Chapter 275 Hot Potato
Zhou Family Hilltop Mansion
It's a rare occasion for the father and his two sons to get together.

It looked like they had been chatting for a while.

Zhou Qibang looked at his worried father and elder brother and asked in confusion:
"Dad, even your proposal for Yuanchao to be a member of the selection committee was approved by them, which shows that your reputation is even better. What are you worried about?"

Zhou Xinian took a puff of the cigar, letting the smoke swirl in his mouth before slowly exhaling. He admitted his mistake and said:
"Such a big piece of cake has exceeded their imagination, and mine as well.

They are paralyzing me now!
Wang Yuanchao proposed a sales agency fee of 5-10 points at the time, but I got greedy and raised it to 20 points directly.”

Based on the current monthly sales, we can easily sell 1.5 million a year! If the sales continue to grow, we will have to sell even more.

The sales agency will get 3000 million in commission! What an amazing number!

Even after deducting taxes, labor and "large" advertising costs, the profit is still over 2000 million.

The Zhou family holds 7%, which is 1500 million in profits.

You have to know that horse racing is nominally a charity, and the majority of the Jockey Club's income is used for charity.

How could the Jockey Club allow the Zhou family to have the biggest piece of the pie?
Zhou Xinian felt something was wrong as he watched the sales increase month by month. The air around him was filled with jealousy and conspiracy.

It doesn’t matter whether he makes this tricky money or not, it cannot affect his position as a director of the Jockey Club.

So he proposed that Wang Yuanchao replace the vacant seat of the resigned selecting member, just to see what everyone thought of him.

Under normal circumstances, although Wang Yuanchao has helped the Jockey Club make a lot of money, he is so young and Chinese. If people have any ideas about him, Zhou Xinian, they will basically not approve it. The Jockey Club is also a place that values ​​qualifications.

But unexpectedly, the board of directors approved it.

Showing courtesy for nothing is either cheating or stealing!

As a Chinese, I know the tactic of flattery very well.

The one they praised to death was not Wang Yuanchao, but Zhou Xinian.

Look at it, a young boy, Director Zhou Xinian can promote him to be a selection member. John, can you tolerate it? Can this kid make money?

Everyone can make money!

Everyone will just think this guy is Zhou Xinian’s white glove!

Is this still John's horse club?

Yes, the board of directors is still mostly made up of Johns!

In addition, Zhou Xinian went to Yizhou many times during the riots last year. Isn’t it a irony to these steadfast John people that such a weak-willed Chinese could achieve such results?

It’s just that the horse racing ticket sales were so good, beyond our expectations!
Zhou Xinian originally thought that it would be no more than 30 or 50 million, at most. After all, the authorities’ welfare lottery had set a dismal precedent, and the Malaysian lottery had been a small draw for so many years, and the scale was only about this.

Originally, he even wanted to stop the sales outlets.

But the authorities are unwilling to do so. Isn’t it nice to have some taxes?

The authorities and the Jockey Club are two different things.

The sales agency directly takes 15% of the total betting amount, and the sales agency also has to pay property tax and capital gains tax, which is almost close to 20% of the total betting amount!
The authorities are desperately short of money after last year’s riots, and the land cannot be sold at a high price. They will not care about the internal affairs of the Jockey Club!

The Governor even praised the Jockey Club's Board of Directors for its good management.

The eldest son Zhou Qixian said:
“What if we donate this money?”

He was well aware of the difficulties of handling this wealth. Money was far less important than power.

Zhou Xinian said:

"We donated it, it was ours, what does it have to do with them?"

Zhou Qibang finally understood that his father and elder brother were dissatisfied with the money.

At the beginning, my younger brother said 5-10 points, but my dad insisted on 20 points. Now that’s it.

"How about we revise the cooperation agreement?"

When he said this, his father and eldest brother looked over.

The eldest brother Zhou Qixian said:

"If the agreement is changed, will Yuanchao still be so motivated? The authorities don't want sales to fall."

Hi, they are worried that Wang Yuanchao’s horse is not strong enough!

Zhou Qibang said:

"How can we change it to be more appropriate?"

Zhou Qixian looked at his father and said nothing.

Zhou Xinian said slowly:

“It’s not a question of how much, it’s the Jockey Club that has ideas about me.

They shared the same hatred for the enemy and must have been in private contact for some time.

Even if the Zhou family doesn’t want a penny, they may not be able to pass this test.”

It was very simple. The directors of the Jockey Club were jealous. How could a Chinese person earn so much money without doing anything? And they were actually working for the Zhou family!

Where does this put the horse club?
Where does this put the chairman of the Jockey Club?
Zhou Qixian thought for a moment and said:

"Will it be better if we move faster?
After all, your position as a director is elected by the selecting members.

Whatever the board wants to do, it still has to rely on the power of selected members.”

Zhou Qibang suddenly found the courage and said:

“Dad, I think what my eldest brother said makes sense.

It's only been a few months now, and it will be even more shocking after a year or two.

Our Zhou family is not short of this little money.

As for your concern about sales, I think Wang Yuanchao has this vision.

He knew what the Zhou family meant to him, and at the beginning, he just wanted to make some extra money to support his family.

Think about his big picture! He sees the bigger picture much further than any of us do!"

Zhou Xinian took several puffs of the cigar silently. Alas, he was the one who wanted more money, and now he is also the one who doesn't want money. He can't bear to lose his achievements, and he can't bear to lose his honor.

Who would have thought that this thing would increase so many times in value all of a sudden?

Hey.

"Since Mr. Wang has been elected as a member of the Selection Committee, there must be a celebration. Qibang, you should discuss this with him in advance."

Zhou Qibang patted his chest and said:

"Don't worry, little brother, my words will definitely work."
-
After hearing what Zhou Qibang said, Wang Yuanchao realized that John had some hidden agenda behind this, and Zhou Xinian must have discovered some clues.

Of course, Zhou Qibang certainly did not say that the selection of membership was tested by his father, but he said that he was expressing his sincerity to apologize for what happened before.

Wang Yuanchao didn't think much about this.

Some money is hot, isn't it?

He had previously lamented that the Zhou family was one of the four major families, which was really awesome.

I immediately smelled something was wrong and came to discuss it.

It would be good if the Zhou family could feel that they owed me something.

The government tax and the Jockey Club's commission were both 15%, and there was no way to reduce them, so the only option was to reduce the agency's commission. The two brothers studied for a while and came up with a new plan:
The agency submits a budget to the Jockey Club every year, which includes labor, venue rental, various publicity, administrative costs, taxes, and management fees. It only retains a 15% profit margin, which is equivalent to about 3-5 percentage points of the total bet amount.

In the past, all the money earned by the Zhou family and Wang Yuanchao was donated to the University of Hong Kong, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, the Scout Association and the South China Athletic Association in the name of the Jockey Club.

Zhou Xinian served as a director of Hong Kong University and only resigned in 64. This is why he could easily help Wang Yuanchao get a university place.

Now, it's easier.

Wang Yuanchao’s idea was very simple. Since the money was hot, he would just throw it all away. It wasn’t much money anyway.

The amount he got in the past few months was only over one million.

The commission for sales agents is set so low that others are too lazy to do the work.

It's not that I'm too lazy to do it, but with such a low price, and I still have to ensure the sales of horse racing tickets, well, everyone will think that the cost-effectiveness is not high. One hundred million in sales, only 300-500 million in commissions, with such a large performance, it's even a bit harsh.

As for the extra share of sales agents, it can be invested in the prize pool! Let horse racing be more attractive to the public, make horse racing more popular, and make the pie bigger. The Jockey Club and the authorities will earn more.

The Zhou family simply withdrew from the agency. If the performance deteriorated, the hundreds of thousands of dollars would become even more difficult to obtain.

After the new version of the plan was submitted to the Jockey Club's Board of Directors, the Club was also a little surprised.

Firstly, Zhou Xinian was so alert that the old fox immediately cut off his tail when he saw that something was wrong;

Secondly, the new quota is a bit too cruel to sales agents. The plan looks good, but the total quota is only 3-5 percentage points, which is a bit hard to say.

“With such a low quota, I don’t think the other party will maintain their current sales enthusiasm.

We should switch agencies.”

“Maybe if they can’t get it, they will slowly perish.

We should stop them and I agree with changing agencies.”

“If they spread this plan, will we appear to be passive?

Who can understand why we don’t want the agency that offers 3-5 points, but want 20 points?”

"They are so cruel!"

……

The Johns were talking about it. This was their closed-door meeting and they hadn't communicated with the Chinese directors yet. They had to make a resolution first before they could bring it up at the meeting. It was such a big deal.

They are reluctant to throw away this newly added piece of meat, but if they take it, it will be difficult to implement the new plan with such a low point.

After several days of discussion, a resolution was reached:
On the basis of the new plan, an incentive clause has been added, that is, for every annual total betting amount exceeding 0.5 million, the sales agency will be rewarded 100 million!
In fact, it just gives 2 extra points.

Anyway, the idea is to encourage sales agencies to make the cake bigger and the more work they do, the more they earn.

In this way, it is 5-7 points. If the sales agency fails to achieve the performance, they can also replace it with their own people. I don’t know if 5-7 points is good or not, but there will definitely be people willing to follow suit.

But the enthusiasm for this business is obviously much lower than before.

Because the sales agency voluntarily submitted the modification suggestions, both parties made amendments to the original exclusive agency agreement in a contractual spirit.

After this incident, Wang Yuanchao no longer had the heart to organize a celebratory party.

But Zhou Xinian suggested:
You have to do it. You don't show any happiness about such a precious selection membership. In the eyes of those who have ulterior motives, it might seem like you look down on this qualification.

However, there is no need to rush now, as the official announcement of the selection of members will have to wait until the annual general meeting of the Jockey Club’s Board of Directors in September each year.

"Hong Kong Fan King", "Hong Kong Newspaper King", "Hong Kong Radio King", well, pick one of these three titles as the main introduction of your resume. If you introduce too many titles at a young age, people will not believe you easily, which is not good.

As for the sales agency, don’t even mention it. From the outside, it seems that the Jockey Club operates it itself.

Wang Yuanchao immediately followed suit.

(End of this chapter)