2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 551 Smiling to your face, cursing behind your back
"Welcome, Mr. Tan."

There is a reopening day, and no one is young.

Looking at Tan Jincheng, whose face still showed a hint of childishness but was full of vigor, Li Jianxin felt for the first time that he was getting old.

Tan Jincheng was 32 years younger than him, and was already past the age to be a father.

Tan Jincheng hurriedly stepped forward to shake hands: "Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Li. I am not worthy of such hospitality."

Tan Jincheng never expected that Li Jianxin would personally receive him. This man is definitely a big shot. Back in 2003, when Tan Jincheng was still working as a waiter at sea, he had already built Changfeng Group into a company with an output value of 50 billion yuan.

One company, half of Yongzhou.

From 1984 to 2003, it made a profit for 19 consecutive years, turning a small, forgotten JUN factory into a star enterprise in Hunan Province and even the whole country, and also gaining a place in the capital market.

Despite the trouble Changfeng is in now, Li Jianxin holds a very high position in Hunan Province. As the head of a large state-owned enterprise, his rank is quite high. The fact that he personally came out to receive Tan Jincheng was something Tan Jincheng himself did not expect.

Seemingly sensing Tan Jincheng's doubts, Li Jianxin smiled and said, "Don't overthink it. I'm from an old state-owned enterprise, and I don't have that many formalities or formalities. Besides, I'm also quite curious about President Tan."

"curious?"

"Yes, I am quite curious. In the eyes of the media, Mr. Tan is already a legendary figure. I am naturally curious about Mr. Tan's entrepreneurial history, but what I am most curious about is the treatment of the workers in the Flash series."

As a national representative, Li Jianxin frequently advocates for improving the social status of migrant workers and has offered specific suggestions. Regardless of his motives, Li Jianxin is very concerned about the living conditions of grassroots employees.

State-owned enterprises emphasize social responsibility, but private enterprises rarely mention it. In recent years, Li Jianxin has been paying attention to this topic and has also collected some data.

Based on the data, excluding Orange Technology, the overall compensation of the entire FlashCheer Group is 20% to 30% higher than that of its peers and the local average salary.

This 20% to 30% was actually contributed by the excessively young CEO in front of us. This money should have belonged to him or his company, and he could have used it to generate more revenue for himself.

Li Jianxin was very curious as to why Tan Jincheng did this.

In addition, Changfeng Group is also very interested in Flash Group as a partner. There's no way around it, Flash Group has too much cash on hand, and what Changfeng Group needs most right now is cash.

By extending goodwill, we can lay a solid foundation for potential cooperation.

I wonder how Li Jianxin will feel when he finds out that Tan Jincheng is there to discuss an acquisition.

"Huh? Worker benefits? What's so curious about that? As far as I know, state-owned enterprises generally offer better benefits than private companies. Changfeng's workers' benefits are definitely much better than our Shanchi's."

Li Jianxin chuckled leisurely, "Haha, let's go inside first, no rush."

It's not really appropriate to discuss this at the entrance of the R&D center.

Upon entering the R&D center, as usual, we first toured the facilities, just like in other places. Li Jianxin proudly introduced the ten departments of the R&D center, all of which he founded. Regardless of their technology absorption capabilities, they are top-tier automotive R&D centers in Hunan Province.

Don't let Li Jianxin's birth year (50s) fool you; his education level is even higher than Boss Tan's. He graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology with a master's degree and is a senior engineer. Tan Jincheng can't understand much of the technical jargon he uses.

However, Zhang Yong was able to understand.

"This R&D center can make almost everything except engines."

The boss was confused, so Zhang Yong explained in a low voice in private.

Tan Jincheng had only recently joined the inspection team and hadn't had much time to exchange ideas. Zhang Yong and Huang Ming hadn't reported to him in person yet, so today's visit was more of a superficial affair.

Accompanying them were some leaders from Xiangshi government departments and reporters, who posed for a few photos.

Flash Group's intention to cooperate with Changfeng Group and invest in Xiangcheng was officially reported the following day, April 21, in authoritative media in Hunan Province, accompanied by a photo of an old man and a young man.

However, this did not translate into a rise in the stock market. Changfeng Group, which opened significantly higher by more than 3% and surged to around 7% at its peak, ultimately closed down 4.37% at the end of the day.

Changfeng Group's daily price fluctuation reached a remarkable 13.22%, which is quite impressive in the current sluggish market.

The stock price surged and then fell back, closing at 8.1 yuan, causing significant losses for those who rushed in during the morning session on the back of the positive news.

"Damn it, I was happy for less than five minutes. I thought it would hit the daily limit up, but it ended up being almost a daily limit down."

"They're using good news to sell off their shares again. This bookmaker is really something else, always trying to take advantage of Boss Tan."
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"Does buying stocks on the secondary market at this time constitute insider trading?"

That evening at the hotel, Tan Jincheng gathered Xie Junhong, Zhang Yong, Huang Ming, and Cheng Linfeng together to inquire about their plan to acquire some Changfeng Group shares on the secondary market. To be honest, he wasn't sure whether this constituted insider trading.

“Local investment companies can use their accounts to trade, as long as they sign a formal contract with ByteDance and have a legitimate reason, it does not constitute insider trading.”

Cheng Linfeng replied.

"So, in other words, if our acquisition is a normal one, and not some short-term arbitrage, then it doesn't constitute insider trading, right?" Tan Jincheng knew how to grasp the key points.

"That's true, but the line is rather blurry. However, we're fine with it. What's wrong, Mr. Tan? Are you going to start acquiring companies on the secondary market?"

Insider trading is indeed a rather ambiguous issue, and many things are unclear. In reality, those who know about it understand that if you have a strong background and powerful connections, you're basically safe.

This is the stock market in 2008; many of the rules and regulations were quite irregular.

"Yes, if there are no major problems, we can start the purchase. Could Mr. Xie cooperate in advance?"

The stock price has fallen to 8 yuan, and the market value has fallen to 32 billion yuan. Changfeng Group's daily trading volume is only about 2000 million yuan. Today there was a surge in volume, but the volume was not large.

Given the limited trading volume in the secondary market, it's actually impossible to buy a large quantity. The best approach is still through block trades and negotiated transfers.

Some fund institutions and large investors have the intention to transfer shares due to performance and capital reasons. They can buy more shares faster by going through these two channels. The secondary market has a daily volume of 2000 million shares, all of which went to Tan Jincheng. How many shares can he buy then?

Although he didn't make much money from stock trading in his previous life, Tan Jincheng knew that every year in the first half of the year, especially at the end of April, with the concentrated disclosure of annual reports, all sorts of pitfalls would emerge in the market.

At this time, it is often the bottom of the overall market and the stock prices of most stocks. If you can buy at the bottom, you should.

Buying shares of Changfeng Group is not for profit, but more to increase bargaining power, so waiting for the bottom to be reached is simply impossible, and institutions are not fools.

Moreover, based on the previous strategy, the total acquisition of 35% of the shares would amount to around 10 billion yuan, which is an acceptable price.

If Xiangcheng City Investment directly transfers 35% of its shares to Tan Jincheng for 10 billion yuan, Tan Jincheng will absolutely not bargain.

With 10 billion yuan, you can acquire a financing platform and a host of high-quality resources. It's an absolute steal.

"Cooperation is possible, but the trading volume in the secondary market is too small. Mr. Cheng, let's look for fund institutions and large investors to see if we can go through negotiated transfer. This way, it won't affect the secondary market, and the suspicion of insider trading will be much smaller."

"Okay, let's get started then."

After four months of decline, the market closed at 3095 points today, and it's only a matter of time before it falls below 3000 points. It's definitely a bear market, and all we can hope for is a rebound.

No one will talk about the market reaching 10,000 points anymore, and no one even dares to mention returning to 6000 points.

From a bull market to a bear market, it's not just retail investors who suffer heavy losses and struggle to adapt; most funds and large investors also experience significant losses, especially public and private funds, which face performance pressures.

Having someone willing to take over the losses and quickly recover funds is a good thing.

"Speaking of which, I wonder if Mr. Tan remembers Xiao Liu, who left the company after our clearance sale last year?"

"I remember, the one who did short-term trading, we should call him General Manager Liu now, right?"

Tan Jincheng smiled. He had approved the matter himself, without setting any obstacles. After Xiao Liu left, he partnered with someone to establish a private equity fund.

Leveraging his reputation built on ByteDance's advertising platform, coupled with his talent and the booming market, Xiao Liu's fundraising went very smoothly, successfully raising a considerable amount of capital, making him practically the owner of a small private equity firm.

However, the good days didn't last long before the bear market arrived. At this time, the "little Liu" that Tan Jincheng and Cheng Linfeng were talking about, namely Liu Shaoxin and his Juxin Private Equity Capital, were not having a good time.

"How about we ask him to cooperate? He left ByteDance, but we no longer have any official relationship with him."

Tan Jincheng thought for a moment and said, "Okay, you can contact him, set up a shell company to inject capital or buy his fund, and then set up a closed-end fund to buy the few stocks we need."

"Okay, then I'll go back and talk to him."

Cheng Linfeng was also decisive, investing in and acquiring a controlling stake in Liu Shaoxin's private equity firm. Many things that the group couldn't handle themselves could be done by Liu Shaoxin, and it would also make it easier to profit in the capital market.

During the day, Tan Jincheng chatted and laughed with Liu Jianxin and other people in Xiangcheng about the possibility of cooperation. But at night, the four of them sat together and discussed how to stab each other in the back.

None of the four felt anything was wrong; that's just how the business world is.

(End of this chapter)