Rebirth of financial migrant workers

Chapter 502: Football Clubs Acquired by Huaguo Capital in Those Years (Two in One)

There is a farm house about fifteen kilometers south of Tiane Branch. It is geographically remote and its exterior and interior decoration are very ordinary.

But ever since the whole country has been cracking down on public spending on food and drink, business here has been surprisingly good.

Inside Box No. 6 on the second floor, there were three men and one woman, one of whom was obviously drunk.

After nearly an hour of drinking - testing - drinking again - testing again, Wang Chunliang had roughly asked about some details of the cooperation that Tian'e Branch was going to start with Wanhe Group.

Because President Liu lacks a backing in the head office, he is eager to curry favor with his superiors.

Therefore, when he learned that the branch intended to arrange for the sub-branch to take over Wanhe Group's international business, he immediately found Mr. Shen from the branch's international business department and issued a military order, who then reported this information to Wang Quan.

Wang Quan knew that Liu Bo was Wang Chunliang's old leader and the two had some friendship between them. If he arranged for the Tian'e Branch to handle Wanhe's business, it would not easily arouse the vigilance of Wang Chunliang's side.

Moreover, if the situation worsens in the future, Liu Bo, who lacks a backing, could be thrown out to take the blame at will.

Then he could make a fuss about his relationship with Wang Chunliang and further bring trouble to Ning Minghao.

After weighing the pros and cons for less than a minute, Wang Quan instructed General Manager Shen on the phone to approve President Liu's application for promotion.

Later, Mr. Shen specifically found Liu Bo and repeatedly emphasized to him that in order to prevent other banks from interfering in marketing, matters regarding Wanhe must be kept confidential.

When Liu Bo received the invitation to dinner from Sister Jun, he actually did not intend to accept it.

Because of rumors, the relationship between Wang Chunliang and his senior brother Wang Quan is a bit subtle.

If I get too close to Wang Chunliang at this time, it would undoubtedly be politically incorrect.

This would cause displeasure to President Wang Quan, and the little trust he had gained from the other party through cooperation with Wanhe Group would be destroyed.

However, considering Wang Chunliang's current position as deputy general manager of the head office department, and recalling the rumors in the industry that Chairman Ning might be behind Wang Chunliang, Liu Bo felt that he could not say no to Wang Chunliang's invitation to dinner, so he had to come despite himself.

It's so sad. It's not easy for a small person in the workplace to get along with everyone.

Knowing that he couldn't drink much, he originally planned to not drink at all, but he couldn't resist the enthusiastic persuasion of Wang Chunliang and Sister Jun.

Thinking that these two people couldn't drink much more than he could, Liu Bo raised his glass reluctantly.

However, this move could not be stopped.

It was said that Dazhuang, who came to deliver wine, had an amazing alcohol tolerance and kept toasting him.

Originally, the other party was a manager of a small company department of a branch, so it would be enough for me to raise my glass and say hello to him.

But who would have thought that after Wang Chunliang's introduction, he found out that Da Zhuang was actually the son of a senior supervisory official.

If I don't give him face, the central bank will definitely not give me face when it comes to inspect my Swan Branch in the future.

Well, this person's toast cannot be sloppy either.

President Liu changed from sipping to pouring, and whenever he raised his glass, it was always full.

After being bombarded by Wang Chunliang and Zhao Gang, Liu Bo's face was flushed and his eyes began to wander.

After the brain was exposed to alcohol, its reaction and alertness decreased a lot, so Liu Bo revealed a lot of useful information all at once.

Thinking about the reason why Mr. Shen asked him to keep it confidential was to prevent other banks from interfering, it shouldn't be a big deal for Wang Chunliang and others, who are Mule Bank's own people, to know a little about it, not to mention that they are not big mouths.

After comforting himself in this way, Liu Bo further relaxed his vigilance and became even more relaxed about Wanhe’s business.

After Gangzi had another drink with him to deepen his memory, President Liu finally told him the most important information, and then he fell headfirst onto the table and lost consciousness.

"Tsk tsk tsk, Wanhe Group has been colluding with our bank for so long, and it turns out that they are planning to buy the Premier League's Newcastle team for a whopping 5 million pounds. This news is really explosive!"

In line with the principle of not wasting a drop of Wuliangye, Gangzi licked the few drops of liquor remaining on his lips and said so.

Sister Jun on the side also interrupted:

"It's not surprising. Even someone like me who never watches football games has heard that someone in the upper echelons loves football, so it's inevitable that some businessmen will come up with some crooked ideas to please that person."

"Sister Jun is much older than us, so she does know more."

After making a joke, Gangzi quickly added before Jun Jie could get upset, "It's true that the football atmosphere has been very hot recently. The pharmaceutical company in Shencheng, China, has basically completed most of its acquisition of the Premier League Foxes. There is also a company called Sino-European Sports that came out of nowhere and has made some capital operations. It is said that its current target is the declining giants of Serie A, AC Milan. In comparison, it is not surprising that Wanhe Group, which entered the football circle earlier than the two of them, has acquired Niu Karl."

Since Wang Chunliang was just a small fry in his previous life, he could only see a very general guidance sheet issued by the regulator requiring all banks to investigate businesses involving the Wanhe Group.

Although he was later told that this might be related to his frequent transfer of assets overseas for money laundering activities, he knew nothing about the specific links and steps.

Now that he had mastered several key pieces of information, Wang Chunliang connected them with his memories of his previous life and quickly deduced a series of actions of the Wanhe Group.

At the beginning of the year, China issued Document No. 46 to promote sports consumption and investment, encouraging social capital to enter the sports industry and expand investment and financing channels for the sports industry.

As soon as the policy was implemented, major domestic capitals, like sharks smelling blood, joined the ranks of acquiring overseas football clubs, and Wanhe Group was naturally among them.

At this time, news came from Europe that the Premier League Newcastle Club was interested in selling itself, so it was natural for Wanhe Group to establish a relationship with it.

The next primary question is how much money is needed to acquire the Niu Kar Club, because this is related to how much quota the Wanhe Group can get from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and the bank.

What numbers are related to the amount of foreign investment that the State Administration of Foreign Exchange can approve and the amount that the loan review committee of Mule Bank can approve?
Is it the exorbitant price asked by the current owner of the opposing club?
No, it depends more on the valuation of the club by professional organizations.

As we all know, although the Flower Country seems to have a huge number of fans, various football matches are in full swing.

But compared with Europe, this place is an absolute football desert.

This is not only reflected in the level of professional teams and players, but also in the commercialization and related supporting industries, which are at least 30 years behind Europe. There are a large number of real estate appraisal agencies in China, but there is no agency that specializes in evaluating the value of football clubs.

If you want to find such institutions, you can only look to Europe and the United States.

There are many authoritative organizations in Europe and the United States that are engaged in professional evaluations of the football industry. However, Wanhe Group will certainly not just find one to do the valuation, because it will inevitably not be able to estimate a high price.

Is the purpose of acquiring the club to please the higher-ups?
Or is it to create big news and increase the company's visibility in the country?

Or is it to use this as an excuse to transfer assets abroad?
Regardless of the specific reason, if the acquired club is bought at a low price, the above-mentioned effect cannot be achieved.

Have you ever participated in loan fraud? Oh, no, those of you who have participated in increasing the loan limit through friendship must know that the most common way to provide a mortgage loan limit is to find an appraisal company that you are familiar with to give a high price to the house.

By the same token, Wanhe Group also needs to find a familiar assessment agency.

But whether it is a domestic housing appraisal company or a European and American football industry appraisal agency, for the sake of their company's brand reputation, they will not give an appraisal price that deviates too much from the market average.

However, as the layman Zhao Gang said just now, he felt that the acquisition of Niu Karl for 5 million pounds was a bit outrageous. How could a professional appraisal agency recognize this price?
You know, in 2010, Fenway Group only spent $4.76 million to acquire Liverpool.

How can the Newcastle club, whose performance and fame are not as good as Liverpool, be evaluated at a price of 5 million pounds?

It doesn’t matter, Horachin, who is a big name in European football, will come forward to help solve the problem.

As a big-capital agent, he has great influence in European football and can easily influence and manipulate professional websites and organizations such as Transfermarkt (German transfer market) that estimate the value of players.

After learning about the unusual request from Wanhe Group, a major client, Horachin naturally would not refuse. He immediately began to use his media to hype up the transfer rumors of Niu Karl players, in order to create the impression that Niu Karl players were in great demand in the transfer market.

Those websites and organizations that have been informed of the player's value will then frequently raise the player's value.

Subsequently, Football Benchmark (FB), a subsidiary of KPMG that specializes in evaluating club acquisitions, came on the scene.

Don't ignore the close relationship between Ji Dong and his Huajin Group and KPMG. It was this relationship that led FB to eventually issue an inflated team value assessment report based on inflated player values.

The report valued Niu Kar at a staggering 5.02 million pounds, so it seemed reasonable for the other boss to ask for 5 million pounds.

With this evaluation report in one hand and Document No. 46 in the other, Wanhe Group easily convinced the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and obtained approval for overseas investment.

Then, Wanhe Group used two undeveloped plots of land in Hedong New District with a total value of RMB 30 billion as collateral to successfully apply for a total amount of RMB 30 billion required to acquire Niu Kar Club from Mule Bank.

The Mule Bank then provided external guarantees, enabling the Wanhe Group's UK subsidiary to obtain nearly 4 million pounds of funds from the Bank of England in the form of domestic guarantees and foreign loans.

After this operation, there is still more than 5 million pounds left of the 2 million pounds needed for the acquisition.

Wanhe Group also handled overseas lending at Mule Bank, converting more than 20 billion yuan in the domestic group's account into pounds and transferring it to the accounts of its overseas subsidiaries.

As for whether the more than 20 billion yuan of fraudulent loan funds of Boss Jiang were involved in the more than 30 billion yuan,
Wang Chunliang doesn’t know, but we can say that this possibility cannot be ruled out, and it is quite likely.

If there were no memories of past lives, everyone would think that the story would end here.

However, this is only the first step. What follows is the key to the careful planning of Wanhe Group and Boss Jiang’s team.

Football is a costly sport.

Even in the English Premier League, the most commercialized league in the world, mid- and lower-tier teams often suffered losses year after year before 2018, and this was especially true for the Newcastle United Club after its change of ownership.

Ordinary fans may be worried about the losses of their own Premier League club, but the boss of Wanhe Group is not worried at all.

For him, losses are a good thing.

According to the rules of the Premier League, teams that suffer financial losses for consecutive years will face relegation.

In this way, Wanhe Group had a legitimate reason to supplement funds to fill the loss gap, and thus transferred large amounts of funds from the domestic group account to the foreign subsidiary accounts.

But there will always be a moment when your own funds are exhausted.

At this time, Sugi Capital from Wall Street finally made its last appearance.

If you lack funds, I will make up for it.

However, this so-called vulture of Wall Street is no pushover. In addition to the extremely high interest on the loan, Sugi Capital also bit the ownership of the Niu Kar Club.

The two parties finally signed an agreement, stipulating that if the loan of 2.6 million pounds cannot be repaid when it is due, the Newcastle Club will change hands again.

The last node before Wang Chunliang's rebirth was 2019. Although Wanhe Group had not collapsed at that time, the economic downturn at the time, the near collapse of the real estate market, and the fact that almost all the cash flow in Wanhe's account was transferred abroad to fill the losses of Niu Karl, the collapse of Wanhe was inevitable.

By then, all debts cannot be repaid, all remaining domestic assets of Wanhe Group will be forcibly auctioned off by various banks, and the overseas Niukaer Club will also be occupied by Shanmu Capital.
Onlookers may feel that Wanhe Group had good intentions, but in the end it only achieved nothing, which is quite tragic.

But is this really the case?
Wang Chunliang remembered that later a foreign reporter revealed two intriguing secrets.

The parent company of English Victory Capital, the second largest shareholder of Niu Kar Club before Wanhe’s acquisition, seems to have a close relationship with a company that Wanhe Group acquired in Europe in its early years.

Based on the above-mentioned supplementary plot, Wang Chunliang couldn't help but boldly speculate that the inflated part of the funds when Wanhe Group initially acquired the club eventually fell into his own pocket.

In addition, there is a mysterious Chinese man named Zhang in the famous Shanmu Capital. It is very likely that this man is the same person as the son of Mr. Zhang, the boss of Wanhe Group.

Now, the whole story becomes clearer and more reasonable.

"Gangzi, go get a room at the hotel next door and help President Liu to rest."

Wang Chunliang patted Zhao Gang on the shoulder and told him, then he stood up and reached out to hold Sister Jun, "Sister Jun, you haven't drunk alcohol, drive me to the head office right now."

(End of this chapter)