Chapter 128: Fireworks
"Reading your Big Banyan Construction work report is no easier than reading a government work report. Apart from spending by the Ministry of National Defense and the Publicity Department, I suspect it covers just about everything. You even have a hand in the defense industry," Zeng Qu anming said to Su Licheng across the table at the New Year's Eve dinner.
Big Banyan Construction had been featured in the Rongcheng Business Daily's latest special report on business models as a company that kept doing "addition." The construction group had branched out in almost every direction, with investments in more than a dozen cities, from Shenyang in the north to Hainan in the south, Shanghai in the east, and Lhasa in the west. It was involved in more than a dozen industries too, including real estate, trade, retail, manufacturing, culture, advertising, printing, and defense. Its profits and taxes totaled three hundred million yuan. Last year, Su Licheng had become Big Banyan Construction's general manager, a prominent position that also put him in the eye of the storm. So many people were watching, and who knew how many coveted his seat. This year, the city had also set targets for preserving the value of state-owned assets.
To outside observers, the management restructuring following last year's incident at Big Banyan Construction had shaken the company to its foundations. The driving force behind the scenes, its former chairman Xu Zheng, had undoubtedly been the powerful engine propelling Big Banyan Construction into the ten-billion-yuan club. Old Master Xu's connections and influence had made Big Banyan Construction a leading state-owned enterprise in Rongcheng and a powerful stabilizing force for the city's economy.
When trouble struck Big Banyan Construction, Xu Zheng stepped down, and the group's management underwent reshuffling, its share price fell twenty-four