The client was Zhou Zhengyi, who was then known as Shanghai's "richest man.
Legendary history
Born from a humble background, Zhou Zhengyi didn't study too much, only elementary school education, he went out to work from the age of 17, opened a wonton store, worked as a porter in a factory, selling hair spray and foreign currencies, and once went to Japan to look for gold in the name of studying. After that, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, he did not put down the dream of wealth and prosperity, and always keep looking for the opportunity to go up in the world.
Rising up, creating a ten billion empire
The world loves money, but Zhou Zhengyi's love and pursuit of wealth is obviously higher than ordinary people. His life reveals the vigor of drilling everywhere. His wife, his friends, and all the people around him are his helpers.
It is rumored that Zhou Zhengyi's initial opportunity came from women. During his stay in Japan, he saved the life of a Hong Kong woman in a café, who then provided him with HK$6 million to support the opening of a booming restaurant in Shanghai.
The truth of the rumor is unknown, but the key to Zhou's fortune is indeed inseparable from his wife, Mao Yuping. In the words of a Hong Kong weekly magazine, "Mao is a man who is open-minded and does business in all aspects of life.
Instead, Zhou Zhengyi in Shanghai is just a small gangster, is a street fight fists to hand over the old man". 1994 Zhou Zhengyi and Mao Yuping opened the famous "Ah Mao stew". This is a 5-story luxury decoration to the stew as the characteristics of the hotel, business is booming, often parked in front of the door of the luxury car of all colors. Upscale restaurants for Zhou Zhengyi couple opened up the business and political circles of friendship for the future development of the weaving of an important network of relations.
Catering is a hard line, can occupy a seat in the catering industry, none of them is the heart to the extreme or excellent taste. Entrepreneurship is a life of nine deaths, will be "Ah Mao stew" run by the red hot, is Zhou Zhengyi couple's ability to reflect.
Most people who have made it this far have been very difficult. If Zhou Zhengyi stops here, he won't be the richest man in Shanghai, but he can be a small businessman who earns a million dollars a year and has a good life. Gambler is not with their own won a little gold and silver left the field, he will be life as a gamble, and determined that he must win in the end. In fact, he did.
Since then, Zhou Zhengyi has amassed a huge fortune with two things. One is financial, in 1995, many state-owned enterprises have been listed on the stock market, the allocation of the corresponding shares to many employees as wages and dividends. Zhou Zhengyi, the acquisition, assets swelled dozens of times. 1997 Asian financial crisis, the Hong Kong stock market is in the doldrums, Zhou Zhengyi a large number of acquisition of blue-chip stocks, the stock market rebound, Zhou Zhengyi rumored to be hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.
In 1997, Zhou Zhengyi set up Shanghai Nongkai Development (Group) Co., Ltd. through the registration, acquisition and trusteeship of the company's enterprises, etc., has set up more than 80 affiliates, and as a platform for stock market arbitrage, in four years, more than 8 billion yuan in profits. The second is real estate. In 1997, Hong Kong's property market was affected by the stock market and was very sluggish.
Zhou Zhengyi large-scale entry into Shanghai and Hong Kong real estate, and constantly from the bank loans to take down the rotten buildings, packaging and selling again. One of the biggest strokes is the "Jing'an International Community". This is a piece of nearly 180,000 square meters of land he took in 2002 in the Jing'an District of Shanghai, is the largest real estate development project ever in Shanghai at that time.
Subsequently, Zhou Zhengyi constructed a long capital chain between the financial market and the real estate industry, using bank mortgages to acquire rotten buildings, and cashing out through listed companies to transfer the risk to the banking system, thus building up his capital empire. The company has built up its own capital empire.
Scenery no longer, the fall of bloodthirsty capital
In 2003, China's financial system began a round of severe rectification, the Shanghai authorities issued regulations, real estate developers to buy land must be a one-time payment in full, compared to the previous installments, so the pressure on the real estate developers of the capital chain is undoubtedly huge.
Zhou Zhengyi's banker friend, Liu Jinbao, president of the Hong Kong branch of the Bank of China, was investigated for irregularities in the operation of a loan of up to 2.1 billion yuan to Zhou Zhengyi. In September of the same year, Zhou Zhengyi was jailed.
If Liu Jinbao's resume is put together with Zhou Zhengyi's history of making a fortune, we will find that their nodes are very close. Rumor has it that Liu Jinbao and Zhou Zhengyi's wife Mao Yuping have an extraordinary friendship, the truth is not known, but since hitching a ride on Liu Jinbao this line, Zhou Zhengyi's wealth quickly doubled, Liu Jinbao with the understanding of the capital and the hands of the right to loan to help Zhou Zhengyi to realize the capital operation. Funds rely on the bank, the project relies on officials, from now on has become the core idea of Zhou Zhengyi huge wealth.