After reaching this astonishing conclusion, the financial professional immediately reported it to his superior.
Upon hearing that a super company with an annual profit exceeding 20 billion US dollars might be going public, the head of the institution did not dare to be negligent.
That very evening, all personnel of the entire institution were summoned by emergency calls, and began reviewing all financial data related to oo Network.
They did not realize the extent of it until they started the review. The professional institutions’ ability to audit financial income was far superior to that of netizens online.
Therefore, they quickly concluded that oo Network's annual profit was at least 25 billion US dollars. This conclusion was the same as the figure previously derived by Goldman Sachs, and it was the most reliable data that all institutions could infer from the information available to them.
“Damn it, how could such an enterprise go public so quietly without any fuss, almost fooling us too!” The person in charge of the institution looked extremely displeased.
They had truly paid no attention to oo Network. However, once such an enterprise went public and its prospectus was released, if their behind-the-scenes benefactors discovered that they had not paid any attention to these matters and had no intention of investing, they would surely be consumed.
Moreover, this was a business that was guaranteed to make money if invested in. Who knew that such a terrifying enterprise would suddenly appear in the world?
“It’s really strange, why is there no news at all!” After finishing the meeting, the person in charge still found it hard to believe, so he immediately called a friend who was known to be the most well-informed.
“The news has been suppressed!” the friend said in a low voice. “Someone wants to swallow such a profitable company whole, so naturally, they will block the news. Since you have discovered it yourselves, then handle it yourselves and don’t spread the word, understand?”
“Understood!” The person in charge of the institution immediately realized the situation and immediately instructed everyone not to disclose any information about this matter, and that this company should also make a fortune in silence.
However, they seemed to have forgotten that they were not the only ones from financial institutions who saw this post on the game forum.
In fact, on the same day, personnel from more than six financial institutions saw the post and were greatly interested. After some calculations, they discovered that they had stumbled upon a colossal treasure.
Then, almost simultaneously, they all called this well-informed person for verification and received the same answer. Ultimately, they all made the same decision: to remain silent, not to reveal it, and to subscribe aggressively once the roadshow began.
As it turned out, Goldman Sachs' influence was indeed considerable. In just 15 days, information from the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission was received, and the review was directly approved without any issues.
This meant that oo Network could proceed with its roadshow.
Under Goldman Sachs’ arrangement, the first roadshow was scheduled to take place near the headquarters of the Jiangnan USA branch in California. Goldman Sachs stated that this was to provide roadshow attendees with a better and more convenient display of Jiangnan Group's actual situation, allowing everyone to see the prosperous development of Jiangnan Group.
Of course, this was merely the superficial reason. Normally, the first roadshow should have been held on Wall Street to attract the maximum attention of Wall Street’s financial community.
Although California was also one of the most prosperous regions in the United States, it was known for its various high-tech industries. People here generally disliked Wall Street figures and were not very enthusiastic about finance. Holding a roadshow in such a place at the beginning would hardly attract much attention.
Furthermore, the most crucial point was that California and New York were on opposite coasts. Traveling from one to the other required crossing the entire United States, with the shortest journey being over 2,000 kilometers, and a flight taking a full day.
If one were to travel from New York to California, at least three days would have to be allocated for travel. Wall Street representatives, who calculated their salaries by the second, would absolutely not travel to California specifically without special circumstances.
In short, no one from the financial sector would be present here.
However, Goldman Sachs still chose to hold it here, and their purpose was very clear: to minimize the heat of the first roadshow, and then arrange for Goldman Sachs’ own enterprises or agents to subscribe to oo Network’s stock, taking the largest stake before most people realized it.
Would reality fulfill their wishes?
When the representatives from Goldman Sachs arrived at the roadshow venue, they felt something was amiss. In the not-so-large theater, they seemed to see familiar faces, and very familiar ones at that.
They met on Wall Street every day, attended various meetings, clashed in the stock market, and finally, when someone in their family hosted a social dinner, they all showed up together, arm in arm, and enjoyed themselves.
It could be said that at a glance, the Goldman Sachs representatives could see familiar faces everywhere. But the problem was that these familiar faces were not Goldman Sachs employees; they were almost all their competitors, representatives of various financial institutions.
Shouldn’t these people be on Wall Street today, monitoring the stock market?
Although everyone felt a sense of unease, basic etiquette had to be maintained. Therefore, everyone quickly put on a formulaic smile, enthusiastically found their acquaintances, offered warm hugs, and extended enthusiastic greetings to their families… well, only polite greetings.
Finally, they casually asked, “You are such a busy person, how do you have the time to come all the way to California?”
“Isn’t the reason for my presence here obvious? Of course, it’s to participate in this roadshow!” The acquaintance replied with a brilliant smile. “Our company has always been very interested in oo Network. Now that oo Network is about to go public, we naturally have to attend their roadshow at the first opportunity to see if there is a chance to invest in this company!”
“Is that so? It seems we share the same brilliant insight!” Everyone burst into laughter, and the atmosphere was filled with merriment.
It wasn’t until they saw more and more familiar faces appearing that the people in charge of organizing the entire roadshow at Goldman Sachs were on the verge of tears. In just over 20 minutes, they had already seen familiar faces from more than 10 institutions.
These were the top financial investment banks on Wall Street, each controlling funds of at least hundreds of billions of dollars.
Yet, even though they had moved the roadshow venue thousands of kilometers away to California, they still couldn’t stop these people from showing up.
What did this mean?
It meant that they had fully recognized the value of oo Network and were about to become the damned competitors!
“Sorry, Boss, it seems the news has leaked. In fact, we had already noticed indications of this on the game forum, but by the time we discovered it, it was too late. Many people in the industry had already learned about oo Network’s value through that post, which has led to the current situation!”
No one knew that in this seemingly ordinary theater, Goldman Sachs’ top leader, Dr. Cooper, was in a secret room on the second floor, silently observing the situation downstairs. Beside him was the vice president in charge of the entire operation, who was now apologizing to Dr. Cooper.
“There’s no need to apologize!” Dr. Cooper said calmly, even with a slight smile on his face. “I had already predicted this situation. You should never think of your competitors as fools. Although oo Network indeed lacks market attention, its annual profit of tens of billions of dollars, coupled with the news of its upcoming IPO, was bound to attract the attention of some institutions. The exposure of these matters was only a matter of time!”
“In fact, the current situation is even better than I expected. I originally thought that at least 30 large investment institutions would attend the first roadshow, but now there are less than 20. This number is less than half of what I anticipated, so there’s nothing to criticize about!” Dr. Cooper finished, making the vice president slightly relieved.
Indeed, Dr. Cooper’s expression seemed to beam even more happily.
“However, the more people come, the more disappointed they will be. They probably never dreamed that they would have to meet such an outrageous condition to subscribe for shares!” Thinking of this, Dr. Cooper couldn’t help but chuckle. “Do you understand now why I asked you to agree to Jiangnan Group’s conditions, and even cooperate so much? It’s to keep these scoundrels out!”
“Boss, your insight is remarkable!” the vice president said with sincere admiration.
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“Now, please welcome Mr. Huang Zheng, the General Manager of oo Network’s Greater Americas region, to introduce some basic information about oo Network!” Soon, the entire theater was filled with people, and under the gaze of all these eyes, Huang Zheng, the overall head of oo Network’s roadshow, made his appearance and began to introduce oo Network’s development history in fluent English to everyone present.
However, for the first part of this speech, which was about how oo Network transformed from a small network company into a global network giant, everyone was only mildly interested. At least, they were not interested in hearing stories about how they manually cooled data centers in data centers converted from leather processing workshops.
Who couldn’t tell stories? Their own fabricated stories were much more captivating.
What they were truly interested in was the latter part, about how much profit oo Network could earn in a year.