"Finally, I can go back home!" Leng Zhiruo exclaimed, sitting on the plane heading back to their country.
Their original plan was to stay in the United States for only two weeks, returning in mid-October. However, it was dragged out for another two weeks, and it was already November 6th. But Boss Huang and his entourage had apparently returned home successfully and with considerable gains.
"It's a pity I didn't spend all the money!" Boss Huang's only regret was not spending the entire 1 billion US dollars. In total, only about 300 million US dollars were spent. If they added the special effects costs for "The Misty Journey" which had been contracted but not yet paid, they would have over 500 million US dollars remaining.
In fact, keeping all this money in Western Wild Horse Company and investing in Apple stock would have been a good idea. Huang He remembered that Apple's stock price would experience a significant surge in 2003.
From a price of $16 per share, it would rise to around $86 per share. It was just that the loan funds could not be used for stock market investments. Otherwise, Huang He would have directly put all the remaining hundreds of millions into buying Apple stock.
Never mind, since Apple also liked to keep hundreds of billions of dollars in its accounts, having over 500 million US dollars in his own account should not be a problem.
However, although Huang He couldn't invest these hundreds of millions of dollars, he remembered that before leaving the United States, Western Wild Horse Investment Company's funds had already sold over 300 million US dollars. These funds were purchased with the support of the black community, obtained through the reputation of Lil' Swift.
Before leaving, in addition to telling Lil' Swift the secret of investing only in Apple, Huang He also had Lil' Swift adjust the fund's operating rules and introduce a floating management fee.
Normally, a fund charges an annual management fee of 1.5% of the capital, which is then collected daily. Additionally, there is a transaction fee for buying and selling funds, which is a fixed fee and not worth mentioning. The key lies in the management fee.
Under Huang He's design, Western Wild Horse Company's management fee collection rules changed from a stable 1.5% to no management fee charged as long as the annualized return was below 5%.
This means that if you invested 10,000 yuan in a fund, and it did not earn 500 yuan in the second year, no management fee would be charged.
If the annualized return was between 5% and 15%, a management fee of 0.5% of the total amount would be charged.
If the annualized return was between 15% and 30%, a management fee of 1.5% of the total amount would be charged.
If the annualized return was between 30% and 100%, a 12% management fee would be charged on the profit exceeding 30%.
If the annualized return was between 100% and 200%, a 25% management fee would be charged on the profit exceeding 100%.
For the year, if the annualized return exceeded 200%, a 50% management fee would be charged on the profit exceeding 200%.
This kind of floating management fee system was not new, and many funds had similar systems. However, when Lil' Swift introduced this system, many people were surprised because Lil' Swift was simply too arrogant.
After all, even during the most bullish periods of the stock market, most funds' annualized returns did not exceed 30%. Normally, the annualized return of a fund was around 5%.
In reality, most funds lost money every year.
Frankly speaking, 60% of the funds in the United States at this time had returns below 5%. Now, Lil' Swift had announced that no management fees would be charged if the return was below 5%. This meant that Lil' Swift was confident in earning an annualized return of over 5% every year, otherwise Western Wild Horse Company would not earn a penny.
As mentioned earlier, most funds' annualized returns did not exceed 30%. Even if the annualized return reached 30%, Western Wild Horse Company would only charge the normal management fee of 1.5%. However, only about 100 funds globally achieved this 30% annualized return in 2001.
Take George Soros's Quantum Fund, for example. Its average annualized return was only 30%, but it charged a whopping 5% management fee. This fee was charged regardless of whether the fund made a profit or loss, and it was three times the management fee of most other funds.
Even so, these funds were highly sought after. People would flock with their money to buy the limited offerings. They accepted the exorbitant management fees solely based on Soros's reputation, as his average annualized return of 30% was a proven fact. Even after paying the 5% management fee, they still earned more than other funds.
Therefore, Lil' Swift's fund was very cheap. Among all funds, its management fee was the lowest. If this were an average fund, it would lose a lot of operating expenses annually.
For example, the Ivy League team of 20 people required about 2 million US dollars in salaries annually. Although the fund had already reached 300 million US dollars in assets, if it didn't earn more than 5% in a year, the company would not earn any management fees. This would result in a loss of at least 2 million US dollars in salaries, plus various other expenses like stock transaction fees. An annual loss of around 5 million US dollars would be certain.
Even with an annualized return of 15%, it would still result in a loss, because the management fee was only 0.5% of the total amount, which for 300 million US dollars was 1.5 million US dollars in management fees.
Only when the annualized return exceeded 15% would the normal 1.5% management fee be charged, allowing for basic break-even.
So, purely from a purchase cost perspective, Lil' Swift's fund was definitely the lowest.
Of course, if this fund's annualized return exceeded 30%, the management fee would become quite high, with a 12% management fee already considered very high.
A 25% management fee on profits exceeding 100% was even more outrageous.
As for profits exceeding 200%, taking half of it was extremely exaggerated.
However, no one would care about these details, as a fund's normal annualized return was only around 5%. Exceeding 30% was already considered lucky, and exceeding 100% would make one the next Warren Buffett.
If you could truly exceed 100%, I would willingly give you half, as the other half would be gained effortlessly.
Therefore, when Lil' Swift finally introduced this new floating management fee system, almost everyone who purchased the fund immediately agreed to the change in the fee structure, and then a large amount of capital flowed in.
As a result, after one month, Western Wild Horse Fund's investment scale reached its upper limit of 500 million US dollars. This was the legally allowed fund size for Western Wild Horse Fund. If they wanted to increase the capital limit further, it would depend on this year's performance and an application to raise the capital scale level.
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After flying for over 20 hours, the announcement finally came that they had reached Shanghai's airspace and would be landing in a few minutes.
At this moment, Huang He suddenly felt a pat on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw a white young man, about twenty years old.
Normally, Huang He should have been in first class, but first class was full, and even business class was unavailable. Thus, our Boss Huang, with a net worth of hundreds of millions of US dollars, had to squeeze into economy class with a few staff members.
They weren't even seated together. Out of four seats, only two were adjacent, allowing Boss Huang to sit with Leng Zhiruo. The remaining two seats were scattered in different corners of the plane.
So, besides Leng Zhiruo, Huang He also had this young man sitting next to him who had patted his shoulder.
"Hello, are you from Shanghai?" the young man asked.
"No!" Huang He replied, shaking his head.
"Oh!" The young man's expression immediately showed disappointment.
"Is there something you need?" Huang He asked with a smile.
"This is my first time in China, and I want to find a shop here. But I don't have any friends in China, so I thought if you were from Shanghai, maybe you could help me and take me to this shop!" the young man said.
"From what you're saying, you came to China specifically to buy something?" Huang He asked in surprise.
"That's right!" The young man nodded vigorously. "I came to China specifically to buy things from this shop. I originally wanted to find the address on a map myself, but I realized I overestimated my ability to read maps and my ability to recognize Chinese characters. I found that this map is full of the Chinese characters I'm looking for!"
"Oh, can you show me the address?" Huang He asked with a smile.
"Sure!" The young man eagerly handed Huang He a piece of paper with an address written on it. Huang He couldn't help but smile after glancing at it.
The Chinese characters were not written, but drawn. Each character was very large, and the strokes were not the usual continuous lines of Chinese characters, but traced lines.
"Sorry, I drew this based on Chinese characters on my computer, but you should be able to recognize them, right?" the young man said.
"Of course, Shanghai Road!" Huang He said with a smile. "No wonder you said the map was full of these characters. In China, there are over 5,000 Shanghai Roads. There's only one Shanghai Road in Shanghai, but there are countless buildings starting with 'Shanghai.' It's normal that you couldn't find it!"
Huang He smiled as he finished reading the entire address, and his expression became somewhat strange.
"Are you sure this address is correct?" Huang He asked.
"Yes, absolutely. I've checked it over 10 times and I guarantee not a single character is drawn incorrectly!" the young man said.
"Then what are you looking to buy at this shop?" Huang He asked again.
"Of course, I want to buy the most fashionable and profitable items. Don't you know..." The young man stopped mid-sentence, as if he had thought of something, and made a gesture to stop. He then said to Huang He, "Sorry sir, this is my exclusive business secret, I cannot tell you what I want to buy. But it will definitely make me some money!"
"Alright!" Huang He nodded. "How about this, I'll teach you the simplest method. After you get off the plane, give this piece of paper to a taxi driver, and he will take you to this shop. The only inconvenience is that this shop is on a pedestrian street, and cars are not allowed to pass. So, after the taxi driver drops you off, you can take this piece of paper and ask some passersby, and they will tell you where the shop is."
"Actually, the appearance of this shop is very unique. I think you'll be able to see this building at a glance even without asking passersby!"