1928: The rise of giant merchants

This fire burned on the head of U.S. Steel.

Ye Luo said bluntly that he was interested in U.S. Steel's talents, resources and technology, and hoped to take advantage of this opportunity to acquire U.S. Steel.

The United States pursues a capital system, and those who control the country's financial power are plutocrats and politicians. There are no state-owned enterprises in the traditional sense.

U.S. Steel is the largest steel monopoly multinational company in the United States.

It was founded in 1901 through the merger of more than a dozen companies, including the Carnegie Steel Company and the Union Steel Company.

During the most prosperous period of the economy in recent years, U.S. Steel once controlled 65% of U.S. steel production.

In 1928, it annexed more than fifty companies and relied on its strong economic strength to monopolize the U.S. steel market and sources of raw materials. After the U.S. stock market bubble burst, U.S. Steel moved its headquarters from Manhattan to Pittsburgh.

U.S. Steel thought it could tide over the difficulties by selling its headquarters building to YB Bank and cashing in $8.2 million. In fact, this amount of money could not fill a small part of the huge hole.

A few days after leaving the state government building, Franklin contacted Yello again and asked him to go to Manhattan to meet Tom Carnegie, the boss of U.S. Steel.

The father of this tycoon, Andrew Carnegie, together with "Automobile King" Ford, "Oil King" Rockefeller, and "Financial King" Morgan, are known as the four giants in the American economy. The Carnegie family is also one of the well-known plutocrats in the United States.

Butterfly wings flapped, the U.S. stock market bubble burst, and the economic crisis came.

The unlucky U.S. Steel made every step wrong. The extreme corruption within the family made this behemoth the first victim when the building was about to collapse.

When Ye Luo met Tom Carnegie, the forty-year-old consortium helmsman had a sad face, smelled of alcohol, and could not even stand steady.

"The US$8.2 million could not even support U.S. Steel's survival for one more day, and it was all used up." Franklin whispered to Ye Luo, "I think this negotiation should be extremely smooth."

Ye Luo said hello to Tom who was half asleep.

The other person responded hesitantly, looking delirious.

Various scenes of Manhattan can be seen from the building windows.

This place is even more depressed than it was half a month ago.

Nearly 200 skyscrapers had been built in Manhattan in 1929. The sight of high-rise buildings almost made Ye Luo think that he had returned to the 21st century, which shocked people of this era even more.

At this time in the Republic of China, major top cities including Peking and Shanghai had few tram tracks, and Manhattan's subway had already been built to Line 6.

You can still see Line 7 being built outside, but at this time all the construction workers are on strike, gathering on the roadside for demonstrations, and strongly demanding that U.S. Steel pay them back wages——

The Manhattan Line 7 project is a business taken over by U.S. Steel.

"We want jobs! We want wages!"

"Profiting from labor is a sacred right granted by the Constitution! Why do you deprive it?"

“Give us our wages back!”

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Various banners were hung high, and next to them were several small vendors selling fruit. These mobile vendors and small carts were very common during the Great Depression. If you chat with any vendor owner, he might have been famous. entrepreneur.

There are also a lot fewer taxis on the streets. There is no longer the bustling scene where taxis were everywhere in the past. Several taxi shops not far away have closed down.

What’s even more outrageous is that housing prices in Manhattan were horribly sky-high two months ago, but have now fallen by more than 60%, causing countless people to jump off buildings.

Don’t even think about buying a house at the bottom. Housing prices in Manhattan haven’t fallen to the bottom yet. They will fall for ten years before they rebound. By then, the war of resistance in China will have been going on for two years.

"Tom, this is Mr. Yello, the president of YB Bank." Franklin said to Tom Carnegie, who was full of alcohol.

Tom's eyes were half-opened, and he responded vaguely. He thought of reaching out to grab the documents, but instead grabbed the empty wine bottle.

"H-Hello, Mr. Ye."

This is the big boss of U.S. Steel and the head of the Carnegie family.

Looks like a middle-aged capitalist who completely collapsed after the U.S. stock bubble burst.

But Ye Luo knew that this guy was just pretending.

In the original history, Tom successfully deceived many people with his depressed appearance, secretly made deals with politicians and consortiums, obtained a lot of resources from Franklin through misfortune, and successfully stabilized U.S. Steel and allowed it to survive. The most difficult years have passed.

In the 21st century, U.S. Steel has consistently ranked among the top two hundred of the Fortune 500 companies in the United States, and the Carnegie family has always stood firm, becoming a top conglomerate family with a century-old history.

"This is the share acquisition plan, Mr. Carnegie, please take a look." Ye Luo completely ignored his histrionic behavior and handed over the prepared acquisition document.

No matter what Tom Carnegie thought, he couldn't get around the current funding problem.

It turns out that he was able to get government subsidies and bank loans after selling miserably, which helped him solve the problem during the Great Depression.

In this life, government subsidies and bank loans were replaced by Ye Luo's YB Bank.

"Share acquisition?" Tom raised his eyebrows, his cloudy eyes suddenly brightened, and he began to carefully look at the regulations and contract contents above.

He wanted to win Franklin's sympathy with this gesture. After all, U.S. Steel was a large local company in New York, and as the governor, he would not leave it alone.

However, other companies are not doing well right now, and the government's finance department is stretched thin, let alone bank loans. As long as the bank doesn't go bankrupt, it's fine.

Where does the money come from? Franklin can only figure it out.

Unexpectedly, I didn’t even do anything about it, but the money came to my door.

YB Bank has purchased their headquarters building in Manhattan. The shareholders behind this bank are also Rose DeWittbuckett, the woman who once shorted U.S. Steel and caused them to suffer huge losses.

So Ye Luo proposed the acquisition plan, and he was not worried at all that the other party would have no funds.

As for giving away part of the shares, that doesn't matter at all.

U.S. Steel's stock price on the New York Stock Exchange has hit rock bottom. It doesn't cost much for him to buy a large number of U.S. Steel stocks in the market, as long as Ye Luo doesn't hold more than 67% of the stock.

That's the problem of raising prices from the ground up. Thinking of this, Tom sat up straight, picked up a towel and wiped his cheek briefly, seeming to wake up a lot.

Seeing that the other party stopped acting, Ye Luo smiled and sat down: "What do you think of Mr. Carnegie?"

"45% of the shares, this is a very dangerous value." Tom said calmly, "If Mr. Ye goes to the market to acquire another part, it will easily reach the 50% warning line. This"

"45% of the shares are worth US$12 million according to the market price, but in fact the shares of U.S. Steel are not worth that much at all. Mr. Carnegie knows this better than me." Ye Luo looked at him.

Tom didn't reply, but he knew very well.

Not to mention 12 million, no one is willing to take even 10 million.

Therefore, Ye Luo’s price of US$10 million was very high.

"But..." Tom pretended to be embarrassed.