The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 63
“It comes to ... three million two hundred and forty thousand dollars in total!”
In Jorgreman’s office, he looked at the statement in his hand with a certain amazement and could not help letting that note of surprise slip into his voice.
When William told him there were several million dollars’ worth of pledged assets, Jorgreman had assumed it was a somewhat exaggerated way of speaking. That sort of thing was very common in the financial world.
Installment redemptions, offset redemptions, discounted redemptions, all of it meant one was never especially confident in the numbers other people quoted. Unexpectedly, William had given him a pleasant surprise.
He set the statement down and adjusted his posture slightly. “It’s an astonishing figure. But you should know that I can’t lend against it at full appraised value. At most, fifty percent, and not a dollar more.”
He flicked the statement again with his fingers, a trace of regret showing on his face. “These are not premium assets. The bank’s risk is still very high, so...” He spread his hands, then looked back at William.
The bank had its own professional appraisers. When they evaluated these things, they found there were no particularly hot assets among them, no precious goods that could be disposed of immediately, things like precious metals, gold for example, or jewelry that could easily be liquidated.
Instead, there were things ... not so easy to move, daily-use items, various tools and equipment, with houses and cars making up the greater part.
Sabine City was not a major city. It was not a state capital, much less the center of the Federation. The value-retention rate of houses here was not especially secure. And among the properties mortgaged in these agreements, most were ordinary neighborhood houses, not homes in middle-class communities or the Upper City.
In a small city, truly valuable real estate generally meant houses in middle-class districts and top-tier upper-class communities. Those places occupied the best locations, enjoyed the finest views, and had the most complete supporting services.
Houses like that could be sold off very easily. So long as the price was set a little below market, ten to fifteen percent lower, they could be moved almost immediately.
But houses in common neighborhoods did not work that way. Real estate development in working-class and slum districts, especially residential development, was a thankless, laborious business. The slow sales cycle could very easily drag a developer under.
Add to that the fact that some people liked to cause trouble. The poor often liked breaking into unsold houses to live in them, which frequently produced all sorts of headaches.
The local laws in some Federation states had already stipulated that if someone lived in another person’s house for a certain number of years, they could naturally acquire ownership of that house. That only made more people eager to occupy unsold houses, or empty ones whose original owners had already moved away.
The chaotic environment of working-class and slum districts, along with all the skin-crawling street culture that came with them, were all factors restraining those housing prices from rising. This was not to say the houses were worthless, only that their real value was difficult to realize.
Cars were much the same. There were no luxury marques, most were ordinary brands, and some had quite a few years on them. A few appraisers even thought some of them might be stolen cars whose owners had abandoned any attempt at recovery.
The road to turning these things into cash was full of twists and trouble. If they really ended up stuck in one’s hands, it was hard to say whether the principal could even be preserved.
If William were truly just trying to trade these things for a sum of money, and this were only a one-time deal, Jorgreman would have been much more cautious, perhaps cautious enough to refuse the business with William altogether. He would rather have no deal than assume that kind of risk.
But he already understood William’s thinking. The money he gave William would be passed on by William to Gatnau Finance Company, allowing it to keep turning.
When that happened, more agreements like these would be pledged to the bank, and in the end it would snowball into an astonishing figure. So he did not mind a business like this.
Jorgreman thought for a moment. “At most, I can give you one million six hundred thousand dollars.” He felt that price was quite safe, and there was no reason for William to object. One million six hundred thousand dollars meant William would receive a one hundred and sixty thousand dollar service fee, plus roughly one to two times that much in expected profit.
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