"Eve, access the company system and help me retrieve the latest annual report of the Nolanka Orphanage."
He Ao slightly lifted his intelligent wristband and quietly said.
Eve responded, "I have found the reports from the Nolanka Orphanage for the past five years."
He Ao opened these reports.
Then he fell into a brief silence.
The Nolanka Orphanage had actually turned a profit.
And the profit was not low.
The reports also detailed their operations, which basically corresponded with what the youth had said.
They sought out the younger orphans, had specialized teachers teach and dress them up, then waited for wealthy individuals to adopt, charging a considerable ’adoption donation fee.’
He Ao flipped through a few more reports and searched for some internal information, then found related materials.
In the past, the Nolanka Orphanage had been struggling due to the increasing number of children and growing investments each year.
Philip, acting in his capacity as vice-chairman of the board, set a profitability target for the orphanage and replaced the original director with a new one, stating that the orphanage’s profits could be split fifty-fifty with the director as an ’incentive.’
Because the Nolanka Orphanage had never been at the core of the group’s main industries, this personnel change did not attract much attention, and not only did Vian, who was studying in Dawn City at the time, fail to notice, but the elderly butler Danny did as well.
The profits from these orphanages did not enter the group’s accounts but went directly into Philip’s pockets.
The documents made no attempt to conceal this, but instead, it was clearly written inside.
He Ao packaged these documents and sent them to the elderly butler Danny, who would sift through the information and provide it to Director Jelang.
The elevator swiftly ascended and soon arrived at the top floor of the Nolanka Building.
He Ao passed through a small corridor and slid open a wooden door.
Behind the sliding door was a small compartment, and at the end of the compartment was the entrance to the boardroom. There was a desk in front of the door.
A beautiful woman with chestnut-gold curls tied into a high ponytail was sitting behind the desk reading documents.
Upon hearing footsteps, she looked up and saw He Ao carrying a briefcase.
At that moment, the phone in front of her began to ring.
The boardroom was soundproofed, so they had to communicate by phone.
He Ao saw the ringing phone, placed his index finger on his lips, and gestured for the woman not to speak.
Then he walked over to the phone and answered it.
"Elena, bring in the listing plan."
An excited voice from an elderly man came through the phone.
He Ao glanced at the thick stack of printed documents on the table, picked it up, and threw it into the shredder by his side.
At that moment, the voice on the other end of the phone started to grow anxious.
After a while, accompanied by a light clicking sound, the doors to the boardroom were slowly pulled open.
An elderly man with a weathered face stared blankly at the young man standing before him, whose face bore a gentle smile.
It took a long time for the Elderly man to speak with difficulty, "You’ve already..."
"Thanks to Uncle Philip’s blessing, I’ve borrowed some time from God."
He Ao smiled and, carrying a briefcase, walked past Philip and into the meeting room.
In that instant, all eyes in the meeting room turned to look at him.
Then some gazes subconsciously shifted away.
He Ao ’surprisingly’ glanced at all the directors seated there, "Is there a board meeting today? I apologize for being late, what is everyone discussing?"
Then he naturally took the seat at the head of the table.
Philip looked at He Ao with a gloomy expression on his face.
The seat He Ao occupied was his position, and all the seats in this meeting room were fixed; there would be as many chairs as there were people attending the meeting. Now that He Ao had taken his seat, there was nowhere for him to sit.
At this moment, he could only stand, forcing a smile as he said,
"You’ve come at just the right time. We were discussing the group’s IPO. Once we are successfully listed, you can immediately become one of the top five wealthiest individuals in the Federation."
He Ao nodded and calmly looked around at the other directors, "I disagree."
In that moment, all the words behind Philip were abruptly stifled back inside him.
The entire table fell silent.
Vian possessed 67.3% of Nolanka Group’s shares, the absolute controlling shareholder. If he disagreed, no proposal could pass.
"Going public is out of the question,"
He Ao calmly looked at the people on both sides of the conference table, "Most of you here have followed my father and even my grandfather; you are the elders of Nolanka Group. If any of you are short on cash, consider selling your shares to me. The Nolanka family still has some money; I will offer a price that everyone will be satisfied with."
The people looked at each other. His words were quite heavy indeed, although they sounded pleasant. Essentially, the message was:
If you don’t want to work, sell your shares and get out.
The reason He Ao could say this with confidence was that most of the people here no longer held real power in the Group.
Thanks to Danny’s operations over the years, the senior leadership that controlled the main industries were mostly Vian’s people. Even if all these members of the board left, Vian could still maintain the group’s normal operations.
This was also why ’Vian’ had to die. Although he did not meddle, in fact, he still controlled Nolanka Group through Danny.
Danny was absolutely loyal to Vian, but he personally did not own any shares.
Once Vian died, Danny would be a tree without roots, with no legal basis to oppose Philip and the board he had convened.
Philip quickly seized on the ’problem’ in He Ao’s words, saying angrily, "These are all your uncles’ generation. When we were building up Nolanka Group with your father, you weren’t even born yet. Now that it’s built, you want to ditch us after using us?"
He Ao was too dominant, taking charge as soon as he arrived. If he couldn’t overpower He Ao in terms of aura, he would basically lose control over these minority shareholders.
However, his advantage at the moment was that these minority shareholders still wanted to go public to make money. If they united against him, even with absolute control of the shares, He Ao would have to step back and negotiate with them.
After all, although these old directors might have retired, their students and associates were still around, which was a huge influence on the entire Nolanka Group.
This time He Ao did not respond but instead raised his smart bracelet to check the time.
As Philip was puzzled, suddenly there were knocks at the door, followed by secretary Elena, pressing her lips together, pushing open the doors of the meeting room.
Two young men dressed in Kaye City police uniforms stepped in. They glanced around and finally fixed their gaze on Philip,
"Mr. Philip, you are accused of ’hiring for murder’ and ’embezzling corporate assets,’ among other charges. Please come with us."