This director is vindictive.

Chapter 303 Director? No, he's a money-powered war god!
Aside from necessary film and television promotions, Chen Mo usually keeps a low profile in his private life.

Of course, this is Chen Mo's own opinion.

The truth is, if you ask any netizen, you'll find out if Chen Mo is usually very low-key.

He looks at you like you're an idiot, is that considered low-key?

Who the hell has a low-key person who gets trending on social media every few days?
Look, there are still topics related to him trending on social media.

Sure enough, the trending topics have changed one after another recently, but there are always trending topics related to Chen Mo.

This time, however, it has nothing to do with the new film "The Vanished She", but rather with Shengshi Pictures, the company controlled by Chen Mo.

The past two years could be described as a winter for the industry, especially the film and television industry, where the market value of several leading companies has fluctuated greatly.

However, Shengshi Pictures did not retreat but instead advanced.

Besides Chen Mo, who truly deserves the title of "God of Investment" in the film and television industry, Shengshi Pictures' investment success rate, while not 100%, is still unparalleled, with over 80% of its projects remaining profitable and boasting extremely high returns on investment.

Since its listing, Shengshi Pictures has maintained its position as an industry leader.

The most outrageous thing is that, although Shengshi Pictures has also been affected by the industry downturn in the past two years, its non-core businesses have generated very impressive, even exaggerated, returns.

It has even exceeded the revenue from the main business.

Especially for financial investments involving idle funds, the returns are so exaggerated that they leave many people dumbfounded.

The main reason is Chen Mo. After all, as a reborn person, although Chen Mo cannot accurately grasp the specific rise and fall of those stocks, he knows the general trend!

Shengshi Pictures invests its idle funds in medium- to long-term investments.

Chen Mo selected stocks of top companies in their respective industries that were well-known in his previous life, so the returns were truly astonishing.

Originally, Wanda Cinema Line's market value was only expected to reach 30 billion yuan by the end of the year. However, because it is one of the shareholders of Shengshi Pictures, Wanda Cinema Line's market value had already exceeded that figure at the beginning of the year.

However, it still can't compare to Shengshi Pictures.

Because Shengshi Pictures' financial report is too outrageous, and it's definitely the cash king among film and television companies.

Even though they distribute a large portion of their profits as dividends every year, the gains in securities investments are simply too outrageous.

Its market capitalization is also far ahead, exceeding 200 billion, leaving other film and television companies far behind.

Actually, people weren't that sensitive to Shengshi Pictures' market value.

After all, Chen Mo's other achievements and the constant trending topics have made people pay no attention to his personal wealth.

All I know is that Chen Mo is rich; he's a billionaire.

All that is known is that Chen Mo is incredibly generous, giving away billions or even tens of billions of dollars to his female confidantes.

All I know is that Chen Mo is a marketing genius; every time a new work is released, it immediately generates a huge buzz.

However, they gradually overlooked their personal wealth.

Zhou Ping is a financial blogger, and the annual Forbes rich list is a feast for financial bloggers.

However, although the wealth rankings are published every year, it is difficult to attract a lot of attention by using them unless there are particularly significant changes.

After all, the public always enjoys novelty.

A static outcome makes it difficult to generate any breakthroughs.

"I hope there will be some surprises this year!" Zhou Ping secretly wished as he waited for the Forbes rich list to be released.

2022年4月5日，《福布斯》发布第36届全球亿万富豪榜，统计截至2022年3月11日的财富数据。

The Forbes Rich List has been around for many years, and although many people know that it only lists a small group of wealthy people, its influence remains.

Zhou Ping clicked on it immediately to check.

His first focus was on total wealth, as the total wealth of the world's richest people declined for the first time this year due to the impact of conflict, inflation, and the plunge in tech stocks.

Zhou Ping wrote it down in his memo.

However, this is common knowledge and is unlikely to become a news sensation.

"It seems we'll have to look at the specific rich list rankings!"

As Zhou Ping swiped the mouse, the first name that appeared at the top of the list caught his eye.

The richest person in China has changed!
This is definitely big news. Elon Musk, the Tesla boss, has topped the rich list for the first time with a net worth of $219 billion.

Become the world's richest person! Even if it's just the publicly acknowledged richest person, that's still being the richest person!

However, Zhou Ping immediately shook his head with a wry smile. Although the change of the richest person was big news, it was too eye-catching. Many people would pay attention to it, and many people would report on it. So, it was better than nothing.

The names on the subsequent global rich list haven't changed much; it's still the same people.

It's all the same old faces, so boring!
After looking for a while, Zhou Ping was somewhat disappointed; there were almost no major changes in the top ten of the global list.

This means there's no news to dig up that's going to be sensational.

The richest man in China? Well, that's nothing new. It's still the same guy who sells water, and he's ranked seventeenth in the world.

Secondly, Zhang, the founder of ByteDance, is also nothing new.

Third, it's a new one, but it also lacks newsworthy elements.

Fourth, Pony Ma from Tencent; fifth, Jack Ma from Alibaba—they're both frequent visitors and old acquaintances!

Continuing down the list, we see Wang from SF Express, He from Midea, and NetEase.
Suddenly, a name that was both strange and familiar caught his eye, and Zhou Ping was momentarily lost in thought.

Then his eyes widened.

"Holy crap!" Zhou Ping couldn't help but swear, then got excited.

Why? Because the blind student discovered the key point!
"Ninth place, Chen Mo, wealth - $19 billion, Shengshi Pictures (film and television) / Pinduoduo (e-commerce)!"

"Are you kidding me?" Zhou Ping's first reaction was that it was impossible, absolutely impossible.

What the hell is Chen Mo?

Film and television? This seems to be the first person in the film and television industry to break into the top ten of the national rich list, right?

No, when did Chen Mo become so rich?

Then he clicked to see the Forbes statistics on Chen Mo's wealth composition.

Shengshi Pictures holds shares worth $156 billion, while Pinduoduo holds shares worth $32 billion!
"I'm on 8 AM! It's actually true!" Zhou Ping couldn't help but blurt out again.

Then, in the next moment, he became somewhat excited.

What's a "breaking point"? This is it!
First of all, Chen Mo is a big celebrity. Unlike other rich people on the list, Chen Mo's story of how he made his fortune is almost a household name.

In addition, he is the first person to appear on the rich list as a director. That makes sense, Chen Mo's most prominent profession is directing!

If you randomly ask someone on the street, their first reaction will be "director!" not "tycoon."

In addition, he is from the entertainment industry, so what else could be more sensational than this?
What excites Zhou Ping even more is that although Pinduoduo's shareholding in Chen Mo's wealth is only $32 billion, the explosive growth of this e-commerce platform in recent years has already become the focus of the industry.

The crucial point is, Chen Mo is actually a shareholder of Pinduoduo? Zhou Ping was completely dumbfounded. He hadn't expected this at all! Then he started searching for information about Chen Mo's investment in Pinduoduo.

The next moment he was completely stunned, wow, wow!

From the information he found, he learned that Chen Mo, as one of the early investors, had a terrifying return on his investment—he initially invested less than 100 million yuan, and now the market value has increased five hundred times.

How did Chen Mo invest in Pinduoduo in the first place? It was all to promote the movie "Mojin: The Lost Legend"!
At that time, Pinduoduo had just been launched and had just completed its Series A funding round, raising only nine million US dollars!

And what about Chen Mo? Because the movie "Mojin: The Lost Legend" wanted to hold a "nationwide dragon-hunting and treasure hunt" event, after being rejected by Ali, he went to Pinduoduo, which had just been established at the time.

As a result, Pinduoduo was in such dire straits that it couldn't come up with such a large amount of operating funds to burn, so it brought in strategic investor Chen Mo!

In other words, Chen Mo's investment in Pinduoduo was a complete accident!
A god of investment in the film and television industry? Holy crap, this would be one of the most successful venture capital cases in Chinese history!
"We must delve deeper into this point!"

Zhou Ping quickly pulled up Shengshi Pictures' financial reports for the past three years and then discovered even more astonishing details!

Shengshi Pictures is simply out of reach of the masses!

To be honest, he was completely dumbfounded when he looked at the financial reports disclosed by Shengshi Film Company over the past three years.

In three years, the total dividends have exceeded 10 billion yuan, and the most important thing is that the financial report at the beginning of this year showed that...

Shengshi Film Industry Co., Ltd. has more than 10 billion yuan in cash reserves on its books, and its securities investment portfolio also includes leading new energy stocks such as CATL and BYD.

These targets happened to be in line with the global energy revolution that began in 2020, with CATL alone bringing Shengshi more than 30 billion yuan in unrealized gains.

Most importantly, the Forbes list does not provide a complete picture of Chen Mo's wealth.

It's important to know that Chen Mo's businesses extend far beyond these! For example, Huayun Apparel, the leading Chinese-style clothing brand, doesn't have a high valuation on the Forbes list because it's not publicly listed.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg of Chen Mo's businesses, okay?
Meanwhile, if Shengshi Pictures' return on investment is so astonishing, what about Chen Mo himself?
It's important to know that even in the last three years, Chen Mo has taken the lion's share of the profits. At the same time, Chen Mo's acting fees are also quite high. These incomes are not included in the calculation, so Chen Mo's real wealth is far more than the number on the wealth list!
Although much of it involved Chen Mo's private matters, even Forbes would have difficulty truly investigating, the more he investigated, the more clues he found in snippets of news reports.

"No, we can't keep collecting information!" Zhou Ping suddenly suppressed the urge to continue collecting information about Chen Mo's wealth.

Since Chen Mo made it onto the rich list and even into the top ten, he's definitely not the only one who noticed; someone might already be writing about it by now.

With trembling fingers, Zhou Ping typed the title: "Chen Mo, the Crossover Genius: The Wealth Code from Billion-Dollar Director to Hidden Tech Giant."

He foresaw that this set of data would ignite three hot topics: the first director in the film and television industry to break into the top ten, the investment strategy that accurately navigated the industry's downturn, and the fact that has always been overlooked by the public—this man who has dominated the entertainment news for years has already quietly rewritten the power structure of China's rich circle.

Zhou Ping's fingers flew across the keyboard, and the document on the screen expanded with his thoughts—while netizens were still debating Chen Mo's scandals or new film, the undercurrents of the capital market had already pushed him to another dimension.

Behind the cold figure of "$190 billion" on the Forbes list lies a wealth path that even professional analysts find difficult to replicate—using the film and television industry as a fulcrum to leverage exponential growth in cross-industry investment.

The most amazing thing is that while countless people are praising Chen Mo's "always-successful investments" in the film and television industry and calling him the god of investment in the film and television industry, they have not realized that what supports Shengshi Pictures' market value of more than 200 billion yuan is far more than the revenue brought by the film and television industry.

The real core support actually came from that "unrelated" cash cow!

Shengshi Pictures' financial report revealed Chen Mo's "abnormality": the main business revenue of the film and television company has been declining year by year, and in 2021 it was even surpassed by securities investment income (accounting for 53%). What is even more intriguing is the "bluntness" of its investment portfolio - CATL, BYD and other targets have all avoided short-term fluctuations, with holding periods all exceeding 18 months, accurately positioning itself during the new energy boom.

It's fair to say that this doesn't resemble retail investor trading at all; it's more like receiving an industry manual for the next ten years in advance.

It's simply unbelievable that a film and television company could so accurately grasp investment opportunities that would leave countless top private equity fund managers in the dust!
However, this is still not the most amazing thing. The most amazing thing is that while everyone's attention is drawn to his endless marketing and publicity methods, they overlook the even more amazing capital myth behind it.

Pinduoduo, a latecomer to the e-commerce industry that is now almost universally known.

That year, Pinduoduo had just launched and had just completed its Series A funding round, raising only nine million US dollars. That year, Chen Mo was looking for a partner platform to promote "Mojin: The Lost Legend".

Alibaba probably never imagined that their rejection would inadvertently create a venture capital legend.

That year, when Chen Mo invested in Pinduoduo for the promotional collaboration of "Mojin: The Lost Legend," the industry generally believed that this was a "cross-industry dabbling."

However, public information shows that he not only holds 3.3% of Pinduoduo's original shares in his personal capacity, but also indirectly participated in subsequent rounds of investment through offshore companies. This investment of less than 1 million Chinese yuan has now ballooned to a market value of 32 billion US dollars, and this is only the publicly available data.

So is it really just luck?

If this is luck, then Wall Street should all resign.

So is Chen Mo's true net worth really just the number on the Forbes rich list?

the answer is negative!

Putting aside everything else, Huayun Apparel alone is greatly underestimated. Although this company is not yet listed, Chen Mo has used his connections in the film and television industry and his accurate vision to build it into a truly deserving number one Chinese style brand.

While Chen Mo may not have many affiliated companies, the destination of Shengshi Pictures' dividends over the past three years is enough to make one think deeply and feel uneasy.

Not to mention his original profession, film and television industry investment.
When netizens joked about "Chen Mo's annual hot search package," few people noticed its business logic—traffic is leverage.

For example, during the release of "Article 20," Shengshi Pictures' stock price rose by 12% in a single week, while its holdings in Wanda Cinema Line also saw a surge in trading volume. It can be said that almost every time he sparks a buzz in the entertainment industry, it is accompanied by a revaluation of related assets.

When Zhou Ping clicked "post," the comment section was instantly flooded with questions: "Can a director really earn that much?"

"real or fake?"

"This is just ridiculous! Let me have a moment of peace!"

"That's not right, he's not on Pinduoduo's shareholder list at all!"

"Hey upstairs, the Forbes rich list has already been released, there are only more, not fewer! Dude!"

"A director on the rich list? This isn't a joke?"

"This is outrageous! I knew Chen Mo was rich and generous, but I never expected him to be this rich!"

"No, the problem is, good heavens, Pinduoduo's founder is actually ranked after Chen Mo! *laughs*"

Zhou Ping's report instantly ignited a heated discussion, and he was right; the news topic went viral.

There was no way to keep it from going viral. In fact, it wasn't just Zhou Ping who saw the potential of this news; many financial bloggers followed suit and published similar reports. Chen Mo's news potential was far greater than that of the richest man!

After all, what's so special about being the richest man? You're just a water seller, what's there to write about?
But Chen Mo was different; his various miraculous experiences were simply "too numerous to recount"!

That evening, the hashtag #ChenMoIsTheNinthRichestManInChina# topped the trending search list.

And this wasn't the only trending topic. Other hashtags like #ChenMo'sRealWealth#, #CanADirectorBeTheRichestMan?#, and #ChenMo'sInvestmentMyth# quickly dominated the charts, with related discussions exceeding 100 million views in a single day.

Netizens also went through a psychological journey from "watching the drama" to "being shocked".

"I used to think Chen Mo was the highest-earning director, but now I realize he's the best moviemaker among the wealthy!"

"I suggest we investigate whether Chen Mo is a time traveler; his investment acumen is outrageous!"

"So Chen Mo didn't rely on his talent, but on his money?"

"I used to criticize him for hyping himself up, but now I realize that I'm the clown myself..."

"I strongly suggest that Shengshi Pictures or Chen Mo should just start a fund. This is absolutely outrageous!"

If Chen Mo was previously known primarily for his entertainment industry achievements, or rather, his fame in the entertainment industry overshadowed his wealth, then this time, with the Forbes list now released and him breaking into the top ten nationwide for the first time, news about Chen Mo's investments, his investments in Shengshi Pictures, and so on, has completely gone viral.

The financial world was the first to be blown up.

Reports indicate that financial analysts held an emergency meeting overnight, and several securities firms urgently adjusted the ratings of Shengshi Pictures, with reports uniformly titled "Decoding the Capital Myth of an 'Atypical Film and Television Company'".

A partner at Sequoia Capital posted on WeChat Moments: "Back then, I didn't invest in Pinduoduo's Series A round because I thought the business model was too outdated. Now, seeing Chen Mo's $32 billion stake, I admit I was blind."

Forbes' move has also been ridiculed by netizens, with some posting a modified version of the list and adding a note next to Chen Mo's name: "His actual wealth may be doubled, after all, this person is too lazy to even collect all his dividends."

(End of this chapter)