Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The flight landed in New York when it arrived in the United States. Li Du contacted Cole, to ask him to help him find two outstanding jade carving masters. He wanted to make something.
It was easy for Cole to find such a person. Li Du was not short of money. The two famous carvers that he contacted arrived immediately after they knew the price and accepted the offer given.
So, Li Du was getting busy at the beginning of the New Year.
He had a plan that he wanted to carry out, and finding the carving master was only the first step in that plan. Then he had to prepare to go back home to celebrate the New Year. There were people in the warehouse auction and the real estate auction industry who were waiting for him to guide them too.
Bill arranged a warehouse sale for him, which he had to attend. It was an auction on the sea, which was a rare event.
As the name implied, the auction on the sea would naturally be held out on the water. Li Du did not participate in many ordinary auctions these days, but he was very interested in the auction on the sea, for two reasons: first, it was something new, and second, the price value was high.
The war auctions were at the top of the list in warehouse auctions and featured things like the military supplies that were left after the U.S. military had withdrawn from Iraq.
Many of these items were junk that was not worth shipping all over again, but it would be a waste to throw it away just like that, so the U.S. defense department would organize a warehouse auction.
However, this type of auction was a once-in-a-lifetime affair. Ordinary people would not dare to attend even if they encountered one. War auctions were usually controlled by weapon companies, military contractors, violent gangs and Mafia groups.
In addition to the war auctions, the second most valuable were the clearance auctions of government departments or customs agencies around the United States, among which one of the largest auction from the customs agencies was the container auction.
Every year, customs agencies around the country would have some unclaimed containers and cargo. There would be a big grand auction held when these things were gathered in one place.
An auction on the sea was like a container auction because the items auctioned off were also in a container. In cases of the shipping company going bankrupt, or when a ship couldn’t dock for some specific reason and the cargo on the ship went unclaimed, the shipowner, the government and the insurance company would host an auction.
This type of auction started in the 1970s and 1980s, and it was there that some of the treasure hunters made their fortunes through the container warehouses and became the earliest millionaires among the treasure hunters.
However, auctions on the sea were rare, because it was rare for a shipping company to go bankrupt, and even rarer for a shipping company that went out of business to abandon their cargo at sea.
The last auction on the sea was when the global financial crisis hit the shipping industry hard in 2008, leading to a major collapse during which several small shipping companies went bankrupt.
There was a wave of auctions on the sea at that time. Back then, the Ten Million Club members from all over the country took advantage of that opportunity to rise to that position.
The difficulty of entering the Ten Million club just by warehouse auctions was indeed unimaginable to even think about, but there were still more than 20 such members in the United States. They did not just rely on their ability, but also on luck in encountering this kind of large auction.
Now, Li Du came across one.
Just this year, the Korea Trade Group, the country’s largest shipping company and one of the world’s top ten, went bankrupt. The company had more than 200 container ships, bulk carriers, and liquefied natural gas carriers. Its fleet operated more than 60 regular and irregular routes around the world, carrying hundreds of millions of tons of cargo annually.
Along with the shipping industry’s depression, the situation of the world’s major shipping companies had become worse. Among them, the Korea trade group had the most miserable time.
Although it had more than 200 ships, only half of the number was used for shipping. Less than 40 belonged to the Korea Trade Group, and among them, only half were used and the rest were rented.
The shipping industry was very costly. It was more expensive to keep a ship than a plane. It would cost millions of dollars to maintain a ship just for one sea voyage. It would also cost more if something went wrong with the ship and it needed maintenance.
Besides, the price of oil was sky-high for a long voyage. In order to maintain the safety of shipping, the shipping company would have to pay for passage in some routes that were controlled by violent organizations.
All in all, the Korean Trade Group lost a solid three trillion yuan, or more than two billion dollars, in the first half of last year. It started losing money the year before, and the loss of the last year before the company fell apart was so terrible that it could not sustain itself and finally filed for bankruptcy.
The bankruptcy information of these super enterprises was very secret and listed only within the industry. In order to maintain the stock price, the group would act as if they were still rich before the bankruptcy filing was given to the court, to prevent the traders to sell off their stocks in a panic. Otherwise, they may not be able to wait until they got bankruptcy protection, and would directly collapse.
As a result, when the Korean Trade Group filed for bankruptcy, they still had several routes in operation, and there were still several ships out in the sea.
When the bankruptcy information came out, the Korea Trade Group immediately began to act as if it had nothing to do with them and showed no bottom line. With no integrity, and in quite a shameless manner, they directly ignored the ships in the sea!
These ships did not set out before because they were busy filling water and oil. They would go to a transit point for maintenance and replenishment for another time.
When the Korean Trade Group went bankrupt, no one funded the ships’ refueling and water replenishment, so some ships floated in the sea and could not move…
In fact, the Korea Trade Group could not be entirely blamed for being irresponsible. They were indeed out of money, and could not even afford a tugboat.
Besides, most of the world’s ports have refused to allow their ships to dock because of the group’s bankruptcy, resulting in a large number of cargoes were still stuck overseas or at ports, causing widespread delivery delays.
Taken together, it now had 20 or 30 vessels stuck outside its ports. The goods on some of them that were close to the port would be hauled back after the insurance company paid for a cargo boat.
In the case of other ships, which were far out at sea, it would be too expensive to bring the goods back. The Korean group shipped cheaper items on some of the ships in order to reduce the impact of the delivery delay and the financial pressure, so the insurance companies were not interested in paying big money to dispose of the goods.
This was when the warehouse auction industry came in handy. The insurance company hosted the auction and invited collectors from all over the United States to participate.
The treasure hunters who could participate in the auction were not ordinary ones. The insurance company was very clever to verify their assets, and those with assets of less than $1 million were basically rejected.
Bill told Li Du that the auction was full of Ten Million and Hundred Million club members, and it would be a competition between the super professionals.
Because the freighter was docked far out at sea, Li Du could not go ahead and do his homework this time. Therefore, he had to keep up his energy to investigate the situation later.
The auction took place the following month after the insurance company paid for the ship.
They sent out invitations to each participant in advance. When they accepted the invitations, the insurance company gave them a code so that they could go to their website and get information about the auction.
