Rebirth: The Ascent of a Socialite-Chapter 538 - 219: The Fallen Heiress’s Resolve
Spending money is always easier than earning it, but repaying debt, especially when it involves debt relationships, is harder than Su Ziceng had imagined.
When she finally got to the Su Family, wanting to get a list of the Su Family’s assets and liabilities from the finance department, she was suddenly surrounded by people.
The incessant questions from the media were not what troubled Su Ziceng the most. What embarrassed her were the former employees of the Su Family, each loudly demanding their overdue wages from last month as well as severance pay, allowances, and benefits—terms that Su Ziceng had not figured out even in two lifetimes.
Zhou Dagen, who had been forewarned, had already had all the young and middle-aged employees of the Wine Shop come over to help, but Su Ziceng was still grabbed by some people.
In the chaos, her clothes were torn, and even her shoes were trampled off. Someone cursed: "What kind of bullshit rich people are these, all blood-suckers and bone-gnawers."
Zhou Dagen had to exert the strength of nine bulls and two tigers to drag Su Ziceng into the Su Family; in the administrative building, once bustling with people, only a few employees remained to help with the approval of bankruptcy liquidation.
Most of the employees of the Su Family were gathered outside, demanding compensation. Those who stayed inside were the old employees who had fought to build the empire with Su Qingzhang. Some of them had devoted their entire lives to the Su Family, and those inside harbored a sentiment of resentful disappointment. Seeing Su Ziceng, they did not condemn her like the people outside. Several even stepped forward to inquire about Su Qingzhang’s situation.
"He is doing well, thank you all," Su Ziceng lowered her head, trying hard to stabilize her emotions.
"Miss, if you need any help, just tell us," said the deputy to Secretary Wang, a female secretary who had worked for the Su Family for nearly twenty years.
"I... I would like to put together a list of debts to be paid off," Su Ziceng understood that excessive sentimentality was unnecessary, just as she did not need pity at the moment. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖
When she said she wanted to pay off the debts of the Su Family, the dozens of employees maintaining the most basic operations of various departments were all stunned.
"That’s impossible," the female secretary advised: "Miss, every corporate bankruptcy needs to go through a legal procedure."
Su Ziceng had already studied the bankruptcy laws of Country Z, and according to the rules, bankruptcy must be carried out in a legal order for debt repayment. This includes the costs of the liquidation group, debts with security interests, then employees’ wages, and unsecured debts. According to this calculation, the largest portion of the debt is bank loans.
"Miss, do you remember the ’Golden Coast’ project?" The female secretary took out the tender and project documents from when the skyscraper was being built and analyzed it for Su Ziceng.
After the height increase, the ’Golden Coast’ building had a hundred floors, with a total construction cost of twelve billion; Su Family contributed eight billion, Wen Family contributed four billion. Among the funds contributed by the Su Family, nearly seventy percent was a loan from Commercial Bank. After the Su Family went bankrupt, the bank resold it to the Wen Family for five billion, meaning the Su Family still owed the bank a principle and interest of over six hundred and fifty million.
"This debt of over six hundred million will be due at the end of the year," the female secretary, after all, was an old employee of the Su Family. Her temperament and analytical skills were very similar to the former Secretary Wang; she did not speak much, but her analysis was thorough, simplifying and clarifying the biggest problem at hand.
"Doesn’t the Su Family have a large amount of mineral and real estate assets?" Su Ziceng was browsing the total asset situation of the Su Family. According to the operation of the Su Family, it should not necessarily have to file for bankruptcy. If the mines and real estate could be successfully auctioned off, they should be able to pay off the bank loans and the wages owed to the employees.
The female secretary looked at Su Ziceng appreciatively; compared to her performance when she first attended the financial analysis meeting, Su Ziceng had made significant progress.
"Miss," the person who answered was the former manager of the investment department in charge of operations, who also managed the trust funds left to Su Ziceng by Qiao Chu, "your analysis is not wrong, it’s just that last year, the chairman sold dozens of the Su Family’s real estate properties in major cities across the country in one go, amounting to fifteen billion. However, the specific whereabouts of this sum of money have never been disclosed by the chairman, even now, we still do not know where this fifteen billion in liquid funds went."
It was precisely because the whereabouts of this sum were unclear that the liquidation group responsible for the bankruptcy of the Su Family required the freezing of the still profitable assets under Su Family’s name, including several small and medium-sized subsidiaries like Subi Auction House.
