Some people naively believed that the longest path they’d walked in life was through Director Xia’s strategies.
Heh, how could that be possible?
Director Xia’s approaches were diverse, sometimes even branching out—ordinary people really couldn’t keep up.
Cheng Rong Plaza was set to open on February 1st, the third day of the Lunar New Year.
This year, the Cheng Rong Group’s annual spring banquet was scheduled for February 5th—this was the deadline Du Chengrong set for his two sons to submit their test answers.
The 10 million HKD consulting fee wasn’t easy to earn, which meant Xia Xiaolan had to worry about Du Zhaohui’s affairs even during the New Year.
This year’s Spring Festival was planned to be spent in Beijing with the whole family, including Liu Yong’s family of three.
“Finally, we can stay in that courtyard house!”
Liu Yong had transferred half of his company shares to his wife Li Fengmei, diffusing a brewing family dispute.
But he didn’t want to return to South Henan for the Spring Festival, fearing the Li family might come troubling them since it was too close.
Xia Xiaolan asked curiously, “Then you won’t be visiting my grandmother and grandfather’s graves this year?”
“We’ll go back after the New Year celebrations in Beijing, visit the graves, treat the villagers to a meal, and then leave.”
The grave-sweeping ceremony couldn’t be skipped.
Treating the villagers to meals was necessary because most of Liu Yong’s company workers were from the village. As the “richest man” in Qijing Village, he had to maintain certain social obligations and encourage workers to continue working for him in the coming year.
Xia Xiaolan didn’t need to go back since she had visited her hometown just last month.
This Spring Festival, she needed to visit the Zhou family, having accepted Zhou Cheng’s engagement ring, and it was perfect to go with Zhou Cheng.
Tang Hongen would also return to Beijing with Liu Fen. For Sheng Xuan’s wedding, Madam Song Two had indeed sent Tang Hongen a wedding invitation. Tang Hongen intended to stay far from Sheng Xuan—he was returning to Beijing to spend New Year with his wife and wait for that brat Zhou Cheng to come “pay New Year respects”… Regarding the last point, Liu Yong had allied with Old Tang, which was why he was also going to Beijing this year.
Xia Xiaolan saw through it but didn’t mention it. Since everyone was returning to Beijing, she had Young You book flights together.
The group included Xu Changle.
The lawyer Xu Changle found had already helped Tina sign the trust agreement.
Xia Xiaolan was very curious, “Mrs. Wilson did not react?”
“Of course not, she said I did the right thing!”
So not only was Xia Xiaolan confused, but even Xu Changle couldn’t understand it.
Now it made Xia Xiaolan look like she was stirring up trouble. If anyone suggested Mrs. Wilson was after money—well, Tina now relied on the trust for living expenses, only had some jewelry left by Cui Yiru, and even the property was under supervision. Without Xu Changle’s permission, Tina couldn’t touch anything before graduating from university.
However, there was some good news for Xia Xiaolan: Ji Ya couldn’t borrow money from Xu Changle, nor could she target Tina any more.
Unable to repay the bank loan, Sheng Xuan’s job transfer couldn’t be completed. Sheng Xuan hadn’t confronted Ji Ya because January 28th was her wedding to Zhu Suizhou.
Before returning to Beijing, Xia Xiaolan finally found time to go over Luna’s accounts with Chen Xiliang.
The spectacular addition of 53 franchise stores wasn’t repeated; during the year Xia Xiaolan was abroad, Luna only added 16 new franchise stores. The franchise fee remained at 80,000 per store, bringing in only 1.28 million from franchise fees alone.
But how much merchandise could one store sell monthly?
Luna was supplying goods to 74 franchise stores.
In the accounts, Chen Xiliang showed Xia Xiaolan, Luna’s accumulated revenue from supplying all stores nationwide was 27.25 million yuan. This was Luna’s factory price to the stores, not the stores’ revenue because each store had its own business strategy—some offered 10% discounts, some wouldn’t discount at all—so it was difficult to calculate their actual sales, but the retail end’s profit was higher than Luna Clothing Company’s.
Luna’s net profit from this portion alone was 3.84 million. Those franchise stores must have at least doubled that, averaging around 100,000 yuan per store. The particularly successful stores earned back their franchise fee within a year, plus some renovation costs.
Even the less successful stores could generally earn back their franchise fee within a year.
The renovation investment would need to continue into the second year.
But the franchise fee was a one-time payment, after which it was mostly pure profit. Luna company handled advertising and stock distribution. As long as Luna didn’t fail, the money would keep coming in, and business would only get better, not worse.
Moreover, some stores could earn more than 100,000—the main delay was the one or two months spent on renovation. When everyone rushed to join the franchise initially, even if Liu Yong had three heads and six arms, he couldn’t have completed all store renovations simultaneously—some had to be done before others!
Setting aside the franchise stores’ profits, this year Luna had steadily progressed, not dramatically expanding, yet managed to match the franchise fees from the expansion period just through clothing sales.
“The franchise fees plus supply profits total 5.12 million—this is after deducting donations?”
“Of course, it’s after deductions, including donations and taxes. Seventy-four franchise stores plus two direct stores sold 1,009,300 pieces of clothing throughout the year. These sales figures aren’t inflated, and we plan to donate accordingly… It’s quite a lot of money, still in the accounts. I’m not sure where to donate it.”
Chen Xiliang was troubled.
Xia Xiaolan laughed heartily, “Donate wherever you like—you and Zhang Xiao can figure that out, but when the money is spent, all of China should know about it. The 1987 advertisements should summarize Luna’s achievements, especially emphasizing how many pieces of clothing we sold. We’re planning to donate one yuan per piece, and the public needs to see that your previous promise wasn’t empty words! Like I said before, invite media supervision, but don’t let others decide how to spend the money!”
In this world, there were plenty of people thinking about how to spend others’ money.
Who was stupid enough to know how to make money but not how to spend it?
No, some people just didn’t know their place, always thinking about getting their hands on others’ money.
If Chen Xiliang wasn’t firm-minded, with the current annual donations of 1 million, he wouldn’t be able to refuse individuals or organizations coming to ask for money. Then when Luna’s franchise stores increased and clothing sales grew, with donations reaching tens of millions, wouldn’t Chen Xiliang be torn apart by people rushing to get a piece?
Xia Xiaolan had seen too many examples.
Doing good deeds versus being forced to do good deeds—those were two completely different experiences!
Chen Xiliang was also apprehensive; his expression revealed that people were probably already thinking about how to spend Luna’s money. Xia Xiaolan wouldn’t micromanage these things since they were under Chen Xiliang’s management.
When Chen Xiliang asked about profit distribution, Xia Xiaolan thought about how Zhou Cheng didn’t seem to need much money this year. The earlier 600,000 yuan bank loan was taken out to buy the Jinsha Pool land for her.
From last year’s 900,000 yuan dividend, Zhou Cheng had kept 300,000.
Later he gave her 10,000 USD, and Zhou Cheng himself went to America, spending some on things like the diamond ring.
“Would there be any problem with the remaining 1.12 million in dividends? The other 4 million, we’ll use for turnover. I guess once the new advertisements launch in ’87, showing that Luna fulfilled its donation promises, and these numbers reveal the average annual sales of Luna franchise stores, there will be a new wave of franchisees joining… Luna is about to enter its second phase of rapid expansion!”