t flatter me. Let’s get down to business. Can’t you really consider it again?”

Buffett shook his head and said, “I really can’t consider it anymore. I hope Mr. Yang can understand.”

Yang Chen: “Okay! Then I’m going to harvest you.”

Buffett was stunned. After a few seconds, he laughed and said, “Mr. Yang, don’t scare me. You must be joking with me, right?”

Harvest Buffett?

Is this an idea that anyone would dare to have?

Even if you were drunk, you wouldn’t think that was possible.

Buffett’s smile was a confident smile, and also a slightly contemptuous smile.

Unless the US government takes action, no one can touch Buffett.

Yang Chen smiled slightly, like a smiling assassin, and said, “Mr. Buffett, do I look like I’m joking with you? I have given Mr. Buffett opportunities again and again, but you seem to take this for granted. I think of you when I have good things, and you don’t think you can do it. I don’t force you. You want to do it later, and I don’t say anything and accept you. We agreed in advance to operate together, and when my funds are turned around, I will buy the part you bought at a 20% premium. Now you are telling me these things and breaking the contract. Do you think I would joke about that?”

The smile on Buffett’s face gradually disappeared. He saw Yang Chen’s seriousness, felt Yang Chen’s displeasure, and also believed that Yang Chen would definitely dare to do what he said.

It’s just that he really can’t imagine how Yang Chen can “harvest” him.

Buffett: “It seems that Mr. Yang is very serious, then can I ask you how you plan to operate?”

Yang Chen: “Can I tell you this in advance? Okay, let’s end our discussion here today. I have already shown my cards to you, and then it depends on who is stronger between us. Goodbye, I’m leaving first. I won’t see you off tomorrow, I wish you a safe journey.”

Looking at Yang Chen’s leaving back, Buffett felt an ominous premonition in his heart.

He had to return home tomorrow and convene a team to study his weaknesses.

As long as he has no weaknesses, Yang Chen will not be able to harvest him even if he wants to.

The joint short-selling of Jinbai by Starlight Investment and Berkshire Hathaway has shocked the global capital market.

Since ancient times, short-selling has not been welcome.

When George Soros shorted Southeast Asia, his reputation suffered, and he was often called a financial robber.

For example, when Muddy Waters Research shorted Luckin Coffee some time ago, it was also met with a lot of criticism.

However, short-selling is also a form of investment in the capital market. As long as it is successful, it will still be praised by insiders.

As for the discussions and criticism of ordinary people, what does it matter compared to real money?

Therefore, as long as there is an opportunity to short, those institutions will not hesitate.

At this time, China’s capital market is also in a state of jubilation.

After all, China has an investment company that can stir up world capital.

In the past, China only had to be harvested by foreign capital. Now, China finally has a company that can harvest foreign wealth, and the Chinese people are of course happy.

Therefore, related topics such as “Starlight Investment shorts Jinbai Oil and Gas Company”, “Starlight Investment joins hands with Buffett”, and “Starlight Investment controls Jinbai Oil and Gas Company” have rushed to the trending lists of major platforms.

Capital circles and ordinary netizens have come to leave messages of support.

“Awesome! As an investor who has been in the industry for 25 years, this may be the best news I have heard in my life. Our China finally has a company that can harvest foreign capital. This day will be recorded in the history of China’s capital, and this battle will become a classic case in the world’s investment community.”

“Haha… I followed Starlight Investment to buy stocks and have already earned enough for a house. I didn’t expect them to be so powerful that they can already join hands with Buffett to harvest foreigners.”

“I want to know who the boss of Starlight Investment is? Why is only CEO Jin Ming always reported, but I have never seen any news report about the boss behind it? How awesome is the person who can be so fierce? It is impossible to accurately describe his ability with all his plans. Anyway, as long as he takes action, I have never heard of a failed case.”

“I want to ask if Starlight Investment controls Jinbai Oil and Gas Company, does it mean that we can use cheap oil in the future? After all, Starlight Investment is our Chinese company, and they will definitely sell it to China Petroleum [a major Chinese oil company] at a cheaper price.”

“It’s not that I’m being pretentious, but when I saw the news report that Starlight Investment had won 55% of the shares of Jinbai Oil and Gas Company, I was really excited to tears. Before that, our companies could only be harvested by foreign capital in the international market. Even our A-shares [shares of companies based in mainland China] have been repeatedly harvested by foreign funds many times, especially the stock market crash in 2015, which was the worst harvest. I have been looking forward to the day when we can have a powerful investment company, and we can also harvest foreign capital and make them pay a heavy price for their previous actions. I am about to retire, and I finally waited for Starlight Investment before I retired. No matter who the boss behind the scenes is, I want to say thank you to him. Even if I die immediately, I have no regrets.”