50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 837 Begging for food while holding a golden bowl

Sun Zhiwei understands the royal family's choice very well, as he has been familiar with the royal family's assets.

After all, the royal family has ruled for over a thousand years, spanning 13 dynasties and 62 kings.

Each king and queen, along with their princes and princesses, would purchase and create new jewelry, ornaments, and even crowns.

For example, the current Queen has owned 14 crowns in her lifetime, with a total value of billions of pounds.

However, after her abdication, the newly enthroned King Charles had no use for these women's crowns, and their only place was to be displayed in the Pagoda in London.

Similar situations have been repeated with each generation of the royal family inheriting their wealth. Over thousands of years, the royal family's stockpile of jewels, ornaments, crowns, and other treasures has accumulated to tens of thousands.

This useless accumulation of wealth is called the royal family's foundation, but in reality it is meaningless. It not only ties up a lot of money, but also gives the royal family a reputation for being rich.

Even if the royal families of later generations ran out of money, they couldn't easily sell these old antiques to make cash, so they could only beg for food while holding a golden rice bowl.

As an unofficial member of the royal family, Diana was certainly well aware of the royal family's current predicament.

So, when Christie's chairman Carlson came over, the two hit it off immediately.

With Christie's acting as an intermediary, secretly helping the royal family deal with those old antiques, it's believed that the royal family's life will be a little easier.

This was a good thing for Christie's, but it had nothing to do with Sun Zhiwei. He didn't know why Carlson wanted to see him.

"What does Carlson want you to tell me?"

"That's right, Mr. James. Because many of the items in this auction were worth a particularly large sum of money, many clients, lacking sufficient cash, transferred a significant amount of their assets to us when paying for the auctions."

Sun Zhiwei was prepared for the question he raised, since it's rare to find a super-rich person like him who can readily produce billions of yuan in cash.

For the wealthy, keeping large amounts of cash is the most unwise thing to do. What is cash? Without the backing of national credit, it's just a bunch of blank pieces of paper.

Having large amounts of cash on hand means that the value of the cash can fluctuate at any time due to changes in the exchange rate of the country where the cash is issued. This uncontrollable change in wealth is the biggest concern for the wealthy.

Therefore, most wealthy people will convert their cash into various industries, stocks, or luxury goods such as antiques and jewelry to increase or preserve their value.

It's not that they've become rich and want to lie down and live off the interest; it's just that the world changes too fast. This year you might be a tycoon, but next year a storm could come and leave you penniless.

When most people have money, they subconsciously think about avoiding risks. And among all the risks, putting money in the bank is the riskiest option.

Moreover, the more money you have, the greater the risk, unless you own the bank yourself.

Like Sun Zhiwei now, although his money is all deposited in Cathay Bank, it is not fixed in a certain currency.

Because Cathay Bank is his own, the bank can convert this money into any country's currency at any time, so there is no need to worry about sudden large fluctuations in the exchange rate of a particular country.

Sun Zhiwei understood this perfectly. It was just like those merchants in ancient China who would quickly buy land after making money, or simply melt down gold and silver into melon shapes and hide them in cellars.

These golden and silver gourds weigh hundreds of kilograms each, and they are so slippery that even thieves cannot take them away. They are so rare that they are said to be "helpless".

Manager Smith continued to explain to Sun Zhiwei the reason for his visit:
“You should know that selling these properties that have been paid for would take a lot of time and would also result in a significant price drop during the transaction, which is actually not worthwhile.” “The chairman asked me to inquire whether you are interested in taking over these properties directly, since this would yield at least 3% more profit than selling them for cash.”

Upon hearing this, Sun Zhiwei became interested. Carlson was essentially giving him money, or perhaps Christie's wasn't interested in taking over all the assets acquired in this deal.

"Could you briefly introduce the industries you operate in?"

"Yes, sir. Let me give you a detailed introduction. The industries that were traded this time can be roughly divided into three categories."

"The first category is real estate, which exists all over the world. Some are houses, some are mines, and some are estates, forests and farms, including 12 islands."

Sun Zhiwei noticed the mineral resources and islands, which were what he needed. As for other real estate, he would need to take a closer look at the specifics.

"The second category is securities and shares of some companies, which are the largest in number, and they are all used to offset the auction proceeds at 8% of the current stock price."

"Because large-scale trading of shares can lead to a drop in stock price, which is not worthwhile."

"So, if you don't want them, the company will gradually liquidate these shares on the stock market, but in order to prevent large fluctuations in the stock price, this process will take a relatively long time."

Sun Zhiwei is also interested in this, but it depends on which company's stock it is. His foresight will ensure he doesn't make a bad choice in this area.

"The last category is all kinds of patents."

"Because the value of patents is difficult to estimate, the company has not yet agreed to those requests to use patents to offset payments for goods. We need to see if you are willing to take over."

"If you don't need it, the company should refuse this payment method."

Sun Zhiwei understood what he was saying, and after thinking for a moment, he replied:
"Among the three industries you just mentioned, there might be some that I need. Here's what we'll do: bring all the information over so I can take a look, and I'll give you an answer in three days."

"Understood, sir. I will have someone bring the documents up shortly."

It's convenient that both companies are in the same building; large amounts of documents can be delivered directly by sending someone up a few floors.

The total amount of these materials is actually not much; many patent-related documents only have a few lines of description.

If you're not an expert, many people won't even understand the meaning of those highly technical English words.

Foreign languages ​​are just that difficult to understand. Although there are only 26 basic letters, tens of thousands of new words are created every year.

Without a dedicated explanation of the new words, you simply wouldn't understand their meaning.

Chinese is different. Although there are thousands of basic Chinese characters, as long as you memorize the meanings of commonly used characters, you can easily guess the meaning of new words when you see unfamiliar words in the future, as long as you can understand the meaning of individual Chinese characters (not counting transliterations).

For example, terms like "screwing," "social anxiety," "internet celebrity," "involution," and "IQ tax"—as long as you understand Chinese, even if you're seeing these new words for the first time, you can quickly understand their meaning.

In summary, English is expanding endlessly, while Chinese remains unchanged to adapt to all changes.

(End of this chapter)