legendary trader

Chapter 865 Chapter 866 Dreams Shattered
Amidst the sound of crackling firecrackers, a parade of colorful makeup in the distance was walking towards where Chen Fan and the others were standing.

At this time, they were located in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Chen Fan and his family were waiting in the crowd. He was holding his son, and a group of bodyguards surrounded their family.

This is Chinatown in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Every Spring Festival, there is a large-scale makeup parade to celebrate the Lunar New Year in China.

Chen Fan has been here for two days. Except for the first one, he stayed at home because of jet lag. On the second day, he toured Paris under the guidance of a local tour guide.

In fact, the parents have already played here. Although Liu Ying has been here, she has not visited yet, so the child care was handed over to the parents yesterday. He and Liu Ying toured the city of Paris under the guidance of the tour guide. Several so-called monuments.

This tour guide is the local guide that his parents found before. He is very familiar with the Paris city. Starting from his home in Paris, he first saw the Eiffel Tower. Far is the very famous Louvre.

The guide is probably very familiar with the impression of Chinese people on Paris, so he took a trip to several landmarks in the center of the city in the eyes of Chinese people, and then took Chen Fan into the Paris No. Zone 5.

Security personnel have long been waiting here, and under the command of the guide, the car began to drive around in Paris.

The buildings in Paris are relatively retro, similar to Chen Fan’s visits to ancient cities and towns in China. Most of the buildings there are not modern buildings. Of course, this feeling is gone in the 13th and 19th arrondissements of Paris.

Here, you can feel that this is actually a metropolis. Although it can’t be said that there are many tall buildings, the buildings here are obviously different from the surrounding buildings. Not only are the architectural styles completely different, but also because the Chinese advertisements on the street are parallel to the French signs. Rows upon rows of restaurants, pedestrians like crucian carp, heavy traffic.

The last stop was the Eiffel Tower. Well, it’s actually very close to Chen Fan’s home, almost like a circle around Paris.

But today's tour is actually just a casual walk to get to know this European metropolis.

To be honest, apart from feeling better on the Champs-Elysees, other places feel very average, and there is nothing to attract Chen Fan's attention.

At the moment, most of Chen Fan's surroundings are French-speaking tourists with Chinese faces, who seem to be locals. Because of the parade of the Spring Festival, they came here early to watch.

Of course, there were not a few Europeans with white skin and blue eyes in the crowd. Chen Fan also saw several organizations that looked like tourist groups, men, women, old and young, all wearing a large red vest over their clothes, as if to Easy to identify so as not to get lost.

At least Chen Fan rarely heard them speak Chinese in the mouths of these Chinese who looked similar to himself, maybe they have already integrated here.

It is said that the starting point of the parade is the square in the center of District 13. There are gong and drum teams, waist drum teams, dragon dance teams, lion dance teams, Yangko teams, dry boats, donkeys, and dragon boats composed mainly of Chinese. The costumed figures will gather in the city hall square .

After the assembly of the teams, they will beat the big drums, dance the long dragon, and dance the lion dance, so that tens of thousands of Parisians and tourists from all over the world can enjoy the joy of Chinese festivals.

The parade marched along Temple Street, where Chinese businesses were concentrated. Because there were too many people in the square, Chen Fan's family did not crowd there, but just stood by the street and watched.

The parade was a bit long. It is estimated that thousands of people participated in it. There were police cars guarding the front and back, but it was just a circle on the main street of the 13th district.

At the moment, the guide is introducing them to the Spring Festival parade organized by Paris. In fact, it has only been held for two years. This year is the third year, and the scale seems to be getting bigger and bigger.

The Spring Festival parade in the past two years may be a parade with Chinese characteristics that Parisians have never seen, so the main audience at that time were locals, which was very shocking.

After two years of parade, in the eyes of the guide, it seems that the number of locals who came here this year has decreased a lot, but it seems that there are many more tourists from neighboring countries, perhaps for this reason.

Anyway, Chen Fan didn't understand how he saw it. In his eyes, the skin of the people around him was a little whiter than theirs. Many eyes looked blue, green, and even purple, and their hair was also varied. Most of them are brown, yellow, brown and white, and a few people are golden, which is very eye-catching, especially a few with fair skin and beautiful long legs.

Chen Fan has been to Europe once in the past, but at that time he mainly went to see the scenery, and didn’t pay much attention to people. Today, he stood on the side of the street and watched the parade. Well, maybe foreigners think it’s very novel. As a person from China, he thinks Very bland.

So he hugged his son, but he didn't look at the parade on the street, but stared at the foreigners around him.

This year's Spring Festival activities are more intensive. In addition to the makeup parade organized by locals to showcase Chinese culture, it is said that many domestic artists have also come to perform in theaters in Paris.

Looking at the crowded crowd, with the sound of gongs and drums in his ears and the sound of firecrackers from time to time, Chen Fan had a very strange feeling, because it seems that fireworks and firecrackers have gradually been banned in China, and major cities in China have already begun to implement them. , but in this place of Paris, it seems to be casual.

I heard that there will be a fireworks show at night, which is an event initiated by Chinese organizations in Paris.

Although he felt bored, but when he turned his head to see his parents and Liu Ying looking happy, Chen Fan also changed his face quickly, and a flower bloomed on his calm face before, everyone was very happy, he couldn't spoil his family's interest , Like it or not, you have to pretend to like it very much.

It was already past 10 pm when Chen Fan and the others returned home, and the crowd from the 13th district who had come to China for the Spring Festival had already started to disperse.

In the next few days, Chen Fan and Liu Ying just walked casually in the streets and alleys of Paris. This time, they went to visit the attractions in Paris in depth. The major museums in Paris are must-sees, but relatively speaking, Chen Fan The Champs-Elysées is what interests me the most.

Compared with the buildings that seem to be from the last century, the not-so-high buildings on both sides of the street are said to gather the world's most famous luxury boutiques, as well as most of the gourmet shops.

Here, what surprised Chen Fan the most was that the world's major motorcycle brands gathered on the street. Well-known automobile companies have rented stores here to display their latest high-end motorcycles.

Looking at those beautiful sports cars and large motorcycles, Chen Fan still resisted the urge to buy them. It is really hard to take them home. It is better to buy a car here than to go back to China. Maybe the price will be cheaper. However, it is troublesome to think about going through the customs formalities when transporting it back.

The main harvest for him and Liu Ying comes from those luxury stores. Most of the items exhibited and sold here are new styles or limited editions. According to the clerk, many of them are styles that are rarely seen in other countries.

Well, because of this sentence, Chen Fan kept drawing and swiping his credit card. Although he spent a lot of money, he lived a fulfilling life these days. At least he didn’t need to spend all day thinking about investment like he did in China. thing.

According to domestic traditions, the Chinese New Year is usually from New Year's Eve to the [-]th day, so the holiday Chen Fan set for himself is two weeks.

After staying in Paris for ten days, they left Paris and followed Liu Ying to Amsterdam. The distance between the two places is several hundred kilometers, but because of the business jet, they arrived within an hour.

Europe is indeed very small. It takes only one hour to fly from the capital of one country to the capital of another country. It is no wonder that they like to fight so much in modern times. The distance is too close. Fighting a war is similar to hunting. battlefield.

Then once these countries go north and encounter the fighting nation with vast land and abundant resources, they will immediately catch them blind.

In Amsterdam, Liu Ying bought a small villa in the suburbs to live in the year before last. After a night's rest, Chen Fan followed Liu Ying to the headquarters of the Ecos company.

This is the first time Chen Fan has come here. The company's headquarters is located near the Amstel River Station. This is the central area of ​​Amsterdam. Similar to Paris, the buildings here are also relatively old-fashioned, not modern at all. , but there are many familiar company headquarters in the surrounding area, at least it will not make people feel that this place is very backward.

The headquarters building of Ekos company is located next to the Rembrandt Building, which is the tallest building in Amsterdam and the headquarters of Philips. Next to the Dam Square on their way is one of the largest exchanges in Europe. One of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

As someone who plays finance, Chen Fan still knows that that place is the first stock exchange in the world. Although there has been stock trading before, there is no special place for it, and this is the first one built A trading venue dedicated to stock and gold trading.

Although I don’t know what the first stock to be listed and traded here is, but thinking about the background of that era, it happened to be the era of global navigation, and it must be that those companies engaged in colonization and plundering did not run away, even if they were not the first. It is estimated that the ranking will be very high.

Layton, the general manager of Yikes, greeted them at the door. He had already received the news that Chen Fan, the major shareholder of the company, would come over today, so he arrived at the company early to prepare. Know this.

Leighton is a bit tall, but thinner, with a Mediterranean haircut, well, maybe he'll be bald in the future.

Following Liu Ying into her CEO's office, Chen Fan began to understand the company's operations and future development strategies.

Due to limited investment, although the company has developed rapidly in the past two years and acquired more than a dozen large and small newspapers in the European region, but because most of them are local second-rate media, their influence is still limited.

However, it is also for this reason that their acquisitions can successfully pass the government's approval. After all, they are foreign capital and control the media, and their supervision is not much worse than that of high-tech manufacturing.

This time Liu Ying stayed in Europe to carry out the acquisition negotiations of the two small TV stations. The strategy is to continue to acquire TV stations.

After all, Europeans don't need to read newspapers nowadays, but they must watch TV at night.

Spend money and expand the company's business territory.

Chen Fan quickly understood Layton's so-called company's future development strategy, and continued to acquire industries, but only focused on newspapers in the past and began to blossom in all directions.

The newspapers they acquired in the past two years did not have any violations, at least they did not cause any trouble to the host country government, so Layton felt that their future acquisitions might be a little more lenient, so when introducing the company's situation, the words The words were still encouraging Chen Fan and Liu Ying to continue the acquisition.

As the general manager of Ekos Company, Chen Fan understood his idea of ​​making the company bigger and stronger, and he was not short of money, but he just reminded Liu Ying in private to pay attention to the quality of the acquired assets.

In fact, the two of them discussed this plan a long time ago, but because they found a backer in China, Chen Fan dismissed the idea for a while, but Liu Ying still insisted on doing it, and made it to the present.

Although the influence of the current Ecos company in Europe is still very small, Liu Ying believes that through continuous acquisitions and continuous development, sooner or later Ecos company will become an important media company in Europe.

This is already the case, and Chen Fan will naturally not object to Liu Ying continuing to do it. After all, the current development of Ecos is not bad. It is already a trinity media company of newspapers, TV and websites. As long as its influence continues to expand, it will grow into a media empire. Not impossible.

Of course, behind this, he needs to continue to give blood to the company. After all, the profitability of the current traditional media is too weak.

The operating performance of Ecos is relatively good among European counterparts. Of course, this is because Leiden’s cost control is good, but even so, Ecos can only maintain its capital, and its profits can only be said to be very, very small. , can be almost ignored.

Chen Fan has read the financial report of IKOS, and feels that it is almost not profitable, but just a number on the books. The cash flow statement has always been negative. Although this is related to the company's continuous acquisitions, it is always in a state of cash outflow.

During this period of time, Chen Fan certainly did not relax his tracking of the news from the United States. Zhang Quan continued to send Chen Fan the latest development emails, so that Chen Fan could keep abreast of the changes in the United States at any time.

Unsurprisingly, after nearly a month of intensive negotiations, Enron's energy trading department was taken over by Merrill Lynch. However, the specific transaction amount has not been announced, and the transaction amount has been approved by the bankruptcy judge and asset managers.

Once the most innovative core asset of Enron, with the sale of a paper agreement, relying on the energy derivative securities pricing and risk management system and financial advantages, it occupies a monopoly position in the new energy trading market and has built Enron into a similar Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, but the dream of a new type of trading company that mainly trades energy derivatives has been completely shattered.

(End of this chapter)