"Theoretically it's possible, but in practice it's very difficult. The radio business is a marginal industry of automobiles, and the technology content is not high. We have the opportunity to enter Liangtian's supply chain, and even so, the orders we can get are not high. The technical content of automobile air conditioners is much higher and more important, so it is difficult for us to enter the supply chain of Liangtian." Lei Shengli explained.
"Yes, let's do it step by step, first understand the civilian technology thoroughly." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, compared to the core technology of automobiles, things like radios are completely marginal products. Although they are also very important, in terms of technology Very different from other parts.
Chen Zhiwen also has certain ideas about the automobile industry and is very interested in it, but it involves too much money, and it requires the right time and the right environment to succeed, which is very difficult.
In the past 20 years of its original history, Samsung Group has become one of the world's largest electronics giants. Its president, Lee Kun-hee, was ambitious and intended to establish a Samsung Motors Company, but failed miserably. Forty years later, the Apple Group has a market value of over one trillion U.S. dollars and holds hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars in cash. It also wants to build a car, but it has spent ten years without even building a wheel. Although there are many intrinsic reasons, failure is failure.
Car manufacturing is the industry with the highest breadth among human industries. It is not wrong to say that it is the crown of industry. Although there is no monopoly, the players have been the same for decades. In the decades before the electric vehicle revolution, fuel vehicles Among them, only Hyundai Motor, which is backed by the South Korean government, is the only new player to enter the top ten in the world.
Be fully prepared and Chen Zhiwen will find the right opportunity to join in.
It is difficult for new players to appear in the already stable automobile market, but when the country is reopened, there will be a very huge market. This is the opportunity to develop the automobile industry. If it still doesn't work, then work hard to develop the automobile parts industry and wait. With the advent of the era of electric vehicles, the technical fields required for electric vehicles have been laid out in advance. If BYD is the same as Tesla in the future, it will also have the opportunity to enter the market.
But this will have to wait a long time, but the automobile industry itself is one of the largest integrations of human industries. If you want to develop well, you need a lot of accumulation, and you will eventually gain a lot.
Of course, you can also directly acquire a car company. This is the shortest route, but this requires a lot of funds. At present, Chen Zhiwen does not have the money, and he will have to wait for a while.
Moreover, acquiring a car company, especially some companies that are not very profitable, may be barely affordable, but if you want to develop and continue to invest later, the money involved will be huge. The research and development of an ordinary car model, the research and development of a factory Construction requires billions of dollars in units. If you want to have so much funds, you can't rely on normal industries alone. Even arcades and Red Bull can't do it. The only opportunity is some special financial opportunities in history. As long as you seize these opportunities once, you can easily obtain the funds needed to develop the automobile industry.
As for now, we can only do the simplest auto parts business with the help of Japan's Ryota. It is purely to join in the fun and establish relations with Ryota. There may be other opportunities in the future, but the automobile industry itself is In a slowly developing industry, supplier selection is very cautious.
If you want to develop quickly, the best way is to continue to acquire companies with complete industrial chains and customer groups.
This can also be said to be the first step in planning for the automotive industry. He came up with this idea when he learned that many well-known companies in the compressor field in Europe have automotive businesses.
Compared with automobiles, the investment in the parts industry is much less, and it is closely related to its own home appliance industry. Acquiring a suitable technology company can solve two problems at once, and such acquired companies , the automobile business itself is normal, and there is no need for him to worry about it. It will still operate independently in the future.
Let’s test the waters first and see what happens in the future.
"As for the price, we are still negotiating, but the other party refuses to make concessions. These Italians feel very proud, and they can feel it after several negotiations." Lei Shengli thought for a while and said.
"Look down on us? They themselves are the joke." Chen Zhiwen said disdainfully. Europe and the United States are still very powerful in many technical fields, but Italy is just joining in the fun. It cannot be said that it does not have high technology, but compared to Germany, the United States and even Asia Japan is very different.
"Maybe he just wants to kill us," Lei Shengli said.
"Then make it clear to the other party that we will talk for another month. If we have not reached an agreement, then give up. At the same time, during this time we can look for other targets. Now that the arcade is about to open the market, for Midea, funds will not be available. What's the big problem? Let's see if we can acquire some larger compressor companies. It's best to go to Germany. I'm more optimistic about the technology there." Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and said.
From the 1960s to the 2020s that he traveled through in later generations, German technology surpassed other countries in many aspects, and its advantages in industrial manufacturing were too strong.
"Actually, there is another company for us to choose from, but the price of this one may be higher, and I don't know if they are willing to sell it. This company is also in Germany, called Bitzer. Similarly, it is good at making refrigeration compressors, which are involved in automobiles, industry, and civilian applications, but its scale is relatively large, at least twice that of Duomunaike." Lei Shengli said.
"Twice? As long as it's suitable, you can consider it." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.
When we were planning to acquire a suitable compressor company, Midea could not afford much funds at that time, and its choices were limited by funds. But now that we have found an arcade machine supplier, we have more choices.
"Wait a moment, I'll get Bitzer's information." Lei Shengli trotted out quickly. The office was nearby, and he quickly came back with the information.
After flipping through the information for a while, Chen Zhiwen said: "This company is a family company? Is it a bit difficult to acquire it? How did you find this company?"
"This was introduced to me by the Deutsche Reichsbank." Lei Shengli said: "After the negotiations with Duomunike came to a standstill, a person from the Deutsche Reichsbank came to us in Italy without knowing where he got the news. He said that he would find a more suitable acquisition target for us. I didn’t care at the time. Anyway, there was no need to pay if there was no deal, so I told him the demand. After half a month, that is, about They sent me this information a week ago.
The Bitzer Group is a family business. It was established 30 years ago, after the end of the European War. It is now one of the top ten compressor manufacturing companies in Germany. However, the founder Baston Bitzer passed away last year. My three sons have been in a lawsuit because of the dispute over the family's shares. Deutsche Bank felt that maybe we had a chance to acquire this company. "
"Give them a sum of money to share among their three sons? Is this a good idea?" Chen Zhiwen asked with a smile, "What's the approximate price?"
"A conservative estimate is that it will cost US$15 million," Lei Shengli said.
"Fifteen million US dollars is a lot, but will the German government interfere in the acquisition of such a company?" Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and said.
15 million U.S. dollars is almost 70 million Hong Kong dollars. If such a large sum of money is used to speculate on real estate in Hong Kong, it will be easy to earn 340 million Hong Kong dollars by the next real estate peak. However, the land in Hong Kong will never be fully speculated. , I really only consider this, and don’t even think about developing other industries.
Compressors are the core of air conditioners and refrigerators. After doing their best to open channels for these two home appliance businesses of Midea, improving quality, technology and reducing production capital have become top priorities. As long as they can really If we make some achievements in these two fields and open up a small part of the U.S. market, then after a few years, we will have a thorough understanding of the technology and cultivate a large number of professional talents. After the mainland is reopened, we can then build large-scale factories in the mainland. The extremely strong cost performance has impacted the European and American markets.
If the plan succeeds, it will open up a new path to wealth, not to mention the number of jobs, industrial chains, and foreign exchange reserves that home appliances can bring to the mainland. You can also get huge returns yourself.
"I asked Deutsche Bank this question. Refrigeration compressors do not belong to the military or high-end technology. Foreign capital acquisitions of German companies will not be a big problem, and Bitzer is not the top in this industry. Besides, Hong Kong belongs to the Commonwealth, so as long as employment is guaranteed, there will generally be no big problems," Lei Shengli replied.
"In other words, it is not a problem for us to bring their technology to Hong Kong to build a new factory?" Chen Zhiwen asked. This is the most important point. Compared with Italian companies, he is naturally more optimistic about German technology. This is the manufacturing industry. instinctive behavior.
"There should be no problem." Lei Shengli replied.
"So this Bitzer also supplies to automobile manufacturers? To which companies?" Chen Zhiwen asked.
Europe itself is a powerful country in the automobile industry. The European automobile industry in the 1970s was even stronger than that of later generations. It not only had BMW, BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche, Fiat, Renault, Citroën, Volvo, etc., but also some Saabs that had gone bankrupt in later generations. , Leyland, Luofu and other brands can be said to be in an era when a hundred flowers are blooming.
Naturally, many other industries in Europe are also close to the automotive industry, especially refrigeration compressors, which are technologies that are needed by the industrial, civil and automotive industries. Once a company has accumulated a certain amount of experience in this field, it will inevitably be gradually involved. When it comes to other demanding industries, although century-old companies in Europe are accustomed to developing the same technology, they will not be stupid enough to only choose one type of customer. Who will have trouble with money?
"Mainly Volkswagen and Volvo." Lei Shengli said.
Regarding Bitzer, he has been collecting information in this area and has also asked some European consulting companies. He wants to wait for all the information to be confirmed before informing the boss. As a subordinate, what he needs is to collect all aspects of information. When you're done, report it to your boss instead of waiting until your boss asks a question before asking someone else.
Of course, it is impossible to complete this kind of data collection. We can only try our best. At the same time, it also depends on the understanding of the boss by the subordinates. The deeper the understanding, the more aware they will be of what questions will be asked, which will be much more convenient.
"Public public? Not bad." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said. Although it is not a high-end brand, its volume is large, which makes it a very high-quality customer for parts companies. For automotive products, the greater the volume, the lower the average production cost.
"Sheng Chen, if you have no objection, I will officially entrust Deutsche Bank as our acquisition representative to negotiate with Bitzer?" Lei Shengli continued.
"Okay, let them talk first, and then you can entrust a third-party investigation agency to investigate the details of this company. This kind of acquisition itself has certain risks. Many peers will often encounter this problem. In this regard, we must In addition, we can also consider other potential sellers, such as going to the United States to spread some news. The United States is so big and there are many such companies. We need to negotiate with multiple parties to find the one that is most suitable for us." Chen Zhiwen said.
As long as the arcade develops smoothly in another six months, Midea will be able to earn at least tens of millions of dollars with Snake, followed by the Magic Cube. If the two are added together, it should not be difficult to surpass the profits of later Space Invaders. This is also Midea is the main source of funds for its early development in the field of home appliances. With such a huge amount of funds, Midea can make acquisitions in high-tech fields, thereby mastering various technologies in the shortest possible time and reducing costs.
"Okay, no problem." Lei Shengli happily agreed. Midea's air conditioner and refrigerator business can now be said to be good or not bad. The refrigerator business is not bad. With the channels of Wal-Mart and Costco, plus the appropriate The price and sales volume are not bad, but the air conditioner is not. Because the air conditioner has a lot of technical content, and all related core components are purchased from overseas, resulting in high costs. Sales in the United States are also due to Costco's special area. Coverage coupled with a dedicated after-sales team to ensure installation costs are reduced has captured a small portion of the market.
Compared with other small brands, this is an incredible success. In a mature and stable market, it is very difficult for a small company to break into it. Midea's success is entirely dependent on its reliable supermarket relationships and the generous investment of money. , but development comes with ambition. Who doesn’t want to achieve greater success?
After obtaining a certain small share of the market and establishing a firm foothold, the next step is to increase its competitiveness through technology, low cost, and high quality. Only in this way can we get rid of the embarrassing situation of Midea air conditioners being absolutely dependent on Costco. .
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Asking for monthly ticket
(End of chapter)
