Chapter 234 Sounds Like a Liar
"The United States lifted its economic sanctions on Iran in the hope of gaining benefits in other ways, and began to expand shale oil production last month. However, the Middle East's OPEC (OPEC) is not run by Iran alone. Not only did they refuse to cut production, they also planned to increase production and start a price war to completely squeeze out the United States' shale oil. This time, the international crude oil price is about to collapse."

On the green trail, a middle-aged man with deep nasolabial folds exchanged a few pleasantries and naturally turned the topic to the macro-economy.

Zhou Fenglan considerately took the small fan and fanned himself. Xie Jingxing listened indifferently out of politeness and did not express any opinion.

If we rank bulk energy commodities on a contempt chain, crude oil will undoubtedly be at the top, without a doubt. As the blood of industry, it is a nuclear-level strategic weapon that can truly influence the international economic situation.

Before the U.S. dollar was pegged to crude oil in the last century, the Middle Eastern crude oil producing countries came together to form OPEC, and they fought together against the Western crude oil giants.

The price war between the two is essentially no different from the Internet's burning of money, but the form is much more perverted.

Under normal circumstances, oil companies will actively control crude oil production capacity, maintain supply balance and maintain stable prices in the international crude oil trading market.

Therefore, when the unlimited expansion of production on the supply side is greater than the supply side, oil prices will naturally fall.

A chain reaction then occurs. First, competing categories such as natural gas and new energy suffer, followed by the entire chemical industry chain. This is then transmitted step by step to the economy, where inflation is suppressed.

The key issue is that the sudden increase in the production of shale oil in the United States is due to technological innovation and the increase in production capacity brought about by the reduction in the cost of oil extraction.

This means that unless the Middle Eastern crude oil producing countries can reduce their costs to a level lower than that of shale oil and directly defeat the other side, no one can say how long this round of price war will end.

In addition, the real estate market was sluggish in the first half of the year and domestic macroeconomic downward expectations were sluggish. The country has implemented several rounds of favorable policies to boost the market in the first half of the year.

Xie Jingxing has communicated with many colleagues, and everyone believes that the country needs to increase its efforts in the second half of the year to give the market some aphrodisiacs.

This is not particularly related to the golden finger of rebirth memory. In fact, with his current level in the industry, he can exchange professional analysis with industry insiders, who are, to some extent, indirectly influencing or directly participating in the direction of the macro-economy.

"The multiple targeted monetary easing in the first half of the year is not enough to support macroeconomic expectations. The second half of the year is likely to enter a phase of comprehensive easing. After all, financial reform has been on the agenda since last year."

Zhao Chuanxiong, a middle-aged man, summarized his views in a long-winded manner and focused the topic on the financial market: "A shares have risen a lot this month. Has Mr. Xie paid attention to it?"

"It's not new. The gold market at the beginning of last year and the ChiNext market at the end of the year are both long-lasting arguments."

Xie Jingxing raised his arm, and Zhou Fenglan stood up and took it.

"The situation this time is different. A few days ago, the country officially announced that the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect will be launched in November, and there is a strong expectation that overseas capital will enter the country."

Zhao Chuanxiong pretended not to see it and continued, "The domestic monetary policy is loose, and the risk-free investment opportunities for private capital are insufficient. Funds will definitely flow into the financial market in large quantities. It is foreseeable that OTC leveraged funds will accelerate their entry. I heard that Taihe Capital has the qualifications for transfer and financing. It seems that I have to congratulate Mr. Xie in advance."

"...What on earth do you do?" Xie Jingxing frowned slightly.

Zhao Chuanxiong explained with a smile on his face: "Don't get me wrong, Mr. Xie. I am really an old friend of Mr. Chen from Juntai. My company has in-depth strategic cooperation with Juntai and also involves trust business. We may be able to discuss business cooperation."

"Sorry, I have a rare day off today, so it's not convenient for me to talk about work." Xie Jingxing was indifferent.

Financial companies with names containing words like "global", "world", "international", etc. are most likely scams.

And in the primary venture capital market, he would be treated sarcastic by Cui Aliu, and Shen Nanpeng needed to block the founder at the airport because of the relationship of seeking common ground while reserving differences between the two sides.

In the secondary market, as the head of a private equity fund with a scale of billions of dollars, he is the complete financial sponsor.

The so-called "transfer and financing" qualification of Zhao Chuanxiong refers to a margin trading platform set up by CICC, where powerful investors such as banks and pension insurance funds lend money to securities firms, and securities firms then lend the money to clients to engage in margin trading.

As off-market funds poured into the stock market and it took off in the second half of the year, Taihe was able to make money from interest and fees without doing anything.

Last year, when Juntai was recording the variety show, Vice President Chen, who patted him on the shoulder and said, "Xiao Xie, please have tea," now has to make an appointment with Song Anli in advance if he wants to meet her, not to mention a contestant who appeared out of nowhere and claimed to be the other party's friend.

Xie Jingxing really had no interest in socializing with people like this.

"How about this, Mr. Xie, the leisure club in our community is pretty good. If you are interested, you can go and have a look later. I'll wait for you."

Zhao Chuanxiong felt a little embarrassed so he handed over a business card. He glanced at Zhou Fenglan, whose belly was bulging, and left angrily with his lover.

Xie Jingxing's expression changed. He pulled the corner of his mouth and exhaled with his teeth bared, then carefully put away the business card.

Zhou Fenglan smiled faintly and said, "The housing prices in this community are not low. Mr. Zhao should be quite capable. Otherwise, you can go talk to him."

"I finally got a day off." Xie Jingxing complained.

Zhou Fenglan unconsciously held his arm tightly: "You are going to be a father. How can you earn money for milk powder for your child if you don't work hard?"

"Tsk, please don't question your man's ability to make money. Do you know what a human money printing machine is?"

Xie Jingxing made a tactical backward move, which made Zhou Fenglan chuckle and lean her head against his shoulder. The two of them walked and chatted as they returned home.

Late at night, a faint light flashed across the cell phone screen.

Xie Jing Xing got out of bed quietly, walked out of the bedroom in the dark, and went to the small bar in the living room. He tilted his head and held his phone between his shoulders while pouring a glass of ice water.

"Jintong International is an appliance sales company. They do umbrella trust business, attracting retail stock traders to open accounts at Juntai Securities while asking retail traders to open margin accounts."

Song Anli on the other end of the phone gave a detailed introduction: "They spent 2 million to buy an investment advisory license last year. The main body of the company is in Tianjin. Zhao Chuanxiong is one of the partners, and his wife's father is the head of the local economic investigation department. The company's big boss immigrated to Canada. The specific information needs to be verified. For now, I found out that it seems to be the group of people who sold stock software to Tonghuashun in Jiangsu and Zhejiang a few years ago."

"Are you sure they are doing an umbrella trust?" Xie Jingxing changed his posture, holding the phone and took a sip of water.

Song Anli did not give a direct answer: "They are quite large, with multiple investors... and Juntai has cooperated with Yunshan to acquire the Wufeng agricultural project."

"I keep making money, is it just to buy cars, houses and luxury goods?" Xie Jingxing asked seriously. Song Anli was speechless, and after a few seconds of silence, she said, "I understand."

After hanging up the phone, Xie Jingxing leaned against the bar with his arms folded, looking out the window at the deep night and lost in thought.

The umbrella trust is a variation of the structured trust he created last year that grew from 2 million to 8 million. It is also the most popular over-the-counter financing tool in the upcoming leveraged bull market.

There is no entry threshold restriction. Even small retail investors with only 1000 yuan in capital can leverage ten times through margin financing. Therefore, the peak amount of off-market margin financing once reached a scale of nearly 5 trillion yuan.

The risks were obvious, so umbrella trusts were banned the next year after the stock market plummeted from bull to bear, killing countless investors.

A partner of a telemarketing company that does over-the-counter financing actually had the confidence to come to him and discuss business. It seems that the secondary market is indeed about to take off.

Grapefruit Capital has invested more than 30 billion of its own funds in the stock market and has some leveraged funds, so it should be able to make a lot of money in the second half of the year.

Xie Jingxing was thinking about returning to the Magic City in a few days to devote some energy to the relevant investment. He picked up the business card with his fingers and threw it into the trash can. He returned to the bedroom, climbed onto the bed quietly, and gently kissed Zhou Fenglan on the forehead.

Zhao Chuanxiong, he remembered this name.

…………

Since there was no urgent work to deal with, Xie Jingxing tried his best to take a few days off to stay in Beijing and accompany Zhou Fenglan.

It was near the end of July, and just one day before he was about to return to Shanghai after being bombarded with harassment from various phone calls, Lao Xie suddenly called him and said that something had gone wrong with Yunshan Group's acquisition of the Wufeng Agricultural Project.

Xie Jingxing immediately changed his itinerary and headed for Shenyang. Song Anli accompanied him and sorted out documents during the flight.

Wufeng Agriculture is an agricultural company with a relatively new business model, covering the entire industry circular economy from upstream crop planting, midstream deep processing, production and sales of agricultural products, to downstream bio-power generation.

This gameplay involves the now popular concept of "ecological closed loop" and is superimposed with the concept of environmental protection. It has been very popular in the capital market in recent years.

However, their pace of development was too fast, their greed for quick success and recklessness led to an extremely high debt ratio, which had attracted Mr. Xie's attention since last year. This year, as the Yunshan Group's spin-off and listing project obtained a large amount of financing in the stock market, it was natural for him to make relevant arrangements.

First, Yunshan Group lent Wufeng Agriculture 1.5 million yuan to help it enter Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces to contract land for planting and build agricultural product processing plants, further catalyzing its debt ratio while reducing its revenue capacity.

According to the original plan, the debt repayment period will coincide with the autumn harvest in two months. Yunshan Group will increase the upstream grain purchase price in Heilongjiang and Jilin to raise the market competition risk. As long as the bank withdraws loans, the company will explode on the spot.

However, man proposes, God disposes. With the recent downturn in the macro-economy, the country has introduced favorable policies in all aspects, including agriculture.

This month, state-owned agricultural giants such as COFCO raised the grain purchase price by 5.4% in accordance with the policy guidance of supporting the grain market. Both Yunshan and Wufeng are facing competition from increased grain purchase costs.

After following up on the risk assessment, the bank immediately changed its mind and refused to renew the loan to Wufeng Agriculture. However, Wufeng had just borrowed 1.5 million yuan from Yunshan at a high interest rate to pay off its debt to the bank, and was preparing to borrow again from the bank to repay Yunshan's debt.

Now Wufeng Agriculture was in a daze. They had borrowed a total of 9.5 million yuan from banks. The funds for each loan were closely linked and they had no ability to resist risks. If they could not repay the debt to Yunshan, all their loans would explode.

Seeing that local high-quality enterprises were about to go out of business, the Liaoning Provincial Government quickly took the initiative to approach Yunshan for help in controlling the debt crisis, and negotiated with Yunshan to increase collateral and delay the debt repayment period.

As a result, Wufeng Agriculture founder Zhu Jinfeng was unwilling to do so. She jumped up and down, clamoring to go to the capital market for financing to directly advance the listing plan. She also turned the tables and said that local officials colluded with Yunshan Group to embezzle her company.

This is where the deadlock arises. Old Xie can't figure out whether this woman is really crazy or just pretending to be stupid. The local officials are also afraid that Yunshan will use force to really kill Wufeng Agriculture and leave behind a huge loan mess of 10 billion yuan.

"So what's wrong? Is it nothing more than the bank withdrawing loans in advance due to the risk of grain price support policy, which led to the early entry into the purchase process?"

After rushing all the way to Shenyang, Xie Jingxing met the department manager in charge of the acquisition project of Yunshan Group and the head of Juntai's M&A service team in a conference room temporarily rented in a downtown hotel.

“Currently, local officials have suggested that we convert our loans into bond financing.” The department manager’s face was filled with indescribable expression.

"Is this official advice? According to the financial information we have, Wufeng Agriculture not only owes 9.5 million to the bank, but also owes almost the same amount to private capital and venture capital institutions combined."

Song Anli sneered: "This is obviously a company with more debts than assets. How can it convert loans into bond financing?"

"Well, this is actually the condition of Zhu Jinfeng, the founder of Wufeng Agriculture. Let's put it this way, she likes to be called: Liaoning Province March 8 Red Flag Bearer, Liaoning Province Top Ten Female Prodigies, National Top Ten Female Agricultural Champions... This person's situation is more complicated. She and her husband were laid-off workers after the reform of state-owned enterprises. They are not well educated. They are barbaric and will not listen to others' advice."

Juntai’s team manager is a typical elite financial man, and his words are filled with hatred and rage that cannot be concealed.

Song Anli vaguely understood what he heard, and for a moment she felt the same way but didn't know how to comment on it.

So the whole picture is that this female entrepreneur is a local typical example, and the relevant departments had no choice but to protect her for the sake of political achievements. Yunshan Group did not want to make the situation too embarrassing, but it was impossible for them to accept the ridiculous debt-to-equity swap.

"Let's start from the beginning and ask them to pay back the money first." Xie Jingxing said after thinking.

Song Anli automatically took the default position: "Without money, we either need to postpone or file a lawsuit, and the local authorities will intervene."

"If they can't pay back their debts, the business risk of the company will increase. Do other creditors and investors have any objections?" Xie Jingxing raised his eyebrows.

The financial elite from Juntai sighed helplessly: "This is another problem. We can't conduct normal financial audits. Just like what Assistant Song said just now, creditors and investors can only count how much money they owe to the bank. Other private loans are all estimated and no one knows the specific figures."

"Everyone knows that they have financial problems but we can't get the actual financial statements. If we initiate legal proceedings and prosecute, local officials will intervene and the company will not cooperate, and the preliminary audit process alone will be delayed until next year," added Yunshan's department manager.

Song Anli's eyes widened in shock: "Then the question is, Yunshan intends to acquire the company and does not care about financial audits. Didn't other investors and creditors conduct a thorough audit before paying?"

"The founders Zhu Jinfeng and her husband are too good at deceiving people. The venture capital institutions introduced in the past two years of financing competed with each other for shares and did not bother to conduct careful due diligence. For example, her classmate from the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Huang Li, the boss of Tongchuang Weiye, invited her to dinner countless times before she was able to win an investment share." Juntai's financial elites felt increasingly powerless as they spoke.

Xie Jing Xing thought for a moment: "Why does it sound so much like a liar?"

(End of this chapter)