Reaching the age of thirty, my income randomly doubled-Chapter 798 - 605: Tense and Nervous

The pressure concentrated on headquarters operations. To save themselves, many companies started turning to live-stream e-commerce.

Even they were no exception.

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Chen Pingsheng, honestly, didn’t have it too bad. No matter what, the traditional sectors’ bottom line this year was at least breaking even.

But this impact wasn’t limited to the entertainment or catering sectors.

Even Water Cloud Space experienced a noticeable performance decline.

After analysis, it wasn’t due to operational issues. On the contrary, it had been refined and optimized over the years.

Water Cloud Space’s operations had reached their ceiling, but the main reason was that many customers no longer had liquid cash.

What did that mean?

While assets might not have depreciated, when liquidity dried up…

A significant portion of people’s money was tied up in real estate.

In other words, properties could no longer circulate as quickly as they used to.

A property, at its core, is concrete and steel. In a place like the Magic City, based on normal market prices, it might be worth thirty or fifty million.

This could be considered net assets, but once such an asset couldn’t be converted into cash, it was nothing more than concrete and steel.

And currently, the biggest issue lay in this sector.

Since 2008, real estate had been the largest liquidity reservoir in the country.

It accounted for at least 60% of household wealth.

But now, this money was struggling to circulate properly.

People’s assets hadn’t depreciated yet, but they were trapped in the first layer of hardship.

That is to say, liquidity had become difficult.

When such situations arise, countless families can only mitigate risks by reducing their spending.

In the headquarters meeting room, Chen Pingsheng sat, while his secretary, Tang Jing, took minutes by his side.

The rest were all CFO-level executives who had already achieved financial freedom.

Among them, not yet even twenty-eight, Chu Qiuyan had a personal net worth in the billions.

A true entrepreneurial goddess, Lin Qiunan, and Zhang Wanyi, who were predecessors to Tang Jing, were now domineering female CEOs in their own right.

The disease struck with ferocity.

The real problem, however, wasn’t the disease itself but the series of consequences it caused, particularly the clear drop in homebuyers.

When properties no longer circulated quickly as before, the money sunk into concrete and steel became lifeless.

This would significantly reduce consumer desire, leading to consequences beyond imagination.

Now acting as CEO of the Dream Fund, Chu Qiuyan reported the situation: over the past three years, most small entrepreneurial projects supported by the fund didn’t hold much hope, except for the early ones that had already succeeded.

Statistics showed that between 2016 and 2018, small projects supported by the Dream Fund had a basic success rate of around 30%.

From that 30%, at least seven or eight out of a hundred could grow big and strong.

Now, the basic success rate was visibly declining.

It might even fall below 15%, or roughly half of the previous success rate.

Investment itself was a discipline of statistics; for ten large-scale projects, achieving just one success was already commendable.

The Dream Fund was different. It solely invested in small projects, selecting and nurturing them like panning for gold until they grew into major listed projects.

Once that basic success rate halved…

Subsequent tasks, including financial pressures, would increase exponentially.

This was the primary reason for the swift pivot to investments in the burgeoning health sector.

From the Dream Fund’s statistics, one clear conclusion emerged:

The next three years would no longer be favorable for small-scale entrepreneurship.

If one had to sum it up in a phrase, it would be “Nine losses out of ten startups.”

Out of a hundred, perhaps fewer than seven or eight would turn a profit, while the remaining ninety or so would drain years of family savings.

The real harsh winter had arrived.

People had been predicting its arrival, but now, it was undeniably here.

No company or individual could escape this reality.

Across Tengying Group, barring the short-form video segments Xin Teng Live Streaming and Teng You Media…

…along with the unlisted Tengfei New Energy, every other business had been affected entirely.

Any company with inadequate cash flow reserves faced a near-death test.

Just think of how many people would have to pivot to flexible employment, and you could roughly infer the future economic trajectory.

In terms of overarching direction, Chen Pingsheng wouldn’t make drastic changes.

The finer details would be left for others to navigate.

Figuring out how to achieve corporate self-preservation in such economic conditions would be a new challenge for everyone.

After the meeting ended, Chen Pingsheng said only one thing: he was willing to let headquarters use funds to subsidize employee welfare, but he couldn’t tolerate anyone capsizing at the first sign of trouble.

In other words, with zero debt liabilities, if any company sunk quickly during this period, he would simply shut it down.

It wouldn’t affect the immense ship that was Tengying Group.

He could keep the big ship steady, but the smaller vessels had to fend for themselves.

Take Fei Yangyang, for example—losing two or three hundred million a year was already a foregone conclusion.

There was no way to change that; the macroeconomic environment was what it was.

But if losses reached ten billion, or even twenty billion…

Then no one, not a single shareholder, could accept that—not even him.

The most stable, without a doubt, was Tenghui Department Store. All the storefronts were owned outright; other city-leased department stores and supermarkets had been sold as a bundle to Teng You Media.

Now, there was no pressure at all.

The newly appointed Fei Yangyang CEO quickly thought of a solution: no layoffs, just store closures.

Stores with excessive losses would have the Fei Yangyang signage taken down, followed by store sales.

And it wasn’t just them—Bobo Milk Tea and Antler Coffee would inevitably face similar decisions.

The big boss demanded self-preservation, and they had no choice but to wield their knives and cut off underperforming stores.

As for stock prices, whether one dollar or ten dollars, the difference didn’t matter unless one liquidated.

Selling stores—the inevitable choice in a Big Era.

At present, having cash on hand was the ultimate power.