The next day, after a good night's rest, Zane returned to his company, Gale Capital. He met with a professional accounting team to count exactly how much money they had really made.
It was a lot.
The team laid out all the numbers.
First: They made $260 million from Southeast Asia (like Thailand and Singapore).
Second: Henry's team, on their own, made another $19.8 million.
Third: In Japan, they made a huge $500 million in less than a month.
Fourth: In South Korea, they made an amazing $700 million in just over ten days.
When they added it all up, Gale Capital had made a total profit of $1.48 billion!
This was a giant amount of money. It was enough to make Zane's company one of the top 50 biggest winners in the whole crisis.
"Only the top 50?" Zane thought, but he knew why. He was smart and knew what was going to happen, but the really big banks had way more money to start with.
"It's true," Zane thought, "you have to spend money to make money."
He also knew the game wasn't really fair. The big banks had help from the government and the rule-makers. It was like a football game where the other team (the Asian countries) was a high school team, but the big banks were the professionals... and their dad was the referee.
Zane knew the game was set up for the big guys to win.
"Beautiful!" Zane said, looking at the final report. He was in a great mood. After paying his team their big, well-deserved bonuses, he would still have $1.45 billion for himself. "That's just perfect."
But, after a minute, he started to feel a little anxious. All that money was in overseas bank accounts. If he wanted to bring it back to America, he would have to pay a huge tax.
"Thirty-five percent!" he thought. That was the rule. If he brought all $1.45 billion back, the government would take $500 million of it.
"Ouch! That's way too much," he groaned. He had worked so hard for that money!
"Should I just leave the money overseas?" he wondered.
But he knew the real gold rush was about to happen in America: the internet. He knew that in the next few years, the internet would make way more money than even this.
"Okay," he decided. "I'm bringing the money back. Even if I have to pay the tax, it's worth it." He smiled. "But I'm definitely not bringing all of it back. And I'm going to be smart about it."
He was lucky it was 1997. In the future, the tax rules would get even harder.
He thought about the big internet companies, like Microsoft and Amazon. They were so clever. They would find smart, legal ways to lower their taxes. They'd make tens of billions but pay almost nothing.
Zane really admired how smart they were. He decided he would do the same thing. He would hire the best lawyers to find a smart, legal plan to pay as little tax as possible.
A few days later, the lawyers came back with a plan.
"Mr. Blackwood," they said, "we have a plan. We are sure we can get your 35% tax down to somewhere between 25% or 30%. We just need to do a little more paperwork."
Zane nodded, feeling very relieved. That would save him a ton of money. He knew it would take time, but he was patient. He was always careful with his money, and he was happy to do this the smart way.
"Once the money is here," he thought, his mind already racing, "I can really start to build my company."
He had a big plan: a media empire.
He already had movies, TV, music, animation, and toy stores.
But to be a real empire, he needed more. He needed to get into games, sports, and books. This would make his company stronger.
"Look at Harry Potter," he thought. "It's a great book series. But the reason it's a worldwide hit is because of all the advertising. To do that, I need to be in the book business."
"I should buy a book publishing company... or maybe buy a piece of a big one, like Random House."
"Oh!" he thought, another exciting idea popping into his head. "And Apple! It's been almost a year since Steve Jobs went back. I can start planning to buy some of their stock, too."
Zane smiled, thinking of all the amazing things he was about to build.
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