Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 198 - 195 Some Changes (2)

In New York, there were very few who would seek out Qi Yi to talk about his girlfriend.

As soon as Qi Yi heard someone asking about Yan Yan, he became enthusiastic.

Not only did he talk about when he met Yan Yan and how they broke up, but also how he later found Yan Yan in Melbourne.

He even shared everything about Yan Yan’s school, what she studied, where she planned to further her studies, and when she would come to New York, all in one breath.

Ian was the kind of gentleman who, out of genuine interest or politeness, listened intently from beginning to end, occasionally expressing surprise and understanding.

It was during this conversation that Ian mentioned he had personal contacts and might be able to introduce Yan Yan to an internship at Ferragamo.

Thus, when Ian resigned, he and Qi Yi were in contact more often than before.

The next day, Ian used his connections to clarify what kind of portfolio and works were needed for the internship and forwarded the email to Qi Yi.

It was from that moment that Qi Yi began helping Yan Yan gather the required materials.

.........

Ian had always been a very special presence at Barclays.

His performance was excellent, he was extremely nice, and with Ian’s experience, he really shouldn’t have remained just a VP in investment banking by then.

In fact, some of his subordinates had already been promoted to ED (Executive Director) and it was Ian who had recommended them.

It’s not that Ian had no chances for promotion; he simply did not wish to advance. Otherwise, the position of Executive Director would have been his two years ago.

Ian always said that he liked the VP position very much, as moving further up would mean more management and less direct project oversight.

He enjoyed frontline investment banking and did not want to spend most of his time on management.

Ian had a very precise and unique eye for investments.

He was directly appointed as a VP at Barclays, entering at that level.

Ian had been VP at Barclays for five years, and except for the first year when the revenue of his portfolio was eightfold, during the following four years, they were always more than tenfold.

Compared to domestic investments that often boast hundredfold or thousandfold returns, tenfold doesn’t seem like much.

But whether it’s Wang Gang’s five-hundredfold return on investment in Didi or Xu Xiaoping’s thousandfold return on investment in Jumei, those belong to angel investing.

When angel investors come in, the company’s valuation is usually extremely small, and a small investment can often secure half of the equity.

The returns from angel investing can be high, but so can the failure rates.

Large investment institutions like Barclays cannot engage in angel investing. Investing a few tens or hundreds of millions, even in US Dollars, how long would it take for a major bank with capital scales of one hundred billion to exhaust its funds?

If the money can’t be invested, there’s no way to make money from money. Large banks have money to spare, but they lack big projects.

Most often, the bigger the plate, the smaller the growth in returns. This principle is actually quite easy to understand.

Going from owning one yuan to one thousand yuan is nothing impressive, and probably everyone can do it.

Going from ten thousand dollars to ten million dollars is quite impressive, and most people cannot achieve it.

Going from one hundred million to one hundred billion is something extraordinary beyond the reach of most.

When Ian arrived at Barclays, he took over a portfolio of 3 billion US dollars. When he left, that portfolio had more than tripled from the time he took it on, reaching a scale of one hundred billion dollars.

Wall Street certainly has more exaggerated legends than Ian, but even so, Ian certainly counts as one of the most outstanding investors on Wall Street.

It’s just that up until his departure from Barclays, Ian had always kept a low profile,

A low profile that also carried a tinge of mystery and eccentricity.

The mystery was that no one knew Ian’s background.

The eccentric part was his hobbies.

Ian seemed very keen on getting to know new employees, such as personally conducting the sort of entry training that any HR person could administer.

.........

Ian left Barclays to start his own company.

While helping Yan Yan prepare her portfolio for the internship, Qi Yi also helped Ian solve two data processing issues.

Qi Yi used his own algorithm to create a visualization software that could categorize non-confidential data automatically after comparison.

In Qi Yi’s view, apart from hidden data, there was no need to waste so much human and physical resources on analyses that computers could perform independently.

Qi Yi’s favor was soon reciprocated, and it sparked Ian’s interest in poaching him.

In Ian’s future team, having a researcher like Qi Yi would certainly be adding wings to a tiger.

Ian timely expressed his desire to have Qi Yi join his new company.

Qi Yi did not agree immediately but said he wanted to understand what exactly Ian intended to do and then consider any further plans.

Mystery is always for those who are more distant in relation.

If Ian wanted to poach someone, he had no choice but to reveal his "secrets" to Qi Yi.

Ian came from a wealthy third generation.

Although his grandfather passed away six years ago, it was only a few months ago that Ian received his inheritance from the family trust fund.

Trust Funds can determine the time, place, conditions, and method by which a beneficiary gains access to their inheritance.

Old capitalist tycoons worry not only about their wealth not lasting more than three generations but also about their descendants spending recklessly to the point where they cannot support themselves.

The way to resolve this concern is to establish a trust fund.

Trust Fund can provide a one-off payment to the beneficiary or pay a fixed amount every year or even every month, much like receiving a salary or allowance.

If receiving a fixed salary is considered a secure job, receiving money from a trust fund would definitely qualify as a golden rice bowl.

Qi Yi did not know what conditions Ian’s family trust had set for inheriting the wealth, but in any case, Ian fulfilled all the requirements and received his share of over 100 million US dollars four months ago.

After leaving Barclays, Ian changed his low-profile ways.

He made no secret of his family background and established a private equity fund under his own name with his inherited wealth.

Over one hundred million US dollars might be an astronomical figure for the general public, but it’s rather small for a good private equity fund.

Even someone as wealthy as Ian would find it insufficient to run a private equity fund in the United States solely with his own money.

Ian didn’t want to start from a very large private equity fund; he hoped that by the end of the year, his fund’s initial scale could reach 3 billion US dollars, and then enter a closed period, no longer accepting new capital.