Era: Starting from divorce from female college student

In August 1983, in Yunlan City, inside a beautiful seaside villa estate, two mermaids were frolicking and playing happily in the swimming pool.

Under a parasol on the shore, Zhao Mancang was leisurely drinking fruit tea, wearing sunglasses and resting with his eyes closed.

Suddenly, the phone rang on the table next to me.

The person who called him was Donald Elliott, the head of Aucma, who was based on Wall Street.

"Boss, something's happened! Our sister company, Robotics Computer Company, has been targeted by a group of short sellers."

Aucma was visited by a group of people?
Isn't this a joke?
As everyone knows, going long means buying shares of a company, waiting for the stock price to rise, and then selling them to profit from the price difference.

Conversely, short selling involves targeting securities firms, which have shares of the company that the investor wants to short. Investors simply pay a commission, sign an agreement with the securities firm, and wait for the company's stock price to fall before buying.

Now that the robotics computer company has just been targeted like this, Donald Elliott knows that several groups are coming to visit.

"Oh, why? Did you do something bad?"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Mancang raised an eyebrow and asked in surprise.

He rarely inquired about Sam's affairs anymore, because the relevant personnel were able to handle the work well, and the annual profits were not small, and were steadily increasing.

Therefore, Zhao Mancang could act as a hands-off manager, but the more he did so, the more likely he was to breed corruption.

It's alright, Zhao Mancang will definitely take action, he will surely eliminate a group of people.

In the past, we worked ourselves to the bone and cleaned up a lot of people every year because these people always had a侥幸心理 (a sense of侥幸, or a belief that they could get away with it). Even if we cleaned up a group of people each time, a new group would quickly appear.

So Zhao Mancang came to terms with it. Since that was the case, he might as well let them do whatever they wanted and then deal with them later.

Once a year is enough.

In this way, he had more free time, made a good profit, and the company's development was not hindered.

"No, boss, we don't have any."

"Oh, if that's the case, then what are you afraid of?"

With a chuckle, Zhao Mancang hung up the phone, casually put it aside, and immediately jumped into the water to swim with the two mermaids.

He had already gotten both Nanako Ryuzawa and Feifei Hou pregnant, and they were almost due to give birth recently.

Now, both Catherine and Diana Grace want to have his child, but it doesn't seem to be that easy.

Amid Catherine and the other girl's exclamations, Zhao Mancang played and frolicked with them for most of the day. When he opened his eyes, it was already dark outside.

He reached for his phone, but his hand was pinned down by Catherine's pale thigh. After freeing his arm, he took out his phone and saw that it was already past 3 a.m.

Since it was still early, he didn't get up, but Catherine and Diana were already exhausted and hadn't recovered yet.

So there's no way to mess with them.

But it doesn't matter, Zhao Mancang doesn't really care about this.

Two hours later, Zhao Mancang left the villa and headed straight for New York.

After two days, Zhao Mancang finally figured out why the current robot computer company was being shorted: they were indeed courting disaster.

Data fraud!

In fact, Robot Computer Company is not a listed company; in Zhao Mancang's plan, it should always be a private enterprise.

The result was obvious: the robotics computer company wasn't doing well.

As Zhao Mancang paid less attention to the company and its related computer and personal computer businesses began to shift, the company embarked on a self-destructive path.

Seeing that the robot computer company had changed its nature, Zhao Mancang thought long and hard last year and then took it public.

When a company wants to go public, it naturally needs to make thorough preparations.

Robotics Computers, a company that once defeated IBM and became the dominant force in the computer industry, remains a global leader in the computer industry even today.

As a dominant player, its market value must be quite impressive, and it is highly sought after.

It's worth noting that IBM was once the number one company in the US by market capitalization.

Therefore, Robotics Computer Corporation, as a current giant in the computer industry, quickly entered the top ten in terms of market capitalization of all companies in the United States after its IPO.

As the saying goes, "People fear becoming famous, just as pigs fear growing fat." It's no wonder that such a famous and powerful robotics company was targeted by short-selling firms on Wall Street a year after its IPO.

These companies discovered during their due diligence that the robotics company had falsified revenue and profit data in its hotel business segment.

Yes, it's astonishing that a high-tech company would stray so far from its core business as to venture into the hotel service industry.

But this doesn't seem to be anything outrageous.

In many places, including Tokyo, London, Paris, the Garden City, and the Saudi Empire, UFO Hotel, a subsidiary of Robotics Computers, has corresponding hotels.

What's outrageous is that these so-called UFO hotels actually have extremely high profit margins.

After a 10-month investigation, Wall Street short-selling firms discovered that these hotels did not have such high profits at all; their profits over the past year had been exaggerated by at least two times.

Given this situation, with such profit manipulation occurring, short-selling institutions certainly won't be lenient.

When Zhao Mancang learned about this, he was speechless. Was such a trivial matter worth bothering him?

Now that the robotics computer company has gone public, he certainly won't be keeping an eye on it anymore.

Isn't it normal for stock prices to rise or fall?

Since the market is destined to fall, there's no going back.

Of course, such a grudge must be retaliated against.

As for how to retaliate, we'll have to find out.

Since we're going to short sell, we need to find the right target first.

After all, flies don't land on eggs without cracks. If the company itself doesn't have problems, then no matter how you short it, it won't work. You can't just fabricate facts, can you?

Regardless of what these Wall Street wolves like Aucma did, Zhao Mancang only needed to see one result. After issuing the order, Zhao Mancang stopped worrying about such trivial matters.

He came to Los Angeles to inspect Hollywood giants such as 20th Century Fox.

At this point in 1983, the US economy had finally improved slightly, but new problems arose: manufacturing companies in the US were suffering greatly because their products were not competitive in the international market.

The reason was that the appreciation of the US dollar made the cost of Sam's exported goods too high, so they were no longer as good quality and cheap.

On the contrary, many products from Kimura's region, such as cars, televisions, air conditioners, and refrigerators, are highly refined, high-quality, and inexpensive, making them very popular.

In the past few years, there have been either oil crises or economic crises.

After Reagan took office, he implemented a large number of economic stimulus policies, which brought down the inflation rate and improved the national economy. However, then the manufacturing exports encountered problems.

This is a classic case of "pressing down one gourd only to have another float up," meaning you can't attend to everything at once.

The dire export situation meant that even drastically restricting imports of products from Kimura's region was of no use.

The real culprit is the continued appreciation of the US dollar. If this problem isn't resolved, the issue of manufacturing exports in the US will remain unresolved.

Just like the movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" in the original timeline, the protagonist carries a nuclear magnetic resonance "time machine" that costs 1.5 million US dollars every day, which is actually a bone density scanner.

The protagonist lives in a slum, where the highest-paid person only earns $18,000 a year.

With such income levels, how could anyone possibly afford a time machine costing $1.5 million?
With costs fixed, the current challenge for Sam's manufacturing companies exporting products is to address the issue of the appreciating US dollar.

Along with this trend, the film industry is flourishing, which has naturally attracted the attention of many Wall Street giants.

Sure enough, Zhao Mancang came to 20th Century Fox to listen to the work reports from these senior executives, and quickly learned about the situation.

Twentieth Century Fox has made a lot of money in the first half of the year and now in the midst of the booming summer movie season.

They filmed a total of three movies and co-produced two movies, all of which were very successful, with each movie grossing less than $200 million.

Given such high box office results, the corresponding rewards will certainly be substantial.

However, the head of 20th Century Fox brought up two other companies that were specifically targeting their company.

"We've already investigated. These two companies were established last year. They're disgusting; they specifically target 20th Century Fox films, and every time one is released, they launch all sorts of smear campaigns against it."

"what is the reason?"

Zhao Mancang interrupted and asked, and the person in charge immediately replied:

"It's because those theater chains pulled their movies from the shelves, and they think it's 20th Century Fox's doing, so they've been keeping a close eye on us."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Mancang suddenly laughed, realizing that 20th Century Fox had indeed been wronged.

After all, they didn't know that the major players in the cinema group were all owned by Zhao Mancang.

For a long time, the four Hollywood giants, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Universal Pictures, and MGM, have believed that their movies are so great that they are favored by the theater giants.

In fact, if the cinema giants hadn't consistently and reasonably supported the four major players, it's hard to say what the situation would be like now.

A closer look reveals that since 1964, the four major studios, including Paramount, have consistently produced high-grossing films, and their profits have been unparalleled.

It's been almost twenty years, and it's been like this all along. Don't you find that strange?

While some companies, such as Warner Bros., did have films that grossed over $100 million at the box office, how many were there?
Not many, because most of the movies that grossed over 100 million dollars were made by the four giants, including 20th Century Fox. In fact, these four companies took turns being the global box office champions of the year.

They take turns being the dealer!
So what to do?

What else can I do?
Since Zhao Mancang knew about this, all he could do was comfort the head of 20th Century Fox and tell him to focus on his own business. As for the other two companies, he would just let them mess around for now.

If there is no profit to be made, they will naturally leave.

Hollywood is Zhao Mancang's territory; no one else can influence it.

Whether it's Paramount and the other three giants, or the major cinema giants, Zhao Mancang is the actual controller behind them all.

That's why there are so many Chinese people in Sam's country today.

These Chinese people are a mix of good and bad, and many of them are the main force of tourists in Yunlan City.

Because when these people go to Yunlan City for sightseeing, there are absolutely no communication barriers; it's no different from going back to their own home.

Even though Yunlan City is a place heavily influenced by human intervention, and many of its scenic spots are not naturally formed, the scenery there is still breathtaking. It's the place to go.

If you were to go to places within China, such as Jiuzhaigou, Lijiang, or Shangri-La, you might be discouraged before you even see the stunning scenery.

The tourism experience is poor simply because the roads and transportation are not yet in good condition.

The transportation in Beijiang City is quite good, but unfortunately, it also has some problems and is heavily influenced by human factors. Of course, it's better than nothing.

After spending two days in Los Angeles, Zhao Mancang inspected Paramount and other Hollywood companies one by one, and then went to San Francisco.

Although Los Angeles is a great city with a large Chinese population, Zhao Mancang will not stay here for long.

After arriving in San Francisco, Zhao Mancang visited several supermarkets and stores, including Wan Jia Supermarket and Victoria's Secret.

And I must say, these companies are quite dynamic.

Victoria's Secret is an underwear store that uses incredibly aggressive marketing to give the impression that it's a high-end brand that you can't afford. But in reality, its underwear is priced very reasonably and isn't expensive at all.

As a result, many consumers flock here, happy to buy lingerie.

Even when Zhao Mancang was inspecting the area, he saw quite a few men.

I guess these men are all here to buy clothes for their wives or girlfriends, right?
Anyway, Zhao Mancang found it quite interesting; men, huh?

After browsing around, Zhao Mancang went to Wanjia Supermarket.

Compared to before, Wanjia Supermarket doesn't seem to have changed much, but it also seems to have changed a lot.

Because while Wanjia Supermarket's revenue figures show steady growth, in reality, it's not that significant.

As early as twenty years ago, when Wan Jia Supermarket opened, Zhao Mancang had already used many marketing methods to attract customers. (End of Chapter)