Chapter 128 - Harvest Season, Japanese Buyers!
Time flew by. April passed, and May also passed. As June arrived, Lin Haoran clearly felt it — it was a harvest season. Just as he had anticipated, oil prices continued to rise at an astonishing speed throughout April and May. On the morning of June 1, Lin Haoran woke up, washed up, and picked up the newspaper prepared by his maid to read. He first checked the latest international crude oil prices: 27.86 dollars per barrel. This price was well within his forecast range. Although it was not surprising, Lin Haoran was in a great mood. His crude oil cost was only 12.5 dollars per barrel! According to the contract signed with Saudi Aramco, his oil could be stored for free only until the end of June. Moreover, he had no plans to continue hoarding it beyond that. Even if prices rose to 30 dollars, the difference from 27.86 dollars per barrel wouldn't be significant, and holding it longer would only waste time. Therefore, Lin Haoran decided it was time to recover his funds quickly.
While checking oil prices, he also paid close attention to another piece of news: the international gold price. Since the end of May, gold prices had also started rising more rapidly. In April, gold prices had shown signs of a slight decline, but by May, they had surged past 250 dollars per ounce from around 240 dollars. As of June 1, the latest quote was 251.3 dollars per ounce. It was time to quickly move into the gold futures market. Over the next six or seven months, gold would soar at an exaggerated pace, shooting into the sky. The surge would be so wild that even the United States could not withstand it and would be forced to intervene, leading eventually to a sharp decline.
After breakfast, Lin Haoran returned to his office at Wan'an Group. Outwardly, Wan'an Group seemed unchanged from Lin Wanan's era. The Group was currently managing only two major projects — the commercial tower project in North Point and the Shangri-La Hotel project in Tsim Sha Tsui. However, only the senior executives of Wan'an Group knew that in the past two to three months, the Group had made several major moves. Judging by the increasingly hot real estate market, their decisions had been spot-on. The Group's loans and investments only needed to be disclosed in the next annual financial report and did not have to be announced immediately like management changes. Thus, few outside the Group were aware of these operations.
Since 1978, most listed real estate companies had seen their stock prices surge along with the skyrocketing property prices. Giants like Hongkong Land, Henderson Land, Cheung Kong Holdings, New World Development, and Sun Hung Kai Properties had seen their stock prices surge by more than 50%. Yet Wan'an Group, among these real estate stocks, seemed like an anomaly. Its slow development pace meant that its stock had barely risen — not even 10% from last year to this year, with low trading volume year-round. If it were another boss, he might have wanted his company's stock price to skyrocket — it would mean his net worth would rise dramatically. But Lin Haoran was not interested. To him, stock market valuation was hollow, with little real significance. Therefore, he had no intention of artificially pushing up Wan'an Group's stock price.
If he had wanted, he could have easily manipulated it above 2 billion Hong Kong dollars in market value, riding the general real estate boom. But currently, Wan'an Group's market value was less than 1.7 billion Hong Kong dollars. Before Lin Haoran took over, Wan'an Group's market value had already reached 1.8 billion Hong Kong dollars. However, after he assumed the chairmanship, due to the previous Qingzhou Cement incident, many investors were skeptical about the young new chairman. As a result, even though the entire real estate sector was booming, Wan'an Group stood out awkwardly, its market value falling below 1.7 billion Hong Kong dollars.
Barring any surprises, once Wan'an Group sold its various properties, it would have billions of Hong Kong dollars in cash. How many billions would depend on the final sale prices. Once next year's financial report was released, Wan'an Group's stock price would likely skyrocket. Lin Haoran was even considering privatizing Wan'an Group. If privatized, the Group's cash would belong solely to him, not to the public shareholders. Right now, the public holdings were worth less than 1 billion Hong Kong dollars. Spending under 1 billion to gain several billion in cash was a deal too good to pass up. Other companies needed financing to grow, but Lin Haoran had different plans. With his grasp of upcoming economic trends, he only needed to seize a few critical opportunities to ensure endless wealth.
Sitting in his chairman's office, Lin Haoran first approved two project proposals submitted by Yang Mingyi, then set aside his work to ponder how best to sell his crude oil. The simplest method would be to proactively contact Bao Yugang — he certainly had clients desperately needing oil. But before Lin Haoran could make the call, Bao Yugang called him.
"Haoran, I remember you said you might sell your crude oil in early June, right?" Bao Yugang asked directly.
"Yes, Uncle Bao, I was just about to arrange that," Lin Haoran replied with a smile.
"You're not going to wait longer? I think oil prices will keep rising," Bao Yugang asked curiously.
"They certainly will, but I'm already very satisfied with the current profits. People shouldn't let greed control them," Lin Haoran explained. Of course, he wasn't telling the whole truth. His real reason was that he planned to switch his funds into gold investments, which he intended to keep very low-profile. In Hong Kong, it was hard to hide major investments, but gold — he wouldn't invest through Hong Kong. The local market was too small for the scale he intended.
"Perfect timing. I happen to have several Japanese petrochemical companies urgently looking for crude oil. If you're willing to sell, I can connect you. What do you think?" Bao Yugang offered.
Clearly, these Japanese clients were important customers for Global Shipping Group; otherwise, Bao Yugang wouldn't bother so much.
"Sure, Uncle Bao. I'd appreciate that," Lin Haoran responded with a grin.
Japanese buyers? Lin Haoran immediately made up his mind. He would definitely raise the price a bit — making money off the Japanese would be especially satisfying. He knew Japan was a massive oil consumer with minimal domestic production, heavily reliant on imported oil. This dependency posed significant energy security risks for Japan. Like now — even if they had the money, they couldn't buy enough oil, and had to wait for months.
A few minutes after hanging up, Lin Haoran received a call from a man speaking broken Mandarin. "Mr. Lin, I'm here on behalf of three Japanese petrochemical companies. We heard you have crude oil available, and we would like to purchase it," the man said politely.
"Of course. But first, let's hear your offer," Lin Haoran said.
"Mr. Lin, how much crude oil do you currently have?" the Japanese representative asked.
"4.8 million barrels," Lin Haoran replied.
That was a massive quantity, and the caller was clearly thrilled.
"Mr. Lin, we have a representative office in Hong Kong. May we send a team to meet with you?" the man asked carefully.
"Sure. I'm at my office in Wan'an Group Tower. I'll be waiting for you," Lin Haoran replied.
If they had been buyers from other countries, Lin Haoran might have played it differently. But since they were Japanese, he felt negotiating would be easy. From Bao Yugang's repeated calls, it was obvious their demand was urgent.
Half an hour later, three Japanese representatives arrived at Lin Haoran's office. Each one represented a different company.
"Please, have a seat," Lin Haoran said with a smile. After all, these were customers coming to deliver money.
"Mr. Lin, would you mind showing us proof of your crude oil holdings?" one of them asked eagerly.
"Of course," Lin Haoran said as he took out the contract he had signed with Saudi Aramco.
There was nothing to hide — after all, everyone knew what oil prices had been back in November.
"Mr. Lin, you are truly a great investor," one of the Japanese men exclaimed, seeing the 12.5 dollars per barrel purchase price.
"Alright, I know why you're here. If you want to buy, show me some sincerity," Lin Haoran said calmly. "Let me be clear: many buyers are after my oil. Given the current global environment, my 4.8 million barrels are ready for immediate delivery. They are safely stored in Saudi Aramco's tanks. If you don't show sincerity, we won't have a deal."
Thank you for the support, friends. If you want to read more chapters in advance, go to my Patreon.
Read 20 Chapters In Advance: patreon.com/Albino1