Reborn with Consumption System-Chapter 465 - 220: Position in the Circle_2

However, what was even more despicable were the insurance companies. God knows where they got their list of key clients, but they took turns pitching wealth management insurance products to Han Lie.

If you guys were persuading me to buy health insurance for my kidneys, I’d pay up without a second thought.

But trying to hoodwink me with the annualized returns of wealth management insurance?!

Han Lie instructed Liang Wu that if an insurance company called again, she should go ahead and recommend their own private equity fund to them. After all, their money was just sitting idle anyway...

The other invitations were relatively normal—"relatively" being the operative word, meaning they weren’t that normal either.

I won’t go into specifics, but those who contacted Han Lie directly were generally for lower-level collaborations. They usually only managed to get his work number, which was hardly worth remembering.

Those who reached out to Old Zhang were more impressive—mostly leaders from universities and large securities firms.

Their main purpose was still to have him give lectures.

Out of the ten "211 Project" universities in Magic Capital, six extended invitations to Old Zhang. The other four, which didn’t have finance departments, showed no interest in Han Lie.

As a leader at Shanghai International Studies University, Old Zhang certainly had the necessary connections and influence.

On the securities side, CITIC and Hai Tong were extremely eager to extend invitations. Medium-sized firms like Guotai and Galaxy were just joining the hype, while smaller brokers remained quiet.

In reality, the lectures were just a pretext; the real objective was to curry favor—a well-worn strategy.

Ultimately, those who approached Panzi directly were all big shots.

There were well-known figures from within the industry, as well as local tycoons from other fields. Panzi arranged four dinner meetings for Han Lie in a row, keeping his weekend completely packed without a single moment of rest.

Such is the price of fame.

Competition rankings could only prove potential. Results achieved with small capital, no matter how dazzling, had to be discounted somewhat.

Wei Hua, however, was the rocket that had catapulted Han Lie to fame in a single stroke.

Earning over 40% in profit in just one week was incredibly impressive in the current market environment.

Thus, over the weekend, Han Lie wasn’t able to flirt with his "little bottom" Panzi, but he was inseparable from Panzi himself.

It’s best not to dwell on the eating and drinking. Han Lie actually wanted to mention the part about carousing and visiting pleasure quarters, but he wasn’t allowed to, so that too had to be skipped.

In the end, he mostly met a bunch of middle-tier big shots who had some idle cash and a bit of clout, and they simply confirmed some initial intentions for cooperation.

These so-called middle-tier big shots were actually a very broad concept. They were theoretically worth anywhere from several hundred million to several billion, holding multiple companies and various titles. However, no one could truly tell how much debt they carried, how much cash they could actually muster, or what kind of troubles they were entangled in. Still, listening to their conversations could be quite intimidating.

Han Lie had no intention of forming deep connections with them. All their current enthusiasm, every damn bit of it, was aimed at taking advantage of him.

"Two or three hundred million? A small matter!" My ass!

Panzi had put 150 million into the private equity fund, nearly draining himself dry. How many people in the entire Bund area could be stronger than Panzi?

In reality, these people were just dangling a carrot in front of him, planning to take him for a ride first.

Han Lie didn’t take a single word they said seriously and just played along to get them off his back.

Once his own private equity fund was established, whoever could produce the most actual cash would be more deserving of his contact and attention. It was simple and clear.

Having met too many "smart people" of all sorts over those two days, Han Lie was left physically and mentally exhausted.

Panzi couldn’t possibly screen everyone for Han Lie as he had before, handpicking the easiest ones to deal with and presenting them perfectly.

With Han Lie’s current level of popularity, Panzi would have worked himself to death trying to vet them all, so it had become a chaotic free-for-all.

Despite the unreliable clients outnumbering the trustworthy ones, Han Lie couldn’t afford not to show up.

Those in private equity can never avoid banquets.

Wholeheartedly hoodwinking clients is the professional ethic of a private equity manager.

When are clients easiest to hoodwink?

At the dinner table, of course!

Whether you drink or not is one thing; coaxing them to drink is what truly matters.

Get them buzzed, then discuss philosophies, talk about investment styles, and show off achievements; eight out of ten times, you’d get results.

Not showing your face, playing mysterious—that absolutely wouldn’t work. If clients felt unfamiliar with you and distrusted you, how could they possibly entrust their money to your management?

Face-to-face interaction is crucial—unless you reach the level of someone like Old Xu.

Of course, Han Lie hardly drank at all from start to finish, maintaining an extremely rational persona.

Since his age was a disadvantage, he had to compensate with professionalism. This approach also saved a lot of pointless chatter.

If he genuinely met someone worth building a relationship with, he would naturally be more enthusiastic.

Unfortunately, this week was a bust; he didn’t meet anyone worthy of stirring Brother Lie’s enthusiasm.

It wasn’t that they lacked money. Rather, it was their purely speculative nature and intensely scrutinizing business demeanor that he found truly off-putting.

Leave it to time.

One battle isn’t enough. What about a hundred victories?

...

After the exhausting round of entertaining guests, Han Lie arrived early at the company’s trading room at the start of the new week.

After laying the groundwork for a week, today was the day to unload Wei Hua.

Regarding the exit strategy, Han Lie didn’t want to cause too much of a stir.

Aggressively dumping the stock would indeed be satisfying, but quietly slipping away like a gentle breeze, leaving Mr. Xu with a favorable situation—wouldn’t that be better for everyone?

In early trading, Wei Hua opened two points higher, then reversed course downwards to test the five-day moving average.

Han Lie didn’t make a move.

After thirty minutes of consolidation below its opening price, when the stock price began to surge upwards again, Jiao Fangyan started to frequently place small sell orders at positions above 20.

The technique wasn’t sophisticated; it just required patience.

By the end of the morning, they had sparsely sold a little over 200 million, and the market started to show signs of weakness.

Half an hour before the afternoon session opened, Han Lie began to lie in wait in the bushes again.

He continued to place sell orders in advance as soon as large buy orders began to actively drive the price up.