A Love Story in San Francisco

Chapter 6: Alongso's Offer

After a couple of days Emma asked Alongso out, along with Lucas the three of them were chatting together in an open cafe.

‘hello, Alongso, this is my boyfriend Lucas Watkins, he works at Highstreet Capital. Lucas, this is Alongso.’

Emma introduced first

‘Hello Lucas, I've heard about Highstreet for a long time, but there hasn't been a good opportunity to work with them, so it's nice to meet you.’

‘In addition to the C family trust, I also manage the estates of several San Francisco tycoons, can you tell us a little about your company?’

Alongso said enthusiastically.

‘It's a pleasure to meet you, Alongso, Highstreet Capital was founded 32 years ago by three San Francisco Unified professors who are now honorary directors of the firm.’

‘We have performed very well over the past decades, outperforming 90% of our VC peers, and we have lagged a bit in the past two years, to the point where we still have a high scale of management, and our long term clients still trust us’

‘In the future we are very bullish on cryptocurrencies, and shared offices. What do you think?’

Lucas gave a colourful presentation, he had rehearsed it several times and was sure he could excel.

‘Thank you Lucas, I have great respect for your professional opinion regarding the investment direction. However, my colleague would like to ask, is it possible to privatise your portfolio? I mean, take our investment advice’

‘Oh Alongso, it depends on the volume of your investment, if it is large enough, more than $100 million, we can customise the product, for example, if you are very optimistic about the green energy industry, I can form a new energy investment products.’

‘Very good, then I will go back and discuss with the investors, and contact you later, do you mind if we add a phone number?’

Alongso said with a smile.

‘Sure, here's my contact details’ Lucas replied.

‘I still have something to do, I'll leave first, contact you later’ Alongso got up, shook hands with Lucas and Emma, and left the cafe.

Emma said excitedly, ‘You know, I have an acquaintance who said that Alongso is super powerful, the investment advice he provides can always make his clients make money, so the scale of his investment is getting bigger and bigger, and there are several large organisations around him, not only venture capital organisations such as yours, but also large investment banks and trust organisations. It would be great if you could work with him’

‘Thank you Emma, you're my lucky star, I'll definitely hold on to Alongso. I'm a bit curious though, how did he manage to make a profit when the whole of Wall Street had worse returns last year, I mean, the vast majority of people couldn't escape the market volatility caused by the war in the Middle East last year.’ Lucas asked calmly in his excitement.

‘Lucas, you know, I won't be able to answer you on this professional question. You can ask Alongso yourself afterwards’ Emma replied.

Lucas also understood that Emma wouldn't know about this question, he was more asking him if he himself could become a good asset management manager like Alongso in the future, if he could manage assets that could traverse the bull and bear cycles, then surely he could recruit large scale capital and his life would be worry free. He encouraged himself secretly.

Three days later, Alongso asked Lucas out at the same cafe, this time just the two of them.

‘Hello Lucas, hello again’ Alongso greeted first.

‘Hello Alongso, it's good to see you, inside the phone call you talked about wanting to talk about setting up an asset management programme today, that's just great, I didn't expect you to be so quick.’ Lucas responded.

‘The capital markets don't wait for anyone, do they? I wanted to talk to you today about operational details, do you know the company TITI?’

‘I know of it, TITI is a Japanese company, similar to with the U.S. UBER, is a taxi platform, the driver uses his own car, taxi charges most of the driver to take, only a small part of the software platform to collect.’ Lucas studied the capital market very deeply and easily answered.

‘Too right Lucas, you know, I previously helped a family trust, let's call it the A family, through a channel I've known for many years to grab a share of the investment in TITI stock before it went public, you know, TITI was so hot before, it was hard for me to snatch it, and for that reason, I also gave two Golden State Warriors season tickets. But, you know what happened back there?’ Alongso deliberately paused.

‘The TITI IPO failed.’ Lucas knew, numbly said it, he was a little confused why Alongso could mention TITI, Lucas continued, ‘According to reports it should be because suddenly it happened that two drivers on their way to drop off passengers in the middle of the night, intentionally drove to remote corners, and robbed and r***d the passengers; and then the judiciary also found that the backend of the TITI company silently Sensitive information of passengers is kept, which violates privacy. It's safe to say that TITI's path to IPO is currently suspended, not anytime soon.’

‘You're so right, Lucas. but, I could have bet all of the A family's money on TITI, and if I wanted to sell my shares now, I'd have to do it at a very low price, and then I wouldn't be able to answer to the A family. You know what, their family is a famous triad in LA, I will die without a trace’ Alongso said seriously.

‘What I am suggesting Lucas, can you help me manage the assets of the B family and buy the shares of TITI in the hands of the A family at the original price through Highstreet Capital.’ Alongso made his offer.

Lucas was shocked, so that's how you make a return that satisfies your clients, isn't this tearing down the east wall to make up for the west wall? Wouldn't that be a lower return on the B family's assets? And to do so, it is a proper violation of the operation, if found light is the company fired, heavy is to go to jail, Lucas immediately refused, ‘Sorry Alongso, I think I can not do so, and B family products in my serious losses, I can not be accountable to the client ah’

‘Isn't your client me?’ Alongso interrupted Lucas and said, ‘Don't worry, the B family has two other oil company stocks that have recently risen $50 million, and will only lose $40 million if they buy TITI. If you agree, B family this investment will be placed in your place, the total over 500 million size. ‘

‘Five hundred million! ~ ‘Lucas surprised, although James there are many large customers, but usually placed in the VC's money will only account for a small portion of a customer's share of the investment, James there single largest customer is only 200 million size.

‘Yes, 500 million, and Lucas think about it, TITI is also just not listed for the time being, after that it is still possible ah. As long as it's listed, the B family's assets go up, and then the credit is all yours’

‘You know what, I still have family C and agency D.’ Alongso gave Lucas another temptation.

‘Why come to me? Aren't you worried about me reporting?’ Lucas asked.

‘Because you need me Lucas, I've been investigating you for the past three days, you haven't added any new size under management at Highstreet Capital for six months in a row, and also you've screwed up two clients, your boss James, is already planning to fire you’

'Lucas, I need Highstreet to endorse me as well because I can't just say that I recommend buying TITI, but I can easily recommend buying your product. It's all the same at the end of the day, but these rich people just love a nice package.'

‘And you know what? Two years ago, James was helping me manage my assets too.’ Alongso said.

Lucas was shocked, he realised that the circle was so confusing, the conventions of industry regulations were ineffective for these successful people, that were used to bind the lower class people. He didn't realise that James was also promoted by these operations, ‘No wonder his investments have been so ineffective in the past two years, causing me to go out and market myself repeatedly!’ Lucas just figured it out.

Alongso can't wait for Lucas to be silent for such a long time, he opened his mouth and said, ‘Lucas, think about it, this invitation is valid until 12 o'clock tonight, if it's after 12 o'clock, let's pretend that we haven't met in this cafe, and I may put a few million dollars to invest in you in the future as well.’

After saying that Alongso put down 10 dollars as the cost of coffee and tip, got up and left.

Lucas watched Alongso leave in style, as if what he had just said was as easy as discussing an interesting football match, Lucas couldn't help but get lost in thought.