America's Road to Wealth

Buy one in Manhattan, or build your own office building.

Abel had already thought about this.

But later his attention in this area was distracted by the Hudson Bay City Plaza.

However, Hudson Bay City Plaza involves too many aspects.

It is impossible to mount the horse in a short time.

In other words, the super headquarters building that Abel wants to build is unlikely to appear in the short term.

Every time Abel came to Smith Capital after the expansion, he felt that the company was a little crowded.

After much deliberation, he felt that before launching the Hudson Bay Town Plaza.

You must first find a spacious enough office space for your company.

The best way, of course, is to first buy a building that is tall and large enough in Manhattan or New York.

In this way, not only can Smith Capital be accommodated.

We can also place the headquarters of Elizabeth Back Garden, ab Smith Entertainment, ab Smith Newspaper, AMC TV Station, aircraft and yacht rental companies, etc., which are also headquartered in New York.

Having said that, the number of companies in New York under Abel's name is really quite large now.

In addition, companies in Los Angeles and other places also need to add branches in New York.

If you add this part, it's just the companies under Abel's own name, there are more than a dozen in New York.

A Smith building can barely accommodate one Smith Capital.

Not to mention other companies.

Abel has no intention of continuing to wait for the Hudson Bay City Plaza.

He has no interest in building a new building.

Finally, I thought about it.

Abel feels that buying a ready-made skyscraper will be the best solution at present.

Anyway, as long as you don't buy the Twin Towers or other buildings next to the Twin Towers, that's fine.

Until that day comes, other places should be safe.

When people try to bump into twins, they don’t bump into each other blindly.

Before that, the two twin brothers were the tallest and second tallest buildings in the United States respectively.

This kind of landmark building is in lower Manhattan, so it would be unreasonable not to bump into them.

"Buy a building."

In the break area of ​​Abel's office, coffee master David Mellon put down the coffee.

"It is indeed necessary." David Mellon looked at it from the perspective of Smith Capital.

In David’s view, Smith Capital, which has less than 600 employees, needs to continue to expand.

Not to mention being like Goldman Sachs, which has more than 20,000 vice presidents, the company's peak number once exceeded 30,000.

At least it should be like Wall Street giants such as Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, with five to six thousand employees.

The originally sufficient Smith Building could no longer accommodate five to six thousand employees.

Even if it were more crowded, the Smith Building could only accommodate about a thousand people working at most.

This is despite the possibility of affecting work efficiency.

If you want Smith Capital, there will be an office location that can be expanded in the future.

In Manhattan or New York, owning your own building is already a hard requirement.

Abel put down the "Manhattan Property Encyclopedia" given to him by Father Ikana.

He told David Mellon, "I want to buy the Woolworth Building."

Woolworth Building was the former headquarters of Smith Capital.

This is a building with a long history. It was the tallest building in the world for sixteen years.

Built by Woolworths, the former American retail king.

More importantly, Abel now holds about 20% of the equity in this building.

This share cost Abel almost US$300 million at the time.

And most of the shares in this building are in the hands of Wall Street investment banking giants.

The proportion of shares is 12% owned by Merrill Lynch.

28% is owned by Goldman Sachs,

30% owned by Wells Fargo Bank,

About 10% is owned by small shareholders.

The remaining 20% ​​is in Abel's own hands.

Compared with other buildings, it is not too difficult to acquire the Woolworth Building.

For those investment banks, based on Abel's current relationship with them, he basically just needs to give money.

Those 10% or so of small shareholders' shares will have to be sold even if they are not sold under the general trend.

Since last year, real estate across the United States has been rising crazily.

Last year, the Woolworth Building was valued at approximately $1.5 billion.

If we don’t have around 1.6 billion US dollars this year, we probably won’t be able to win it.

"Woolworth Building?" David Mellon thought for a while and said:

"Although it's a little old, the area is indeed enough. And it also has enough history and landmarks."

The Woolworth Building has a total of 57 floors.

Initially, the builder, Frank W. Woolworth, only planned to build 42 stories high.

Later, he discovered that if it were higher, it could become the world's tallest building.

In order to be the first in the world, he temporarily asked the designer to add some height.

The original 42-story building has become 57 stories.

Frank W. Woolworth was also known for his thrift and calculation.

The additional 15 floors will be much smaller than the original 42 floors.

They are based on the 42nd floor and extend to about one-third of the area.

This makes the completed Woolworth Building look very beautiful from the front and is a standard neo-Gothic tower.

But from the back and side, it looks like an iron.

The front is quite tall, and the back is completely flat. The front is like the handle of an iron, and the back is like a flat iron.

"Then it must be Woolworth." Abel said simply:

"I will ask Alan Baker to contact these shareholders later and try to move in before October."

It does not mean that if you buy the Woolworth Building, you can live in it directly.

As one of the famous buildings in Manhattan, the Woolworth is located in core locations such as Barclay Street and Broadway Street.

There are many companies leasing here, and many of them are well-known companies.

The leases of these companies are at least a few years, and some may last more than ten years.

If you want to lease out these companies, you will need a certain amount of default costs and a certain amount of time.

In addition, it will take a certain amount of time to move the companies under Abel's name, including Smith Capital, into the Woolworth Building.

The interior of the building may also need to undergo certain modifications and decorations.

These times combined are expected to take about half a year.

After half a year passed, New York was safe.

After that happens, we will move the entire company here.

In this way, people in the United States and Manhattan were panicked at the time.

You can also add an achievement such as "Strong Manhattan Supporter".

After all, after that, many multinational giants and financial companies were really frightened and wanted to evacuate Manhattan.

That is to say, the US and New York authorities later made great efforts to ensure that this kind of thing would not happen again.

This prevented Manhattan from turning into a ghost town overnight due to panic.

Having said that, Abel remembered it as if it was after that incident.

Housing prices in Manhattan, and indeed the entire New York City area, have been falling for several months.

It was not until the following year, when Americans saw the determination of the White House, that they re-established their confidence in Manhattan and the New York City area.

Thinking of this, Abel felt that he could let Xinqidian Real Estate do a shopping spree in Manhattan after that incident.

Abel planned to purchase the Woolworth Building outright in his own name.

Although you have to pay a certain amount of local taxes every year, you can spend US$1.6 billion in one go.

Such large profits will be turned into investments. When doing a new tax return, it will be easier.

The two of them chatted about Smith Capital while drinking their favorite coffee.

Smith Capital launched a big move without Abel.

Its appeal to investors in the market is actually not very strong.

Because investors originally came to Smith Capital because Abel could provide them with high profits.

Without this relationship, Smith Capital would not have much advantage compared to other Wall Street giants.

On the contrary, it is at a huge disadvantage due to factors such as brand, channel, transaction point, etc.

Not all of the more than 20,000 vice presidents at Goldman Sachs stay in New York.

Most of them are spread throughout the United States and even the world.

To put it simply, these established giants have a large number of branches.

These branches attract a huge number of customers.

Smith Capital does not have this.

The only investors it can currently attract are investors near New York.

There are also some rich people who come from the name of Mu Abel.

This also makes Smith Capital, except for the few private equity funds where Abel is the fund manager.

Other financial products and investment products are seriously not attractive to customers.

David Mellon didn't have much to do about this situation.

We can only take it one step at a time, after we gain a foothold in New York.

In the future, business locations and branches will be added one after another in other cities.

After thinking about it, Abel made a suggestion:

“Maybe we could add a money fund?”

"Money fund?" David Mellon said:

"Forehead, among our financial products, there are already monetary funds."

Speaking of monetary funds, the first thing that Chinese rabbits think of is probably "Yue'E ​​Bao".

But in fact, money funds are not Lao Ma’s first creation.

It appeared in the 1970s and 1980s.

From the early 1970s to the 1980s.

The United States is in a "stagflation" environment of economic recession and high inflation.

At that time, it was an era when the Soviet Union was strong and the United States was weak, and the Soviet Union was attacking and the United States was defending.

The strong red bear makes the European and American world tremble with fear.

At that time, in the United States, even capitalist newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal were "fixing, analyzing, and questioning" and "America please wait for your people", and they all suspected that the line was wrong.

Due to economic problems, the Federal Reserve at that time controlled bank deposit interest rates.

This makes residents’ deposit interest rates even lower than the inflation rate, and deposits have been depreciating.

At that time, inflation in the United States reached over 20% at its peak.

At that time, in order to attract funds, banks launched large time deposit certificates with interest rates higher than the inflation rate.

However, the starting amount of this kind of time deposit certificate is relatively large, often with one hundred thousand or one million US dollars as the minimum investment unit.

At that time, only a few institutional investors, or wealthy individuals, had enough cash to make such investments.

For most Americans, the only financial investments available at that time were bank savings accounts, stocks, and bonds with pitifully low interest rates.

When times are tough, it's natural for people to look for safe, liquid assets.

However, many financial assets are either too risky, lack liquidity, or have too low returns. In short, they cannot meet the financial needs of investors.

At the time, Ruth Bandt was director of cash management and a credit analyst at Teachers Pension Insurance Company, the world's largest pension fund.

After conducting a thorough investigation of the financial services industry, he came up with a genius idea.

He founded a mutual fund named "The Savings Fund Company" in 1970, and in 1971 it was authorized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to sell financial products to the public.

In October 1972, Savings Fund Company purchased $300,000 in high-interest term savings.

At the same time, it is sold to small investors with investment units of US$1,000.

In this way, small investors enjoyed the return on investment that only large companies could obtain, and at the same time had higher cash liquidity. The first money market mutual fund in history was born.

After that, similar monetary funds emerged one after another, but they were nothing new in 2001.

Even Smith Capital itself, among the many financial products developed by David Mellon and company executives, has a currency fund.

Fortunately, David has adapted to his boss.

David knew that Abel was a god in risky transactions.

But Abel’s knowledge in the general financial field is really very average, and may even be worse than that of finance majors in many universities.

Therefore, David did not feel bad about Abel's proposal.

"No no no no."

Abel shook his head, "The money fund I am referring to is different from traditional money funds."

After thinking about it, Abel added: "To be precise, the name of the currency fund I am talking about should be "Virtual Currency Fund"."

"Virtual currency fund?" David Mellon was a little puzzled.

A currency fund is a currency fund, can it also be virtual?

David didn’t know that something called virtual currency would appear in the future.

Cut all the leeks around the world to the point of death.

"Micro investors such as retail investors and family small and micro investors, through which channels do they usually invest in stocks and funds?" Abel asked.

"Go to a bank or a local securities company to open an account. Then go through their securities manager and implement their investment requirements." David Mellon said.

This is how investors across the United States or around the world have purchased stocks and funds for almost two hundred years.

"Then how do they contact their investment managers?" Abel followed suit.

David Mellon thought about it:

"Usually by phone. In the past, there were faxes and telegrams. Or you could go directly to a securities company to find an investment manager. But now there is the Internet, and some securities companies have tried to contact customers on the Internet."

"That's right." Abel put down his coffee and knocked on the table, "That's it, the Internet!"

"The virtual currency fund I am referring to is a new currency fund trading method that requires the use of the Internet."

Abel said:

"As far as I know, online trading of stocks began to appear on the New York Stock Exchange as early as 1995. But it did not become widely popularized until 1998, three years ago."

"Real Internet account opening has not yet appeared. To open an account, customers still need to go to a securities company or bank. Then the securities company or bank will provide a port to conduct transactions on the Internet."

"But strictly speaking, so far, this kind of transaction is actually just notifying the investment manager by phone, instead of notifying the investment manager via the Internet."

"Then I think Smith Capital can move all financial products that allow small investments, such as monetary funds, to the Internet. In the future, even account opening and transactions can be conducted directly on the Internet."

"What Smith Capital has to do is just to maintain our network and add some branches in those big cities."

"In this way, we don't have to open a large number of business offices like Goldman Sachs. We can find ways to make our customers come from the Internet as much as possible."

Abel actually didn’t know exactly what to do.

But before he was reborn, he bought things like Yu’e Bao and Yu Li Bao.

I also bought stock funds on some brokerage software.

Abel picked out the key points of Internet brokerages such as Yu'e Bao and told David Mellon the ones he could explain clearly.

Gradually, David Mellon understood what Abel meant.

"Oh, boss, you mean to sell small financial products such as monetary funds directly on the Internet?"

David Mellon said: "Open an account with them directly on the Internet? Trade directly on the Internet?"

Abel nodded, "That's probably what it means. But the specific operation, feasibility, etc., you need to weigh it yourself to see if you can do it."

To put it bluntly, what Abel said is the prototype of Internet securities companies.

In fact, at this time, some people on Wall Street were already exploring this model.

Abel has also met the founder of the company that explored this model.

It was Thomas Peterffy's Interactive Brokers that Robert introduced to Abel at the last cocktail party at Morgenthal's house.

Interactive Brokers started with trading tools. Even the computers and systems in the New York Stock Exchange were configured by Interactive Brokers.

Interactive Brokers is a pioneer in the computerization and Internetization of the U.S. financial market.

Even the online stock trading that was implemented in 1995 was first started by Interactive Brokers.

It's just that the limitations of the times are there, even if Interactive Brokers has a different vision.

At this time, the complete Internet brokerage had not yet begun, and Thomas Peterffy was still exploring.

Abel, who comes from 2022, is much more straightforward.

Thomas Peterffy of Interactive Brokers is still exploring Internet Brokerage 1.0.

That is, the basic version built on the computer Internet.

The approach proposed by Abel is already 2.0 for Internet securities companies.

That is, a complete version based on the mobile Internet and smartphones.

With the current technical conditions and Internet conditions, version 2.0 is certainly impossible to achieve.

However, many version 2.0 trading concepts are optimized on the basis of version 1.0 of Internet brokers.

Just slightly change the features that are not suitable for the current Internet and are only suitable for the mobile Internet.

The set of things proposed by Abel is completely feasible during this time period.

You must know that at this time, the population of the United States was only 285 million.

But the number of Internet users is already 110 million (another figure is 90 million).

Assume that among these nearly 100 million Internet users, one million people are willing to invest.

Among the one million people who are willing to invest, 100,000 chose Smith Capital.

That is also a huge customer base for Smith Capital.

David Mellon, who was already very smart and a genius on Wall Street, knew everything about it.

After listening to his boss's ideas, David Mellon became more and more excited.

"Boss." David couldn't help but look at Abel: "Fortunately, I studied fine arts in college. If you had studied finance or business in college, I think I would be unemployed."

Abel understood what David meant, and he was flattering him in a roundabout way.

Fortunately, Abel also knew that it was not about how smart he was.

It's just that I expressed what I had accumulated for more than ten or twenty years more than ten years in advance.

This is standing on the shoulders of the giants of the times, not how smart you are.

So he just smiled reservedly at David and said:

"Well, who told me that what I am more interested in is actually art? If I had failed the exam, I might have studied finance or something."

David Mellon complained:

"It's a good thing, sir, that you didn't fail the exam. You know, the failed student at the Austrian Academy of Fine Arts started a world war."

"Boss, if you fail the admissions exam, maybe it's because you failed the admissions exam for fine arts at Rice University, which caused a world war on Wall Street."