It had to be said that President Wang was remarkably efficient.
Almost the very next day after meeting Lu Zhou, he had singled out everyone in his Moments who met the standard of an "outstanding entrepreneur," talked them onto the "pirate ship," and not a single one escaped.
Just like that, one invested a hundred million, another invested two hundred million, and they somehow scraped together ten billion RMB in the end, which genuinely startled Lu Zhou.
His original plan had been to raise around five billion RMB, then get another five billion in bank loans and issue several billion in corporate bonds. A total of over ten billion would have been enough to build the submarine cable.
Now, there was no need to issue corporate bonds at all. They only needed to borrow a little over two billion from the bank, and the entire project budget was covered.
And so, a company called East Asia Communications, with registered capital as high as ten billion RMB and countless big shots backing it, was quietly established in Shanghai.
If it had remained low-key, perhaps no one would have noticed the company.
However, not long after its establishment, it did something earth-shaking.
At a time when the No. 3 Asia-Pacific Submarine Cable Project had stalled and the entire industry had entered a downturn, this sudden disruptor waved its cash around and spent five billion RMB acquiring nearly eighty percent of the domestic companies operating submarine cable businesses.
Such a massive move carried the momentum of sweeping through everything and unifying the industry. It not only alarmed the China Securities Regulatory Commission, but even the NDRC.
However, because arrangements had already been made in advance, this did not affect East Asia Communications' dozen or so acquisition cases in the slightest.
In order to