Jixiangfang is a restaurant that looks like a pleasure boat in the West Lake of Hepu Road. Drinking wine and appreciating lotus flowers here is quite leisurely and relaxing.
Here, Lu Ming met the most important figures in the Wei family.
Baoyin Bank is the family business of the Wei family, and all the shares were originally in the hands of the Wei family.
Moreover, a hundred years ago, the branches of the Wei family that obtained the inheritance rights no longer dispersed their equity.
For example, in the branch of Wei Baozeng, starting from the great-grandfather's generation, the family property could be divided, but the shares of the silver bank were only passed on to the eldest son.
With this change, Chairman Wei also transferred all his shares to Wei Baozeng.
There are now more than thirty branches of the Wei family with equity, all of which were dispersed at the earliest stage, and there were more dispersed branches in the past, but some have been repurchased by major shareholders with the surname Wei.
Among the more than thirty branches that hold shares, four hold more than 5% of the shares.
Originally, Chairman Wei held 42% of the shares, and now 2% has been transferred to Lu Ming. Wei Baozeng holds 40% of Baoyin Bank's shares, making him the largest shareholder.
Lu Ming holds 30% of the shares and is the second largest shareholder.
Wei Baozeng's cousin, Wei Qingzhong, holds 11 percent of the shares and is the third largest shareholder.
Another cousin, Wei Qingfeng, holds 7 percent of the shares.
A cousin, Wei Baoku, holds more than 5 percent of the shares.
These five major shareholders already hold more than 90% of Baoyin’s shares.
As for the equity transfer, Wei Baozeng's clan, which originally held the largest shares, only transferred 2% of Lu Ming's shares, and the remaining 28% were transferred from other clans.
This was also an opportunity for Wei Baozeng to reshuffle the cards.
Because when discussing the transfer of shares with these cousin shareholders by hiring the Reed Law Firm, many cousins felt that Baoyin Bank was finished, and they all hoped that Wei Baozeng would buy their own shares to transfer, and most of them would sell them at a low price. After all, even if the lawsuit was won, it would seem like a mess, let alone if they lost.
Some people who did not understand the law and had been making money from banks for generations were even worried that they would be heavily in debt if the bank went bankrupt, so they sold their shares to Wei Baozeng at half price.
Although the intermediary attorney was replaced by Lu Ming, their internal equity transfer agreement remained unchanged.
Therefore, after the lawsuit was over, Lu Ming officially joined the board of directors, and Wei Baozeng and his ally Lu Ming held 70% of the shares. From then on, there was no need to worry about constraints in the board of directors, which turned out to be a good thing.
But there was an undercurrent at the table today, and Lu Ming could feel it.
Especially Wei Qingfeng, the fourth largest shareholder who holds 7% of the shares and whom Wei Baozeng calls "eighth uncle", had an extremely ugly expression on his face.
Lu Ming looked at the internal equity changes and also listened to what Wei Baozeng said.
Uncle Wei was originally the second largest shareholder of Baoyin Bank, holding nearly 30% of the shares. Many old-timers and young people on the board of directors listened to him, and he was also the biggest obstacle to Wei Baozeng's efforts to promote bank reform.
Now, Uncle Wei only has 7% of the shares left. Most of his shares, over 20%, come from Uncle Wei.
Uncle Wei is very smart and understands the law. Wei Baozeng can write IOUs for other people's shares, but he can't do that. Seeing that the company is about to collapse, and hearing that the Reed Law Firm needs shares for a lawsuit, he takes the initiative to talk to Wei Baozeng and says that if he can win the lawsuit, he is willing to give 20% of his shares to Reed.
He also knew that Wei Baozeng's father, Old Man Wei, had saved a lot of gold, which was also passed down from his ancestors.
He wanted Wei Baozeng to exchange him for gold bars.
Of course, the asking price was extremely low, it could be said to be a bargain, and it was also what he estimated Mr. Wei could afford.
Those gold bars were the Wei family’s life-saving money, used when they were penniless. Every generation would save some money into them.
After hearing Uncle Wei's conditions, Mr. Wei took out all the gold bars he could without hesitation and exchanged them for more than 20% of the shares.
Uncle Wei was extremely shrewd, but he never expected that not only would he win the lawsuit, but Baoyin Bank would also survive the crisis.
Looking back now, his 20% stake can be said to be a complete liquidation, probably at a 90% discount.
Therefore, his face was gloomy and had nothing to do with the festive atmosphere.
Originally, this seat was to welcome Lu Ming to join the board of directors, and to meet with several of the most influential shareholders for team building.
Uncle Wei's face was as droopy as a shoe horn, his goatee twitched from time to time, he was leaning on a cane with both hands, and he would cough long and loudly from time to time.
Wei Baozeng pretended not to notice Uncle Wei's mischief, raised his glass and said with a smile: "Today, we are only discussing business matters, not family ties. Dear directors, we have to thank Director Qianhang for helping the Empire Bank save the market. Come on, let's toast to Director Qianhang together!"
The head office of Baoyin Bank had just been unsealed and depositors immediately flocked to it. In fact, the privacy statement issued by Chairman Wei was naturally not attractive to ordinary depositors. Besides, who could trust a bank that had already experienced a run
However, some big customers are in a wait-and-see state.
I believe that if the crisis cannot be resolved quickly, these long-time big customers will call the Wei family directly to ask for a refund and to close their accounts.
Wei Baozeng was so anxious at that time, and then, an armored car with the logo of the Imperial Bank came, and people began to spread the news to the depositors in the long queue that the Imperial Bank had backed Baoyin Bank because if Baoyin Bank really collapsed, it would also cause a huge blow to the Donghai financial industry.
Sure enough, the previous depositors all withdrew their money smoothly.
Some depositors hesitated when it was their turn, after all, they were fixed-term deposits, and there would be no interest if they withdrawn them now.
Some people only have an account at Baoyin Bank, and when they write checks, they feel that checks from Baoyin Bank are superior because their checkbooks are extremely exquisite and luxurious.
I was reluctant to transfer my money to another bank in the first place. If the rumors that Baoyin Bank might be a bankrupt were true, then why should I withdraw my money
During the whole morning, depositors were able to withdraw money smoothly. Gradually, some of the depositors in the queue left. By the afternoon, there was no queue outside, only a few people coming to withdraw money.
The crisis has basically been overcome.
Wei Baozeng later found out that this money was borrowed by his father, who dragged his sick body to many old friends, and it was also because his father won the lawsuit that some old friends were finally willing to lend a hand.
Lawyer Lu also took out one million yuan, which was said to be a loan.
Wei Baozeng only feels grateful to Lawyer Lu.
Of course, within one day, my money was almost gone, but fortunately, I managed to get through the imminent crisis without any major problems.
Fortunately, there were enough excuses and only the head office started operations, while the other branches were temporarily suspended for rectification.
The money transport truck painted with the Imperial Bank logo was also fake.
These were all Lawyer Lu’s ideas.
However, I heard that the Imperial Bank was interviewed by reporters soon. The other party did not admit it, but did not deny it either. After all, the reputation of rescuing the market is still good.
Of course, there is no need to tell these directors these details, especially the fact that the Imperial Bank's loan to the Bank of Japan to rescue the market was a smokescreen, and they don't need to know that.
Wei Baozeng raised his wine glass, looked at Lu Ming, and said with a smile: "Qianxing, this glass must be drunk!"
Lu Ming smiled and was about to speak when he heard a clang sound beside him. It turned out that it was Uncle Wei who was leaning on his crutches and pounding the floor hard a few times.
"Baozeng, is this the end of my business?" Uncle Wei's goat beard grew higher and higher.
Wei Baozeng said with a smile: "Uncle Eight, come, let's toast to Director Qianxing first!"
"I can't drink!" Uncle Wei stood up suddenly. The servant at the stairs of the houseboat ran over to support him and slowly went downstairs.
"What's wrong with Big Brother B?" The speaker was the third shareholder Wei Qingzhong. In terms of seniority, he was of the same generation as Uncle Wei Ba. Wei Baozeng called him Uncle Thirteen, but he was younger than Wei Baozeng and as thin as a stick. However, he was spinning two walnuts in his hands. It looked like he was playing the old game of eagle fighting dog. Indeed, he was still in a daze, looking at Wei Ba's back, wondering why this old Big Brother B was suddenly so angry.
Wei Shisan is also a fool with good fortune. He lives on the shares passed down from his ancestors. He is addicted to fun all day long and realizes everything later.
He didn't take the big incident at Baoyin Bank seriously and didn't know how serious it was.
But when Wei Baozeng came to talk to him about buying his shares and transferring them to new shareholders, he said he disagreed to everything and insisted on one thing: my father, your third uncle, told me before he died that unless I starve to death tomorrow, the bank's shares cannot be moved.
Wei Baozeng did not try to persuade him any further, otherwise, wouldn’t he be deceiving his own relatives
Therefore, now that Lu Ming has entered the game, Wei Shisan has become the second largest shareholder among the Wei family, owning Baoyin Bank, with 11% of the shares.
"Lawyer Lu, come here, I'll toast you." The one who picked up the glass was Wei Baozeng's cousin Wei Baoku, who owned 5% of the shares and was currently the fifth largest shareholder of Baoyin Bank.
In the past, Wei Baoku had always stood by Uncle Wei Ba and was against Wei Baozeng.
But now that the sky was about to change, Wei Baoku just smiled and kept talking to Lu Ming. After all, they had to find a new dock.
It was a bit embarrassing to suddenly gossip with that cousin, but it was entirely possible that I could become good friends with Lawyer Lu.
Lawyer Lu only has ten percentage points less equity than cousin Baozeng. With Uncle Thirteen who always listens to him in a daze, and himself standing next to Lawyer Lu, cousin Baozeng is still not enough.
I just don’t believe that this young upstart will listen to Bao Zeng obediently after entering Baoyin Bank.
Young people are all ambitious.