Return to 1958 and build a century-old giant

Chapter 832 The Huge Profits of Gold Investment

"What you say makes sense," Yang Wendong nodded.
Although he has been developing Hong Kong comics over the years and has even brought several historical Japanese comics to Hong Kong, the general trend is hard to change, and Japanese comics will still rise.
After the 70s, Japanese comics also began to sell well in Asia, becoming even more famous than Hong Kong comics. After all, Hong Kong only had one comic, while there were many companies behind Japanese comics.

However, he was pleased that he had invested in the Ultraman company early on, and as the Ultraman TV series became popular in Asia, he was able to share a considerable portion of the profits.

The script for "Transformers" was similar to what he had described. At the time, he could only tell a general story based on the movie's plot. Now that Wu Hailin's team was making comics, they naturally had to add various other plots and so on. Yang Wendong read it for a while and thought it was pretty good.

As for comics, Changxing Comics Group has already reached a certain level of quality and it won't be too bad.

"What does Yang Sheng think?" Wu Hailin asked.

Yang Wendong closed the documents and smiled, "Okay, let's publish the comic according to this script."

He only remembers the movie; he doesn't understand anything else, so he doesn't interfere. Whether it can be done well or not depends half on luck.
Moreover, the Transformers franchise's immense popularity is largely due to its future animated series and blockbuster movies; the comics themselves can only attract a limited audience.

When the technology for blockbuster films matures, I will need to collaborate with Hollywood to produce films, and that will be the real money-making opportunity.

Of course, even in the 80s and 90s, Transformers was quite profitable, especially in the toy industry. It can be said to be the most suitable comic for making merchandise, much better than other comics, even Dragon Ball.

Wu Hailin said, "Okay, I'll go prepare now, and the comic will be available next month."

"Okay, we need to finalize the global copyright details. We can't overlook any country with a copyright law," Yang Wendong reminded them again.

Copyright is what makes Changxing Culture Company most profitable, just like Disney.
Wu Hailin said, "Don't worry, Mr. Yang, I will send all the copyright information to headquarters for further confirmation."

"Alright, that's settled then. I'll be waiting to see your next comic strip," Yang Wendong said with a smile.

As long as you hold the copyright, all the profits will belong to you for decades or even centuries to come, which is much better than some technology patents.

Time flew by and it was December;
The Transformers comic book series has begun its initial sale in Hong Kong.

Even though it has an American background, the content involves encounters with aliens and ordinary people, which immediately attracted a lot of people's interest. Although most people in Hong Kong do not own a car, not owning a car does not mean they do not love cars. In fact, many people who cannot afford a car know more about cars than those who own one.
Changxing Comics is a weekly magazine, and in its first week, it sold over 1 copies in Hong Kong.

This number may not seem like much, far less than the daily news, but for a new comic book, it's already quite good. As its popularity grows, more and more people will buy it, like a snowball rolling downhill.

Some schools and young people in Hong Kong have become somewhat interested in Transformers, and Chang Hing Culture Company has also started selling related toys at Carrefour. However, the prices are not cheap, with the cheaper ones costing tens of Hong Kong dollars and the more expensive ones costing hundreds. This price is still too high for ordinary families in Hong Kong.

Upon receiving this data, Yang Wendong was not surprised, saying, "These toys are inherently high-end; even in Europe and America, not everyone can afford them. In the future, our main markets will still be Europe, America, or Japan."

"Understood," Wu Hailin and Zhang Zhiyuan replied.

Yang Wendong added, "It's already been released in Hong Kong, and I think the market feedback is pretty good. So let's enter the Japanese market as soon as possible. Japan's economy is not much worse than Europe and the United States. Once we open up the market there, the sales of toys will inevitably grow exponentially."

As the 80s approached, Japan's economic level was comparable to that of Europe and the United States, and its consumption power was in no way inferior to that of several powerful Western European countries.
However, relatively speaking, the Japanese are very supportive of domestically produced goods, so even though the Japanese market has lower tariffs than the American and European markets, German and American cars cannot enter Japan, except for the high-end BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi), which are not available in Japan. But with the advent of Lexus, even BBA will not be able to enter the Japanese market.

Yang Wendong also understood Xiao Rizi's personality. It was really not easy to make money from them. Fortunately, at that time, Japan's entertainment industry was not doing well and a portion of the market had been conquered by Hong Kong films. There would also be some opportunities in comics, games, or the electronics industry.
Traditional industries, as long as they are making a living, can basically not compete with their counterparts in their home markets, until the advent of the Apple iPhone era.

Zhang Zhiyuan replied, "Understood. We've already started printing the Japanese version. Once we're successful in the Japanese market, we'll prepare to enter the American market."

"Do you have distribution channels in the US market?" Yang Wendong asked.

Zhang Zhiyuan said, "In terms of distribution channels, we entrust them to the local general distributors. I am only responsible for production, while sales are handled by them. It's similar in other countries as well. It's difficult for us to achieve state-level distribution."

"Can the general distributor you found accurately cover the entire United States?" Yang Wendong asked again.

Zhang Zhiyuan said, "It's impossible. He also needs to find many other counterparts in other states to operate, which has reduced our profits a lot. But there's nothing we can do. It's very difficult for a newspaper to cover the entire United States. Even if they have such channels, they may not be interested in us, unless we can achieve results someday."

“Hmm,” Yang Wendong also knew that the American market was huge. In this era without the Internet, distribution was a very troublesome thing. He then said, “I once invested in an American newspaper company. His name is Murdoch. If you have time, go to the United States to visit him. I know that his newspaper is doing very well in the United States. See if you can use his channels.”

After saying that, Yang Wendong searched in his drawer for a while and found Murdoch's business card;
Many years ago, he invested in News Corporation, but the investment was small, and since it wasn't listed yet, the matter was dropped. Occasionally, there were some collaborations, such as his Red Bull business, which frequently sought advertising opportunities in News Corporation's newspapers, but Yang Wendong didn't need to handle these personally. "Murdoch? I've heard of him too." Zhang Zhiyuan was surprised, not expecting his boss to have such extensive connections.

Yang Wendong smiled and said, "Go talk to their group first and see if we can try cooperating. If it doesn't work out or isn't very good, I'll talk to them when I have the chance."

Given Murdoch's capabilities, he can control newspapers and media across the United States, and his channels must cover the entire country, making him the best partner for me. However, such resources are limited, and it is hard to say whether he is willing to provide assistance. Everything is for the sake of profit, and further negotiations are needed.
As the 80s progressed, Murdoch's global influence gradually increased, and his company was expected to go public in the 80s, which would give me the opportunity to achieve many strategic collaborations with him.
Zhang Zhiyuan replied, "Okay, Mr. Yang."

As long as you have good content and a decent network of contacts, you will eventually succeed. Transformers will eventually become a globally popular comic. Once you have a certain foundation, you can try making animation.
However, this is only the first step in a long journey, so there's no rush.
Time flew by and it was 1980, finally ushering in the 80s.
Transformers also began to be sold in Japan and achieved good results in the early stages. Yang Wendong was very happy when he learned about it.
However, compared to something else, Transformers' success in Japan is somewhat insignificant: gold futures, which are nearing their peak value.

Throughout 1979, the price of gold rose from over $200 to fluctuate between $500 and $600. In January 80, it broke through $650 in just a few days and quickly reached $700, and continued to rise.
For such an important matter, Yang Wendong personally went to New York to join Fang Xianming and many other team members.

"When it reaches 700, immediately sell all your long positions," Yang Wendong ordered directly.
Although the historical high was 850, the period at which the high was maintained was extremely short, only a few days in the middle of the month. By the end of the month, the price of gold had dropped to around 600 and then continued to decline.

Not to mention, it's hard to say whether his butterfly effect will have any impact.
Once it reaches 700, it will be necessary to start selling. Since there are too many long positions, it will take some time to sell and cash out. It is unlikely that all of them can be cashed out within one or two days.

After receiving the order, Fang Xianming said, "Okay, I'll contact the major investment banks right away."

Immediately, Fang Xianming called each of the major investment banks and arranged for someone to deliver authorization letters. Since such a huge amount of money was involved, it had to be done in writing.

Although this gold futures investment also involves European banks, this is New York. Even European banks, such as Leyton Bank of the UK, Deutsche Bank of Germany, and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Canada, have branches in New York.

New York, London, and the future Hong Kong will be the world's three major financial hubs, and many international futures and foreign exchange transactions can be conducted 24 hours a day through these three cities.

Upon receiving orders from their clients, major investment banks immediately began selling off their long gold futures positions, gradually cashing out their holdings.

Yang Wendong was stationed in New York, waiting for that final piece of good news.

Nine days later, on January 22, all the gold futures contracts were cashed out.

In less than a year, Yang Wendong bought gold at about $233 per ounce, and now he sells it for an average of about $730, which is more than three times the price.
The initial investment was $10.6 billion, with an average leverage of 3.7 times. If we multiply that by three times, the return would now be approximately $10 billion.

However, many investment banks are not charities; they won't help you easily, and these unsecured short-term loans also have extremely high interest rates.
At this very moment, Europe and the United States were experiencing severe inflation due to the oil crisis. In order to suppress inflation, Europe and the United States had to raise interest rates on a large scale, resulting in deposit interest rates as high as ten percent, and loan interest rates even higher. The short-term loans adopted by Yang Wendong had even more outrageous interest rates, with an annual interest rate of nearly 30%.

The interest is less than 7 million, which is nothing compared to the returns. The larger portion is actually taxes.
According to US law, gold futures (COMEX trading) fall under Section 1256 contracts, which are subject to a maximum tax of 28%. Even though Fang Xianming hired top US tax experts to help him avoid taxes, he only managed to reduce the tax by 7 percentage points.

While business taxes can sometimes be evaded through various methods, it's much more difficult to avoid them in financial transactions.

These transaction records are kept in investment banks and gold exchanges, making them difficult to avoid. Yang Wendong didn't want to offend the IRS. Since he made the lion's share of the profits in the US, he had to pay the taxes on the smaller portion. Although he was unhappy, he was able to make such profits because of such a platform.

Of course, some gold futures are traded in London, but taxes are also payable in London.

The major financial powers aren't fools. They've already agreed on how to cut the profits of capitalists. If they engage in cutthroat competition, they might end up losing everything.

Ultimately, after all the calculations, the final amount of funds received was approximately US$73.4 billion.

"Mr. Yang, this time you've struck gold with another Changxing Group!" Fang Xianming said happily.
Yang Wendong has been an entrepreneur in Hong Kong for 20 years, and with so many businesses combined, his total wealth is probably around this figure.

Yang Wendong said with a smile, "You still look down on Changxing Group. Even if other conglomerates offered me $100 billion, I wouldn't sell."

The total wealth of Changxing Group may not be more than 70 billion US dollars, but many of its high-quality assets cannot be bought with money alone. For example, Harbour City, which will be just one shopping mall in the future, is worth far more than 70 billion US dollars; there are also so many buildings in Central, Glory Electronics, overseas investment projects, and so on.

"Haha, that was my fault." Fang Xianming laughed, then asked, "Mr. Yang, with so much money, are we planning to keep it in the United States or transfer it out?"

Yang Wendong thought for a moment and said, "Let's stay in the United States for now. There are still many industries in the United States that we can invest in in the future."

Previously, I invested in Chrysler and was also preparing to acquire their 336 car dealerships. However, due to funding issues, the deal was not finalized until now. You and Lin Youtian can take charge of this matter together.
Find me a dedicated manager; I will continue to invest in the automotive retail business in the United States in the future.

PS: Please give me a monthly ticket
I understand that many people may feel unhappy about paying taxes, but this is a normal world. It's possible to avoid taxes, but it's unlikely to be tax-free. Even Apple and Google can't avoid paying taxes in the US; the IRS isn't to be trifled with.
(End of this chapter)