Chapter 490: The Super Rich's Seizure Auction
Chapter 490: The Super Rich's Seizure Auction
After swimming, I took a shower and changed clothes.
Sotheby's auction house attached great importance to him. After receiving Pu Jiajing's call, they immediately sent someone to deliver several thick auction catalogs.
Only then did Fan Wumian know that the Russian tycoon whose items were seized and auctioned was named "Mikhail Khodorkovsky".
The other party was the richest man in Russia in 2004. He accumulated huge wealth during the privatization movement in the 90s and controlled Russia's largest oil company.
As an oligarch, he successfully hit a wall because of his challenge to Pu. He had already been sentenced to prison after the evidence was collected. After sorting and counting, thousands of valuable auction items were found.
He was not interested in caring about how others committed suicide, had an ambiguous relationship with the Americans, and bankrupted themselves. Fan Wumian looked through the auction album with great interest and found many objects and assets that were very valuable in his eyes.
For example, a villa located on Kensington Gardens Street in London is estimated to sell for $3300 million.
He remembered that a few years later, the chairman of Wanda Group would spend 8000 million pounds to buy a luxury house there. It was said that the tax alone cost nearly 1 million yuan, which broke the record in the history of stamp duty on house purchases in the UK and was very impressive.
But Fan Wumian had never considered moving to London to settle down or go on vacation. In terms of investment value, it was not worth buying, so he simply passed it over. He estimated that it would attract many wealthy people to fight for it.
There is also a Piper Meridian six-seat single-engine turboprop private jet, which was delivered from the factory in 2001. Its total range is only 1800 kilometers, making it suitable for short-distance travel in neighboring countries and regions.
The auction price is expected to be only $120 million, which is completely affordable.
However, Fan Wumian knew nothing about this private jet manufacturer. He felt that it was neither comfortable enough nor safe enough. After seeing it, he still had no intention of buying it. He only muttered to himself:
"Such a big oligarch, the richest man, actually only uses this kind of private jet. I really have to wait a few more years."
After receiving the invitation letter from Xu Ziqi, Fan Wumian searched for her information on the Internet and learned that in order to prepare for the wedding, her fiancé had just spent 3.74 million Hong Kong dollars to buy a Gulfstream G550.
Since I travel all the time, there is indeed a need to buy a private jet, so I naturally pay attention to these aspects.
After all, Fan Wumian seemed to have everything he needed in his life. Not having anything he wanted to buy was actually quite a headache. It was a particularly uncomfortable feeling to earn money but have no place to spend it.
It was not until almost noon that he finished looking through several atlases.
The items that really interested Fan Wumian included a Fabergé egg with an estimated selling price of US$300 to 400 million.
This Fabergé egg is beautiful in shape, well preserved, and exquisitely crafted. Compared with more valuable eggs such as the "Rothschild Egg", "Tsar's Third Reich Egg", and "Winter Egg", the introduction mentions that it is mainly because of its lack of fame that the estimated selling price is relatively low.
During the filming of "The Lonely and Great God", Fan Wumian accompanied Zuo Ziyan on a tour in Moscow and saw with his own eyes many Easter eggs made by Fabergé, the royal jeweler of the Russian Tsar.
I feel that with my influence, as long as I take a picture of this Easter egg and keep it for a few years, and then promote it in the movie to increase its popularity, its value will most likely skyrocket.
Public clues that can be found on the Internet include the "Winter Egg" sold in 2002 for a sky-high price of US$957.95 million, and a Russian tycoon who bought nine eggs in one go for US$2004 million in 5000.
If there aren't many people competing at the auction, he plans to try bidding. If it can appreciate three or five times after a few years of collection, that would be pretty good. At least Zuo Ziyan would probably like it very much.
Zuo Ziyan is very rational most of the time, but like other rich girls, she has no resistance to luxurious jewelry, valuable works of art and the like.
Except for this Fabergé egg.
Fan Wumian also took a fancy to a batch of Amazon shares that were being publicly displayed at another Russian auction house and planned to be sold in November. The shares accounted for about 11% of the company's total share capital. The moment he saw the news, he couldn't wait to check the latest market value of Amazon, an American online shopping platform, and found that Amazon's stock price had fallen sharply this year, and its total market value was only 2.27 billion US dollars.
In other words, the market value of these seized and frozen shares is now around 1.07 million US dollars. As long as they are held for more than ten years, Amazon's total market value will easily exceed one trillion US dollars, and there is at least a hundred times of room for appreciation.
Having not paid special attention to this company, Fan Wumian is not sure what Amazon’s peak market value will be in the future.
This did not stop him from developing an extremely strong interest in the shares that were about to be auctioned. The only question was whether the bank would continue to provide him with sufficient financial support.
Judging from the overall debt ratio, the problem should not be too big.
Moreover, in a month or two, Paramount and Disney will transfer the box office dividends of "Time Trap" and "A Quiet Place 2" to him, and he can squeeze out a down payment of to million US dollars if he grits his teeth.
Using this money may have a certain impact on other businesses, but he feels it is worth tightening his belt and living a hard life for a while for the sake of this 2.27% Amazon share.
Curious about how this batch of Amazon stocks appeared in the auction details, Fan Wumian continued to search for information on the Internet and found some clues.
From an American financial news article, we learned that after the Nasdaq bubble burst in 2001, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and many Russian tycoons used their funds to buy up some of Nasdaq's high-quality technology stocks.
Some international tycoons made a fortune from this, but Mikhail Khodorkovsky made a wrong bet because the total market value of Amazon was around 3 to 4 billion US dollars at that time.
Amazon, whose total market value reached 2001 to billion US dollars at its peak in , has not completely escaped the shadow of the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble five years later. It has been in a loss-making situation due to burning money and has been unable to win the favor of investors.
This seems to explain why the 2.27% of Amazon shares were not acquired by others first, but were instead packaged together with the company holding the shares and sold publicly by a Russian auction house.
The company, which holds Amazon shares, is registered in Moscow and is mainly engaged in financial investment business.
The total auction price is expected to be US$1 million, which also includes 5400% of the shares of NapierTMK, an island country company, and the Pinino winery in the Montalcino region in the heart of Tuscany, Italy.
Rich people in Europe like to invest in wine estates and spend some time every year there to relax and vacation.
The Pinino winery is valued at US$1200 million, covers an area of 16.24 hectares, and produces approximately 8 bottles per year, making it a perfect fit for OEM cooperation with Valentino.
As for the island country's NapierTMK company, there is no clear introduction in the information.
Originally, Fan Wumian was not quite sure what this company did. After checking, he found out that Mikhail Khodorkovsky was more fond of enjoying life. The main asset of the island country NapierTMK company was the "Hoshino Tomamu Ski Resort" in Hokkaido, with an overall valuation of about 3500 million US dollars.
Hoshino Tomamu Ski Resort has 23 ski slopes, two hotels with a total of 392 rooms, plus hot springs, golf courses and other facilities. It is one of the most popular ski resorts on the island.
Judging from the pictures, both the ski resort and Pinino Winery have beautiful and comfortable environments. No wonder they were acquired by the former richest man in Russia.
Including Amazon shares, these three major assets, plus some less valuable equity, real estate, etc., are all sold as a bundle under the Moscow-based "Blackroom Financial Company". Fan Wumian is not sure whether they can be divested for the time being.
He didn't really want either the Pinino winery or the ski resort in the island nation of Hokkaido.
After thinking about it again, he felt that he needed to adjust his outlook on life.
Other super-rich people basically have real estate specifically for vacation, while I only have houses in Hong Kong, apart from houses in the mainland, and they are mainly for investment, and enjoyment is secondary.
After muttering a few words about learning to enjoy life, Fan Wumian flipped through the introduction brochure again, searched for some relevant information online, and seriously considered the possibility of bidding for the Moscow-based Blackroom Financial Company.
(End of this chapter)