Reaching a Consensus

Looking at the resolute Lin Baijie, Cai Haiyi could not make up his mind for a moment.

"Director Cai, for our company, this project is merely an experimental one. If these conditions cannot be met, I'm afraid we will have to take our investment to another region," Lin Baijie said, feigning helplessness.

He immediately added, "Our parent company was already hesitant about investing here in the first place; after all, the business environment speaks for itself."

Hearing this, Cai Haiyi understood perfectly. He made an excuse, saying he needed a few days to discuss it before deciding whether to agree.

The two parties signed a memorandum of cooperation and then took their leave.

As soon as Lin Baijie returned to the company, he reported the negotiation situation to Huang Xiuyuan.

The current situation was something he had secretly instructed Lin Baijie to orchestrate—deliberately playing hard to get to seize the initiative and establish a relatively solid foundation for smooth future development.

The weather in Lingnan in March was still slightly chilly.

At Shanmei Passenger Station.

In the drizzling rain, Huang Xiuyuan waved goodbye to his father and watched the bus pull away.

Today is March 10th; Arbor Day is in two days.

After several days of internal discussions, Cai Haiyi finally relented and invited Lin Baijie over to discuss the details.

The city government had also been alerted to this matter. After all, contracting out a city's environmental sanitation is clearly a thankless task, but since Suiren Company was willing, they couldn't think of a reason to refuse.

However, Cai Haiyi was no fool. Although he agreed to the cooperation and to contract the urban garbage to Suiren Company, he listed a series of conditions.

For example, the scope of cleaning included not only the urban area but also the various towns and townships under its jurisdiction.

Additionally, there were issues regarding the number and benefits of sanitation workers, cleaning standards for environmental sanitation, and public sanitation facilities.

The two sides negotiated point by point. Lin Baijie did not pay too much attention to the cleaning standards and sanitation workers.

The key lay in construction waste and public facilities.

Regarding the disposal of construction waste, he promised it could be included in the service contract, but it had to be conditional on receiving a piece of industrial land at a low price.

As for the construction of public facilities, the boundaries between the two parties needed to be clearly defined. For example, Suiren Company had no intention of contracting the construction of urban underground sewage systems or sewage treatment plants.

Cai Haiyi did not push too hard on this point; after all, with only 5 million a year, if they had to cover sewage pipes and treatment plants as well, they would truly be losing money hand over fist.

After a morning of negotiations, the two sides reached a preliminary consensus. During the lunch break, Lin Baijie took the time to call him and report the results of the morning's talks.

Huang Xiuyuan, having anticipated this, was not overly worried. After all, the Shanmei urban area was getting a great deal out of this cooperation.

The afternoon negotiations went exceptionally smoothly. The first cooperation agreement was for the transfer of 267 sanitation workers.

Next was the right to purchase a piece of industrial land within the urban area, up to 500 mu, at a price of 80,000 per mu within the next three years.

Finally, there was the contract for contracting urban garbage. After both parties formally signed the contract, Suiren Company obtained the exclusive right to urban garbage disposal for twenty years.

This also included the urban gas business license, which would complete its approval process in the near future.

They paid 36 million for the land purchase, along with temporary construction permits.

After returning to the company, Lin Baijie began to get busy. It wasn't just the preparations for the Guizhuling Industrial Park; other arrangements were also urgent.

Another deputy general manager, Chang Fuguo, was already purchasing garbage sorting equipment, as well as garbage trucks and large freight trucks, to keep costs down.

Following Huang Xiuyuan's instructions, he headed to Hubei Province to purchase garbage transport vehicles and large trucks; the large transport vehicles were naturally purchased from Dongfeng Motor.

Then, without stopping, he headed to Shandong Province. The reason for specifically coming to Shandong was that several domestic manufacturers of gas generator sets were located there, making centralized procurement convenient.

Regarding gas generator sets, there were Shengli Power and CNPC Jichai; Weichai Power could also be considered.

Suiren Company did not currently have plans to generate electricity for the grid. The existence of the generator sets was to provide power to the recycling plant, similar to the self-sustained power generation model of Weiqiao.

After all, generating electricity for the grid was not cost-effective. If they tried to play the Weiqiao island-mode power supply and sell it directly to surrounding factories and residents, it would not be feasible in terms of procedures.

Rather than looking for trouble, it was better to give up this thankless task and just generate electricity for their own use.

In the first phase, Suiren Company only planned to purchase 10 gas generator sets, each with an installed capacity of 500 kilowatts, to form a gas generator cluster.

A 500-kilowatt gas generator set consumes about 151 cubic meters of natural gas per hour. If it runs twenty-four hours a day, it would consume about 3,600 cubic meters of natural gas.

Generally, they would not run at full capacity or around the clock; at least one-third would be kept as backup generator sets to avoid power outages during equipment maintenance or accidents.

Chang Fuguo had already purchased the transport vehicles and was currently at Shengli Power, inspecting their gas generator sets.

Gas generator sets are at least twice as expensive as diesel generator sets of the same power.

Shengli Power offered a discounted price of 800,000 per unit, including delivery, installation, commissioning, and future maintenance.

Chang Fuguo was somewhat mentally prepared for this; domestic gas generator sets were indeed not as good as some foreign brands.

The problem was that foreign brands acted like masters; not to mention the cost of maintenance, the efficiency of their service alone was not something one could praise.

By the time their engineers flew over from abroad, even with the fastest travel, it would likely take four or five days. If an emergency occurred, it would be a nightmare.

Therefore, choosing domestic products was the more cost-effective option.

Meanwhile, during these days, Huang Xiuyuan was busy.

On one hand, he was monitoring the land purchase contract, the garbage service contract, and the gas business rights; on the other hand, he was secretly controlling two offshore companies, with the funds in them having accumulated to 51.34 million USD.

Since the account he opened was a margin account, he could borrow from the brokerage (leverage), usually four times intraday and two times overnight. If the account had good credit, it could be extended to five or six times.

If he wanted to expand the leverage further, he would have to choose off-exchange financing, though the interest would be relatively higher.

Huang Xiuyuan browsed the international financial news; the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States was becoming an increasingly turbulent undercurrent.

Today (March 10), a rumor regarding Bear Stearns began to spread, claiming that the company was facing a severe liquidity crisis.

The U.S. stock market reacted with extreme nervousness to this news, and as the rumor spread rapidly, the market began to turn bearish on Bear Stearns.

Despite holding 18 billion U.S. dollars in cash and highly liquid securities, Bear Stearns was still feeling terrified.

In the financial section of the international news, Huang Xiuyuan saw Bear Stearns' public clarification statement, which hoped to boost market confidence, but the market remained unmoved; by the time the U.S. stock market closed today, their liquid cash had already dropped to 12.5 billion U.S. dollars.

And just today, Huang Xiuyuan, wielding funds with six times leverage, entered the U.S. stock market through dozens of accounts with 300 million in capital.

That day, Bear Stearns' stock price plummeted by 11%, closing at 62.3 U.S. dollars; he liquidated his short positions and made a direct profit of 33 million U.S. dollars.

Then, taking 84 million U.S. dollars and opening a position with two times leverage, he shorted Bear Stearns again before the market closed.

Thank you all for your support (><), and thanks to book friends Qingtianyi, Wenbai, Baijiushiqiyou, and Shuxin for their tips!