IDIOT'S GUIDE TO FED2
MAKING INVESTMENTS AS A FINANCIER
PROMOTING TO FINANCIER
Once you have run your company for four cycles as a Manufacturer, without getting into such a mess that you are forced to declare bankruptcy, you can promote to Financier whenever you choose. All you need to do is sell off your factories and depots, and at the next reset you will promote.
You are not forced to become a Financier; you can stay a Manufacturer forever if you choose. Indeed, rushing the promotion as soon as your four cycles are up might be counter-productive, because your company is going to need a decent wedge of cash to operate as a financial institution.
As a Financier, your company stops being an industrial business, interested in producing physical goods, and instead becomes a financial institution that makes its money by investing in businesses and in other companies and by playing the futures market. It is also no longer subject to the whims of the shareholders and won't suffer rebellions.
Because you are no longer directly involved in the messy business of industry, you can no longer buy or sell commodities on the trading exchanges.
If you really mess up as a Financier, you can 'DECLARE BANKRUPTCY'. You will get put back to Manufacturer level and all your company's accounts will be zeroed. You will have 5 megagroats with which to start this rank again. You get to keep any shares you have in other companies, so you'll reap the benefits of divvies that get issued - but you can't sell those shares or buy any new ones until you make it back to Financier.
