My absurd experiences in North America over the years

As soon as 2009 arrived, Nashville was hit by a heavy snowfall, and Li Fuze flew back to New York as soon as the snow stopped.

This time, he was all alone.

Lucy has a special report to the Nashville city government on employment recovery. There are many projects resuming after the Lunar New Year, so she'll probably be busy for a while.

Lina was even more tied up, as negotiations with the Tribune's creditors had entered a critical phase. Every day, she was on the phone arguing with three hedge funds and two law firms, even eating at her desk.

Thompson picked him up at Kennedy Airport.

As the car drove out of the airport, the sky over Manhattan was still overcast. Compared to Los Angeles, sunshine was scarce in New York during the winter.

"Ms. Ivanka has arranged to meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow." Thompson turned his head from the passenger seat. "Mr. Jackson from JPMorgan Chase also asked when you are free. He would like to invite you to dinner."

"Tell him for me that I'll be free next Friday," Li Fu said, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. "This week, I'll get the general work on the real estate and municipal engineering projects sorted out."

For the first time, he felt overwhelmed and unable to be in two places at once.

There are too many things to do right now. Forrest Capital just completed its "sweep" of Time Warner stock two weeks ago, acquiring a total of $10 billion for a 3.23% stake, making it one of the top ten shareholders.

With New York fully reopening, he, as an investor, has many things to coordinate with the Trump Organization on.

On the other hand, although he facilitated the signing of the agreement with Huawei, the $5 million shortfall has not yet been covered. Although the contract has a grace period, it still needs to be dealt with as soon as possible.

That's why he wanted to see Jackson.

He plans to pledge a portion of his Time Warner shares in Forrest Capital to apply for a bridge loan from JPMorgan Chase.

In New York, his only real assistant was Thompson; the others were temporary hires with limited trust in him.

Thompson is essentially closer to an "inside guard," and in many business matters, he is not as good as Lina.

The following morning, Li Fu, accompanied by Thompson, went to Trump Tower to meet Ivanka.

He arrived fifteen minutes earlier than the agreed time.

Ivanka's office was on the 36th floor. The door was half open, and she was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window making a phone call while quickly jotting something down on a sticky note.

Today she wore a light gray turtleneck sweater, her hair was tied in a low ponytail, and the silver earrings on her earlobes gleamed softly in the afternoon sunlight, revealing her capable and sophisticated temperament.

Li Fu waited at the door for a while, and only knocked on the door frame after she hung up the phone.

"You've arrived," Ivanka said, turning around and tucking the note into a folder. "You're here earlier than we agreed."

"Of course we have to come early to discuss important matters," Li Fu shrugged.

Ivanka walked behind her desk and sat down, gathering the documents spread out in front of her. She gestured with her chin to the chair opposite her. "Please sit down. The progress report from the construction site in Queens just came out. Take a look at it first."

Li Fu sat down and opened the document she handed him.

The report was written neatly and concisely, with each progress point clearly marked with numbers. It also included questions and solutions, and even filled in the gaps in his summary.

All he needs to do is sign.

He flipped through a couple of pages, then closed the book again. "Did you write all of this?"

"Otherwise what?" Ivanka picked up her water glass and took a sip, her tone as indifferent as if she were just saying the weather was nice. "It's because you're such a busy person, and there's no reliable person here to keep an eye on things for you. It was just something I did on the side."

"Thank you for your trouble. I'll treat you to dinner another day," Li Fu said, his mood immediately improving.

"OK," Ivanka then handed over a few more documents. "You need to take a look at these."

This is a true full resumption of work, with no fewer than five Everbright projects starting construction. There is a lot of complicated coordination work involved.

Li Fu could only patiently look at it slowly, but fortunately Ivanka had basically organized most of it for him.

"Looks like I'll have to treat you to meals for several days."

He laughed and joked.

"I happen to have a few restaurants I'd like to try," Ivanka said without any hesitation.

In the following days, Li Fu discovered that Ivanka was not just "helping out casually".

He stayed in a hotel and arrived at his temporary office in Trump Tower at nine o'clock every morning.

Ivanka arrived earlier than him, and the documents that needed his signature, the reports that needed his review, and the list of phone calls that needed his replies were already laid out on the table.

She was more efficient than any assistant he had ever met, and she didn't just execute orders; she was deeply involved.

In every respect, she is an exceptionally outstanding woman.

That day, Lina sent an email. The restructuring plan for Tribune was stuck on a debt allocation issue. She couldn't make up her mind, or rather, she didn't have the authority to do so, so she could only send an email to explain the situation in detail.

After reading the email, Li Fu frowned.

Ivanka, who was flipping through another document beside him, glanced up at him and asked, "What trouble are you in?"

There have never been any problems with their coordination.

"It's not about the project," Li Fu explained briefly. "We acquired a lot of senior and junk bonds from the Forum, and now that the Forum is undergoing bankruptcy and restructuring, there are many tricky things to deal with."

"Bankruptcy reorganization?" Ivanka knew that Forrest Capital had been making moves around in recent months, but she didn't expect it to touch bankrupt reorganization assets.

"Yes," Li Fu nodded, "several subordinate creditors disagree with the distribution plan."

Ivanka put down the documents. "What do they want?"

"They want to take a larger share of the newly restructured company," Li Fuzhen thought these people were daydreaming.

"Impossible. Bankruptcy reorganization plans are usually decided by the creditors' committee," Ivanka said almost offhand, demonstrating her strong business acumen. "How large is your share of the debt? If it is large enough, they can't do anything if you don't agree to the adjustment."

Her advice was to ignore them and stall them until they agreed.

Subordinated creditors usually have a lower priority for repayment, and some are even in a hurry to "cash out" and simply cannot afford to delay, but Li Fu can definitely afford to delay.

Li Fu looked at Ivanka with great interest. "Have you been involved in bankruptcy reorganization projects before?"

"No, but the underlying logic of bankruptcy reorganization is similar to that of a shareholders' meeting. Whoever has more shares has more say," Ivanka said, taking a sip of water. "As for retail investors, they have no right to speak."

According to her, the major creditors are equivalent to the major shareholders, while the dispersed subordinate creditors are like retail investors who have no right to attend the shareholders' meeting unless they unite.

In fact, Li Fu is now one of the largest creditors of the Tribune, and during this period, Forrest Capital spent a total of $300 million to purchase the Tribune's senior and subordinated bonds.

This included purchasing $200 million in senior bonds from Citibank and other small banks that were eager to liquidate their assets. These banks were either at risk of bankruptcy or facing cash flow problems and were therefore desperate to cash out. The prices were generally less than 30 percent of the face value of the senior bonds.

Forrest Capital purchased bonds with a face value of approximately $6.7 million.

The remaining $1 million was used to purchase subordinated bonds in the secondary market, with discounts ranging from 1.5% to 15% of face value.

This portion of the bonds has a face value of approximately 10 billion.

The total amount of senior bonds is approximately 85.7 billion. 6.7 million may not seem like a large share, but the 85.7 billion is held by a syndicate of multiple banks, so 6.7 million is actually not a small amount at all.

Of the approximately $12.83 billion in subordinated bonds, Forrest Capital held $10 billion, representing 77.9% of the total.

This share was enough for Forrest Capital to have a significant say in the Tribune’s bankruptcy reorganization, second only to JPMorgan Chase, the overwhelmingly powerful “super creditor.”

JPMorgan Chase holds a special position in this bankruptcy reorganization. It holds $10.5 billion in senior bonds, all of which are senior secured bonds and are first in line for repayment.

It also acts as the syndicate's agent (the sole agent for all lending banks both inside and outside the courtroom), representing all 85.7 billion in senior debt.

The portion of senior bonds held by Forrest Capital is part of this, and to some extent, Li Fu and JPMorgan Chase are in cahoots.

Currently, the total assets of the Forum Media Group are valued at approximately US$76 billion, while the total liabilities are approximately US$129-130 billion, which constitutes a serious insolvency. The original shareholders will all be ousted in the bankruptcy reorganization. The reorganization can be carried out as a whole by balancing the interests of the major creditors.

Under these circumstances, Li Fu really had no reason to care about the feelings of the subordinate creditors.

They're dreaming if they think they can just raise prices on the spot.

Li Fu read Lina's email again and then replied to her, "The plan doesn't need any changes. If they disagree, we don't need to pay attention to it."

Even if all the other creditors unite, it won't matter as long as JPMorgan Chase is on his side.

He had just finished replying to the email when the phone rang.

It was actually Jackson, the vice president of JPMorgan Chase Private Bank, who called.

Li Fu had previously instructed Lina to use one billion US dollars to buy up shares on the secondary stock market, representing 3.23% of Time Warner's total share capital.

This percentage may not seem high, but in a company like Time Warner with extremely dispersed shareholding, it has already made it into the list of the top ten shareholders.

Jackson's call at this time was related to this matter: "Lee, a trader just reminded me that your holdings in Time Warner have now surpassed Carl Icahn's. Is that true?"

Carl Icahn's name represents a chilling power on Wall Street.

For a long time, he was not only a legendary investor on par with Warren Buffett and George Soros, but also a "corporate predator" who kept countless listed company executives up at night.

Warren Buffett is synonymous with prudent and long-term investing, while George Soros is a foreign exchange market tycoon who wants to "plunder" the world, frequently launching "national annihilation campaigns," and is America's veritable financial "nuclear weapon."

Carl Icahn's ability to be ranked alongside them is certainly due to his unique qualities; the term "speculator" is synonymous with him.

He often targets listed companies that are in a slump or have loopholes due to management mistakes, but whose fundamentals are still sound.

The methods are extremely simple and brutal. They usually involve quietly acquiring a large number of shares of the company in the stock market and becoming an influential major shareholder in a very short period of time.

Then, they exert pressure at the shareholders' meeting, publicly accusing the management of incompetence and proposing restructuring plans such as splitting up the company, massive stock buybacks, or replacing the management. They disregard the company's long-term strategy and force the board of directors to make concessions through proxy battles and other means, thereby driving up the stock price.

Finally, they cashed out at the peak and left, leaving behind a mess.

His notable cases include dismantling TWA (which eventually went bankrupt), forcing Time Warner to step down, and compelling Motorola to merge with Google...

Basically, they spend billions of dollars at a time.

When Jackson mentioned Carl Icahn, he thought Li Fu was preparing to emulate the former "Wolf King" of Wall Street and take action against Time Warner.

"I don't know how many shares Carl Icahn owns in Time Warner now. If it was during the time when he forced his way out of Time Warner's board of directors, then the number of shares I own now should be about the same as his back then," Li Fu recalled that Carl Icahn owned a little over three percent of the shares back then.

"So you're saying you're planning something big?" Jackson's voice softened.

He was assessing Li Fu's behavior.

As someone who is "in the same boat" in some industries, he doesn't want Li Fu to be the next Carl Icahn. Although Carl Icahn, that madman, always profits handsomely, he is actually the one who destroys the environment.

Li Fu's investment in Huawei is long-term. JPMorgan Chase originally intended to be tied to him for at least ten or twenty years in this project. If he is just a speculator, then this cooperation is only a short-term behavior.

Not only do they not want to lose Li Fu, a top-notch trader, as a partner, but it also means that this "major undertaking" may yield limited benefits.

JPMorgan Chase also doesn't want to be a disruptor in the industry.

He and other JPMorgan executives hoped that Li Fu would be a long-term investor like Buffett.

"No, no, I have no intention of interfering with the Time Warner board. I just think Time Warner is a high-quality asset and I'm just buying it at the bottom of the market." Li Fu was unaware of Jackson's thinking; he was simply stating his considerations regarding investment profits.

This is only part of the truth. His large-scale purchase of Time Warner shares was more about controlling public opinion and had nothing to do with making money.

If one day he really does emulate Carl Icahn, it will certainly be for the sake of gaining a voice, not for profit.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Time Warner dominated half of Hollywood in this era.

"Really? I thought you were going to make a big move," Jackson secretly breathed a sigh of relief. It would be best if he wasn't the next Carl Icahn.

"You called just for this?" Li Fu frowned slightly, "Please, everyone's busy!"

"Of course not," Jackson denied, "I may be flying to Los Angeles on business next Wednesday, and I hope we can meet soon if possible."

Of course, these are also facts.

"OK, I'll make the arrangements," Li Fu glanced at his schedule. "How about next Monday?"

"Okay, then next Monday," Jackson agreed.

After Li Fu hung up the phone, Ivanka handed him a document. She had helped Li Fu sort out Time Warner's shareholder structure, marking which institutional investors were worth cooperating with, which needed to be guarded against, and which were "wait-and-see" investors.

She also included a brief explanation, clearly listing the investment styles and past performance of each institution.

After reading the document, Li Fu leaned back in his chair, looking at the charming Ivanka with a smile on his face. He had only mentioned to her once that he had invested in Time Warner.

"When did you do all this? You don't think I'm trying to emulate Carl Icahn, do you?"

This eldest daughter of the Trump family is truly a rare talent; no wonder Trump devoted himself to cultivating her during his first term.

He truly has the potential to be a top-tier support player.