Chapter 869: All Set, Returning to New York!

With the Sassoon and Henry families backing down, this business war officially came to a close.

Whether in terms of business profits or the battles beyond the business realm, Li Yi had reaped a bountiful harvest, while the Sassoon family suffered unprecedented losses.

However, despite his resounding victory, Li Yi did not press his advantage nor seek to destroy the defeated Dolsen completely. Instead, he shifted his focus to attracting investment to Pengcheng.

Li Yi was well aware of Jiang Longyin’s current predicament. At this moment, Jiang stood before a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as if he were the chosen one. If he could find the right approach, he could soar to new heights.

He had to help him with this!

Therefore, after signing the contract with Dolsen and his team, Li Yi, escorted by Yan Guangming and others, personally made a trip from Zhongying Street to Pengcheng.

After discussing the matter with his second older brother, Jiang Longyin, and his business partner, Li Yi returned to Hong Kong with the “imperial decree.”

Immediately upon his return, Li Yi convened a meeting with the members of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

The details of the meeting were not made public, but on July 18, immediately after the meeting concluded, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce issued a public announcement stating that they had received an invitation from the Pengcheng municipal government across the strait for an investment inspection tour. After thorough deliberation by all members of the chamber, it was decided to accept the Pengcheng municipal government’s invitation.

Subsequently, under the leadership of Vice President Bao Chuanwang, a delegation of over 200 people was quickly formed and officially departed for Pengcheng to conduct the investment inspection.

Neither Li Yi nor Li Futiao accompanied the delegation, but they remained deeply involved in the matter, as this investment mission was a joint initiative they had facilitated.

The delegation spent three days in Pengcheng. After three days of discussions and negotiations, a total of 17 companies and enterprises signed investment agreements with the Pengcheng municipal government before the delegation returned to Hong Kong Island.

Although the combined investment of these 17 companies amounted to less than $100 million, this was a crucial development for Pengcheng.

This signified that Pengcheng had finally taken a significant step toward opening up to the outside world and had begun to establish its reform spirit of “daring to be the first in the world.”

They say the hardest part is getting started; once the first step is taken, the rest becomes much easier!

And during the few days the delegation spent in Pengcheng, quite a few major events unfolded on Hong Kong Island as well!

First, a British-owned conglomerate issued a public statement announcing that, given the mutual benefit of peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, both parties had jointly decided—following negotiations—to extend the previously signed non-aggression pact.

Shortly thereafter, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce responded to the matter, acknowledging the extension of the agreement.

As soon as this news was announced, it quickly sparked heated discussion among the people of Hong Kong and even caused a minor tremor in the stock market, with Hong Kong stocks rebounding across the board that day.

Although the rebound was not significant, it still gave investors a major boost of confidence.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Island Police Station issued an official statement announcing that the investigation into the major assassination case involving mercenaries and hitmen from a week prior had been concluded. It was confirmed that Gusta and his entire team had indeed hired assassins to commit murder. Consequently, the police formally decided to issue arrest warrants for these individuals and transfer the case to the Public Prosecutor’s Office for prosecution.

Shortly after the police statement was released, Gusta immediately published an open letter of apology to Li Yi in mainstream media outlets such as the South China Evening News and the Oriental Daily.

This public admission of hiring a hitman had a massive impact. Not only did the Sassoon family face public condemnation and scorn, but even those associated with the British-owned conglomerate were affected.

After all, hiring a hitman is an utterly despicable tactic that crosses the line of fair business competition.

At the same time, everyone was relieved that, fortunately, their target this time was Li Yi, who had deep-rooted connections; had it been anyone else, they would likely have succeeded. Consequently, calls for severe punishment of Gusta grew louder by the day.

However, Li Yi had not been involved in these affairs. For one thing, he had accepted a bribe from them and did not want to bear the stigma of going back on his word.

Secondly, he had been busy mobilizing funds lately and simply didn’t have time to get involved in such messy affairs.

While waiting for the funds from the Chamber of Commerce members, Li Yi had Zhao Xinlan personally step in to aggressively seek loans from major banks across Hong Kong.

As for the loans, he accepted any offer as long as the interest rates were reasonable.

Of course, given the massive sums involved, he couldn’t rely on personal connections alone; to secure the loans, he didn’t hesitate to pledge assets such as partial stakes in Cloudtop One, Hang Seng Bank, and the New Territories Warehouse as collateral.

After a flurry of activity, Li Yi secured a total of 18 billion Hong Kong dollars in loans from various banks.

Combined with the funds the company could mobilize and those raised by the Chamber of Commerce members, he had a total of over 94 billion Hong Kong dollars at his disposal.

Upon receiving the funds, Li Yi did not hesitate and immediately converted the entire sum into British pounds.

Such a massive transaction naturally did not go unnoticed by the major powers. Upon learning of Li Yi’s move, both the British-owned conglomerates and the Sassoon family were taken aback.

Just as everyone was nervously speculating on the intent behind Li Yi’s move, he quietly had word leaked that he was heading to London for a second round of investments.

Once the news spread, many factions began to stir.

Some planned to follow in Li Yi’s footsteps to cash in on the opportunity, while others had their own agendas…

Just as the situation was growing increasingly unpredictable, another significant event unfolded on Hong Kong Island: the Hong Kong dollar depreciated once again, with its exchange rate against the US dollar plummeting to an unprecedented 9.6:1.

This exchange rate set a new record low for the Hong Kong dollar against the US dollar, causing many to seriously question their confidence in the currency.

It’s important to note that since the stock market crash began last year, the Hong Kong dollar has been depreciating rapidly. In just one short year, the exchange rate has plummeted from 5.06:1 to 9.06:1, a drop of nearly 50%.

In other words, over the past year, the value of any Hong Kong dollars you held has effectively halved.

Consequently, many people, seeing this situation, have rushed to exchange their Hong Kong dollars for U.S. dollars or British pounds.

Consequently, the supply of Hong Kong dollars flooding the market has increased, while US dollars and British pounds have become severely scarce. This has directly led to further appreciation in the exchange rates of these foreign currencies, creating a vicious cycle.

Fortunately, Li Yi had foreseen this outcome long ago. After earning his first profit last year, he converted all his funds into US dollars and deposited them at Citibank.

Now that the exchange rate had hit rock bottom, and with the one-year deposit term having expired, Li Yi immediately instructed the finance department to settle and withdraw the funds.

Since it was a deposit, the settlement process was very straightforward.

On July 20, once the 1.457 billion US dollars had been successfully settled, Li Yi knew it was time to set off for New York.

Before leaving, Li Yi instructed Zhao Xinlan to convert 1.4 billion US dollars into British pounds, while the remaining 57 million US dollars were transferred to the account of Green Brothers Company.

After entrusting the two children to the care of his mother-in-law and eldest sister, Li Yi and Jiang Xue, accompanied by several bodyguards and team members including Li Yunbao, Pang Feiyan, and Liang He, boarded the flight to New York!