Rise of the Argentine Empire

On the seventh day of being in the capital, José, with little Nicolás, switched to a cheaper hotel, a bit further from the city center, settling in the Flores Avenue area, where a night's rent was only a third of what they previously paid.

Although there was no sea view, it was close to a park, and the air was decent enough. It's worth mentioning that the air quality in Buenos Aires was generally mediocre now, as some industrial development had led to poor air quality, and the sky was sometimes hazy.

The University of Buenos Aires was located in the city center, and the hotel José stayed at for the convenience of exams charged exorbitant nightly rates.

Having chosen a nearby one, now that there were no exams, it was natural to change locations. The newly moved-to hotel wasn't bad, either. Aside from lacking an old television, the other conditions were fine, but the price was much lower. Plus, three meals a day were free, saving extra expenses, and it even came with two bottles of Melta soda daily.

The two of them spent another two days renting an office about 10 kilometers away from the financial district in the capital. It was a bit far from where they lived, so they had to switch hotels again. The weather was a bit hot now; if it were winter, they could walk every day to exercise.

The financial district in the city center was truly prime real estate, gathering all of Argentina's banks, securities firms, and insurance companies. The high rent gave José a headache.

500 pesos per square meter per month immediately deterred José. After all, he wasn't a real tycoon who could throw money around. He wanted to save where he could, and renting was very uneconomical. If he had money, he would definitely buy several properties to collect rent as a landlord after the company went bankrupt.

It must be said that this 'Paris of South America' was quite impressive, though impressively bad.

The rent in the city center was frightening, comparable to Wall Street. The rent was ridiculously inflated, but the financial district's location in the city center was normal. He had no choice but to settle for second best.

In the Palermo district, the monthly rent was only 100 pesos per square meter. José selected an office of 200 square meters on one floor, with a monthly rent of 20,000 pesos, or about 600 US dollars, which was still relatively expensive but within José's acceptable range.

Due to reduced exports from Chile, the Sequoia company could even be traced back to the beginning of the independence movement in the Río de la Plata colony. Now, it had transformed into a famous Argentine organic fertilizer producer, switching to chicken manure and other mass-producible organic fertilizers.

To avoid being mistaken for a Jin Kela fertilizer company, José cleanly changed the company name to Redwood International, mainly responsible for stock and fund investments, futures, crude oil trading, etc. Of course, these were just outward appearances.

He also placed advertisements in the city's talent market, recruiting 10 stockbrokers and an investment manager, with decent compensation.

There weren't many high-end positions in Argentina now. He spent a morning recruiting several employees who understood both English and Spanish. José's goal was to make some extra money from the Americans.

He also hired a person in charge, Sain Berkeley, who graduated from the Argentine Business University with a bachelor's degree and from Oxford University in the United Kingdom with a master's degree, and who had five years of experience in the industry.

The first time he met Sain, Sain was a stock manager who had been fired and hadn't found a job for more than a month. The American participation in the Korean War led to a plunge in the Argentine stock market, and the shadow of a world war filled the entire Pacific. Several securities accounts were liquidated in the short term, and Sain was also fired.

Most people don't have José's God's-eye view, and Sain's former company heavily invested in trade shipping companies, suffering heavy losses. Stocks were frantically sold off, and the fragile Buenos Aires Stock Exchange returned to before its founding overnight.

Stockbrokers were even easier to recruit. The base salary that José gave was not low, a monthly base salary of 100 US dollars, which was almost the top level in the industry. José selected ten of the best and had them join the team.

"Welcome everyone to join our Redwood International Investment Company. You can familiarize yourselves with the basic work first. These are our key tasks for the future. Sain, come to my office later," José prepared some data reports for these people.

"Yes, boss," everyone returned to their workstations and started working. Although the company's location was relatively remote, the salary was quite high, and their work enthusiasm was high.

"Boss, is there anything I can do for you?" Sain was a thirty-five-year-old pure Spanish descendant who had studied in the UK.

"Sain, what are your thoughts on America?" José looked out the window without answering Sain's question.

"Boss, America is the most powerful and richest country in the world right now."

"What about Wall Street?"

"Wall Street is a holy land for investment and finance. Our Buenos Aires can't compare."

"Our current goal is to open a trading account on the New York Stock Exchange."

"Although the Argentine stock market has been open for more than ten years, it is still too backward."

"Yes, boss, otherwise I wouldn't be unemployed..."

"I want you to open a securities account on Wall Street and continuously acquire a stock over the next two months—General Motors."

"Boss, I know this company, but although the stock price of this company is not high, there is no need to acquire it, right? This company has already increased by more than 1 times in the past few years. It has reached its peak and is very dangerous. Should we look at other companies?"

After the Great Depression and World War II in the United States, a huge amount of wealth was wiped out, and personal wealth was looted. Now, even if there has been some increase, very few ordinary people hold stocks.

"This is not what you need to consider. Just purchase according to the funds I instruct," the stock market is on the eve of its launch. As the world's largest company, it will detonate a surge in market value when it releases its annual report.

The three major industries of automobiles, aviation, and chemicals in the United States are developing rapidly, and a group of large leading companies are about to rise, relying on the huge market of the Americans and the super status after World War II.

These companies have amazing profitability, and super profitability will drive a substantial increase in US stocks. José did not tell Sain these things, which is also one of José's golden fingers.

The US stock market started a bull market in 1950. Now, it has not been fully launched due to war risks, and General Motors will be the first super bull stock.

It will continue until 1966, a super long bull market lasting sixteen years. Although investing in stocks seems a bit like helping the enemy, more investment is necessary to raise more funds.

Currently, there are no restrictions on the exchange rate between the Argentine Peso and the US Dollar. Saint Hsieh has already converted all incoming funds from Prari Company into US dollars. He also mortgaged Prari Company's production lines to secure a loan of 2 million US dollars, bringing the total funds raised, including the payment for goods, to 2.5 million US dollars.

He remotely controls Redwood Investment Company, with Sean acting as the public face and operator.

"Sean, you might have to go on a business trip to New York. Do you have a US passport?" The American stock market is still quite primitive at this time; it wouldn't be considered a modern stock market until 1954.

"Boss, I do," Sean replied. He was already astonished by some of Saint Hsieh's 'high-end remarks.' This mysterious boss seemed to be a financial and business genius, possessing amazing insight into international situations and stock futures trading.

Moreover, the salary offered was very satisfactory.

New York is currently a paradise for the global financial industry, and Sean unhesitatingly chose to go on the business trip, with all expenses reimbursed.

He would return to Argentina once a month to report on his work. Saint Hsieh would remotely monitor the stock account activity, using a Citibank branch in the capital for international remittances.

Therefore, someone had to be physically present in New York, America, to operate. It was the eve of a bull market.

Of course, Saint Hsieh used Morgan Securities to open the securities account into which the funds were transferred to Citibank in the United States.

Sean only had trading rights for the account, not usage rights. After all, 2.5 million US dollars was not a small sum.

No sooner said than done, Saint Hsieh directly assigned several people with relatively good English skills to go to America with Sean to 'make things happen.'

Otherwise, if countries like the Cayman Islands had already been established, Saint Hsieh wouldn't want to pay taxes to the Americans.

Sean took a plane to America, registered Redwood International Investment Company in New York, paid the margin, and began to buy stocks of two companies at low prices during trading days: Boeing and General Motors.

The 2.5 million US dollars had to be spent within a month. In February, when the plastic bottle factory was completed, another 2 million loan would be deposited into the securities account, bringing the total funds to 4.5 million US dollars, an amount that Sean's team had never handled before.

Of course, Saint Hsieh wouldn't simply trust Sean. Several people under him were responsible for monitoring Sean's investment activities and reporting information at any time.

With the securities company's affairs settled, it was also time for Saint Hsieh to plan to expand Prari's international export scale. The domestic market could only increase by a maximum of onefold, but the markets in Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, and Peru were two to three times the size of Argentina's.

He and Little Knicks also set up an international sales department in Buenos Aires, temporarily managed by him to handle internationalization measures.

Córdoba was still far behind the capital in terms of internationalization. The number of talents alone couldn't compare, not to mention the quality of talent.

Saint Hsieh still rented a floor of an office building in a more remote suburb, with an area of 500 square meters.

He registered Argentina Prari Food Sales Company, specializing in international export business. The first stop would be Uruguay, where Spanish is spoken, and the second stop would be the Brazilian market with a population of 80 million.

Saint Hsieh recruited a team of 20 salespersons to strengthen the sales headquarters. He couldn't help but sigh at the abundance of talent in the capital. Back at the Prari factory, he had to select sales staff from among the workers.

Saint Hsieh held a mobilization meeting as usual and sent the people to Uruguay. To support sales, Saint Hsieh directly rented an industrial park and arranged new production lines specifically for producing soda.

Of course, because of the large amount of funds being transferred, he used reserve funds and ordered 10 more advanced production lines from American partners through installment payments.

Saint Hsieh also officially connected with the Argentine branch of General Electric, directly dealing with them. There were not too many restrictions on the export of civilian equipment, and Argentina was now America's little brother, so this time the production equipment was successfully ordered, achieving direct sales from the manufacturer.

He had been ripped off too badly before, with traders smuggling goods and letting middlemen make money. It had to be said that General Electric was powerful. General Electric was still in a stage of rapid development; the 1960s would be its time of crazy takeoff.

General Electric's annual sales were still far less than General Motors'. General Electric's annual sales were about 2 billion US dollars, almost more than half of Argentina's total production value, truly being richer than a country. General Motors' net profit last year was more than 800 million US dollars.

Saint Hsieh had a pleasant conversation with the branch manager of General Electric. General Electric had only officially entered the Argentine market for a month, and Saint Hsieh had already sent over more than one million US dollars in sales. Although it wasn't much, every little bit helps, and Argentina was the first to cooperate with General Electric, so there were some preferential treatment and policies.

General Electric's entry into the Argentine market this year greatly helped Prari Company solve the problem of production equipment.

Argentina is not good at food machinery processing, while General Electric has become very mature in machinery and equipment processing and can produce many production line equipment. Cooperation with General Electric will very powerfully widen the gap with other domestic competitors and catch up with Coca-Cola.

However, because General Electric only produces in the United States and transports via ships, Saint Hsieh's new soda factory will still need a month to be truly established.

It is worth mentioning that before the final contract was signed, two German companies, Siemens and Bosch, also emerged, forcing General Electric to lower the purchase price. In the end, Saint Hsieh purchased a total of 11 modern production lines.

The new factory is located in the Palardi district of the Buenos Aires suburbs, with very convenient transportation and low rent, making it very suitable for setting up a factory. A local beef slaughtering and processing plant had gone bankrupt, and Saint Hsieh could take it over to establish a soda factory and compete with other companies.

Meida Soda already has a certain reputation, but establishing a new factory is conducive to expanding international exports. Saint Hsieh began to draw the internal design plan according to his plan.

The world's most advanced fully automatic mixing tanks and canning production lines were arranged one by one, but glass bottles still could not be purchased locally and could only be transported from Córdoba, which was very inconvenient. Since glass bottles are essential, if a processing plant is established in the capital, then a local glass bottle factory must be built.

Then the Sean Glass Factory in Córdoba must be completely acquired. It would be too troublesome to open a new glass bottle factory, unlike a soda factory, which Saint Hsieh has experience with.

Sean Glass Factory, perhaps it's time to acquire it. The Sean Glass Factory must be completely modernized, otherwise it will not be able to meet the needs of the Prari factory.

In addition to being busy with the investment company and setting up a new factory, the most important thing is to wait for the notification. The admission letter from the University of Córdoba has already been sent, but there is still no news from the Buenos Aires University that he is longing for.