Buy one in Manhattan, or build your own office building.

Abel had already thought about this for a long time.

It's just that later his attention in this area was drawn up by Hudson's Bay City Plaza.

However, Hudson's Bay City Plaza involves too many aspects.

It is impossible to get on the horse in a short time.

In other words, the super headquarters building that Abel wants to build himself is unlikely to appear in the short term.

Every time Abel comes to Smith Capital after the expansion, he feels that the company is a little crowded.

Thinking about it, he felt before Hudson's Bay City Square got on the horse.

You must also find a spacious enough office space for your company.

The best way, of course, is to buy a tall enough building in Manhattan or New York City.

In this way, not only can Smith Capital be placed in.

You can also place the headquarters of companies such as Elizabeth's Back Garden, AB Smith Entertainment, AB Smith Newspaper, AMC TV, Aircraft and Yacht Rental, which are also headquartered in New York.

Having said that, the number of companies under Abel's name in New York is really not a lot now.

In addition, those companies in Los Angeles and other places, they also need to add branches here in New York.

If you add this part, it is only Abel's own company, there are more than a dozen in New York.

A Smith building can barely fit one Smith Capital.

Not to mention other companies.

Abel didn't plan to wait for Hudson's Bay City Square anymore.

He was not interested in building a new building.

In the end, I thought about it.

Abel thinks that buying a ready-made skyscraper directly will be the best solution at present.

Anyway, as long as you don't buy the Twins, or the other buildings next to the Twins, you'll be fine.

Until that day comes, the rest of the place should be safe.

When people go to hit the twins, they don't bump into each other blindly.

Who's to say that before that, the twin brothers were the tallest and second tallest buildings in the United States, respectively.

This kind of landmark, and in Lower Manhattan, is a bit too much to say without hitting them.

"Buy a building."

In Abel's office lounge, barista master David Mellon puts his coffee down.

"It's really necessary." David Mellon is looking at Smith Capital from his point of view.

In David's view, Smith Capital, which has fewer than six hundred people, needs to continue to expand.

Not to mention that it has more than 20,000 vice presidents like Goldman Sachs, and the peak number of the company once exceeded 30,000.

At the very least, like Wall Street giants such as Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, they should have five or six thousand employees.

Five or six thousand employees, the Smith Building, which was originally enough, could no longer be crammed.

Even if it were a little more crowded, the Smith building could only accommodate about a thousand people at best.

This is still in the case of a situation that may affect the efficiency of the work.

If you want Smith Capital, there will be office locations that can be expanded in the future.

In Manhattan or New York, owning your own mansion is already a hard requirement.

Abel put down the "Manhattan Property Encyclopedia" given to him by Ikana's father.

He said to David Mellon: "I want to buy Woolworth House. ”

Woolworth Building, where Smiths Capital was formerly headquartered.

It is a historic building that was the tallest building in the world for 16 years.

It was built by Woolworth, the former American retail magnate.

What's more, Abel now owns about 20% of the building.

This part of the shares, at that time, cost Abel almost 300 million US dollars.

And most of the shares in this building are in the hands of those Wall Street investment banking giants.

The proportion of shares is 12% owned by Merrill Lynch,

28% is owned by Goldman Sachs,

30% owned by Wells Fargo,

About 10% is owned by minority shareholders.

The remaining last 20% is in Abel's own hands.

Compared to other buildings, it is not too difficult to put Woolworths Building in the bag.

For those investment banks, with Abel's current relationship with them, they basically only need to give money.

The 10% or so of minority shareholders' shares have to be sold if they are not sold under the general trend.

Since last year, real estate has been rising wildly across the United States.

Last year, the Woolworths Building, which was worth about $1.5 billion, was worth about $1.5 billion.

There is no about 1.6 billion dollars this year, and it is estimated that there is no way to take it.

"Woolworth Tower?" David Mellon thought for a moment and said:

"It's a little older, but the area is really enough. And there's enough history and iconography too. ”

The Woolworths Building, with a total of 57 floors.

In the beginning, the builder Frank W. Woolworth, only planned to build 42 stories high.

Later, he found out that if it was a little taller, it would become the world's first building.

In order to be the number one in this world, he temporarily made the designer add some height.

What was originally a 42-story building has become a 57-story building.

Frank S. W. Woolworths is also known for his ability to save calculations.

With the extra 15 floors, they are much smaller than the original 42 floors.

They are based on 42 floors and extend about a third of the area.

This makes the Woolworth Building, which looks very beautiful from the front, is a standard neo-Gothic tower.

But on the back and side, it looks like an iron.

The front is a lot higher, and the back is completely flat. The front is like the grip of an iron, and the back is like a low flat iron.

"Then let's be sure it's Woolworths." Abel said simply:

"I'll have Alan Baker contact these shareholders in a moment to try to move in by October."

It's not that if you buy Woolworth Building, you can live in it.

Woolworth, one of Manhattan's most famous buildings, is located in the heart of Barclays Street and Broadway.

There are many companies that rent on it, and many of them are well-known companies.

The leases of these companies are at least a few years, and some may be more than ten years.

If you want to lease out these companies, you need to have a certain cost of default, and it will also take a certain amount of time.

In addition, it will take some time to move Abel's companies, including Smith Capital, into Woolworth Building.

The interior of the building may also need to be modified and renovated to a certain extent.

These times add up, and it is expected to take about half a year.

Half a year later, New York is safe.

After that happens, I'll move all the companies over.

In this way, in the United States and Manhattan, where people were panicked at that time.

It's also possible to mix in an accomplishment like a "staunch Manhattan supporter."

After all, after that, there were really many multinational giants and financial companies who were scared and wanted to leave Manhattan.

That is, the authorities in the United States and New York have made great efforts to ensure that this kind of thing will not happen again.

So that Manhattan will not become a ghost town overnight because of panic.

Then again, Abel remembered it as if it was after that incident.

Housing prices in Manhattan, and indeed in the entire New York metropolitan area, have fallen for months on end.

It wasn't until the following year, when Americans saw the determination of the White House, that confidence in Manhattan and the New York City was rebuilt.

Thinking of this, Abel felt that the time would come to let New Beginnings Real Estate sweep Manhattan after that incident.

Abel intends to buy the Woolworths Mansion directly in his own name.

In this way, although a certain amount of land tax is paid every year, it can be spent at one time of 1.6 billion US dollars.

Such a large amount of profit will be turned into an investment. It's a little easier when it comes to making a new tax return.

While drinking their favorite coffee, the two chatted about Smith Capital.

Smith Capital in the absence of Abel to launch a big operation.

It is not very attractive to investors in the market.

Because investors originally came to Smith Capital because Abel could provide them with high profits.

Without this relationship, Smith Capital doesn't have much of an advantage over other Wall Street giants.

On the contrary, because of factors such as brand, channel, and transaction point, it is among the huge disadvantages.

Not all of Goldman Sachs' more than 20,000 vice presidents are in New York.

A large part of them are scattered throughout the United States and even the world.

To put it simply, these established giants have a large number of branches.

These branches absorb a huge number of customers.

Smith Capital doesn't have that.

At present, it can only attract investors from around New York.

There are also some rich people who come in the name of Mu Abel.

This also makes Smith Capital, in addition to the few private placements where Aberley is the fund manager.

Other financial products and investment products are seriously not attractive to customers.

David Mellon didn't have much to do about this situation.

It can only be taken one step at a time, after gaining a foothold in New York.

In the future, in other cities, business offices and branches will be added one after another.

After thinking about it, Abel made a suggestion:

"Maybe we can add a money market fund?"

"Money Money?" David Mellon said:

"Forehead, in our financial products, there is already a money market fund."

When it comes to money market funds, the rabbits of the Celestial Empire are probably the first thing that comes to mind is "Yu Yu Bao".

But in fact, the money market fund is not the first of its kind.

It has been around since the seventies and eighties of the last century.

The early 70s to the 80s of the last century.

The U.S. is in a "stagflationary" environment with a recession and high inflation.

At that time, it was an era when the Soviet Union was strong and the United States was weak, and the Soviet Union attacked and defended the United States.

The strong red bear scared the European and American worlds to tremble.

At that time, even capitalist newspapers such as the "Wall Street Journal" in the United States were "fixed, considering, and asking" and "the United States please wait for you", and they were all suspecting that the line was wrong.

Forced by economic problems, the Federal Reserve at the time regulated the interest rate on bank deposits.

As a result, the interest rate on residents' deposits is even lower than the inflation rate, and deposits have been depreciating.

At that time, inflation in the United States was as high as more than 20% at its worst

At that time, in order to attract funds, banks introduced large certificates of deposit with interest rates higher than the inflation rate.

However, the initial amount of such CDs is larger, and the minimum investment unit is usually US$100,000 or US$1 million.

At that time, only a handful of institutional investors, or wealthy people, had enough cash to make such investments.

For most Americans, the only financial investments they could participate in at the time were bank savings accounts, stocks, and bonds with pitifully low interest rates.

In times of toughness, it's natural for people to look for safe, liquid assets.

However, many financial assets are either too risky, illiquid, or too low in return to meet the financial needs of investors.

At that time, he was the head of the cash management department and credit analyst Ruth Bant, the world's largest pension fund, the Teachers' Annuity Insurance Company.

After a thorough investigation of the financial services industry, he came up with a genius idea.

In 1970, he founded a mutual fund called the Savings Fund Corporation and in 1971 was authorized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to sell financial products to the public.

In October 1972, the Savings Fund Corporation purchased $300,000 in high-interest fixed-term savings.

At the same time, it is sold to small investors at an investment unit of $1,000.

In this way, small investors enjoyed the return on investment that only large corporations could get, while at the same time having higher cash liquidity, and the first money market mutual fund in history was born.

Since then, similar monetary funds have proliferated, and they are nothing new in 2001.

Even Smith Capital itself, with many of the financial products developed by David Mellon and the company's executives, has a money market fund.

Fortunately, David has also adapted to his own boss.

David knew that Able was holy in a very high-stakes trade.

However, Abel's knowledge in the field of ordinary finance is really average, and it may be worse than many finance students in universities

Therefore, David did not feel bad about Abel's proposal.

"No, no, no, no."

Abel shook his head, "The money market fund I am referring to is different from the traditional money market fund. ”

After thinking about it, Abel added: "To be exact, the name of the money market fund I am talking about should be "virtual currency fund". ”

"Virtual currency funds?" David Mellon was puzzled when he heard this.

A money market fund is a money market fund, can it also be virtual?

David didn't know that there would be a thing called virtual currency in the future.

Cut all the leeks around the world to death.

"Retail investors, family small and micro investors, what channels do they generally use to invest in stocks and funds?" Abel asked.

"Go to the bank, or open an account with a local securities company. Then through their securities manager, execute their investment requirements. David Mellon said.

This is also the way investors in the United States and around the world have bought stocks and funds for almost 200 years.

"So how do they contact their investment managers?" Abel was kind and seductive.

David Mellon thought for a moment:

"It's usually a phone call, and in the past, there were faxes and telegrams. Or go directly to the securities company to find an investment manager. However, now there is more Internet, and some securities companies have tried to contact customers on the Internet. ”

"That's right." Abel put down his coffee and tapped on the table, "This is it, Internet!" ”

"The virtual money fund I am referring to is a new way of money market fund trading that needs to use the Internet."

Abel says:

"As far as I know, back in 1995, the New York Stock Exchange began to have online trading of stocks. But it wasn't until 1998, three years ago, that it was popularized on a large scale. ”

"Real internet account opening has not yet appeared. Customers need to go to a securities company or bank to open an account. Then the securities company or bank will provide a port to trade on the Internet. ”

"But strictly speaking, so far. This kind of transaction is actually a phone call to the investment manager, to the use of the Internet to notify the investment manager. ”

"Then I think that Smith Capital can completely move all financial products that allow small investment, such as money market funds, to the Internet. In the future, even opening an account and trading can be carried out directly on the Internet. ”

"All Smiths Capital has to do is maintain our network. In those node cities, some branches are added. ”

"So we don't have to open a lot of locations like Goldman Sachs. We can find ways to get our customers to come from the internet as much as possible. ”

Abel didn't know exactly what to do.

But before he was reborn, he bought things like Yu Bao and Yu Libao.

I have also bought stock funds on some brokerage software.

Abel picked the key points of Internet brokerages such as Yu Yu Bao and told David Mellon what he could explain.

Gradually, David Mellon understood what Abel meant.

"Oh sir, what do you mean by selling small financial products such as money market funds directly on the Internet?"

David Mellon said: "Directly open an account for them online? Trade directly on the Internet? ”

Abel nodded, "That's probably what it means." But the specific operation, as well as the feasibility, etc., need to be measured by yourself to see if you can do it. ”

To put it bluntly, the set Abel said is the prototype of the Internet brokerage.

In fact, at this time, there are already people on Wall Street who are exploring this model.

The founder of the company that explored this model, Abel has also seen.

It was the last time at the Morgenthau family's cocktail party, Robert introduced Thomas Peterfield to Interactive Brokers, whom Abel knew.

Interactive Brokers started out as a trading tool, and even the computers and systems on the NYSE were configured with Interactive Brokers.

Interactive Brokers is a pioneer in the computerization and Internetization of the U.S. financial markets.

Even online stock trading in 1995 was the first to begin at Interactive Brokers.

It's just that the limitations of the times are there, even with a different vision of Interactive Brokers.

At this time, it has not yet begun to be fully online brokerage, and Thomas Peterfield is still groping.

Abel, who came over in 2022, is much more direct.

Thomas Peterfield of Interactive Brokers is still exploring online brokerage 1.0.

That is, the basic version built on the computer Internet.

The approach proposed by Abel is already the 2.0 of the Internet brokerage.

That is, it is a complete version built on the mobile Internet and built on the basis of smartphones.

With the current state of technology and the conditions of the Internet, version 2.0 is certainly not possible.

However, many of the trading ideas of version 2.0 are optimized on the basis of version 1.0 of the online brokerage.

Just change the characteristics that are not suitable for the current Internet, but only for the mobile Internet.

The set of things proposed by Abel is completely feasible at this time period.

You must know that at this time, the population of the whole United States was only 285 million.

But the number of Internet users is already 110 million (another figure is 90 million).

Suppose that among the nearly 100 million Internet users, one million people are willing to invest.

Of the million people who are willing to invest, 100,000 choose Smith Capital.

That's also a huge client base for Smiths Capital.

David Mellon, who is already very smart and a genius on Wall Street, knows everything about it.

After listening to the boss's thoughts, the more David Mellon thought about it, the more excited he became.

"Boss." David couldn't help but look at Abel: "Fortunately, I studied art in college." If you studied finance or business in college. I feel like I'm going to lose my job. ”

Able understood what David meant, this was a round of words.

Fortunately, Abel also knows that this is not how smart he is.

It's just that I have accumulated more than ten or twenty years of things and said it more than ten years in advance.

This is standing on the shoulders of the giants of the times, not how smart they are.

So he just smiled at David and said:

"Well, who told me that I'm more interested in art? If I had failed at that time, I would probably have studied finance or something. ”

David Mellon complained:

"Then it's a good thing that you didn't fall off the list. You must know that the students of the Austrian Academy of Fine Arts failed to start a world war. ”

"If you don't make the list, boss. Perhaps it was Rice University's art that fell off the list, causing a world war on Wall Street. ”