Chapter 599: Five-Year Plan, Advancing a Pawn a Day, Year-End Summary

Jiang Fu had almost no say in specific business operations, nor could he make any personnel decisions.

However, the group headquarters’ inherent authority lay in finance and auditing. In this regard, Jiang Fu had communicated with Lin Chu and was diligently following his directive: focus on the big picture and let the small stuff slide.

As long as the company didn’t run into any major trouble, everything else was negotiable.

For some time now, everything had been running smoothly.

Today, with ten days left until New Year’s Day, it was time for the group’s annual review.

Listening to them speak one after another, Lin Chu was once again reminded of something he had said before. ‘Even a dog could be the chairman of this company.’

Of course, this was only because the LC Group’s situation was truly unique.

Over the course of the year, he had injected nearly ten billion in cash into the company. The interest generated from the cash on the books alone amounted to 650 million.

As for the club, despite attracting a large number of new members, the massive investment in hosting this year’s Gold Professional Tournament meant it was still in the red. The year-end audit showed a loss—a small one, just a hundred million.

‘Not much.’

‘The rebates all went into my personal account anyway.’

Zhang Peng’s media division, on the other hand, was already profitable this year. Brother Peng was a true workaholic, an absolute beast. He had already opened twelve branch offices, a significant investment, and signed over a dozen major streamers and influencers. But his operations were so meticulously managed that after all expenses, the year-end books showed a net profit of over 80 million.

‘You have to hand it to live-stream e-commerce.’

The biggest source of loss, however, came from LC Retail. The luxury stores were still in a phase of large-scale investment and expansion. Headquarters had infused nearly 500 million, while revenue was negligible—barely better than nothing.

Yang Huixian was mortified by this. Back when she was on her own running a small-scale Gold and Jadeite business, she was able to turn a profit. Now that she was managing a much larger operation, she was losing this much money instead.

‘Of course, she knew the business models were different and couldn’t be compared directly; this was just the initial investment phase.’

But when she spoke during the meeting, she couldn’t help but sound a little lacking in confidence.

As for the security division…

The biggest expenditures were employee costs and the installment payments for the acquisition fee previously negotiated with Yuan Fang. Although the various branches did generate income, compared to their previous model of making ends meet, Lin Chu’s takeover had ushered in all sorts of prodigal spending. The books for the year showed a massive loss of nearly one billion.

And the group’s single biggest expense this year was employee benefits.

According to Jiang Fu’s calculations, since the group’s inception, the value of the benefits Lin Chu had distributed to employees—not including monthly salaries and bonuses—was approaching ten billion.

In the entire country, that figure was unmatched by all but a few corporate giants.

But other companies raked in huge profits and distributed a portion of their earnings to employees.

‘But at their company, it seemed President Lin was just here to throw money around. The company spent more than it earned—in fact, its spending was an order of magnitude greater than its earnings.’

‘Looking at the financial statements alone, this company was pretty damn terrifying.’

In his decade-plus career in finance, Jiang Fu had never seen such bizarre financial statements!

‘This isn’t how a private enterprise operates at all.’

‘It’s more like one of those state-owned enterprise projects with massive upfront investment, maybe even backed by special government funding!’

‘And where did all the money come from?’

‘It all came out of the boss’s own pocket!’

‘A company this massive, and it didn’t have a single dime in bank loans!’

The way this business was run… Jiang Fu felt it was truly a case of ‘now I’ve seen everything.’

To be honest, it made him a little uneasy.

‘He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was some grand conspiracy at play.’

‘But then he thought again, what kind of conspiracy? How could it be a conspiracy?’

‘Even tycoons laundering money don’t do it like this!’

‘After all, the money was genuinely being paid out! It was flowing into the pockets of every ordinary employee! And the taxes were all paid with real money!’

‘So what?’

‘Was Lin Chu running a conspiracy… against his own money? A plot to take money out of his own pocket and give it to his employees?’

Jiang Fu couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

‘But… he had to respect it.’

‘Perhaps the boss just has a much longer-term vision than I do,’ he mused. ‘Once all the businesses mature, that must be when he plans to harvest the fruit.’