Fatal Strike: Paladins Mercenary Road

Chapter 789 Inventory
Once the mountain eagle gets into work mode, he forgets all his troubles...

He didn't know anything about the Kenyan team yet, but he believed that Lee Sung-hee wouldn't betray him. Now he needed to find a suitable supervisor for that floating prison.

After searching through his social media feed and phone book, the mountain eagle discovered that very few people were qualified for the job...

In the end, the only option was to send 'Sled' to Anchorage to pick up the deranged forensic pathologist Anton, who had already arrived there, and have them work together to manage the floating prison.

Since the Mountain Eagles are planning to move General Sid's pharmaceutical research and production laboratory there, Anton can share his university mentor's research project with these researchers who have a foundation in the field to some extent, which may yield unexpected benefits.

As for the Mountain Eagle's own family laboratory, it will be located in Anchorage. Dalia has already spoken with the doctor in charge of treating the Mountain Eagle. As soon as the funds arrive, that guy will bring a group of people to leave the hospital and enter the laboratory.

In addition, more researchers specializing in biochemistry, genetics, virology, and other fields will be added later.

Mountain Eagle was completely clueless about these purely technical jobs; all he could do was provide the funding and dictate their research direction...

For example, the most important task at present is to analyze the 'superhuman body tissue gift package' that Anton brought from Russia, and at the same time, to include the most important 'Tomica grass' in subsequent research.

Compared to those tedious and difficult-to-understand research tasks, the most suitable role for Mountain Eagle is that of an investor.

To become an investor, all he needs to do is make money!
Within a week, Mountain Eagle thoroughly reviewed its financial and industrial situation...

Singapore's financial offices continue to profit from the foreign exchange futures market, while in South America, Brazil and Colombia, influenced by the United States, exchange rates are like diarrhea, causing them to prolapse.

Meanwhile, the exchange rates of Malaysia and Indonesia in Asia also experienced significant fluctuations...

The trader, Chris Jon, was incredibly skilled, and because he had clear off-exchange information, he was virtually invincible, managing to grow the Mountain Eagles' available funds to around $1.4 billion in just a few months.

This is because Jon had a failed investment experience on Wall Street that led to his being blacklisted, so his investment strategy sometimes appears somewhat conservative...

For example, when he attacked the Edward Foundation in the stock market, he took about half of the Mountain Eagle's assets and hid behind a fund arranged by William Hurt and his associates...

Although the lion's share of the profits ultimately went to William Hurt and his group, Jon managed to recoup his initial investment as quickly as possible by forgoing some of the profits. He then used the even more abundant funds to earn even more from the foreign exchange market.

Jon's series of victories not only more than doubled the Mountain Eagle's own capital, but also attracted more speculative capital into the financial office.

In fact, Jon now controls far more than the 1.4 billion from Mountain Eagle. The financial office's assets reached 4 billion US dollars a few months ago, and this size is still expanding...

This is actually the right way to do financial services!

Jon had repeatedly suggested changing the investment strategy, as he felt immense pressure from always taking risks with his boss's personal savings. Therefore, he had been pushing the financial office to enter the private equity market, and the clients recorded in Mr. Poincaré's notebook became his initial clients.

Jon privately wrote several emails to Mountain Eagle and also called him multiple times to express his idea of ​​developing a private equity fund. He even had a profit model in mind before anything even started.

It was only then that Mountain Eagle realized that those seemingly high-end financial companies never actually helped their clients make money based on their fundamental profit model, because no one can guarantee 100% profitability. In reality, they used high-frequency trading to earn transaction fees and commissions from their clients' trades.

This model, combined with some stable returns from arbitrage trading, can support the profitability of private equity funds.

Mountain Eagle certainly supports this...

In contrast to the smooth sailing of Singapore's financial offices, the growth rate of industries in Thailand has been rather average.

Smuggling, money laundering, crude oil trading, and some investments in land and tourism—these projects are progressing rapidly, but the profits are nowhere near those in Singapore, and sometimes additional investment is even required.

Krabi's boat fleet has essentially been taken over by Great Jaws Sofia...

That remarkable woman used a list of scapegoats to gain access to the Thai judiciary and police, creating a powerful protective umbrella. She then combined the power of both the legitimate and criminal worlds, using a dozen or so gas stations to put immense pressure on the smugglers, forcing them to submit obediently.

The refined oil business, which was once highly anticipated by the Mountain Eagle Group, is progressing very smoothly...

Russia is currently embroiled in the Crimean issue. Although the Minsk agreements have been reached, the United States and Europe clearly do not want Russia to have an easy time. Therefore, although Russia's energy trade is still ongoing, it is not as smooth as it used to be.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Mountain Eagle integrated Anna, Amelia, and Sofia into a refined oil trading route.

Anna had abundant resources; she was responsible for coordinating loans within Great Russia and then using those loans to purchase refined oil products from the Far East at low prices…

Amelia used AXA Insurance Group's channels to find ships, while also looking for more shipping points in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Sofia was responsible for public appearances and overseeing the entire transaction process, while also ensuring smooth payment collection. Mountain Eagle had high hopes for the refined oil trading business, but in practice, profits fell far short of his expectations…

His original plan was to take advantage of Russia's current predicament by purchasing refined oil at low prices through loans and then selling it in Southeast Asia...

He easily secured the loan and the low price, but after bringing them to Southeast Asia, he still needed to cooperate with local energy companies to sell them as quickly as possible.

Because smuggling channels simply can't handle that scale of refined oil, they can't even store that much refined oil. If they really want to make money, they need to increase the frequency of transactions, and if they want to complete transactions quickly, they need to concede profits and cooperate with those large energy companies in Southeast Asia...

They are asset-heavy enterprises. If you want to use their channels to store and sell refined oil, you have to give up most of the profits.

In the past, Mountain Eagle roughly calculated that a 20,000-ton oil tanker could earn about $2 million to $2.5 million per trip. However, according to Sofia's report, after deducting shipping costs and refined oil sales channel costs, the actual profit per trip is only about $800,000 to $1 million.

Of course, this is a lot of money!

Because when you give up the terminal profits, you save the most troublesome part, and those local energy companies help him avoid most of the trouble.

If the distribution channels are established, making more trips or increasing the tonnage of the tanker can still make money.

Moreover, the most profitable part of the entire trade route is not actually the sale of refined oil products, but rather the low-interest loans at the source...

The devaluation rate of the Russian currency is the profit for Mountain Eagle and his gang!
The profit margin on refined oil products is very low, but it would cost nearly $2 million, or 800 million rubles, to fill a 4.2-ton oil tanker.

Anna has access to banks and can easily help Mountain Eagle obtain a loan of 5 million rubles through legitimate channels to purchase refined oil.

Use this money to buy refined oil products in the Far East, sell them, keep the dollars in hand, and then use the deposit certificates of the Cypriot Bank controlled by Anna to borrow more money from the Great Russian Bank.

After three transactions, Mountain Eagle was already heavily indebted, with debts approaching 20 billion rubles.

This number will continue to grow as the transactions continue, and with the ruble's continued depreciation, combined with the even lower exchange rate on the black market, the Mountain Eagles have so far earned more than 6 million rubles through this method.

In other words, by exploiting the exchange rate, they managed to extract 6 million rubles from the Russian central bank without any investment, and also made a profit of nearly $400 million from sales outlets in Southeast Asia.

And all of this happened within the past six months!

It's worth noting that many well-known listed companies don't even have such high net profits in half a year!
Of course, compared to the hundreds of millions in profits from the Singapore office, this kind of return is still insignificant...

However, this profit model has also helped Sofia build a network of interests connecting the Russian Far East and Southeast Asia. The more beneficiaries there are in this network, the longer this business can continue.

At first, Mountain Eagle was worried that his actions would provoke a backlash from within Russia. However, reality proved that his approach was child's play compared to that of the oligarchs within Russia.

As a result, the scale of this trade continued to expand...

Amelia, the wife of Bajau man Eddie, is getting a little carried away with making money and is planning to expand her sales channels for refined oil products to the Philippines and Vietnam...

The Russian Far East has inexhaustible energy resources, and thanks to Anna, the price of refined oil products is very favorable.

Mountain Eagle couldn't worry about those things right now. He took stock of his existing funds and assets, and then began to consider launching a trial transaction...

If the ivory trade of the mountain eagle is conducted through gray market channels, then the freest and the least free markets are its best choices.

Currently, Mountain Eagle has no way to compete with the traditional giants in the freest trade regions, so he has set his sights on the least free countries.

These countries vary in their circumstances; some are 'not free' because they have been subjected to sanctions.

For example, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba. However, apart from Venezuela and Cuba, the other two are too risky.

Besides these well-known sanctioned countries, there are also good alternatives like Brazil and Argentina.

However, after careful comparison, Mountain Eagle gave up. His financial office still had the habit of inserting blood into Brazil's main artery to draw blood. At this time, using gray trade to erode their market was too hateful.

Finally, the mountain eagle turned its attention to Venezuela and Cuba...

(End of this chapter)