Reborn: Billionaire in College

Carson Block was forced into a desperate situation and thought of a last resort. He booked a flight for that night and he wanted to go to China!

Go to Chen Pingjiang to plead for mercy!

Carson thought about it and decided that Chen Pingjiang was the only one who had enough stocks. If he released some of them at a reasonable price, he wouldn't have to go to the rooftop.

After all, he had been in China for so many years and understood some Chinese. So Carson booked a flight to Shanghai in the evening of that day.

More than ten hours had passed by the time we reached Dongjiang.

"Hey, beauty, I want to ask if Mr. Chen Pingjiang is in the company?" Carson, covered in dust and dirt, no longer had his usual composure.

The receptionist at Renren looked at her curiously, with some displeasure in her eyes. It was almost time to get off work, so why did a foreigner come?

"What's your name? Do you have an appointment?"

"Uh, my name is Carson, and I'm the founder of Muddy Waters. Just tell Mr. Chen my name and he'll know it."

The beautiful lady at the front desk called Guan Yifeng and hung up the phone after a while and replied to Carson: "Director Chen is receiving VIPs now, you can only wait."

Carson had sharp ears and seemed to have heard a familiar name on the phone. He quickly asked, "I just heard Huo Wen. Is that the right name?"

"Yes, you heard that right."

Carson's old face suddenly darkened.

Damn Huo Wen, a shit stirrer. It was he who advised the short sellers to hold on, which is why he lost so much money.

I couldn’t find him yesterday. I didn’t expect he would come to China.

…………

In the reception room, Chen Pingjiang, Huo Wen and the head of Goldman Sachs China were present.

Huo Wen didn't know Chen Pingjiang and was afraid that Chen Pingjiang would not see him, so he found Goldman Sachs.

Chen Pingjiang has a good relationship with Goldman Sachs. After all, Goldman Sachs was also the underwriter of Renren's IPO.

After some visits, Huo Wen finally met Chen Pingjiang.

It can be said that Howen is a unlucky and obsessed guy.

It was he who ran away early in the beginning and lit the signal gun for a false start, which led to the subsequent empty-handed kills.

This guy was still unwilling to accept his loss, so he took some money and continued to short.

The result is not coming out...

"Mr. Chen, can you please let me off the hook and release some stocks?"

Chen Pingjiang smiled and shook his head: "Mr. Huo Wen, I admit defeat. If I remember correctly, you were very loud on Twitter."

Hearing Chen Pingjiang's ridicule, Huo Wen smiled awkwardly and said, "Sorry, sorry, I was really bewildered and listened to Carson's nonsense. I feel very sorry now. Renren is a company with huge potential. Its stock price is not only not overvalued, but even a little undervalued."

"Make a price."

"Ah?" Huo Wen still hadn't reacted to Chen Pingjiang's directness.

"I said, Mr. Huo Wen, name a price, a certain number of shares, and I'll let you go down the mountain."

Huo Wen hesitated for a long time, held up two fingers, and said embarrassedly: "Two hundred dollars?"

Unexpectedly, after hearing this, Chen Pingjiang quickly stood up and shouted to Guan Yifeng, "Show him away."

Cai Jinyong, head of Goldman Sachs' China investment banking business, glanced at Huo Wen with some displeasure, meaning, how dare you ask for such a price?
"Hold on, Hold on!" When Huo Wen saw Chen Pingjiang was about to leave, he hurriedly shouted to him to stay.

They were determined to keep Chen Pingjiang.

Chen Pingjiang shook his head unceremoniously: "Mr. Huo Wen, your price is too insincere. I think I need to remind you that the current share price of Renren is $423.54. You are offering a discount at half the price."

Huo Wen forced a smile and said, "Chen, we all know that the news of your privatization is just a scare tactic, right?"

The implication is that once the news of Renren's privatization is confirmed, Renren's stock price will still fall back, so Huo Wen thinks that $200 is a good price.

Chen Pingjiang sneered: "Are you kidding? Who told you that the privatization news is fake? Even if it is fake, it just suits your wishes. You can just wait for the stock price to fall before buying. Why do you have to come to me?"

Huo Wen laughed dryly, not quite sure how to refute.

Isn't that nonsense...

The stock price will continue to fall for at least a few days, and I can’t bear it for even a day.

Seeing that the two sides were deadlocked, Chen Pingjiang finally coughed and said, "430 US dollars per share. If you want it, I will let you go. If you don't want it, forget it. Mr. Huo Wen, don't blame me for not reminding you that you only have this one chance. The secretary just came to inform me that Carson is here too, and I have to rush to see him."

"Carson is here too?" Huo Wen was stunned. He didn't want to see Carson, so he nodded: "430:430 is :."

There was no way out. Huo Wen had almost no choice but to let Chen Pingjiang name the price.

Want to bargain? Then I won’t sell it!
After seeing off Huo Wen, Chen Pingjiang met Carson with great interest.

This guy is the instigator of shorting Renren’s stock.

"Carson, I know why you came to see me. Frankly speaking, I don't want to send you to the rooftop, $500 per share."

Carson opened his mouth and spoke after a long while: "Okay, Mr. Chen, in view of my mistake in publishing the short-selling report on Renren.com, I agree to your price."

Chen Pingjiang shook his finger and said, "You are mistaken. This price is not to punish you for shorting Renren.com. Your report is untrue and fabricated."

Carson looked up at Chen Pingjiang with some doubt, "Is there any difference between the two?" "Of course there is a difference. The U.S. stock market has its own rules, and short-selling institutions also have their own survival rules. There is nothing wrong with short-selling itself, but slandering and defaming for the sake of short-selling is a problem."

Carson felt that he could not see through the young man in front of him for the time being.

He actually approved of short selling! ?

Chen Pingjiang continued to smile and said, "Are you surprised?"

"Yes! Mr. Chen."

"Nothing surprising. Short-selling institutions should play a supervisory role, monitoring those listed companies that commit financial fraud and forcing them to delist, rather than focusing their energy on unnecessary things. What do you think?"

…………

Carson is gone, as quickly as he came.

In total, I only stayed in Chen Pingjiang's office for twenty minutes.

The reason why Chen Pingjiang was willing to let these short sellers go was not because he was kind, but because he wanted to stop while he was ahead.

The Renren shares that Tianyuan Capital had previously acquired must be sold, and it would be just right for Carson and Huo Wen to take over at a high price.

Moreover, the farce of privatization will not last long before it is exposed. Obviously, the stock price of Renren will inevitably return to rationality by then. The more money we can make now, the more we will earn.

All in all, it would be no problem for Chen Pingjiang to make a profit of more than ten billion US dollars.

More importantly, the abnormal fluctuations in Renren's stock have attracted the attention of the SEC, and intervention is only a matter of time.

At 11 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, Renren's stock price had risen to a terrifying $498.71.

Just as Hovan and Carson fell asleep on the return flight.

An open letter was uploaded to Renren’s official website.

"Earlier this week, the company's founder, Mr. Chen Pingjiang, tweeted that he wanted to privatize Renren Group. Now we are announcing the latest news that Renren Group will abandon this goal."

"One reason: shareholder opposition. Most of Renren's current shareholders believe that it is best for Renren to remain a listed company. In addition, many institutional investors have explained that their internal regulations would restrict their investment in private companies."

"Reason 2: Retail investment is restricted. If Renren is really privatized, there is currently no confirmed path for retail investors to hold shares."

"Reason three: It is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and cannot achieve sustainable development. The time and energy consumed by privatization obviously exceeded initial expectations, and Renren's current priority should be to focus on the development of the WeChat program and strive to achieve sustainable financial development."

As soon as this open letter came out, Renren's stock price suddenly collapsed.

All major institutional media outlets were in an uproar.

Countless short sellers cursed Chen Pingjiang as a liar through the media!

Only retail investors had already run away. They had already made two or three times the profits. Why didn't they run away and stay for the New Year?

If you think carefully, only the short sellers are hurt the most.

Although some of them knew that Chen Pingjiang was talking nonsense, they couldn't bear it.

Who would have thought that within just two days, Chen Pingjiang would overturn what he had said before.

Just two days!

But their previous estimate was at least half a month!
But the short sellers also know that they cannot hold on even for two days and they have to run away.

On the same day, Renren's stock price plummeted by 27%. By the close of trading, Renren's stock price was US$392.68.

The short sellers were furious and went to the SEC to report.

The next day, investigators from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) intervened in the investigation. The SEC believed that the source of funds used by Chen Pingjiang for the privatization transaction was unknown, and that he had taken the opportunity to drive up Renren's stock price, which required an in-depth investigation. Short sellers subsequently filed a class action lawsuit, accusing Chen Pingjiang of securities fraud and "almost completely destroying" the short sellers.

In response, Chen Pingjiang spread his hands and said, "If you want to sue, then go ahead. Or if you are willing to sit down and have a good talk about reconciliation, please go ahead."

That’s great! I’ll compensate you with tens of millions of dollars!

Anyway, I made more than ten billion this time.

Don’t think this is a serious accusation. Tesla’s Musk also defeated the short sellers with the news of privatization.

In the end, the charges were settled with a compensation of only $4000 million, while the short sellers lost tens of billions of dollars.

At the same time, Huo Wen, who had just got off the plane, almost vomited blood after hearing the news.

So, Chen Pingjiang was just waiting for him to take the bait.

He ran to China eagerly and took stocks from Chen Pingjiang to close his position, but Chen Pingjiang burst the bubble instead.

In the end, I turned myself into a clown!
There was nothing Huo Wen could do about it!

Jiang Taigong is willing to take the bait when fishing!

He knew very well that if he did not meet Chen Pingjiang, Renren would not have issued an open letter to terminate its privatization.

Compared to Horwin, Carson seemed much calmer after getting off the plane.

When facing media interviews, he expressed his willingness to accept defeat and pay for his mistakes. Renren is a truly excellent company, and its founder, Mr. Chen Pingjiang, possesses unparalleled personal charm.

Carson said that he would never touch Chinese stocks again. (End of this chapter)