Chapter 101 The Second Auction (Revised)...

This is Taras's second visit to Vladimir.

Last time he left like a stray dog, but this time it's different, because he brought with him the privatization bill and the president's orders.

In addition, he also received assistance from the Federal Security Service.

The Chekas, now under different names, told him some secret information that should theoretically be unknown to anyone.

For example, it is said that some people in Vladimir attempted to hold a protest against the privatization of state-owned enterprises on the day of the auction.

Taras slammed his fist on the mayor's desk and roared, "I swear, I'll send you all to the gallows! You bunch of parasite bureaucrats trying to steal state assets! No one will be allowed to monopolize state-owned enterprises!"

The city of Vladimir compromised.

Or rather, they had to compromise; the wave of privatization had already swept the country and no one could stop it.

This time, the auction featured not only barbershops, fast food restaurants, and old factories on the verge of bankruptcy, but also some operating, truly valuable state-owned factories, such as tractor factories, plastic factories, and glass processing factories.

Although the large state-owned enterprises in Vladimir have not yet been served, it is clear that day is not far off.

When He Changyi arrived at the auction, everything was different from before.

The venue was set up at the Cultural Palace opposite the City Hall, which featured luxurious decorations, spacious seating, professional auctioneers, and many more participants.

There were workers in tattered overalls, speculators in suits, and people who had tasted success last time and wanted another bite this time.

The balding bureaucrat sitting in the front row scrutinized everything with a critical yet smug look, occasionally turning his head to speak to his staff.

Meanwhile, the local officials in the same row looked quite grim, exuding a sense of suppressed anger that they dared not express.

The feeling of watching helplessly as the factory, which he considered his private property, was taken away was incredibly painful, like having a piece of flesh torn from his body—it was his money, his! It was all his!

Even if privatization is to be carried out, it should be these red factory directors and local bureaucrats, these vested interests, who should take the lead, instead of some capitalist drama of the highest bidder winning!

In fact, even before the current government announced the privatization of state-owned enterprises, and even before the alliance disintegrated, they had already been secretly and tacitly dividing up state-owned enterprises without any approval.

But things are different now.

The whole society joined the frenzy of dividing up state-owned enterprises, especially the nouveau riche. Relying on their cash, they swept up warrants on the market, driving up the market price of warrants from four dollars per warrant to ten dollars, and now it has soared to twenty dollars!

Keep in mind that the face value of the voucher at the time of issuance was only 10,000 rubles, which is only about seven US dollars even at the current exchange rate.

The dramatic fluctuations in warrant prices, from a low of four dollars to ten dollars and then to twenty dollars, caught everyone off guard.

Since the auction only accepted bids on warrants, it completely disrupted the plans of the red factory director and local bureaucrats, who didn't even have time to raise enough money to acquire enough warrants.

When the auctioneer announced the start of the auction, they could only grit their teeth and sit in the audience, watching with a heart full of anguish as a group of outsiders snatched away their factory.

"Tractor factory, 68% of the shares... Starting price, 300,000 shares, one warrant per share."

The auctioneer enthusiastically addressed the audience, "Ladies and gentlemen, the bidding will now begin!"

The bald, burly man in old overalls was the first to raise his hand and shout, "Five thousand shares! One and a half warrants per share."

The auctioneer said briskly, "Alright, Mr. Olef, I'm bidding 1.5 shares per share for 5,000 shares. Anything else?"

Another man in a suit raised his hand and said, "North Wind Fund, 150,000 shares, one warrant per share."

As soon as he finished speaking, the bald, burly man stood up and glared angrily at the man in the suit, who looked back at him with disdain.

The auctioneer, seemingly oblivious, continued briskly, "Alright, North Wind Fund, bid 1 share per unit, for 150,000 shares."

People kept making bids, but most were below one and a half warrants per share. As the deadline of 300,000 shares approached, the workers around the bald, burly man became anxious.

"Damn robbers! Our factory deserves a higher price!"

"what to do?"

"I still have a thousand receipts here..."

The bald, burly man raised his hand again and shouted, "Five hundred shares! Two warrants for each share!"

Just as the auctioneer was about to confirm, the man in the suit coldly said, "One hundred thousand shares, one warrant per share."

The bald, burly man slammed his fist on the armrest of the chair, and the worker next to him turned pale and looked extremely dejected.

"They're going to win..."

The rules for the auction of state-owned enterprise privatization are different from those of a general auction. It is a single-price auction, which means that all bids are first sorted from highest to lowest, and then shares are allocated starting with the highest bidder until all shares are allocated. The final settlement price is based on the lowest winning bid.

In short, workers with the highest bids are ranked first, and funds with the lowest bids are ranked last. However, when allocating shares from highest to lowest bid, the number of shares bid by workers and others is removed, and the fund's bid becomes the lowest winning bid.

In other words, the workers wanted to increase the value of the factory's equity, while the North Wind Foundation wanted to lower the price by using a large volume of purchases to anchor the low price.

Clearly, compared to the deep-pocketed funds, the more than 8,000 vouchers that the tractor factory workers painstakingly scraped together were just a drop in the ocean.

Ultimately, the tractor factory's share price will be set at the starting price of one warrant per share.

This was like a heavy slap in the face to every worker, both present and absent.

Their efforts to protect the factory were doomed to fail.

The factory they had dedicated their lives to, the factory they built from scratch, the factory where generations of their families had worked, the part of their lives, the second family they had grown up with, was about to be sold off at an extremely low price.

It's like saying, "Hey, you bunch of stupid workers, your labor is worthless, your creations are meaningless, you are as cheap and useless as your factory!"

For the workers, this was not only a denial of their dignity, but also a more tangible loss.

Once the factory is sold to the fund at a low price, the workers can only exchange it for shares at the price of one warrant per share, instead of two warrants per share. This means that the same number of warrants can only be exchanged for half or less of the number of shares, and their wealth is diluted.

Speculators like Northwind Fund bought the tractor factory but didn't intend to operate it. Instead, they planned to divest the assets, break it up, and sell it off, squeezing out every last drop of profit before throwing it into the trash, along with the workers.

The workers had seen similar stories far too many times in the newspapers.

This time, it was their factory's turn.

The bald, burly man muttered, "I failed..."

An elderly woman with a headscarf patted his arm and said calmly, "We have all failed."

On stage, the auctioneer, undeterred by any further bids, loudly proclaimed, "Ladies and gentlemen, are there any higher bids?"

The man in the suit surveyed the room with a smug look on his face. He dared to say that no one present could compare to the North Wind Fund, given that they had acquired so many warrants that they needed trucks to carry them.

Is there any entity in Vladimir City with more power than their foundation?

Just as the auctioneer was about to bring down the gavel, a woman's voice suddenly rang out.

"Three hundred thousand shares, one and a half warrants per share."

The room was silent at first, then erupted in uproar.

"Who is it?!"

"She got the factory!"

"Three hundred thousand shares, three hundred and sixty thousand warrants, where did she get so many warrants?!"

The man in the suit stood up abruptly, and the workers at the tractor factory all looked in surprise toward the direction of the sound.

In the last row of the auction hall, a woman wearing sunglasses slowly lowered her hand, looking calm and composed, as if this was not a transaction worth more than two million dollars, but just a shopping trip.

She seemed even more relaxed than when she was buying beef!

A young worker shouted, "Miss He, it's Miss He! We're saved!"

The bald, burly man grabbed him and asked urgently, "Who is she?!"

The young worker, his face flushed with excitement, stammered, "She's Ms. He! Ms. He from the Friendship Store, Ms. He from the dairy factory! She saved the dairy factory! Now she's coming to save our factory!"

The bald, burly man was taken aback, but the old woman beside him realized what was happening first, and a smile appeared on her face before she could even speak.

"What? Jong-guk canned goods? The Jong-guk store that gives receipts?"

The young worker exclaimed excitedly, "Yes, it's her! That's her! She'll save us, just like she saved the dairy factory!"

The venue was in chaos, with everyone whispering among themselves, almost forgetting that an auction was still taking place.

The auctioneer reacted faster than the others present, shouting in a more enthusiastic and cheerful tone:

"Ms. He, I'm offering 1.2 shares per share for 300,000 shares! Ladies and gentlemen, is there anyone offering a higher price?"

The man in the suit panicked; this had already exceeded the fund's pre-set floor price!

What should he do? Raise the price? But how much should he raise it? The other party has already offered 300,000 shares at once! Unless he bids more than 1.2 shares per share and also buys 300,000 shares, he has absolutely no chance of winning!

But he couldn't; the price didn't meet the fund's expectations. They were there to pick up bargains, not to compete.

The man in the suit sat motionless, his face alternating between pale and flushed.

The auctioneer focused his attention on the man in the suit, and seeing that he did not move, he knowingly struck down the gavel.

"Sold! The 300,000 shares of the tractor factory were won by Mr. Olev, Mr. Ivich and Ms. He respectively. The final settlement price is one and one-fifth of a warrant per share."

In this round, North Wind Fund was eliminated.

The man in the suit gritted his teeth and turned to look at the young woman in the last row. Her bodyguard noticed his gaze and immediately glared at him menacingly.

The man in the suit froze, then slowly turned his head away.

...It's okay, this is just the first round, there will be plenty of opportunities later.

Taras watched the first auction with great interest and said happily to his aide Semyon, "It's really good, it looks great, everyone is very enthusiastic, auctions really do achieve true fairness."

Xie Miao chimed in, "You're right. There are no bribes and no insider trading. This is what a truly free and competitive market economy looks like."

Taras said, "I can't wait to see the day when all state-owned enterprises are auctioned off; that will be the happiest moment of my life."

The local officials accompanying him nearly ground their teeth to powder upon hearing his words.

—Damn boy gang! They should be wearing pink shorts and going to their mothers to nurse, instead of ignorantly and barbarically dumping state-owned enterprises!

—My God, what's going on in that stupid bald head of his!

The bald man turned around and said with a smug yet reserved air, "I think Vladimir can further promote the privatization reform of state-owned enterprises. We need more and larger companies to participate in the auction."

The local bureaucrat forced a smile: "You're right, Mr. Taras."

—God, why can't great men just jump out of their graves and send them all to hell with a hammer and sickle?!

The auction is still ongoing.

One factory after another was put up for auction. The man in the suit regrouped and, based on his prior research, selected the most lucrative targets, bidding the most shares at the lowest price.

The North Wind Fund has already used this tactic to precisely target several state-owned enterprises at auctions, reaping huge profits. It can hunt down prey worth several times more with just a small amount of money, and this time is no exception. The man in the suit is always very skilled at this.

However, this time he met his match.

No matter which factory Northwind Fund wants to buy, there will always be someone else offering a slightly higher price and more shares before the hammer falls.

When the man in the suit shouted "100,000 shares, eight-tenths of a warrant per share", the other party offered "150,000 shares, one warrant per share".

If he says "250,000 shares, one and a tenth of a warrant per share", the other party will say "300,000 shares, one and a fifth of a warrant per share".

In short, this guy is determined to go against him! He's meddling in his affairs! He's deliberately launching a sneak attack!

Most importantly, she succeeded in her sneak attacks every single time!

Having his prey snatched away again, the man in the suit stood up in a fit of rage, his eyes bloodshot as he glared at the woman in the last row.

She even needed her bodyguard to remind her to notice him.

The woman crossed her legs, pushed up her sunglasses with one hand, and curled one corner of her mouth in a mocking smile.

The man in the suit's breathing became even more rapid!

If it weren't for those burly bodyguards with guns, he would have charged over by now!

After repeated reminders from the auctioneer, the man in the suit barely managed to suppress his anger and sat back down.

—Next time, just next time, he'll definitely teach this damn woman a lesson!

In the new round of auctioning, the auctioneer made some announcements, but the man in the suit didn't listen at all. The instant the auctioneer finished speaking, he stood up and shouted:

"All shares! One and a half warrants per share!"

The entire room was unusually quiet; no one spoke, and everyone stared at the man in the suit with reverence.

The man in the suit turned around and stared fiercely and provocatively at the woman in the last row.

Strangely, she didn't call out a price. Instead, after hesitating for a moment, she took off her sunglasses, stood up, and inexplicably started clapping.

Snap, snap, snap...

In the silent hall, the applause was exceptionally loud, and the echoes seemed to be heard.

The man in the suit was taken aback. He hadn't expected that the hateful woman would have such a not-so-hateful face. His anger suddenly became somewhat awkward and he felt a bit stuck between his feelings.

...And why did she clap?

Led by the woman, more and more people started clapping, and eventually the whole audience erupted in applause, with some even whistling.

"marvelous!"

"This is truly the best auction I've ever seen!"

"Cheers to the North Wind Fund!"

"The citizens of Vladimir thank you for your contributions!"

The auctioneer announced in an unprecedentedly cheerful tone, "Anyone else bidding? No? Okay—I declare it sold! The North Wind Fund has won all 100,000 shares of the shoe factory, with a final settlement price of one and a half warrants per share!"

The man in the suit realized something was wrong a moment too late.

"Wait... a shoe factory?"

Is it that factory that has no land, no factory buildings, and no production equipment, and relies entirely on old, toothless craftsmen to handcraft outdated shoes that they can't even sell?

That shoe factory is harder to extract oil from than a stone; it's pure debt with no assets. Even Grandet and Sherlock wouldn't be able to squeeze a single penny out of it.

The garbage plant doesn't deserve to be privatized. No one would spend money to buy such a huge burden, and even the most greedy red factory manager wouldn't want to look at it.

Let alone the price of one warrant per share, even the price of one-tenth of a warrant per share would be considered too high for a shoe factory, let alone the absolute high price of one and a half warrants per share.

The man in the suit suddenly felt dizzy.

Representing the North Wind Fund, he ended up buying only this shoe factory at the end of the entire auction.

The auction began to end, and the crowd gradually left, flowing past the man in the suit like water, with countless voices reaching his ears.

"Xie Miao, I dare say this is the most spectacular auction you've ever seen. Those guys really did hide things from us; the information they provided was completely inaccurate. How could a shoe factory be a low-quality asset? Otherwise, that fund wouldn't have bought it at such a high price."

“Mr. Taras, you are absolutely right!”

The man in the suit opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

As the crowd dispersed, the crisp sound of high heels approached from afar, finally stopping beside him.

"Although I don't know your name, I must say that you are a truly excellent fund manager."

The man in the suit turned his head stiffly, and the woman smiled and said to him, "Thank you for your generous help. I have won the bid for the most suitable company. I really don't know how I would have been able to select the most valuable item from the auction without any research if it weren't for you today."

Man in suit: ...

He was breathing rapidly, his heart was pounding, his vision was blurry, and his hands were numb and trembling.

The woman said in surprise, "Oh, are you not feeling well? Well, I understand. It would be a lot of pressure if I spent my boss's money on charity. But it's okay. I think all the workers at the shoe factory will be very grateful to you. They'll even pray for you in church."

The man in the suit finally couldn't catch his breath, collapsed to the ground, and passed out.

The last thing he heard before he completely lost consciousness was—

"Lermontov, I think he must be overjoyed, right?"

"...Boss, please forgive my bluntness, but Zhong Guozhen should put you on the list of weapons prohibited from being exported."

"Tsk, a psychologically fragile man."

Man in suit: ...Let him go see God!

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Author's Note: The rules for auctioning warrants seem a bit complicated, so I'll explain them simply:

Workers' offer: 1.5 shares per share, 5,000 shares;

Fund bid: 1 share/share, 250,000 shares;

The female lead offered 1.2 shares per share, for a total of 300,000 shares.

Since all bids must first be sorted from highest to lowest, and then shares are allocated starting with the highest bidder, the auction allocation order is: 1. Workers; 2. The female lead; 3. Funds.

Since the total number of shares auctioned was 300,000, the final settlement result was: workers 5,000 shares, the female protagonist 295,000 shares, and the fund 0 shares. The settlement price was based on the female protagonist's bid of 1.2 shares per share.

The fund wanted to bid at a low price, but the female lead intercepted the deal.