America's Road to Wealth

Abel originally wanted to say hello to Ikana and his daughter.

But tonight, at this drinking party.

There is no doubt that he is the one who attracts the most attention.

He had just taken two steps when someone blocked him.

The man who blocked him was named Richard Fuld.

The two did not know each other before this.

The name Richard Fuld is a very prominent one on Wall Street.

He is the CEO of Lehman Brothers, one of Wall Street's four major investment banks.

"Business Week" once called Richard Fuld "The Bulldog of Wall Street" and he is one of the famous giants on Wall Street.

"Hello, Mr. Smith. I'm Richard Fuld."

The CEO of Lehman Brothers is a black-haired white man. He is an Italian-American and has been in charge of Lehman Brothers since 1994.

"Hello, Mr. Fuld. My name is Abel Smith." Abel smiled and shook hands with him.

Smith Capital’s cocktail party today invited the CEOs of major Wall Street investment banks and financial groups.

The CEOs of the four major investment banks are all invited.

I dare to invite these four CEOs at once, and there is a high probability that they will come again.

This means that Abel is now in the hot state of Wall Street.

And tonight, Abel also used his trump card against Wall Street.

Only then do you dare to do such a thing.

Next to Richard Fuld stood Lehman Brothers' chief financial officer Bryn Bulley.

Abel already knew Bryn Bully from the last time he was at the Hilton family banquet.

Later, Smith Capital’s first private placement.

It was Bryn Bulley who contacted Smith Capital on behalf of Lehman Brothers.

Lehman Brothers’ share of the US$3 billion private placement accounted for the fourth place, with a total investment of US$250 million.

"Hello, Mr. Bully." Abel greeted Bryn Bully on the side.

The latter responded quickly.

Among the CEOs of the four major investment banks, Richard Fuld is undoubtedly the one with the most authority in the company.

Richard Fuld is here, and Bryn Bulley doesn't have much authority to speak.

This is exactly the opposite of Merrill Lynch.

At Merrill Lynch, CEO David Komansky has little authority.

"Mr Smith."

A Wall Street bulldog whose actions are as direct as his name suggests.

After a brief exchange of greetings, the Italian asked a question directly.

"Smith Capital is undoubtedly a successful company. Mr. Smith, you are a very successful investor."

"Such a generous Mr. Smith."

"Is what you said in the invitation true?"

"You said you were going to lead Smith Capital and share your success with Wall Street. Is this true?"

Richard Fuld's question is straightforward.

One of the most urgent ideas recently is directed at more and more Wall Street giants.

That is. Invest in Smith Capital! !

Actually it's on Wall Street.

It's not too much of a request.

Any larger financial firm on Wall Street, except for those smaller firms.

Behind them, there are a large number of shareholders.

Not to mention the listed giants such as the four major investment banks.

They have tens of thousands of shareholders, with hundreds of them holding more than 0.1% of the shares.

Like Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, its single stock is the most expensive in the world.

But it still has thousands of shareholders.

As the founder of Berkshire Hathaway and the controller of everything in the company.

Buffett himself actually only owns 15.6% of Berkshire Hathaway's shares.

The four major investment banks on Wall Street, as well as other giants on Wall Street, all have similar ideas about Smith Capital.

In fact.

There are two types of invitations to this party tonight.

One is an ordinary invitation letter, which is what most guests get.

Another kind of invitation, but it contains Smith Capital, which will announce the first round of financing tonight.

This is Abel's biggest trump card against Wall Street right now.

It was also he who dared to invite so many Wall Street giants at once.

I also think they should all come.

Richard Fuld is a very selfish person.

Other Wall Street giants who got the news wanted to be polite.

When Abel waits for an announcement, then contact is made.

The "Bulldog of Wall Street" directly represents Lehman Brothers A.

Confront Richard Fuld with a stark, very direct question.

Abel wasn't angry either.

This matter is the result of what he has thought about for a long time.

He knew that if he really wanted to gain a foothold at the top of this country.

It is absolutely impossible to be like the male protagonists of Chinese online novels and not share their success with outsiders.

Regarding the fact that other giants want to invest in Smith Capital.

He also already knew that such a day would come.

Unless you don't want to get bigger, unless you want to fight the entire Wall Street on your own.

Otherwise, this day will come sooner or later.

What Abel can do is to choose his allies and the time and opportunity for these allies to join his side.

And in this process, gain the greatest autonomy and control.

Human resources are sometimes poor, and by yourself alone, you can become a billionaire, or even the richest man in the world.

But Abel felt that it was only through his own efforts.

It would be too difficult to form a real consortium.

Even in the beginning, he could gather a large enough industry with money that was much easier to bring than a strong wind.

But in the subsequent management and development, it will inevitably be due to his ordinary-level business management capabilities.

In the end, the consortium gradually fell apart due to the inability to control the entire consortium.

One involves hundreds of large companies, across multiple industries and across multiple countries.

Large conglomerates involving tens of millions of people employed.

Zhuge Liang would not be able to manage it well if it relied solely on the ability of the founder.

Even Zhuge Liang, in the end, did not work hard and died of overwork in his fifties.

Take a look at the large consortiums and chaebols that have emerged and taken shape.

Almost without exception, they are all headed by one family.

This leading family will then unite with other wealthy families.

These wealthy families then influence and unite with the lower-level families, and eventually control the entire consortium layer by layer.

Like Herbert and his family, who have basically achieved victory now.

In Herbert's grandfather's generation, it was actually just a medium-sized family under the Rockefeller Consortium.

Even Herbert and his father were very competitive, and the father and son developed their family.

A Rockefeller consortium, named Rockefeller, may also be the main controller.

But there may be more than dozens of families involved in sharing the power of the consortium and contributing to the consortium at the same time!

These families came together, united because of their interests, and then through marriage and other means, they finally formed terrifying alliances of interests.

If Abel had just been reborn and discovered his "talent", he had an unrealistic fantasy of dominating the United States.

After nearly a year of working as a capitalist, I learned a lot about the inside story of this country.

He knew that his previous fantasies were really just fantasies.

If you want one person to be above the world, unless you are a god on earth.

He has the extraordinary power of Superman to crush the world.

Otherwise, people from the motherland can do it.

Otherwise in the real world without supernatural powers.

The only way is to make your family as strong as possible.

Then through his own family, he unites with other powerful families.

With the powerful alliance, they extend their tentacles to the whole world.

In this way, the goal is achieved.

Stronger than the ancestral dragon.

It will take "the remaining heroes of the Sixth Generation of Fen" and the talents from each of their powerful military families to unify the six countries.

Without the Ten Commanders and other meritorious deeds, a great man himself would not be able to accomplish great things.

At this moment, this question seemed a little bit abrupt when faced with Richard Fuld.

Abel smiled slightly and said softly:

"As for this question, my answer is, there is nothing wrong. It will be announced later."

"Smith Capital, any investor joins in and becomes a shareholder of the company."

"Smith Capital needs strong allies!"

His answer made Richard Fuld's eyes suddenly light up.

"Hahaha~ This is really great. Lehman Brothers are willing to become Smith's ally!!" Richard Fuld's voice became excited.

His voice is loud.

This Wall Street bulldog has always been like this.

This earned him a lot of praise in the media.

But it also made him offend many people among his colleagues.

Richard Fuld himself did not expect to ask this question.

I can actually get such a definite answer from Abel.

In the invitation letter, Smith Capital only made a vague mention.

"Hahaha~ Yes, Smith Capital needs friends." Abel smiled.

These are the qualifications of these friends to participate in the shares, the proportion of shares, and other requirements.

It's just me who has the final say.

Abel thought to himself.

"Ah~" Richard Fuld's voice became a little louder, and he said slightly excitedly: "This is really the most wonderful news I have heard in the past month!"

As a Wall Street giant, he is also one of the middlemen of Smith Capital.

Lehman Brothers is the same as investment banks such as Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.

They all can, through the flow of funds invested in the market by Smith Capital.

Let’s roughly speculate on Smith Capital’s investment direction and profits.

These giants all have Smith Capital's rough investment profit predictions in the past six months.

Even among the giants, there will be slight differences in the estimated amount of Smith Capital's profits.

After all, for insurance purposes, Smith Capital’s intermediaries and guarantee banks will never rely on just two or three banks.

At least a dozen banks are used every time, firstly to share the risks, and secondly to ensure confidentiality during investment.

Without exception, these giants estimate Smith Capital's investment profits in the past six months.

Taken together, the amount is staggering.

To put it simply, everyone can predict Smith Capital's profits in the past six months to a certain extent.

And the predicted figure will be off by hundreds of millions of dollars.

But the numbers they predicted were, without exception, very scary.

Like Lehman Brothers, there are three estimates of Smith Capital’s investment profits in the past six months.

One is US$7.6 billion, one is US$8 billion, and the other is US$7.9 billion.

No matter which of these numbers are, as long as they are true, Smith Capital will become the most profitable company on Wall Street this year.

Last year, the most profitable Wall Street firm was Goldman Sachs.

The net profit reported by Goldman Sachs in 1999 was US$4.215 billion.

Compared with Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers' net profit last year was only a pitiful $1.5 billion.

in other words.

If it were Lehman Brothers, Smith Capital's profit estimate in the past six months was not wrong.

That means Smith Capital’s half-year profit this year.

It exceeded the combined net profits of Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs for the whole of last year.

This is an unbelievable number.

The senior executives of Lehman Brothers initially held a negative attitude towards this calculation.

But it was Lehman Brothers’ hundreds of traders, analysts, and actuaries who made this calculation.

They calculated the final result through Smith Capital, the flow of funds in Lehman Brothers and other banks with access to information.

It took more than a week to calculate this figure.

If everything goes wrong, or the results are too different.

Then there is no need for hundreds of elites like Lehman Brothers to exist.

Richard Fuld can only be skeptical about this.

With the mentality that they would rather kill the wrong person than let go, Lehman Brothers was the same as other giants.

They all want to extend their tentacles into Smith Capital.

Then investing in shares is a good choice.

Now that he has received the "approval" from Abel, Richard Fuld is of course excited and happy.

This is if Smith Capital's profits are true and Lehman Brothers takes a stake.

This is equivalent to Lehman Brothers having one more cash cow and one more money tree after this!

Facing the somewhat excited Richard Fuld, Abel smiled.

Just kidding, Smith Capital will indeed accept investments and allies.

This is also his trump card for tonight's cocktail party.

But the pitfall of Lehman Brothers will most likely be excluded.

As one of the four major investment banks, Lehman Brothers is the most radical among the four major investment banks and the one with the most minefields.

The four major investment banks all have very complete businesses and basically do everything related to investment.

But there will also be some biases, some businesses that are more focused.

Merrill Lynch, for example, has been more focused on securities sales in the past two years;

Goldman Sachs likes to be a white knight;

Morgan Stanley is keen on large capital investments.

As for Lehman Brothers, after it emerged from the third bankruptcy crisis in 1998.

Led by Richard Fuld.

This investment bank has focused its development on issuing a large number of mortgage financial derivatives.

The advantage of this is that in recent years, the real estate industry in the United States has been developing very well, and the national real estate is in a bull market.

This allowed Lehman Brothers to eat well and make huge profits.

So much so that it currently ranks among the top two among the four major investment banks.

It is too easy to make money by taking advantage of the boom in real estate industry.

Lehman Brothers had become path dependent.

The number of mortgage financial derivatives it issues every year will only increase.

If the U.S. real estate industry can continue to rise, it would be great for Lehman Brothers to do this.

I estimate that given a few more years, it can reach the top spot in the United States.

But the real estate industry in the United States obviously cannot remain in a state of high growth forever.

When the bubble comes, Lehman Brothers, who put their lives on the line, can imagine the consequences.

Abel has decided that he will accept Lehman Brothers' investment when the time comes.

Its shareholding ratio will definitely be the lowest.

But Richard Fuld doesn't think so.

Lehman Brothers is now the most proud of the four major investment banks.

Richard Fuld felt that if Abel opened Smith Capital.

Then Lehman Brothers should be able to take the fattest piece.

This certainly made Richard Fuld very happy.

His happy look also attracted the attention of the guests at the reception who had been paying attention.

Many people are speculating on what benefits the "Bulldog of Wall Street" has gained from the "Wolf of Wall Street."

With this guy's character, he would be so happy.

This is very curious.

Especially those special guests who have received a special invitation for tonight.

Even more itchy.

Many people are worried about the boldest Richard Fuld.

Have you eaten the fattest piece of meat?

If someone is worried, someone will take action.

Paulson, the president of Goldman Sachs and future U.S. Treasury Secretary, had just stepped out of the elevator.

Seeing Richard Fuld smiling so happily next to Abel.

Paulson made a mental noise and came over immediately.

And from a distance of several meters, he smiled and reached out to Abel loudly:

"Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith! Hello, hello, I'm Christian Paulsen! Nice to meet you!"

Compared with Richard Fuld's abruptness just now, Paulson's tone and attitude were different.

He was so friendly that people who didn't know him thought he was an ordinary MD of Goldman Sachs who came to solicit investments.

MD, Vice President. In investment banks, these are generally the most junior employees.

But in fact, he is the CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Among Wall Street, it is also one of the best.

"Hello." Abel stood still, but took the initiative to smile and extend his hand.

This scene fell in the eyes of Tedlena and Ikana in the distance, and Tedlena couldn't help but whisper to his daughter:

"Wow, look at him not moving at all. Paulson even came over and shook hands with him. Honey, this boyfriend of yours is really a proud boy!"

Paulson was already a senior executive at Goldman Sachs before becoming its CEO.

It enjoys a high reputation on Wall Street and is one of the top elites in New York.

Put it this way.

At this time, Ted Lena might not be able to go to Goldman Sachs headquarters to meet Paulson.

What's more, he was treated like Abel in such a public place.

Ikana was also a little surprised.

She knows her boyfriend is great.

But I didn’t expect that it would be so powerful that even a giant like Paulson would treat him with such courtesy.

Before there was Richard Fuld, the Wall Street bulldog, and after that there was Paulson.

Two of the CEOs of the four major investment banks on Wall Street have already arrived.

"Look over there." Ikana suddenly said to her father, Tedlena:

"That one in the elevator seems to be Philip Purcell? That one next to him seems to be David Komanski?"

"Oh! The CEO of Morgan Stanley and the CEO of Merrill Lynch are here together. Now all four major investment banks are here!!"

Beside his daughter, Ted Lena had fallen silent.

The arrival of Richard Fuld and Paulson was shocking enough.

All the CEOs of the four major investment banks are here, which is no longer as simple as shocking.

Tedlena realized that tonight’s cocktail party would not be that simple.

There is nothing but profit for these oligarchs to appear together.

I went out today and didn't come back until after nine o'clock. There were only two updates in the evening, but I will make up for it tomorrow. In short, there will be four updates every day this month. Let me inform everyone so that you don’t have to stay up late and wait. You can watch it when you wake up tomorrow morning or noon.