Chapter 813: The Battle Begins!

Over the next few days, just as everyone had anticipated, Star Investment and the British-owned conglomerate engaged in a fierce battle for control of Hang Seng shares.

However, the battle wasn’t as fierce as imagined. Although the stock price kept rising, by April 1st—April Fools’ Day—it had only climbed to 22 Hong Kong dollars.

A gain of just HK$5 over four days—how to describe that? It could only be called barely passable.

Although the increase represented a rise of about 25%, it fell far short of the public’s earlier expectations of the stock price doubling—or even multiplying several times over.

It’s worth noting that during the Huifeng takeover battle a few days prior, the two sides didn’t play by these rules. At that time, Huifeng’s share price was only HK$14 per share, yet it skyrocketed to over HK$70 per share in just a few short days.

That was a fivefold increase—compared to that, Hang Seng’s stock performance simply doesn’t seem to fit the style of these two parties.

This has led many brokerage firms—who had hoped to profit from the turmoil but ultimately backed out—to quietly breathe a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, they were scared off earlier and didn’t enter the market.

Otherwise, with such a massive surge, it wouldn’t have been easy for them to dare to take risks and try to profit from the chaos.

Moreover, one misstep could lead to irreversible ruin; in short, the risk and reward were completely out of proportion.

However, for ordinary investors, this is a decent opportunity. After all, their capital is limited—at most a hundred or two hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars, and at the very least just a few hundred. As long as there’s upside potential and the price isn’t too high, it’s worth buying.

Even if the stock price does drop, their losses won’t be significant.

Consequently, small retail investors have been jumping in in significant numbers over the past few days.

But since their influence is limited, their impact on the battle between the two sides is negligible.

Of course, the reason the stock price has reached this point lies primarily with Starry Sky and the British-owned group.

Right now, both sides are in a peculiar standoff: you know I’m up to no good, and I know you’re harboring ulterior motives.

Li Yi’s side is trying to buy time; a slower rise works in his favor, so he isn’t very aggressive when raising the bid.

On the other hand, Dolsons is wary of pushing the price up too quickly, fearing that Starry Company might seize the opportunity to cash out and exit the market as it has done before, so they are also acting with great caution.

In their view, this gradual upward climb was quite advantageous. Once the price had risen sufficiently, they could begin rapidly dumping their shares, effectively trapping Star Company in a losing position.

Thus, this scenario unfolded.

Just as the situation on Hong Kong Island was locked in a stalemate, Li Yunbao and his team were making smooth progress in London.

Late on the night of April 1, Li Yi received a call from Li Futiao, who reported that Li Yunbao and his team had followed his instructions to the letter: aside from retaining a small amount of emergency funds, they had successfully invested the remainder.

At present, they held 1.52 million lots of steel futures contracts, with an average purchase price of 210 pounds per ton.

In addition, they had acquired 9 million tons of physical steel from the steel and construction materials markets across the British Isles; since they had acted early, the average price per ton was only 180 pounds.

Furthermore, Li Yunbao and his team also held 120,000 lots of copper contracts and 179,000 lots of aluminum contracts, with average purchase prices of £1,578 and £1,167 per ton, respectively.

After hearing what Li Futao had to say, Li Yi couldn’t help but feel a pang of doubt—these figures didn’t add up!

According to his estimates, the British Isles’ total steel reserves should only be between 80 and 90 million tons. Even when combined with the amount that could be produced over the next three months, the total would be no more than 100 million tons.

After all, the annual steel output of the British Isles currently stands at less than 30 million tons, amounting to just 7 to 8 million tons per quarter.

And since each contract on the London Metal Exchange is for 25 tons, that means—whether you count spot or futures—the total would be only four million contracts.

But clearly, it’s impossible for all that steel to be on the futures market; half of it would be about right—roughly 2 million contracts.

Right now, they alone have secured over 1.5 million contracts. Could it be that all the other consortia combined have only 500,000?

That’s clearly impossible; something’s not quite right over there.

But Li Yi hadn’t yet figured out exactly what the problem was. He planned to head to London once he’d stabilized the situation with Dolsen and the others.

In addition to reporting that the mission was complete, Li Futiao also briefed Li Yi on the situation in London.

Reportedly, the local media and newspapers had been speculating for days that war was imminent, with the opponent being Argentina, South America’s leading power.

As a result, prices for all kinds of goods across the British Isles were rising, including food and energy—especially war-related items, which were changing by the day.

Finally, Li Fuzhao asked Li Yi a question: Was war really about to break out over there?

Li Yi didn’t beat around the bush; he told Li Futiao straight out that the probability of war breaking out between Britain and Argentina was over 80%.

If Li Futiao had asked this question a few days ago, Li Yi might not have answered.

But now it was different. If history remained unchanged, war would break out tomorrow.

That’s right—tomorrow!

As early as the beginning of this year, the half-hearted diplomatic mediation between Britain and Argentina had already failed, and Argentina immediately drew up an operational plan to forcibly occupy the Falkland Islands.

Starting in March, the Argentine Navy began loading troops onto ships at the Port of Belgrano. Various signs pointed to Argentina’s intentions, but British intelligence officers believed that “an invasion would not happen immediately.”

What they never could have imagined was that tomorrow, Argentine President Galtieri would order the invasion of the Falkland Islands, marking the official outbreak of the Falklands War.

Therefore, there is no longer any need to withhold this information. By dawn tomorrow, the whole world will know that Argentina has sent troops to seize the Falkland Islands, and at that point, it will be up to London to decide how to respond.

In fact, by next Monday, April 5, London will publicly declare that the Falkland Islands are part of the United Kingdom, that the island’s residents are subjects loyal to the British Crown, and that they will reclaim the Falkland Islands at any cost.

Subsequently, a large fleet of warships will head to the waters around the Falkland Islands, and the two sides will finally engage in full-scale combat in late April.

Having received Li Yi’s near-certain assurance, Li Fu’s mind was considerably put at ease.

After all, for this investment venture, he had not only entrusted Li Yi with a massive sum of 2 billion Hong Kong dollars, but the company had also invested 200 million pounds—equivalent to 3.4 billion Hong Kong dollars.

That was a staggering sum of over 5 billion, accounting for nearly a third of his net worth.

If anything went wrong, even the Li family, with all its resources, wouldn’t be able to withstand such a loss.

But as long as the war breaks out, this investment is a sure thing!

In fact, commodity prices in London had skyrocketed; the price of strategic materials like metals had already risen by nearly 40% since they entered the market.

In other words, they’re already making money—and making a killing at that.

But Li Futiao knew that whatever they’d earned so far was merely on paper. As long as these futures contracts remained unsold and the funds hadn’t been settled, it held no practical value.

After all, the futures market is a treacherous and unpredictable place; no matter how big a player you are, the tables can turn in an instant.

Especially with commodities like these—no one can guarantee prices will keep rising. They might plummet at any moment.

Sometimes prices can even drop into negative territory—can you even imagine that?

But after hearing Li Yi’s words, Li Futiao felt more confident; at the very least, these futures contracts still had room to rise in the short term.

He didn’t ask Li Yi where he’d gotten the information; he simply hung up the phone, satisfied.

In his eyes, Li Yi had never represented anything other than himself. Even if Li Yi claimed to know the color of a certain country’s first lady’s underwear, Li Fuzhao would believe him.

After all, this man was backed by a powerful nation—wasn’t it perfectly reasonable for him to “predict” that the two countries would go to war?

However, what Li Futao—who had enjoyed a peaceful night’s sleep—didn’t know was that many people had lain awake that very night.

Early the next morning, people in many countries around the world woke up to a piece of news that left them speechless—war had broken out between Britain and Argentina!