A Castle Villa in North London!
In the living room, Li Yi was conversing with Li Yunbao, Zhang Qiusheng, Zhou Xinghua, Pang Feiyan, Liang He, and others.
His gaze swept over the group a few times, then he asked calmly, “Yunbao, what’s the situation out there now?”
Upon hearing this, Li Yunbao first handed Li Yi a stack of newspapers, then said, “Thanks to your arrangements, Brother Yi, the news has spread throughout the British Isles and caused a huge stir. Now, almost all media outlets are digging deep into this matter, and false and true reports are flying everywhere.”
Li Yi flipped through the newspapers as he remarked, “Haha, the waters have been thoroughly muddied. Looks like we’re in for some good entertainment these next few days!”
At that moment, Zhang Qiusheng spoke up, “Mr. Li, our final batch of contracts expires tomorrow. Should we continue to squeeze the market, or…”
Before he could finish, Li Yi replied firmly, “Keep squeezing the market!”
“Mr. Li, I’m a bit confused. Why did you suddenly back out of such a golden opportunity to force the market last time?” Zhang Qiusheng asked, a hint of puzzlement in his voice.
The short squeeze a few days earlier had almost succeeded, but at the critical moment, Li Yi had accepted the exchange’s mediation and ultimately reached a settlement with Sheffield Company.
Although the company had made a hefty profit, Zhang Qiusheng, Zhou Xinghua, Pang Feiyan, and the others still couldn’t quite wrap their heads around it.
They had asked Li Yi about it before, but he had always avoided the subject.
Just as everyone assumed Li Yi wouldn’t answer this time either, he suddenly spoke up: “Because I wanted to crush Sheffield Company completely—and I wanted the Sassoon family to pay a bloody price!”
Seeing the bewildered looks on their faces, Li Yi sighed and said, “You’re just like those Westerners—you’ve only learned tactical offense and defense, and you have no idea what strategy is. That’s why you often win at first but lose in the end, and it all comes down to nothing!”
“Brother Yi, what’s the difference between tactics and strategy? And what does this have to do with your previous settlement with Sheffield Company?” Li Yunbao asked in confusion.
Hearing this, everyone else in the room turned their gaze to Li Yi.
“Tactics concern the gain or loss of a single city or piece of territory, while strategy focuses on the big picture and considers the whole situation!”
Li Yi continued, “In battle, defeating the enemy in a single engagement is merely a tactical victory—not a true victory. Only by annihilating the enemy’s combat-ready forces can you completely strip them of their ability to fight!”
“The business world is like a battlefield. For a company or a business family, capital is their fighting force. If we had insisted on forcing a short squeeze last time, Sheffield Corporation would certainly have defaulted—or even gone bankrupt.”
“But at that time, they still had a large amount of cash. They could easily transfer their assets through various means, then start over under a new name. That would serve no purpose for us. So, we either don’t act at all, or we strike to finish them off in one blow!”
At this point, Zhou Xinghua interjected, “So, Mr. Li, you settled with them to deplete their funds?”
“Right, but not entirely!”
Li Yi continued, “Besides making them spit out every penny they’ve swallowed, there’s also the intention to keep them in check!”
“Keep them in check?”
“Exactly. If we’d taken a hard line a few days ago, we might have driven them to desperation, forcing them to resort to underhanded tactics that could have jeopardized our future plans!” Li Yi explained.
Many people believe that Westerners place great importance on business integrity and the spirit of contract, but Li Yi scoffed at this notion.
Compared to the Chinese, these Westerners have absolutely no moral boundaries; their so-called business integrity and spirit of contract only come into play when it suits them.
If pushed to the limit, these guys would immediately resort to their ancestors’ bandit tactics and eliminate whoever caused the trouble.
Besides, they were currently on the other side’s turf; as long as he was willing to pay the price, making these people vanish completely wasn’t out of the question.
So when dealing with these people, you can’t push them too hard; you need both a thunderous approach and the patience of a frog in slowly heating water.
“Brother Yi, does that mean we don’t have to be afraid anymore?” asked Li Yunbao.
Li Yi gave a faint smile and said, “That’s right. We don’t need to be afraid anymore!”
“Why?”
“Heh, because starting tomorrow, neither Sheffield Corporation nor the Sassoon family will be able to save themselves—let alone have the energy to deal with us!” Li Yi said with a smile.
“How will they end up struggling to save themselves?” Li Yunbao asked, puzzled.
“Steel is the core industry of heavy industry development. No country would allow its domestic steel industry to collapse. But now, the steel industry across the British Isles has completely fallen apart. Do you think the government will just stand by and do nothing?” Li Yi said.
“Brother Yi, are you saying the government will intervene?” Li Yunbao asked.
Li Yi nodded. “Exactly. If things go as expected, the government here will soon launch an investigation into the chaos in the steel industry, and as the largest steel company in the British Isles, Sheffield Steel will inevitably be the first to face the music.”
“As the major shareholder of Sheffield Steel, the Sassoon family has made a killing on the futures market through this company over the years. What goes around comes around!”
The reason he said this was mainly because Li Yi knew that the long-standing chaos in the British Isles’ steel industry had indeed caught the government’s attention.
Historically, the Iron Lady had cracked down on steel contracts in early 1983, and Sheffield Steel had been hit the hardest with penalties at the time; even the Sassoon family behind the company had been held accountable.
Now, through a series of maneuvers, he had prematurely lifted the lid on the steel industry’s chaos—and made it common knowledge. He simply didn’t believe that, given the Iron Lady’s temperament, she would turn a blind eye to it.
Once the authorities intervened, both Sheffield Steel and the Sassoon family would have no choice but to submit to an investigation. Even if they were intent on taking action against him, they would certainly not choose to do so at this moment.
“Mr. Li, what should we do now?” Zhou Xinghua asked.
“Keep stoking the fire. Leak all the remaining information, then compile the data and submit the application for physical delivery to the exchange on Monday!” Li Yi said decisively.
“Yes…”
Following Li Yi’s orders, Li Yunbao once again reached out to the mainstream media in the British Isles. With money paving the way, these media outlets once again became weapons in Li Yi’s hands.
Li Yi already had a comprehensive plan in place for how to deal with Sheffield Company and the Sassoon family behind them.
To completely crush these two enemies and force them to submit, he had to keep steel prices at a high level for the long term.
In this way, as more and more futures contracts matured, the short positions they had previously sold would turn into deadly scythes, cutting Sheffield Corporation down into the abyss.
As the Falklands War was drawing to a close, the only way to keep steel prices high was to convince the public that steel was not in oversupply, but rather in short supply.
Therefore, after exposing the true state of the steel industry across the British Isles and indeed all of Europe, Li Yi immediately had his people expose the steel stockpiles and trading activity in the spot market one by one.
Of course, these reports were heavily embellished, with the sole purpose of creating panic over a steel shortage across the British Isles.
Initially, many people were skeptical of such reports.
After all, just a few months earlier, steel prices had been as low as cabbage, and the government had been relentlessly touting its achievements to the public, claiming that this year’s steel production capacity had reached such-and-such millions of tons—so how could it suddenly become a scarce commodity?
Consequently, many people went to the steel markets in person to inquire and investigate. Upon doing so, they discovered that the situation was far from ideal: almost all major steel and building materials markets had very little steel in stock, and prices were exceptionally high.
How could the public know that, at that very moment, the steel markets across the British Isles—having been systematically swept clean by various steel companies and institutions speculating on steel prices—no longer held any significant stockpiles of spot steel.
As these developments continued to come to light, steel prices—which had already fallen somewhat—were once again driven up by speculation.
At this very moment, the final batch of futures contracts in Li Yi’s hands was set to expire, and this forced-liquidation battle was about to reach its climax…
……….