On the last day of June, Era Vanguard's response letter to the SEC inquiry was officially submitted to EDGAR System.
In the attachment of the reply letter, Hong Kong pledge document, Hong Kong Stock Exchange registration receipt, cross-border transfer voucher, Henglong Group Board of Directors resolution--
All four documents are attached, and the chain of funding sources is impeccable from beginning to end.
However, in the "Actual Controller Statement" column on the seventh page of the reply letter, Lin Shicheng fully disclosed the name and nationality of Times Pioneer Capital's actual controller in accordance with the requirements of the SEC.
Zhao Chen. China membership.
At ten o'clock in the morning New York time, the detailed summary of Schedule 13D Amendment Filing popped up on the terminals of Bloomberg and Reuters at the same time.
The headline title of Bloomberg was changed three times in a row, and was finally settled on--
"The controller behind Era Vanguard emerges: young China investor Zhao Chen".
The first paragraph of the text reads:
"In the past six months, the offshore fund Era Vanguard has swept through Tesla and Nvidia stocks with more than 15 billion US Dollar funds in the US Stocks market,
Its only actual controller is China, a young man in his 20s - Zhao Chen.
This information is hidden in the attachment that Era Vanguard just responded to the SEC inquiry, submitted by the fund's legal representative Lin Shicheng.
Zhao Chen is also Chairman of Hong Kong Stocks Listed Company Henglong Group, and currently directly holds more than 60% of the shares of Henglong."
In every Trading Room of Midtown Manhattan, the ID photo of Zhao Chen that was taken out by the media from the Henglong Group official website is displayed on Bloomberg Terminal at the same time.
In the photo, he is wearing a dark suit. The background is Board of Directors Meeting Room at the Henglong Chongqing headquarters. His expression is calm and there is no sign of any emotional fluctuations.
"More than 20 years old." A trader from Morgan Stanley smashed his coffee cup on the table and splashed two drops on the keyboard.
"Since his entry into Nvidia in November last year, we have analyzed that behind Era Vanguard is at least a veteran fund manager who has experienced three bull and bear cycles.
20s -- I was still printing transaction confirmations when I was in my 20s."
In the Explorers Club, the fire in the fireplace has gone out.
White-Haired Old Man The transaction summary table in front of him has changed from a thick stack to a few thin pages--
Of the allies who toasted together last month, less than half are still at the table now.
He read the Bloomberg news three times from beginning to end, then slowly took off his glasses and placed them on the coffee table, closing his eyes and remaining silent for a long time.
Someone next to him whispered "23 years old", he opened his eyes, turned his head and looked out the window in the direction of the Hudson River.
"We were pulled from 178 to 230 by a 23-year-old,"
He put his glasses back on,
"Then he had Tesla in one hand and Nvidia in the other, fighting on two fronts, forcing us to not even be able to close our positions in an orderly manner.
Our old bones have been consumed by him alone for half a year. Damn it, he is only 23 years old."
There was no anger in him, and there was only a complexity left behind after being crushed by the facts in his tone.
After a moment of silence, he closed the transaction summary sheet with only the last few pages remaining, leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling, as if he was recalculating an account.
The headline of the commercial edition of "The Wall Street Journal" called the incident "the most shocking identity exposure of Wall Street in recent years."
The article pointed out that Zhao Chen is not only the actual controller of Era Vanguard, but also Chairman of Henglong Group.
The total investment portfolio management scale of the two institutions exceeds 30 billion US Dollar.
In just two and a half years, Zhao Chen transformed a Chongqing local real estate company into a capital platform spanning A-share and US Stocks.
At the same time, he built an offshore fund from scratch into the largest institutional shareholder of Nvidia and the second largest external shareholder of Tesla.
The CNBC host's reaction was even more straightforward. She shook her head while reading the manuscript,
"Wait, you mean, the boss of the 'Era Vanguard' we have been discussing for half a year is only 23 years old?"
After flipping through the information in her hand, she put down the manuscript and added:
"We always thought that he was at least a veteran who had managed three elephant funds, but we didn't expect that this person was not even thirty years old."
When the news reached China, it was lunch break at noon the next day at Beijing time.
The head of the Hong Kong Stocks research team with the head Financial Media was having lunch when his phone was suddenly flooded with notifications.
He glanced at the title of the Bloomberg news, hung his chopsticks in mid-air, and put the bun back into the bowl.
In the afternoon of that day, the headlines of Financial Media in China were changed to the same title almost simultaneously--
"Era Vanguard Actual Controller Zhao Chen: The 23-year-old Ten-Billion-US-Dollar is at the helm".
WeChat public account "Wall Street News" was the first to issue an in-depth article.
Sorting out the entire timeline of Zhao Chen seizing power from Henglong, Short Selling Henglong Holdings, bargain hunting Bitcoin, investing in Tesla and Nvidia, the number of reads exceeded 100,000 in half an hour.
The manuscript concluded. "Zhao Chen's asset territory spans the three major markets of A-share, Hong Kong Stocks and US Stocks.
Covering the five golden tracks of New Energy cars, artificial intelligence, Energy Storage Materials, Consumer Healthcare and Baijiu,
The total management scale of Era Vanguard and Henglong Capital has exceeded 35 billion US Dollar."
This report triggered a chain reaction, and almost all mainstream Financial Medias in the country caught wind of it and rushed to forward it and add exclusive comments.
Several senior fund partners also forwarded a long article on their personal social media and said that the currently public data is just the tip of the iceberg and they need to learn the position logic of Era Vanguard and Henglong from scratch.
Zhengfa University's alumni group messages directly exceeded the chat record limit.
The PDF screenshot of Era Vanguard's response to the SEC inquiry letter that was first forwarded was sent to the group by a graduate student in the direction of Economic Law, with only one word in the text:
"Fuck."
In less than two minutes, nearly a hundred messages had been posted.
Someone found a photo of him and Zhao Chen participating in a moot court competition when they were in school.
Someone dug out the transcript of his speech on case analysis in class.
Some people directly commented to the administrator, "Does this school know that a billionaire has come out of our school?"
The administrator only replied with two words: "I know."
He quickly added three more words, "We are all confused."
The biggest headache is the Law School dean's office.
The dean received interview requests from at least three media outlets that afternoon, and the Academic Affairs Office also received five or six calls from self-proclaimed "investors" who wanted to contact Zhao Chen through the school.
The assistant to the dean said helplessly to his colleagues:
"It's good that they want to go back to school to hold an alumni sharing session.
But now they are asking, 'Does Zhao Chen have a record of failing courses?' What is Zhao Chen planning to write for his graduation thesis? 'Does Zhao Chen have any disciplinary records while in school?' Dare I say that?"
That afternoon, Secretariat of Zhao Chen received a call from Shan City Government.
The other party's words were extremely polite. He first congratulated Zhao Zong on his achievements overseas, and then tactfully expressed the hope that Zhao Zong could arrange a symposium when he returned to China.
"Share the experience of global investment with young entrepreneurs in the city."
After Secretariat received the call, he only wrote one sentence in his briefing to Zhao Chen:
"The city government hopes that you will arrange a symposium after you return to China."
Forbes Chinese Website urgently published an estimation article that night.
Based on the currently publicly confirmed positions, Zhao Chen personally holds 64% of the shares of Henglong Group.
In addition, Era Vanguard's holdings in Tesla, Nvidia and SpaceX.
According to comprehensive and conservative calculations, its net assets are approximately in the range of 12 billion to 15 billion US Dollar.
Once this number is confirmed in the official list, it will be enough for him to firmly enter the top 20 of the 2019 Forbes domestic rich list--
Ranked ahead of New Energy Vehicle Startups Li Wenwu, it is close to the seating range of Jingxi Liu Qiangxi and Dami Lei Busi.
The 20th threshold for Forbes China Rich List in 2019 is about 8 billion US Dollar.
What makes the list editors even more uneasy is the fact that most of the assets held by Zhao Chen are held through layers of Offshore Structure to this day. The list team cannot even confirm whether these numbers are still undervalued.