Franz had been very busy lately. The economic crisis was coming, and he had to cash out most of the industries in his hands. Any company that could go public and rake in money had to take a turn on the market.
All investments in stocks and bonds had to be cleared out as well. Without enough money, how could he buy at the bottom?
Whenever huge sums of money were involved, Franz personally looked into them. It was all his own money—who could rest easy handing it all over to subordinates without asking a thing?
Especially at this critical moment before the economic crisis erupted, the losses caused by any single wrong decision would be astronomical.
It was not only his personal assets that needed handling; the Habsburg Family's industries needed to be dealt with as well. So many businesses were tangled together that Franz's scalp was beginning to tingle.
This was a happy kind of trouble. During these years in which he had led the House of Habsburg, the family businesses had expanded at a breakneck pace, investing across many fields.
In ordinary times, that was a good thing. But when an economic crisis struck, it might not be. One wrong decision, and the fruits of years of hard work would vanish like smoke and clouds.
The butterfly effect was powerful. Historically, this economic crisis had begun in the United States in the latter half of 1857. Now that rapidly industrializing Austria had been added to the equation, who knew what the outcome would be?
Some time ago, the Vienna Government had continuously launched municipal construction projects to draw capitalists into investing. In essence, this was also a means of delaying the outbreak of the economic crisis.
Once these infrastructure projects began, they naturally consumed part of the