Textiles and clothing are a big industry. In fact, even without Zhou Yang's intervention, China will still become the world's largest textile production and export destination forty years.

However, like many other fields, China's textile industry has problems such as big but not strong, and basically has no say in the mid-to-high-end fields.

So much so that when countless netizens wanted to boycott bad foreign brands in later generations, they found that there was no domestic alternative brand to choose from.

Clothing is not as good as chips, and foreign countries will not restrict production and manufacturing equipment like lithography machines. The key to the problem lies in the awareness of domestic companies to cultivate and protect brands.

This aspect is precisely what domestic companies lack the most. With the 1990s, foreign capital began to enter China, a large number of domestic brands were controlled by foreign competitors in the form of joint ventures, and were basically suppressed or even hidden.

Fast-moving consumer goods are the hardest hit areas. For example, after the joint venture between Arctic Ocean Soda Factory and Pepsi Cola, Arctic Ocean Soda once disappeared on the market for more than ten years, and other famous cosmetic brands such as Dabao and Little Nurse are also hidden in the country.

Like soda, cosmetics have been brand-conscious at least from the beginning, and in comparison, the clothing industry is even more embarrassing. Before the 1980s, the country mainly focused on buying fabrics by mothers and hand-made clothes for their families.

Even if there are ready-to-wear clothes for sale in department stores, everyone is concerned about fabrics, styles, and prices. You may have heard of Peony brand radios, Daqian house cigarettes, these are big brands that were famous nationwide in the 1970s and 1980s, but you have never heard of XX brand dresses.

Brand chain clothing stores are popular nationwide, and it has happened after 2000. The only exceptions in the early days may be the two rubber shoes, Feiyue and Huili.

As a national brand that has bloomed new flowers in recent years, Feiyue has actually caused a lot of troubles in catching horses behind it.

For example, you may see European and American celebrities wearing a pair of rubber shoes similar to those of the 1970s and 1980s in foreign fashion magazines.

You don’t have to be shocked, that is, the leap shoes that are popular in the European and American fashion circles. However, this "leap" has no relationship with the Chinese from trademark to brand, and even the design and production are completed in France.

Around 2005, a Frenchman living in China fell in love with the Flying Leap rubber shoes worn by monks during a martial arts performance, so he decided to bring it back to Europe for promotion.

However, the Frenchman was unwilling to be just a foreign agent, and the plot soon showed a magical turn. The French not only redesigned the Feiyue trademark himself, but also quickly completed the global registration of the Feiyue trademark.

Finally, in order to avoid trouble by Chinese manufacturers, the French simply changed the definition of Feiyue's brand and English explanation, completely forming a brand new European trend brand.

When the French came to seek cooperation, the domestic producers of Feiyue did not think that their "Flyyue" brand could have much value.

So both parties did not even sign a formal contract and only reached an oral authorization, let alone a half-cent authorization fee.

When the French started to make small moves, domestic manufacturers were completely addicted to OEM for Converse and could not extricate themselves. They did not pay any attention to their own leap shoes. What is the feedback from the market after exporting them to Europe?

When the French became popular in the European and American fashion circles, they had already completed the work of transplanting flowers and wood. At this time, Chinese manufacturers wanted to use names such as "Feiyue" or "Flying Forward" overseas, but immediately became the infringer.

Feiyue can become popular in the European and American fashion circles, and is inseparable from the French's efforts to promote it. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with others reaping most of the benefits.

But Feiyue's parent company not only lacks an international perspective, but also has a slow market response. When the French stuttered meat, they couldn't even drink a sip of soup, and in the end they could only continue to huddle in the domestic market. This was completely their own problem.

Since Zhou Yang took the initiative to intervene in the textile and clothing industry, the plans he has in mind will naturally not be limited to one or two companies, but hopes to change the development direction of the entire industry.

However, his ambitions cannot be achieved overnight. Perhaps it will take ten or even twenty years to see the full picture of the original plan.

It is precisely because of this that Yang Minde feels that she can't understand Zhou Yang. She has actually heard of Zhou Yang's reputation in the Hong Kong investment industry for a long time.

According to the information obtained by Yang Minde, the Hong Kong capital community's view of Zhou Yang is that it has a precise vision, decisive action, and a fierce style. It has caused panic to this year's Hong Kong stock market by just one's own efforts.

However, whether it is promoting cooperation between Yida Group and the American Lin Group or supporting the training of Chinese clothing designers, Yang Minde really can't see what Zhou Yang's interests are.

According to her observation, whether it is Liu Xiaojie, who is engaged in art or Lin Jianzhong, who has a considerable industry in the United States, he seems to have a sense of obedience to Zhou Yang.

However, Zhou Yang, the core figure, was so big Zhou Zhang who matched the merger of Yida Group and Lin Group, it was impossible to just be able to subscribe to a batch of convertible bonds in a new company.

If Zhou Yang has this leisure time, it would be better to spend more of his limited energy on the Hong Kong stock market. Isn’t the returns of stock trading more fragrant than convertible bonds?

Zhou Yang didn't know Yang Minde's doubts about him, but in fact he has always been very concerned about the Hong Kong stock market. After several months of invisibility, he finally accepted an interview with Hong Kong's "Sign Up" again recently.

Zhou Yang told a reporter from Xinbao that the continuous rise of Hong Kong stocks since the previous year came too fast and too urgent, and a lot of bubbles have accumulated.

Previously, Merrill Lynch shorted the stocks of companies such as Jianing and Land, because he saw that there was a false fire in the Hong Kong real estate market. Short selling is actually a mechanism for market self-regulation and correction, which can reduce the overall risk of the market in advance and thereby reduce the destructive momentum when the bubble bursts.

After more than four months of correction, the current fundamentals of the Hong Kong stock market can almost reflect the current actual economic situation in Hong Kong.

The global economy began to fall into a downturn last year, but Hong Kong has benefited from the dividends of domestic reform and opening up, and through re-export trade with the mainland, it has made up for the economic shrinkage caused by the decline in traditional exports.

Zhou Yang expressed a positive and optimistic attitude towards the domestic reform and opening up policy. He felt that due to the positive impact of the reform and opening up of the mainland, Hong Kong's economic performance throughout the year should be better than market expectations, and the stock market has room for a new rise in the future.

On the day his exclusive interview was published on the front page of Xinbao, the Hang Seng stock index closed up 3.2%. This is not to say that Zhou Yang can really determine the rise and fall of Hong Kong stocks in one sentence, but because Hong Kong stock investors have always had the mentality of chasing ups and selling downs.

Previously, because Merrill Lynch large-scale air-opening stocks, it happened to reveal the black swan of Jianing Real Estate, which made Hong Kong stock investors panic and thought that Hong Kong stocks would have another major stock market crash similar to that in 1973.

After all, the plunge that year started because of stock fraud, and this time it was a more serious financial fraud, even the president of HSBC's Huotoli Securities was dragged into the water.

As a result, the market began to be crazy about the fact that some of the new companies listed on the Hong Kong stock market in the past two years did not necessarily meet the listing requirements.

The bosses of these companies passed the review of several stock exchanges in Hong Kong after bribing the president of Huttoli Securities and passed the guarantee and concealment of HSBC and Huttoli Securities, thus allowing investors to surround the hard-earned money in the stock market.

So the small investors quickly cleared the stocks in their hands, for fear that they would even be unlucky to buy the next "Janing". After the performance storm, they became worthless in an instant.

In addition to the black swan of Jianing, the foreign market has been in bad news since July. First, the US stock market was also in crisis during the same period, and then there were rumors that the Malay government was preparing to set more obstacles for the country's capital to invest in Hong Kong.

So under the double blow of internal and external factors, the Hang Seng Index plummeted from 1,800 points at its highest in July to only 980 points at the end of October. In just over three months, it was cut by nearly half.

When the Hang Seng Index fell below the 1,000 point mark, Zhou Yang's team felt that the Hong Kong stock market was already in an oversold state, so they began to quietly absorb funds and build positions.

After Zhou Yang's team completed the work of transferring positions from shorts to longs, it was naturally time for him to go out and sing long Hong Kong stocks.

In fact, investors with a keen sense of smell had already noticed the market movements before Zhou Yang accepted an exclusive interview with Xinbao.

After all, the Merrill Lynch Hong Kong Asset Management Department, owned by Zhou Yang, has a principal of up to US$40 million in the Hong Kong stock market, and the maximum amount of funds that can be mobilized after leverage can exceed US$100 million.

This is already a huge amount of capital for Hong Kong stocks, which have just experienced a plunge and have extremely sluggish daily turnover.

However, Zhou Yang's team is also experienced in building positions. After closing short positions, they first draw the funds overseas and then quietly transfer them back to Hong Kong.

When Zhou Yang's team established long positions, the market only felt that some overseas funds had come to buy Hong Kong stocks recently, and did not guess that this was actually Merrill Lynch's Hong Kong Asset Management Department. This largest short seller in Hong Kong stocks is quietly betraying.

But even so, the Hang Seng Index was still pulled back to 1050 points from a low of 980 points by Zhou Yang's team. However, the Hang Seng Index's trend has risen and fallen, and there are violent fluctuations from time to time, which gives many investors the illusion of being neither up nor down.

It was not until Zhou Yang stood up again and publicly bullish on the future market of Hong Kong stocks that the market discovered that Zhou Yang's team had closed all the short positions in his hands and joined the ranks of bullish Hong Kong stocks.

This undoubtedly gave ordinary investors great confidence, and many people began to enter the market and buy at the bottom. So in the last two months of 1981, the Hong Kong stock market came to an end with steadily rising.

On December 30, 1981, the closing price of the Hang Seng Index at the end of the year was finally fixed at 1385 points, which was only 6% lower than when it opened at the beginning of the year.

If investors do not understand the trend of Hong Kong stocks throughout the year, just looking at the difference between the Hang Seng Index at the beginning of the year and the end of the year, they will not feel that there has been a flash crash like a stock market crash this year.

Just as Hong Kong stocks rose rapidly again, Zhou Yang's team quietly turned from long to short again. After the Hang Seng Index exceeded 1,200 points, it continued to sell its stocks.

In fact, although Zhou Yang took the initiative to express his optimism to the performance of Hong Kong stocks at the end of the year, his team was not very strong when establishing long positions.

After the market sentiment was mobilized, Zhou Yang's team immediately stopped buying operations and continued to sell stocks. By the end of December, Merrill Lynch's Hong Kong Asset Management Department had left a $10 million position in its open account to attract market attention, the rest of the funds were all working hard to short Hong Kong stocks, and the cumulative short positions had reached $80 million.

December is a harvest season for Zhou Yang. As of December 10, the total size of the asset management plan fund pool was US$105 million.

When the capital pool was closed at the end of June, the principal was US$20 million, and the actual total assets in the capital pool were US$32 million. After all, Zhou Yang and Caroline had already invested their money as early as the beginning of the year, and by the end of June, they had already added a lot of value.

According to the agreement signed by Merrill Lynch Bank and investors, Merrill Lynch does not distribute profit dividends for the income generated before the fund pool is closed. When the annual return rate does not exceed 20%, Merrill Lynch Bank only charges an asset management fee of 2.5% and does not charge additional performance dividends.

Only when the annual yield exceeds 20% will Merrill Lynch pay dividends with investors. The entire share ratio is divided into three levels. When the annual return is not higher than 50%, Merrill Lynch takes away 20% of the total return and investors take away 80%.

When the yield rate exceeds 50% and does not exceed 100%, Merrill Lynch will take 40% of the return and 60% of the investment for more than 50%.

When the yield rate exceeds 100%, Merrill Lynch will take 60% of the portion that exceeds 100%, and investors will only take 40%.

Based on the pot of $32 million, the half-year return of the asset management plan is 228%, and the annual return rate is about 976%.

According to the previous agreement, Merrill Lynch can take about 57% of the total income as a performance share, while investors can take 43% of the income.

But even if investors only get 43% of the total return, it is still as high as US$36.55 million. Based on 32 million pot funds, the half-year yield reached an astonishing 115%.

Of course, the actual rates of return vary according to the investment time of each investor. In general, the earlier you enter the market, the higher the returns.

For example, Caroline, as the first initial investor to join the asset management plan, is naturally the person with the most rewarding. The $2 million she invested at the beginning has now increased by 4 times, becoming $10 million.

Although the yields of others are not as high as Caroline, even investors who entered the market at the end of June have made a profit of 1.15 times.

If calculated based on Hong Kong dollars, the return on investment will be higher. Because the exchange rate between the Hong Kong dollar and the US dollar depreciated from 1 US dollar at the beginning of the year to 5.8 Hong Kong dollars at the end of the year.

Fortunately, Zhou Yang knew that this was the beginning. When the Sino-British confrontation reached its peak in the next two years, the UK simply used the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate as a weapon, threatening China to break the terror in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong dollar against the US dollar once depreciated to 9.6, and the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate was almost collapsed by the Hong Kong and British governments.

Therefore, Zhou Yang has purchased exchange rate futures in Hong Kong dollar from the beginning to avoid the profit losses caused by the depreciation of the Hong Kong dollar. After the spread of the depreciation of the Hong Kong dollar, the minimum half-year return rate for Hong Kong investors should be 130%, rather than 115%.

Such terrifying investment returns can naturally sweep any other financial products on the Hong Kong market. So in addition to the original old investors who wanted to increase their capital, a large number of new investors also wanted to take the wealth train.
Chapter completed!