Chapter 2389: Financing (Part 24)

"Report to the Mayor! Two documents need to be signed for!"

Hm? Didn't Mu Min and Wu Mu agree to submit a joint report? Liu Xiang thought something had changed and received the document bag and receipt with a serious expression.

Director Wen? Director Wen is in Lingao! Could it be... that matter has a result?

Quickly opening Director Wen's long transmission telegram, Liu Xiang took a rough look and immediately beamed with joy, turning to announce to everyone:

"Everyone! In response to the widespread drought conditions this year and next, the Senate has specially established an anti-drought disaster relief team led by Director Wen! Our Guangzhou Municipal Government has also been listed as a team member!"

Those who understood the meaning of such temporary teams, like Wang Qiyi and Meng Xian, immediately showed surprised expressions and even began taking the lead in applauding and cheering.

Liu Xiang glanced at Zhou Wei, didn't even bother to tear open the cover of the joint investigation report by Mu Min and Wu Mu, and directly said, "After deciding to use old literati and old officials, we anticipated that corrupt, reactionary, and regressive members would appear in our cadre ranks. This special inspection was not a whim!"

Zhou Wei was shocked in his heart upon hearing this, waiting for Liu Xiang's second half—did I get off the hook or not?

"...but was planned from the very beginning when the decision to use old literati and old officials was made."

"The reason it was delayed until now was entirely due to the plague's impact."

"When the epidemic became the main contradiction, these ideological contradictions gave way to become secondary contradictions."

"However, from when the epidemic ended until now, especially after our cadre school was established, some cadres still refuse to repent, still won't stop! They still want to run wild on the corrupt and backward old rules and bad habits!"

"This snap inspection is absolutely not one-time, absolutely not targeted, but a normalized means necessary for us to do good work on cadre style!"

"This batch of cadres found to have problems, I suggest, all be relieved of current positions, arranged under Comrade Zhang Yunmi, to relearn and reflect well!"

"After Comrade Zhou Wei's colonization action officially begins, all will be arranged to the Cochinchina region to atone for their crimes through meritorious service!"

This is what... my secretary takes courses under Zhang Yunmi for about a month, then gets stuffed to me to take to the colony? Is this, the matter... settled?

Zhou Wei realized the matter was settled, but afterward there would probably be more to deal with. Once the reclamation plan was reported, it would involve mobilizing the Agricultural Reclamation First Maritime Mobile Brigade under Agricultural Reclamation. This was also the largest mobile agricultural machinery unit under the agricultural sector. And the development of state farms in the plan would inevitably involve the agricultural reclamation department. This also involved coordination issues.

Zhou Wei only now realized that he had been very active in the industrial sector recently, but had completely forgotten the agricultural sector. Now, he and Wu Nanhai's group had no "old friendship" at all. Just going to their door to discuss "cooperation" and "support"—who knew what face they would show him?

MD, he secretly blamed himself. Every day he talked about "grain" and "reclamation," yet he forgot the agricultural department! Wouldn't it be a huge joke if word got out.

No, he had to quickly find a few more people to help. He thought about the specific situations of Senators who had recently expressed interest in joining the Nanyang Company but found no particularly suitable candidates.

There was also the allocation of naturalized cadres that needed to be applied for quickly—the cadres from the original Southeast Asia Company needed to be evaluated to see if there were suitable ones...

Just casually thinking, a pile of difficult things appeared before him.

"Doing one thing is f***ing hard!" Zhou Wei let out a desperate roar.

That evening, Zhou Wei hosted a banquet at the Great World, treating more than ten Senators who had submitted proposals to him in Guangzhou, as "apology"—naturally the words weren't put that way, just saying "thank you all for your suggestions." At the banquet, cups clinked together, harmonious and happy. Chu He and "Ren Youzi" naturally also attended. Zhou Wei toasted each one, and everyone couldn't help but commercially flatter each other at the table. Things like "young talent," "commercial genius," "financial giant," "corporate elite"... all freely distributed.

When wine was flowing and ears were hot, some inevitably brought up their own proposals. Zhou Wei uniformly responded with "the warmest smile," expressing that he "greatly valued" them and would definitely "carefully study" them. He couldn't help but invite them to "provide counsel" and "conduct research." Of course, these were just pleasantries. These days, all parties had been frequently interacting privately behind the scenes. Tonight's banquet was just one of the final results.

After this round of socializing and dealing, the secretary storm was finally patched up before further expansion. All parties roughly got what they wanted. Satisfaction levels aside, at least it wasn't coming away empty-handed.

Two days later, Zhou Wei and others finally settled on the equity structure plan and took a package of financing plans to the finance sector for review.

Because in the scheduled agency relocation plan, the finance departments would be relocated to Guangzhou. The group of big shots led by Cheng Dong had also come to Guangzhou these days, preparing to "inspect."

Calling it inspection, they were actually here to stake out land. The finance sector didn't fancy the old buildings in the old city and ultimately decided to build office buildings in the "Guangzhou New City Administrative District" planned in the Henan area. Currently, they temporarily borrowed the Great World for offices. So this review meeting was held in the conference room on the top floor of the Great World.

According to adjustments, Delong was changed to a commercial bank, and the original Guangzhou branch was officially upgraded to headquarters. Although Delong's headquarters had always been in Lingao, the main business had long been in Guangzhou. The branch was very large, while the headquarters organization was actually quite small.

In the conference room, seven or eight people from the finance departments came. The main cadres of the future Central Reserve Bank, including Zhou Wei's wife, all came. Besides them, there was Dingding from the propaganda sector. Wang Qiyi at this time had said he was "on business trip" to Foshan, and only Ai Zhixin came. As for Liu Xiang, he had also run off to Henan Island to "inspect."

The Senators sat around a long conference table, with rows of teacups placed in front of them. The teacups were printed with "Guangzhou Exchange Preparatory Meeting and Nanyang Company Listing Commemoration"—these cups were rush-fired, supposedly wanting to create "a warm atmosphere." Naturalized staff distributed materials to the attending Senators, poured water, and withdrew. Only the sound of flipping through materials remained in the conference room.

The final equity structure basically adopted the design of Senator Meichuan among the "Seven Senators." It used a four-layer structure: Nanyang Company controlled the subsidiary Southeast Asia Holdings (abbreviated as Southeast Holdings), Southeast Holdings controlled the wholly-owned subsidiary Southeast Asia Operations (abbreviated as Southeast Ops). Southeast Ops was the actual operating entity, Southeast Holdings was an empty shell holding company specifically designed for financing. Below that were the specific project companies.

Public stock offerings and bond issuance were all conducted at the Southeast Holdings level, according to the ratio of Nanyang Company (state-owned): Senate collective: Senator individuals: public offerings = 51%: 5%: 5%: 39%. Of the 39% portion, the part not yet publicly offered temporarily belonged to Nanyang Company.

The purpose of this was to separate shareholders from actual operations by adding a layer of shell holding company. Whether native shareholders or Senator shareholders, neither could affect the actual operation of the operating entity Southeast Ops. The Nanyang Company, as the major shareholder of Southeast Holdings, controlled Southeast Ops' daily operations as the actual controller. Moreover, Southeast Holdings had no actual business; all profits came from profits submitted by Southeast Ops. How much to submit was naturally up to the Senate. This made it convenient to reinvest profits to expand production and operations, and also convenient to control stock dividend situations. At the same time, no matter how Southeast Ops did its accounting, the actual situation was within the Senate's or Planning Committee's control.

The offering and issuance plan basically followed Chu He's design. Southeast Asia Holdings had total share capital of 2 million shares, 1 yuan per share. 100,000 shares were allocated to the Senate collective; 100,000 shares were issued to individual Senators, with subscription floor of 100 shares, ceiling of 1,000 shares, step size of 100 shares. After summarizing subscription statistics, allotment was proportional. This public offering planned to raise 80,000 shares total, accounting for 4% of total capital. Conducted in three phases: the first and second phases were targeted issuance to specific merchants and gentry totaling 30,000 shares; the third phase was open public offering of 50,000 shares. Subscription floor was 1,000 shares, ceiling 10,000 shares, step size 100 shares.

Simultaneously, using ships and other assets with book value of 530,000 yuan as collateral, bonds were issued first in each phase, with purchasing bonds as the qualification for stock subscription. The first phase issued 20,000 yuan in bonds, three-year term, 10% interest rate, 2:1 allotment ratio. The second phase issued 50,000 yuan, four-year term, 8% interest rate, 5:2 allotment ratio. The third phase publicly issued 150,000 yuan, five-year term, 3:1 allotment ratio, interest rate inquiry ceiling 6%, floor 0%, step size 0.1%, subscription floor 3,000 yuan, subscription ceiling 20,000 yuan, step size 1,000 yuan.

Total stock financing of 180,000 yuan, bond financing of 220,000 yuan, together 400,000 yuan. Calculating at the estimated 2% interest rate for the third phase, estimated first year interest payment was 9,000 yuan, comprehensive interest cost 4.09%.

These materials had been sent to the attending Senators before, and some finance sector Senators had also participated in formulating the financing plan. It quickly entered the inquiry phase. Soon a Senator asked, "Can you briefly state the necessity of issuing bonds?"

Zhou Wei thought: does this even need to be said? Isn't it all written in the documents!

"For this question, I'll still ask the relevant Senator—"

He signaled Chu He to answer. "Bonds are easy for natives to accept; explaining stocks wastes energy. Bonds are convenient for multiple issuances; additional stock issuance is troublesome. Stocks amount to selling Senate assets cheaply; bonds protect Senate interests."

These few sentences made the questioning Senator a bit uncomfortable, thinking: although this isn't the old spacetime Securities Regulatory Commission reviewing materials, and the Nanyang Company and finance sector are actually cooperating to push things forward, you should at least pay attention to your attitude. You're asked to briefly state and you're really quite brief.

At this time, Cheng Dong took over and said, "I see your equity structure has also changed. Not adding the previous asset company?"

Meichuan said, "Yes, we went back and studied it again. Your suggestion was very correct. At this stage, it really isn't necessary to make it so complicated. Not even many among the Senators can understand it. It would increase difficulty for natives to understand. We'll skip it this time."

(End of Chapter)