Giant of the times - Chapter 509

c500 Crisis over, windfall fortunes

In 2007, the subprime mortgage crisis broke out in full force. The severity of this crisis exceeded everyone’s imagination. Major central banks frequently injected capital, but they still could not prevent the financial crisis.

In the blink of an eye, 2008 arrived, and the subprime mortgage crisis further intensified.

On January 1, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that so far, the global subprime mortgage crisis has caused losses of nearly US$2 trillion!

This year, various countries are still busy bailing out the market, and Li Zetian is not idle either, busy with acquisitions and poaching.

While other companies are developing slowly, Li Zetian’s company is bucking the trend and developing more and more factories, R&D laboratories and talents, which is jaw-dropping.

At the beginning of the year, Tesla Motors launched a new electric car. However, due to the global crisis, the media reported it and said it was amazing. But then the focus was shifted by the subprime mortgage crisis.

Li Zetian didn’t care either. If Tesla didn’t attract much attention, it wouldn’t be high. It was the first car anyway, and there were a lot of technologies that needed to be perfected and improved. This year, the global economy has declined, consumption power has decreased, and not many people can afford luxury sports cars.

However, there are nearly 300,000 users who have reserved Tesla cars before, and Li Zetian is already very satisfied. This is a very good result! A Tesla car costs US$100,000, and its sales are US$30 billion, which is already super powerful!

Li Zetian still thinks Tesla cars are too expensive. Only by significantly reducing production costs can electric vehicles be popularized!

September 15, 2008 has arrived. This day is a historic day for the famous Wall Street.

Faced with liabilities of US$613 billion, Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank with a 158-year history and the leader in the U.S. mortgage bond industry for 40 consecutive years, officially announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection! ! !

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers immediately triggered a global financial tsunami. Wall Street ushered in a veritable “Black Monday”. U.S. stocks plummeted. The Dow Jones Index hit its largest single-day drop in points and losses since the “9.11” incident. Global stock markets also plummeted.

Asia-Pacific stock markets fell sharply on September 16, with Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea all falling by more than 5%; the Australian stock market also suffered an earthquake. The Australian dollar opened weak on the 16th, and the stock market closed down by more than 1.5%… However, In the long run, the biggest impact of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy on the world is that it further undermined people’s confidence in the market and the future.

The subprime mortgage crisis that broke out in the United States in 2007 brought heavy damage to not only the United States but also the global economy. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers heralded that the crisis would further escalate and more large financial institutions would fall in this crisis. ; The collapse of front-line investment banks, the backbone of Wall Street, announced that the core of the U.S. financial system had been shaken, and the subprime mortgage crisis had officially evolved into a global financial storm.

On the same day that Lehman Brothers officially announced its filing for bankruptcy protection, Bank of America, representing the will of the Federal Reserve, acquired Merrill Lynch, the third largest investment bank in the United States.

Buffett couldn’t help but sigh: “All companies on Wall Street are ‘naked swimmers.’ It’s just that this time, Merrill Lynch managed to climb ashore and didn’t drown in the water. But Lehman Brothers was not so lucky…”

However, this “dramatic” transaction made many people angry!

“The U.S. government could have saved Lehman Brothers as well, so why did it only save Merrill Lynch!!!”

“It was U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson’s refusal to save lives that led to the outbreak of this global financial tsunami!!!”

“Yes, originally, the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis had been reduced, but the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers made the situation even more serious!!!”

“…”

Li Zetian was naturally gloating about this, because the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was of great benefit to him, so he had no intention of interfering at all. Then when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, it divided its assets with other companies.

On September 17, Cronos Bank invested US$1.75 billion to acquire Lehman Brothers’ New York headquarters, two data centers and some trading assets. On September 20, Cronos Bank once again acquired Lehman’s Asia-Pacific business and its European and Middle East businesses. On October 4, it once again signed an agreement with Lehman Brothers, agreeing to acquire Lehman Brothers’ Indian back-office business.

The once glorious Lehman Brothers had been dismembered beyond recognition in less than three weeks. At this point, Lehman finally hit rock bottom and would never see the light of day again.

By early January 2009, Nortel Networks, the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in North America, was on the verge of bankruptcy, and was acquired by Galaxy Networks under the name of Li Zetian.

Nortel Networks is a company formed by the merger of Northern Telecom and Gulf Network in 1998. It is a well-known telecommunications equipment supplier in Canada and a world leader in optical networks, GSM/UMTS, CDMA, WiMAX, IMS, enterprise communication platforms and other fields. Leading supplier.

After Galaxy Networks acquired Nortel Networks, it greatly enhanced its own strength and became a veritable telecom network equipment giant, capable of facing more challenges in the future, such as those from Huawei.

…

Obviously, even in 2009, the financial crisis has not been eliminated.

On March 2, American International Group (AIG), the largest insurance company in the United States, suddenly announced its losses in the fourth quarter of 2008. This news became the last straw for the U.S. stock market!

$61.7 billion! ! ! !

AIG lost US$61.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 alone, setting the largest quarterly loss in the history of the United States. It made people shocked and panicked!

On that day, the U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 6,763.29 points, setting its lowest closing level since April 1997. This also means that the market value of the Dow Jones Index has shrunk by more than half in just one and a half years. Under this stimulus, Asian stock markets generally opened sharply on the 3rd. Among them, Japan’s Nikkei index once fell to 7117.66 points in early trading, falling to the lowest point after the collapse of the bubble economy. China’s Shanghai Stock Index fell 1.05%; Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 2.3%.

When Li Zetian heard the news, he was overjoyed and secretly thought that he would make a lot of money again.

By shorting stock index futures, the more the national indexes fall, the more Li Zetian makes!

The agreed time for Li Zetian’s short-selling stock index futures was set on April Fool’s Day, April 1, 2009. Firstly, he meant that he had fooled the world and made a fortune; secondly, around this time, the subprime mortgage crisis was finally over and its impact was reduced. The market is starting to recover.

Of course, there will still be some companies that continue to be affected by the subprime mortgage crisis. For example, General Motors went bankrupt on June 1st.

The 2008 economic recession and the global credit crisis pushed auto sales to the brink of recession. By 2009, General Motors, which was severely short of liquidity, was unable to recover. Li Zetian wanted to acquire General Motors, but it was obviously impossible. The United States is determined to help General Motors tide over the difficulties.

Li Zetian didn’t care. He also thought he had too many car companies and it was difficult to manage.

At this moment, Li Zetian and Dongfang Yuqin are collecting funds and counting how much money they made during this subprime mortgage crisis.

When he finally saw this number, even though he was as calm as Li Zetian, he couldn’t help but be shocked!