Heavy Assets

Kuishan Market North Side Street, Tonghang Road, urban district.

At the end of February, the streets were bustling with people, and electric scooters lined both sides of the road. After all, electric scooters were the common means of transportation for locals. Even families with cars kept one or two electric scooters on hand for emergencies.

Knowing there was no underground parking nearby, Jiang Miao had Ke Yong drive to the entrance of the Tax Bureau. It was just after work there, so plenty of parking spaces had opened up.

Jiang Miao and the others walked over to Kuishan Market.

"Boss, you must have been to little shops down streets like this before, right?" Jiang Haibo guessed as he looked at the shop ahead.

"Yeah, my eldest uncle's family lives nearby."

After entering the shop, they found that all four tables downstairs were occupied. Jiang Miao went straight to the proprietress and asked, "Are there any seats upstairs?"

"There's one room left. Four people?"

"Yeah! Four servings of lei cha." Jiang Miao turned and asked, "What do you want? They have fried rice, fried rice noodles, fried vermicelli, and fried sweet potato noodles."

"Fried rice!"

"Fried rice noodles!"

"I'll have fried rice too!"

Jiang Miao smiled. "Three fried rice, one fried rice noodles, plus one salted chicken, one platter of bitter gourd stuffed with meat and tofu stuffed with meat, and one Chinese kale beef."

The proprietress quickly wrote it down. "Head upstairs first."

Upstairs, they took a table by the window.

Jiang Miao sat down, and the others followed suit.

Through the window, they could see the Urban Government Dormitory Area. It was an old residential complex built when the city was established. It had no underground parking or elevators, though some renovations had been carried out in recent years and elevators had been added.

Before long, the proprietress brought up a brown ceramic bowl of lei cha, filled to the brim with green tea broth.

"Come on, one bowl each." Jiang Miao picked up a large ladle and served himself a bowl first. "Help yourselves!"

Jiang Haibo looked at the bright green tea broth with some apprehension. But since the boss had ordered it, he could only bite the bullet and drink it. He ladled himself less than half a bowl.

Ke Yong, on the other hand, did not stand on ceremony. He ladled himself half a bowl, downed it in one go, then served himself another full bowl.

The proprietress then brought up the sliced salted chicken, along with the tofu stuffed with meat and bitter gourd stuffed with meat platter.

Jiang Haibo took a taste and found the lei cha quite good. It had the fresh fragrance of vegetables, a faint sweetness, and a trace of tea's bitterness.

"This salted chicken is a famous Luhe Hakka dish." As Jiang Miao spoke, he picked up a chicken mid-wing. Among all parts of a chicken, mid-wings were his favorite, especially in salt-baked chicken and salted chicken.

Soon, the fried rice and fried rice noodles arrived one after another.

They ate while chatting about everyday family matters.

Since Jiang Miao did not like discussing business while eating, no one else would go looking for trouble.

By the time they finished, it was nearly two o'clock.

They walked back to the entrance of the Tax Bureau to get the car.

It was just about half past two.

Jiang Miao did not head back. Instead, he had Ke Yong drive to the area opposite the Urban Management Bureau on Erma Road.

Luckily, they came at around half past two in the afternoon. At noon or in the evening, both sides of the road would be practically taken over by food carts and electric scooters, making it difficult for cars to pass.

They parked near Shanmei Middle School.

After walking for several minutes, the group saw three adjoining shop units that were being renovated.

The renovation workers were under Jiang Yao and knew Jiang Miao. They hurriedly set aside their carpentry work. "Boss Jiang, the renovations here will probably take another week or so."

"That's fine. Carry on with your work!" Jiang Miao turned and instructed, "Zixuan, go buy a case of Red Bull and some bananas nearby for the workers."

"Okay." Li Zixuan nodded.

Jiang Miao and Jiang Haibo began discussing the shop.

This shop was diagonally across from Hongwei Primary School. It had previously sold electrical appliances, but the landlord's son had lost several million gambling online last October. To repay his son's debts, the landlord had no choice but to sell the three units.

The ground floor had an area of 144 square meters. The second floor had been converted from the original residence and covered 156 square meters, making 300 square meters in total.

The purchase price was 4.5 million yuan.

So far, Jiang Miao had purchased three properties in the urban district: the 300-square-meter shop on Erma Road, a roadside self-built house on Chengnan Road, and a self-built house on Hai Bin Avenue near Fengshan Mazu Square, for a total of 17.39 million yuan.

The reason for purchasing these properties had actually been Jiang Haibo's suggestion. He believed that the company's cash flow was currently very ample and that the money should not be left idle.

Although Hai Lu Feng Company was registered as an agricultural technology company, its actual business scope also included supermarkets and general merchandise, agricultural products, catering, and more.

To strengthen the company's ability to withstand risk, Jiang Haibo had suggested that while purchasing properties, they could also use them to open some affiliated stores.

After giving it some thought, Jiang Miao decided to buy the three properties. However, they were registered under his father Jiang Dahai's name, then leased to Hai Lu Feng Company for use.

As for the direction of the shops' operations, he had not made the decisions alone. Instead, he consulted his brother-in-law, his father, Jiang Haibo, and others. Over the past few days, they had finally settled on a general direction.

First, the property they were currently standing in had sufficient space and an excellent location. Erma Road was a well-known local internet-famous street and food street, so this shop would sell eel rice and serve as a dedicated outlet for the company's products.

As for the self-built house on Chengnan Road, its ground-floor shop space was only sixty square meters, while all five floors together totaled 320 square meters. Jiang Haibo therefore suggested opening a gold shop.

The reason for choosing a gold shop was naturally that Hai Lu Feng Company had a large amount of cash. If they wanted to reduce taxes legally, then opening a gold shop was an excellent way to do it.

After all, purchasing gold and processing it into jewelry turned those expenditures into inventory. Besides, gold shops also had decent profit margins.

The final self-built house on Binhai Avenue had a ground-floor shop area of 120 square meters. It only had three floors, but its total area was 400 square meters.

Jiang Miao planned to turn this property into a private club, making it convenient for himself, his family, and company staff to have somewhere to stay when they came to the urban district on business.

At the same time, it could also be used to entertain business partners from other places.

In fact, this kind of heavy-asset operation was a very good investment strategy for a cash-rich enterprise like Hai Lu Feng Company.

As for financial investments, Jiang Miao had no talent for playing the markets. His math was mediocre, and the A-share market was famously unruly. Investing in foreign financial markets carried even greater risks, and he had no intention of becoming chives for others to harvest.

He was not even very comfortable borrowing from banks.

After all, many companies had died from high debt and broken cash flows.

In Jiang Miao's view, many private enterprises were far too aggressive and blind in their investment strategies, constantly borrowing money to expand without restraint.

If they encountered a favorable market environment, they would naturally soar into the sky.

But if the market worsened or policy changes occurred, they could blow up overnight.

He did not understand the mentality of so many entrepreneurs. Why were they so aggressive, as if failing to expand today meant being eliminated by competitors tomorrow?

Or they got talked into investing in a pile of PPT projects, without conducting any research reports, feasibility studies, market research, or anything else.

Jiang Miao's investments seemed very aggressive.

In reality, however, they remained within controllable limits. The company's cash flow had always been abundant, and as long as it carried no loans, no amount of investment would cause a serious financial crisis.

If there were loans, then they could not invest too aggressively. They had to consider the risks and consequences of a broken cash flow.

Many entrepreneurs' investments were really just gambling. They gambled that the market would improve, allowing them to become pigs riding the wind.

Unfortunately, they only saw the pigs that flew, while instinctively overlooking the pigs that had fallen to their deaths before the wind ever came.