Debuted right after graduating from high school

Chapter 703 Expansion
Having risen to prominence through capital operations, Fan Wumian now faces little pressure even when acquiring multiple companies simultaneously.

With his asset management business seizing opportunities and experiencing explosive growth, coupled with the collective appreciation of projects such as Tencent, Valentino, Filco, and Tudou.com, he successfully pushed his personal net worth to around $40 billion.

While seemingly very high, they are actually clearly undervalued; many assets in mainland China are not yet able to demonstrate their true value.

For example, Bosera Funds.

After the subscription was reopened, more than 160 billion RMB was raised in just a few trading days.

However, due to limited growth in its own revenue and profits, after acquiring the company and providing financing to increase its stake, Fan Wumian's current 55.6% stake in Boshi Fund is only worth around 37 billion RMB. Compared to the 16.4 billion RMB he paid for the auction, he has already made about double.

The Mountain Bandit King Fund, New China Life Insurance, and United China Insurance (which was acquired by New China Life Insurance) have all been under his management for too short a period of time, and their market valuations cannot match their actual value.

On the contrary, Valentino benefited from a surge in revenue and net profit. An appraisal agency gave it a valuation of $12 billion, a significant increase from the €1.7 million it was acquired at the time, making it the most profitable project in his portfolio during the same period.

His acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin, and Marvel Entertainment may seem like a big leap, but because he indirectly controlled New China Life Insurance Group, United China Insurance Group, and Bosera Funds with a small amount of capital, he had a very ample cash flow. The amount of money he could manage was almost 10 times his personal net worth.

The advantage of using leverage to shorten the wealth accumulation cycle is fully demonstrated in Fan Wumian's case.

Although most projects cannot bring him sufficient cash in the short term, sharpening the axe before chopping wood is never a delay. The vast industry he has established through capital operations has directly broadened Fan Wumian's development potential.

If he could only appear on the menu before, now Fan Wumian has the right to sit at the table. Ordinary people may not realize how amazing he is, but those who truly understand the business admire him greatly.

In just two or three months, he managed to outmaneuver international speculators in the A-share market and successfully cash out to avoid the risks that followed. This feat alone was enough to make him famous. His prediction of the subprime crisis further boosted Fan Wumian's influence.

In recent days, news reports have emerged one after another about Marvel Entertainment's trading suspension, Aston Martin, Jaguar Land Rover and other companies being acquired. There are also rumors on Wall Street that some people paid a high price in exchange for concessions from Fan Wumian.

Afterwards, articles about how Paulson & Rogers hedge funds made a fortune shorting subprime mortgages deeply shocked people, making them dare not underestimate Fan Wumian's investment acumen.

There has been a great deal of discussion about him in the international market, attracting a large number of investors to pay attention to WM Rogers hedge fund, Penguin Group, Mountain King (Hong Kong) Fund, and so on.

In the mainland market, people don't care about Marvel Entertainment, but they are excited about Fan Wumian's acquisition of Aston Martin and Jaguar Land Rover.

The overwhelming news coverage and massive online attention naturally brought Fan Wumian considerable profits.

Xinhua Insurance's revenue has surged in the past few days, with countless people spontaneously rushing to buy all kinds of products, much to the delight of insurance salespeople across the country.

The same goes for Mountain King (Huaxia) Fund Company. Many corporate executives and investors saw that the stock market bubble was getting bigger and bigger, and they couldn't wait to hand over their money to Fan Wumian for management. After the subscription was reopened, the amount of funds raised exceeded 100 billion RMB and is still increasing.

The vast majority of investors who provided these funds were not looking to enter the market to play a high-stakes game like "passing the buck," but rather hoped to take advantage of Fan Wumian's keen eye to seize the opportunity to buy at the bottom afterward.

Therefore, even knowing that these mixed-fund type wealth management products might not yield high returns if they only invest in government bonds, large deposits, gold, and other areas for the time being, they still flock to them, hoping for steady progress.

Bosera Asset Management's total QDII quota is only US$10 billion, which has long been snapped up. By investing in international gold and oil, as well as shorting listed companies related to the US housing market and subprime mortgages, the company has achieved a total return of 33% since its inception.

In contrast, other QDII products saw declines ranging from 6% to 14% during the same period. In particular, the "Southern Global Select Allocation Fund" under Southern Fund Management Co., Ltd., which focuses on the US financial market, suffered a major setback, with a single-day drop of more than 5% a few days ago.

With Bosera Funds' outstanding performance as a comparison, countless investors no longer blame the international market for being unreliable; instead, they believe that the managers of other QDII fund products are incompetent. They have spontaneously begun contacting relevant departments, hoping to increase Bosera Funds' QDII quota. There are also other investors with more connections who, through various channels, specifically bring their money from the mainland to Hong Kong and entrust it to Shanzhaiwang (Hong Kong) Fund for management.

It was still on August 8th.

Unexpectedly, Fan Wumian learned from Wang Yu, president of Bosera Funds, that the higher-ups had proactively contacted him to discuss increasing the QDII fund quota. He asked in surprise:

Did our company apply voluntarily? Why didn't I know?

Wang Yu was able to get promoted and was appointed president of Boshi Fund by Fan Wumian.

Part of the reason is that he has good vision and ability. Even when the former controlling shareholder ran into trouble, he was able to lead his senior executives to manage Bosera Fund in an orderly manner and keep it profitable.

Another reason is that Wang Yu's family is somewhat special. They have connections in Guangdong Province and Beijing. Otherwise, how could they have attracted so much funding from state-owned enterprises and become vice president based on solid performance?

At this moment, President Wang Yu was both amused and exasperated, and explained:

"Recently, everyone in the company has been extremely busy. Several senior executives and I have been traveling all over the country to conduct on-site inspections and research at potential investment targets. We haven't had time to think about QDII funds for a while."

"The potential investors were too eager, sending letters and making phone calls to the relevant departments in the north every day, asking to increase their quotas to buy our QDII products. The extremely high returns drove them crazy, which is why the higher-ups took notice of this matter."

"I feel pretty good. Even if we only get an additional $10 billion in quota to account for other fund companies, we can still generate about 1.65 million RMB in revenue annually based on the 2% management fee. If the QDII fund performs well, it's not impossible for the company to earn 2 million RMB."

Having experienced managing money for major private equity clients and taking a 20% cut of the profits, running a public fund doesn't seem so exciting anymore.

If we only calculate based on a 2% management fee, even if you manage 1000 billion RMB in assets, your annual revenue would only be 20 billion RMB. After deducting various expenses and taxes, you wouldn't have much money left.

There are obvious reasons why the valuations of mainland asset management companies are not rising. They can only make money by expanding their scale and using their own funds to invest. Many investors are still unwilling to accept the "2+20" fee standard for private equity fund management strategies.

This is one of the reasons why Fan Wumian entrusted his car business to Xinhua Insurance Group.

Insurance companies directly agree on a fixed rate of return with their clients. The funds they raise from these clients are relatively inexpensive, and the company uses these funds to generate profits. After deducting the returns payable to clients and taxes, the rest is considered the insurance company's own profit.

From some perspectives, doing insurance business is more profitable than doing asset management business, which can fully leverage Fan Wumian's strengths and perfectly suits his needs.

If he hadn't seen the business opportunity, he wouldn't have been so foolish as to take over the heavily indebted New China Life Insurance and United China Insurance.

After listening to Wang Yu's words, Fan Wumian smiled:
"Alright then, send someone over to discuss it and try to get as much credit back as possible. The subprime crisis has just begun to spread, and the prices of many commodities have skyrocketed. Unfortunately, the fluctuations are too great, and I'm not sure what to do. It would be best to short the stock index and some financial stocks directly."

Unlike funds managed in the mainland market, QDII funds have far fewer restrictions and can invest in stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, real estate, financial derivatives, and more.

The downside is that Fan Wumian only gets to collect some handling fees and management fees after putting in a lot of effort to help others manage their finances, and he also has to consider exchange rate factors.

If it weren't for the recent depreciation of the US dollar, the yield of Bosera Funds' QDII products would have been several percentage points higher than 33%.
(End of this chapter)