Hong Kong. Castle Manor!
“Crack!”
An exquisite teacup was smashed violently onto the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces in an instant!
The爵士, seated at the head of the table, glared darkly at every elite member of the British Capital Group in the study, his furious gaze betraying his truest thoughts.
“Smith, eight million—is that all you managed to achieve in an entire day?”
No wonder the Baron was so furious. After receiving the warning from the legendary William, he had summoned Smith that very night, ordering him to dump all his gold and gold-backed financial products first thing the next morning—he had to cut his losses and get out as quickly as possible.
Although the Jazz knew that, given their current massive holdings, it would be impossible to sell all their gold products in a short time, even at a discount.
But he never imagined that, after a full day, Smith had managed to sell off less than 8 million worth of gold products, leaving the rest still stuck in their hands.
More critically, as international gold prices plummeted suddenly, Hong Kong’s gold prices were inevitably affected, crashing all the way to $576 per ounce.
In a single day, they had lost hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars—a loss that could only be described as catastrophic.
Smith paused briefly before saying, “Sir, as you know, we had planned a full-scale offensive today. We intended to take advantage of investors’ lack of awareness and offload as many of our gold products as possible.”
“But our opponents anticipated this as well. They used newspapers, news outlets, and various other means to leak the news of the impending gold price crash in advance. By the time we acted, nearly all investors were already aware of the current state of the gold market. No one dared to step in and buy, and even our repeated price cuts were to no avail!”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Will, an executive from Jardine Matheson standing nearby, chimed in, “Smith is right. Our competitors’ ultimate goal was to prevent us from cutting our losses and exiting the market. It looks like they’ve succeeded—we’re now stuck with our positions!”
“We really can’t blame Smith for today’s situation. He did his best—no one else would have done any better!”
“That’s right, Smith has done a great job…”
………
Seeing that someone was speaking up for him, Smith breathed a slight sigh of relief and immediately added, “My Lord, we must admit that this time we’ve truly lost. Now we need to figure out how to make a dignified exit!”
The Jazz, seated at the head of the table, was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Gone was the composed, in-control demeanor he had displayed earlier.
It was a long while before he finally said through gritted teeth, “Smith, how much have we lost this time?”
“Excluding the ten billion dollars transferred to New York, our total losses in the gold market currently stand at 1.4 billion Hong Kong dollars. But as you know, the price of gold hasn’t bottomed out yet. How much more we’ll lose depends entirely on how much further the price falls!” Smith replied.
Hearing this, everyone in the study couldn’t help but gasp in shock.
The ten billion US dollars transferred to New York had already gone down the drain; factoring in these 1.4 billion Hong Kong dollars, their total losses would reach a staggering 9 billion Hong Kong dollars.
A loss this huge is still unbearable, even when shared among so many people.
“Is there really no way we can recover these losses?” someone asked in a low voice.
Smith shook his head with a bitter smile and said, “Can’t you all see by now? This gold war was a setup orchestrated by that young man from Star Company from the very beginning.”
“And we, for the sake of a mere Li family, completely lost our senses. In the end, we let them lead us by the nose and fell into a meticulously laid trap. Now, there’s no way we can extricate ourselves unscathed!”
Smith then turned to Jazz and continued, “The financial loss is only part of the problem. What’s far more serious is that if we don’t handle this properly, the entire Alliance could fall apart over this. At that point, we’ll have lost everything!”
“Whoa!”
Everyone in the room looked at Smith with horror. They knew better than anyone just how crucial the Group Alliance was!
Don’t be fooled by the fact that this is merely a loose business alliance with little strong cohesion among its members.
However, since all members were either family heads or corporate executives spread across East Asia, the alliance possessed vast commercial resources. Regardless of the business sector, internal cooperation was possible without the constant fear of being betrayed by partners.
After all, in addition to the law, the alliance had its own set of internal checks and balances; if anyone tried to take advantage of another, the alliance would take action.
That is precisely why so many people are desperate to join this alliance, even going so far as to grovel and act like lackeys—as was the case with the Li and Lin families in the past.
Over the years, relying on these resources, each of them has made a fortune. If the Alliance were to collapse, the losses would be immense.
“Smith, would the consequences really be that severe?” Will asked, his face darkening.
Smith nodded and said, “We’ve raised a total of 22 billion Hong Kong dollars for this operation, 74% of which came from ordinary members within the Alliance. Most of them have assets of no more than 200 million Hong Kong dollars—this operation has consumed nearly all their liquid assets!”
“If losses exceed 50%, more than half of all investors will face operational difficulties, or even the risk of bankruptcy. When alliance members start going bankrupt one after another and we’re powerless to stop it, will the DXMBang Alliance still have a reason to exist?”
At these words, everyone in the room fell silent.
That’s right—everyone joined the alliance for profit, to make money!
Now, not only have they failed to make money, but they’ve driven themselves into bankruptcy. Who would want to stay in this alliance under such circumstances?
Think about the impact of the Li family incident a while back—a mere Li Jiuying had them running around in circles.
Now, with dozens of “Li Jiuyings” suddenly appearing, they dared not even imagine what might happen next…
Will said in a low voice, “The Alliance cannot collapse. We must find a way to weather this crisis!”
“Right, the Alliance can’t just collapse like this. As long as the Alliance exists, we still have a chance!”
“Exactly. If the Alliance is gone, we’ll be back to the state we were in decades ago—scrambling for scraps like dogs…”
Just then, the Duke cleared his throat and said, “All right, quiet!”
The once chaotic study fell instantly silent, and everyone’s gaze turned to the Duke.
“Smith is right. Things have come to this, so let’s focus on securing a dignified exit for now. We’ll deal with the rest later!”
Then the Jazz spoke again: “Smith, from this moment on, you are fully in charge of selling off the gold. You must liquidate this batch of gold at all costs, even if the price drops below $500 an ounce!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Jim, contact all the banks and tell them to do everything in their power to help our alliance members get through this crisis. Do your best to assist them when they apply for loans!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Will, contact the Alliance members who funded this project. Tell them that if they face cash flow shortages or similar issues, they can take out loans from any bank within the Alliance. The Alliance won’t stand by and watch them fall into trouble!”
“Got it!”
After issuing a series of orders, the expression on the Duke’s face gradually turned somewhat frenzied.
Then, looking at everyone present, he said, “Not since we crushed the Chinese capitalists here twenty years ago have we suffered such a heavy loss. Since our enemies leave us no way out, we needn’t stand on ceremony either!”
“Smith, the operatives we deployed earlier can move now. This time, we’ll take the head of that Huang fellow to send a warning to that young man!”
“Yes, sir. I’ll make the arrangements immediately,” Smith replied in a low voice.
“Hmm…”
………