Manhattan Reborn 1978

a new day.

new York.

Early morning~

Upstairs at Wildfire Bar on 42nd Street in Manhattan.

David slowly woke up from a deep sleep, glanced at the very quiet phone call last night, turned over and hugged Polly and fell asleep again.

After half an hour.

Polly, nestled in his arms, woke up from her sleep.

She raised her head slightly, kissed the green stubble on David's cheek and said with a smile, "What do you want for breakfast?"

"Hmm~ It's okay."

"But I want to eat you first!"

"Hahaha~ Then what are you waiting for?"

. . .

After the joyful morning exercise.

David took a hot shower and felt very relaxed both physically and mentally~

at breakfast.

Polly made a simple and delicious meal of fried egg bacon sandwich + milk for the two of them. David ate so much that he almost forgot that there were two people at home who liked to stay in bed on weekends and did not show up. .

"Hey~"

"Why don't you call us for breakfast?"

"Forehead.."

As soon as David put down the milk cup in his hand, he heard little girl Laura's protest. .

"Is it because you don't get up on time for breakfast?"

"Why do you bite back?"

"Tch~ I'm too lazy to bite you!"

Laura, who was wearing a light pink nightgown, quickly ran up behind David, hugged his shoulders and shook him a few times before yelling in relief.

"I do not care!"

"You two were arguing all the time last night...so much so that we didn't even get a good rest!"

"Hahaha~"

David raised his eyebrows very proudly at Polly who was standing in the kitchen: "Did you hear that?"

“My hard work and hard work have finally been fully recognized by someone!”

"..." Polly had a "weird" expression on her face, but she couldn't hide the "satisfied" smile in her eyes.

Bedroom direction.

Lilith, who followed Laura out, heard David's "explicit show off" and quickly pulled Laura, who wanted to "show off" again, back into the room and laughed.

"You guys should go do your work first~ We need to sleep for a while!"

"Still sleeping?"

David shook his head in confusion: "Didn't you make an appointment to go shopping together today?"

"Yes~"

"We made an appointment to meet at Macy's Department Store at 10:30."

"It's still early!"

"Oh.."

David walked up to Polly and kissed her twice with a smile: "Look, recognition from outside the court is the most pertinent!"

"Haha..." Polly turned her head and rolled her eyes at him, holding back her smile and saying nothing~

. . .

After half an hour.

David stood in front of the Wildfire Bar and watched the car driven by Black Mike take Polly to work. .

Menge, the steel-toothed dog, walked out of the bar with a purchase order in his hand and asked with a smile: "Hey~ Good morning, boss!"

"Morning, Mengo!"

"What are you doing?"

"Oh~"

"Tim from the soda factory is coming to deliver the goods today. I'll come out and wait for him."

"Oh.."

David nodded suddenly when he heard this familiar name.

Tim was his childhood friend who grew up and studied with him in his hometown of Morrison, and was one of his few childhood friends.

It's just that this kid doesn't particularly like big cities like New York because he thinks there are too many bad people here. .

"Hehe~"

David smiled and asked for the order from Mengo. After reading it again, he quickly discovered that something was wrong.

"Why is our current purchase volume so small?"

“Is that enough for a week’s worth of soda and juice at the bar?”

Menge, the steel-toothed dog, shrugged and spread his hands: "This morning, Erica said it again when paying the bill~ Since the second week after the New Year, the business in the bar has begun to decline~"

"Those regular customers who usually like to come to the bar for a drink in the evening have not come as much in the past two weeks."

"So, just now Erica suggested that our bar should also add some new tricks to attract customers and let some new customers come to the bar to spend money."

"The pattern?"

"What does she want to do?"

"Oyster bar."

"Forehead.."

"This isn't a new trick, is it?"

Menge touched his nose with his hand and smiled: "You misunderstood."

"Erica wants to recruit girls who want to work part-time to make money as girls in tights selling cocktails and oyster combos~"

"..."

David returned the order in his hand to Menge, tilted his head, thought for a while, and said, "How is the bar business in the surrounding streets lately?"

"It's all the same~"

"Then do you think Erica's new tricks can change the current situation?"

"I can't tell..." Menge shook his head feeling very uncertain.

"I talked to those drinkers, and they all said that their income has decreased recently, and the price of everything has increased, making it increasingly difficult to make money."

"So they will be more cautious when spending money."

"That's right!"

David tightened the scarf around his collar, put his arm around Mengo's shoulders and said, "Tell Erica for me, if you want to come up with new ways to attract customers, don't invest too much money, let alone have too much hope~ "

"Because everyone is starting to be cautious about consumption, this situation may become more and more serious."

“It might even last a year or two!”

"Two years?!" Menge grinned, feeling very bad, and asked with a frown.

"Then can't we think of a better way?"

"Hehe~"

David smiled bitterly and shook his head helplessly: "This is not something I or we can control."

"The continued rise in oil prices and the resulting chain reactions of rising inflation will cause countless small companies and factories that are already struggling to survive to go bankrupt~"

"When they go bankrupt, a wave of unemployment for workers is not far away!"

"Until then, our bar business..."

"..." Although David didn't finish his words, Menge could hear what he meant.

David and Mengo, the steel-toothed dog, stood in front of the bar and chatted for a while.

Before Tim, who was delivering the goods to the bar, arrived, the car driven by Mr. Gardener stopped in front of David.

"Hi ~ Good morning, boss!" Mr. Gardener opened the car window and waved to David with a smile.

"Morning for you too!" David smiled and opened the rear door, made a few jokes to Menge, got in the car and left~

Menge stood there, watching the car disappear quickly at the intersection in the distance, the smile on his face gradually disappeared.

In fact, when the number of regular customers coming to the bar has been decreasing in recent days, Menge went to find some regular customers he could contact and asked carefully about the reason.

The result is just as David said.

For those who need to drive to get off work or travel every day, the situation of queuing at gas stations for hours without refueling is repeated every day on TV news. .

People generally have very pessimistic expectations about oil prices entering another round of rise~

Even some economic experts who appeared on TV programs began to use various economic data to tell the audience that more difficult days have just begun~

. . .

Wall Street.

Stanley fourth floor.

David, who had not been to the company for a month, saw Sam Rogers already standing outside the elevator waiting, hugged him happily and smiled.

"Hey guy!"

"Have you been busy lately?"

"I owe you a perfect vacation!"

"Hahaha~" Sam patted David hard several times and joked with a smile.

"You can take a vacation anytime~"

"But if I delay helping you make money, I can't afford to pay for it..."

"Hahaha~"

David pulled Sam towards his office and asked, "Are they all here?"

"It's all here."

"I also made an appointment with Bernard Madoff to come see you in half an hour."

"Ok!"

"We really need to meet and have a chat."

In David's office.

Mag Ludwig, Odis Parker, Sam Rogers and David sit down.

David looked at the three "generals" across from him and sighed with a lot of feelings in his heart.

"Thank you for your hard work during my absence!"

"Hehe~"

Mag Ludwig shrugged at David and said with a smile: "Actually, it doesn't make any difference to us whether you leave or not."

"Hahaha~"

David laughed cheekily, shook his head and said, "There is definitely a difference..."

"It's just that if you encounter any trouble or problem, you can solve it yourself without my intervention."

"Hahaha~" The three of them accepted David's compliment with a calm smile.

After the joke~

Odis Parker took out several pieces of information from the briefcase he carried with him and placed them in front of David.

"The Todd Covian you met yesterday, I asked a friend to check his information, as well as the information of the Vitol company behind him."

"Vitol was established in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, at the end of 1966 and is now headquartered in Switzerland. It is mainly engaged in international commodity trading."

"It is Europe's largest independent crude oil trading company and a private partnership."

"So, the information we can investigate is not much. We can only learn some about it from its activity level in recent years and major historical transaction records."

"Henry Vietor and Jacques Dediter, the founders of Vitol, traded petroleum products up and down the Rhine in the 50s."

"The two combined Vietor's last name "Vietor" with the word "oil" and named the company "Vietor"."

"Since the outbreak of the last oil crisis, Vitol has maintained its traditional business of only being involved in the energy industry in recent years, playing the role of a trader between various oil-producing countries and consuming regions in the world."

"In 1977, the total amount of crude oil and refined oil products sold by Vitol Company for the whole year was roughly equivalent to about one-eighth of the annual crude oil consumption of the United States."

"In other words, Vitol's total annual income in 77 has exceeded General Electric's annual profit!"

"So, since last year, more and more people want to join Vitol and become partners."

"Vitol has also taken advantage of the situation to attract many partners who have been of great help to the company's development, greatly increasing its international competitiveness."

Otis Parker pointed at the last page of the document in David's hand and smiled.

"At the end of last year, someone at Vitol proposed during a meeting that if they want to continue to expand the existing company's business scale, they must expand investment in refined oil refining, production, transportation and exploration."

"And we have to look for suitable ports and terminals around the world to establish free trade transfer stations and oil storage bases."

"And the Todd Covian you met yesterday is one of the regional directors that Vitol just sent to San Francisco on the West Coast after the New Year."

"Before he came to New York this time, he was negotiating the acquisition of a crude oil storage company in the Port of San Francisco."

"Ok!"

After reading the information in his hand, David nodded with great satisfaction and said, "Is there any more?"

"Have!"

Odis Parker took out two pieces of information from his briefcase and placed them in front of David.

"In addition to Vitol, there are also two international trading companies in the United States that are very active in the international crude oil market - Philip Brothers Company and Mark Rich Trading Company."

"The earliest founder of Philip Brothers Company was an Orthodox Jew named Julius Philipp."

"In 1901, he started running a small metal trading company in Hamburg, Germany."

"In 1909, Julius Philipp and his brother Oscar Philipp established an office in London,"

"In 1915, they also established a corporate office in New York."

"In 1937, Ludwig Jesselson, the most important professional manager in the history of Philip Brothers, left Germany and joined the New York office."

"The New York office did very well both in the booming 20s and the depressed 30s."

"The New York office at the time was mainly engaged in the trading of metal waste and ores from the United States to Europe, as well as the trading of chemicals domestically."

"At the same time, the New York and London offices set up a subsidiary in Bolivia. The company's New York office is mainly responsible for purchasing tin concentrate and other ores from Bolivian mines and selling them to smelters in Europe."

"In August 1939, the company established a new subsidiary called Filbro Overseas Corporation, and wanted to use the company to develop metal and ore trade in South America, the Far East and other regions."

"However, before the new company Phibro's operations could really begin, World War II broke out."

"During the war years, Philip Brothers' operations were severely restricted due to government requirements and regulations, and the traditional trade in metals and scrap almost completely ceased."

"Ludwig Jesselson and his colleagues shifted the company's main development direction to resource-rich areas of the world to perform some semi-public government tasks: purchasing strategic metals and ores needed for the war for the government. "

"So, Phibro Company quickly reached a cooperative relationship with the CIA's predecessor agency, the US Strategic Intelligence Service, and built an encrypted information transmission system with its help~"

"By 1945, Phibro's international in-demand commodity information service became unmatched by any of its competitors."

"After the war, the two partners who owned most of Phibro's shares decided to break up."

"Bendheim, who took over the company's chemicals trading business, left the company to form Philipp Brothers Chemicals. Inc."

"While Siegfried Ullmann continues as head of the new Philipp Brothers. Inc., Ludwig Jesselson is director and treasurer of the company .”

"After the war, there were surplus war materials all over the world ~ at the same time, reconstruction on the ruins was extremely hungry for these materials."

"In 1946, Jesselson was traveling around the world on business, looking for potential business partners."

"He started in Japan and India, passed through Hong Kong and Singapore, and finally went to Palestine, Egypt, Yugoslavia and Germany."

"So, in the next few years, the number of traders in Phibro Company continued to increase, and a trading group composed of suppliers and consumers was gradually established around the world."

"In the late 50s and early 60s, when the Strategic Material Reserve program was shelved in the mid-20s, Phibro found new ways to make money."

"In July 1954, Congress passed Public Law 7."

"An important goal of it is to promote agricultural products to food-deficient and poor countries in the name of helping developing countries overcome hunger, improve people's malnutrition and promote their economic development, so as to solve the problem of unsalable domestic surplus agricultural products and achieve The effect of raising domestic agricultural product prices and increasing farmers’ income.”

"Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act (Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act), also known as the Food for Peace Program (Food for Peace Program)."

"Phibro took advantage of the good relationship it established with the Washington government during World War II and was responsible for about 50% of the trade in the Food for Peace program, making huge profits from it."

"She then opened a series of new offices around the world to grow her business - by the early 20s, there were a total of 60 offices in 28 countries around the world."

"In July 1960, Phibro Corporation merged with Minerals & Chemicals Corporation of America to form Minerals & Chemicals Philipps Corporation (MCP)."

"After the merger of MCP Company, due to the very imbalance of power between the two parties, the senior management of the original Phibro Company gradually took control of 75% of the company."

"In 1967, Engelhard Corporation and MCP merged to form Engelhard Minerals & Chemicals Corporation (EM&C)."

"The new company EM&C's total sales exceed 10 billion yuan, and the combined company has assets worth nearly 5 million yuan."

"At the same time, Ludwig Jesselson became head of the company's day-to-day operations and chairman of the board of directors."

"After Jesselson took charge of the new Phibro Corporation, he sensed new business opportunities from the ever-changing international political landscape."

"He found that newly independent countries needed funds for development and had abundant mineral resources for export, and all of this was highly consistent with the company's business."

"As a result, Phibro Company began to provide development funds to resource-rich exporting countries, and the resource exporting countries used mine resources as investment collateral. As a result, Phibro Company obtained a long-term sales contract for the mine resources."

Odis Parker paused for a moment, picked up the coffee cup and took a sip. After seeing David's speed of flipping through the information, he also stopped and continued to introduce.

“In 1969, Alan Flacks, a Phibro trader in Milan, Italy, learned that Tunisia, a country that had just begun producing oil, had some crude oil for sale.”

"At the same time, there is an Italian refinery that wants to buy the crude oil."

"The management of Phibro Company used this news to facilitate transactions and earned 65 yuan very quickly."

"Jeselson is very pleased with the deal and is encouraging his traders to pursue other oil deals."

"Mark Ritchie, who was Fibro's manager in Madrid during this period, has become one of Fibro's most successful traders and Jesselson sees him as a future president of the company. Candidate~"

"But he really wanted to show off his skills in the oil trade and make a quick buck."

“In the spring of 1973, Mark Rich and his colleague Pincus Green signed a huge agreement with the Iranian government. The agreement stipulated that Phibro Company could purchase 750 million barrels of oil from Iran, and the price was 2 meters higher than the market price. Yuan."

"But to Mark Ritchie's extreme disappointment... Jesselson did not agree with the deal and asked Mark Ritchie to get out of the deal quickly."

"Jeselson doesn't believe that the advance prediction information that Mark Rich possesses will become reality."

"But the oil crisis that broke out later made Jesselson regret it!"

"He wants to recall Mark Rich, who has left the company angrily, and wants him to be his successor!"

"But Mark Rich turned down his offer..."

"Because when he asked Jesselson to increase his bonus, Jesselson told him simply: Phibro Company has never paid a bonus of 100 million yuan to any employee. It will not happen in the past and will not happen in the future. There won’t be one either!”

"So, a piece of history that we are all familiar with is repeated again~"

"Mark Ritchie pulled his good partner Pincus Green and resigned in anger to form his own company (the predecessor of the current international giant Glencore)."

"Mark Rich deliberately set up the new company headquarters in Zug, Switzerland."

"This is obviously the best choice he made after careful calculation..."

“After the establishment of Mark Rich’s company, the first thing he did was to spend huge sums of money to buy off his old colleagues from Phibro. He also rewarded his employees and managers for their merits and stimulated them with high salaries and rewards, so that everyone could work together. It’s hard work.”

"The second thing he did was leverage past relationships to integrate the crude oil spot market the company had built with other commodities operations."

"In the period that followed, Mark Rich's company concluded one big business after another, including oil, metals, grains, cane sugar, etc. They did everything and accumulated a lot of funds."

"Mark Rich's new company has become a force that cannot be ignored in international commodity trade~"

"but!"

"Phibro's performance was still far ahead of Mark Rich's last year."

"It is also the only international commodity trader in the United States that can be compared with Vitol."

"In 1975, after Mark Rich left the company, Jesselson, 64, immediately chose David Tendler, who was then responsible for Tokyo and Far East operations, as his successor."

"Teddler became president in July 1975, and Jesselson continued as chairman."

"After the management of the new company has been adjusted, Phibro's business areas have been expanded to include many more types, such as sugar, grains, cocoa, fertilizers, etc."

"Nakhodka, the largest commercial port of the Xiong Dynasty in the Far East, is their main trading port for fertilizer trade."

"Every year, Fibro Company purchases more than 100 million tons of fertilizers from the Nakhodka Port and sends them to offices around the world for sale."

"In addition, Phibro Company also participated in the huge wheat order from Xiong Daguo that caused a sensation in the United States in 72 and played a crucial role~"

"In that transaction with Cargill, it earned at least several hundred million dollars in trade differences + grain export subsidies provided by the U.S. government."

"Hehe~"

David put down the information in his hand, tilted his head and looked at Otis Parker, and asked curiously: "Is Phibro Company's intelligence information system very strong?"

"Yes!"

"How does it... compare to your intelligence system?"

Mr. Parker simply shook his head and said with a smile: "We built an intelligence system based on two completely different channels for obtaining intelligence information."

"So, there's no comparison."

"Oh~"

"Then can I understand it this way..."

"The information you can get at the first time may not be available through Phibro's intelligence system."

"On the contrary, the intelligence information it can get at the first time, you may get it later or there is no channel at all?"

Mr. Parker put away his smile, looked at David seriously and nodded: "Absolutely, that's right!"

"Wow~"

David rested his chin on his right hand, looked at Mr. Parker with a more curious expression, and asked.

"if.."

"I mean, if that's the case, don't think too much."

"If I want you to use your intelligence to gain advantage, join Fibro Company and become one of its partners or shareholders..."

"Do you want to?"

Mr. Parker showed a smile that said "Sure enough," and shrugged: "You are the boss~ I will do whatever you say!"

"Ok!"

"That's settled for now."

"After I ask Pine and Elder to confirm the list of shareholders of Phibro Company, you can go find Phibro Company... Mr. Jesselson, let's have a good chat!"

Mr. Parker raised his eyebrows and nodded with a smile: "Okay."

"Hehe~"

David rubbed his chin vigorously, looked at Sam Rogers who was frowning and thinking, and thought about it in his mind. .

After Yuri and Marat on the island country reach cooperation with Vitol Company.

We have business contacts with two of the most active international trading companies in the world today~

By then, no matter how unpredictable the commodity prices in the futures market will be this year and next year. .

These two commodity traders will definitely play a very important role in this!