On December 14, under the witness of Deutsche Bank, the board of directors of Bitzer signed a comprehensive acquisition agreement with Lei Shengli, Chen Zhiwen and others. The transaction price was US$13.25 million. Half of the funds were paid within three days after the contract was signed, and the remaining The payment must wait until three months later. This is also to prevent more convenient solutions if problems are discovered within three months.
On the afternoon of the signing of the contract, Chen Zhiwen arranged for finance to transfer funds from Midea Group's overseas account to the other party. At this point, Midea Group's first acquisition in Europe was successfully completed. As long as there are no problems in the follow-up, the balance payment will be settled three months later. Just clear it.
Bitzer itself is a company with normal operations and does not need additional funds in a short period of time. The first task it currently receives is to start communicating with Deutsche Bank, intending to use their relationship to contact BMW's senior executives. Then find a way to enter BMW's supply chain system.
The reason why we chose BMW is because Deutsche Bank has a closer relationship with BMW and is theoretically more likely to succeed. This is Deutsche Bank's suggestion. After just receiving an intermediary fee of nearly one million US dollars, Deutsche Bank is naturally happy to cooperate with Midea again. Cooperation, especially when they conducted in-depth investigations and found out that there was a boss behind Midea who owned several companies with assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars in Hong Kong, they immediately treated them as high-end customers and fully intended to meet the needs of customers.
The automotive industry has always been known for its rigor. Even if a supplier has a supply history from Volkswagen and an introduction from Deutsche Bank, if it wants to enter BMW's supply chain, it must do so slowly, and it may take years, especially since this is still Germany. , more sensitive to technology and quality.
After taking over Bitzer, Lei Shengli only stayed for one more day. After arranging some things and leaving a team of 6 people, he was ready to leave Germany and return to Hong Kong. Although Midea is now experiencing difficulties in home use due to the coming winter in the northern hemisphere, The electrical appliance business has entered the off-season, but the arcade side is booming. Not to mention, winter itself is also a time when bar business is booming.
After returning to Hong Kong, he also needs to arrange for people to come to Germany to learn various technologies, but this may be just a small matter.
Naturally, Chen Zhiwen would not stay in Germany for long. After the snowstorm in Germany ended, he chartered a Lufthansa plane and experienced a thousand-mile journey with Zhang Yunxue and her good friends.
"This plane is really good, but it's a little too small and it's a bit crowded with people." After getting off the plane, Chen Zhiwen stretched and said.
"Is this already the largest private jet? Is there any bigger private jet than the Gulfstream?" Zhang Yunxue asked curiously.
Chen Zhiwen asked: "What is the president of the United States' plane?"
"Boeing 747? Brother Wen, do you want to buy a Boeing 747?" Zhang Yunxue asked in surprise.
"Of course not, but 737 can still be considered and we have to wait for a while." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.
If buying a private yacht is purely for enjoyment, then a private jet is definitely not. The biggest use of a private jet is not for enjoyment, but to transport its owner to where he needs to go as quickly as possible, and for many For CEOs of high-net-worth companies or Fortune 500 companies, their time cannot be wasted waiting for flights at the airport.
Therefore, when you need a private jet, you should buy one. The luxury of a private jet is just a convenience. After all, a transatlantic flight private jet in the 1970s is worth tens of millions of dollars, and million-dollar decorations are not included. What.
However, Chen Zhiwen has not really needed to buy yet. At present, he is not at the point where he needs to frequently travel to Europe and the United States. Before 1980, his core business was still in Hong Kong. When Hong Kong is safe, overseas The business development will also reach a relatively strong point. By then, private jets will be necessary, and there will no longer be any problem with funds at that time.
In recent years, you can just rent it when needed, and a trip across continents only costs about 100,000 US dollars.
Another advantage of private jets is that they can be parked at small airports, which is much more convenient than large aviation airports. You can leave directly by car after getting off the plane. Costco also arranged for people to come over.
"There are still many places to play in Los Angeles. You can go and play by yourself. Just go back to the hotel in the evening." After Chen Zhiwen dropped a card to Zhang Yunxue, he got into the car arranged by Costco.
Zhang Yunxue and a few of her friends were left behind at the airport, but they quickly found a car and a group of girls drove directly to the Hollywood check-in location.
More than an hour later, Chen Zhiwen and several assistants and bodyguards arrived at the Costco supermarket in the suburbs of Los Angeles. This was Costco's first supermarket. Next to it, there was a large 9-story office building. It was the Costco headquarters building that Pierce built.
As soon as Chen Zhiwen got out of the car, he saw Pierce coming to pick him up.
"Pierce, you look younger." Chen Zhiwen joked.
"Hahaha, Eric, you really know how to joke. I am already old and will retire in a few years, so you are still young." Pierce laughed, although he also thought he was old. , but which elderly person doesn’t like to hear people say that he is not old?
"That won't work. You have to work for at least another 15 years, no, 20 years. Together, we will build Costco into one of the largest supermarkets in the world." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.
It’s hard to imagine becoming the number one, but it’s no problem to become one. Historically, Costco has become one of the top ten supermarkets in the world. In this life, it has stronger funds, will expand faster, and has some prophets. Advantages: In the future, it will not be difficult to do better with the same team as the choice of cheap and high-quality mainland suppliers.
However, it is a bit difficult to surpass Wal-Mart. In the track of ordinary supermarkets, it is difficult. However, retail is a very broad industry, and supermarkets are only one of them. In the future, Costco will also have the opportunity to enter the non-supermarket retail industry. Maybe there will be a chance to compete with Wal-Mart.
"That's impossible, my body probably won't be able to bear it, but even if I retire, I will train a good team to take over Costco. The current Costco is doing great," Pierce said.
"This is naturally better, but again, don't worry too much about trivial matters. For Costco now, if it doesn't exceed a million dollars, you should just ignore it and just be responsible for the overall planning. Yes." Chen Zhiwen said.
According to the original history, Pierce retired in the late 1980s. At that time, he was over 70 years old and lacked energy. However, Chen Zhiwen estimated that the ten years since he started Costco was the busiest and most tiring time for him. From the beginning of the business to the Subsequent expansion is very energy-consuming, especially as various financial and risk issues need to be considered.
But now, things are much better. There are no worries. We only need to train relevant talents step by step and open new stores. There is no need to worry about financial problems or find ways to reduce costs. High-quality Hong Kong products are constantly coming from across the ocean.
Chen Zhiwen naturally hopes that Pierce can manage for a few more years. At the same time, the most important thing is to train the next generation of successors and build a talent training system for the entire company. To this end, he has also earmarked millions of dollars for talent training plans, just to prevent The problem of management hiatus faced after more than ten years.
"I've already done this, don't worry." Pierce smiled.
"Okay." Chen Zhiwen nodded, glanced at the building in front of him, and couldn't help but said: "Pierce, how big is the floor area of your headquarters?"
"About 50,000 square feet. Anyway, the land here is cheap and it's like a gift. I'll build it bigger. If it wasn't too big for internal communication, I wouldn't even want to build a nine-story building." Pierce said with a smile.
"It's enough." Chen Zhiwen nodded. It's more than 50,000 square feet, almost 6,000 square meters. That is, the first floor of a building is about 70*80 meters. It takes a while to go around it. Many industrial office buildings in Hong Kong are There is no such area.
Where the land is less valuable, the larger the floor area, the shorter the floor. This is a classic in the real estate industry, because when the local area is cheap enough, it is no longer cost-effective to build high-rise buildings. It is better to get more land and build lower, but If they are too short, the area of a single floor will be too large, which is not conducive to rapid and effective communication among internal employees. After all, elevators need to be 20-30 stories high for convenience. In the 1970s, new buildings generally had 30-40 stories. After 90 years, , all kinds of buildings are basically above 60 floors, because they are too short to cover the high cost of buying land.
If there was such a large piece of land in Central, Hong Kong, Chen Zhiwen would definitely build a 70- or 80-story building!
Several people arrived at the ninth floor of the building. Looking through the windows, they saw that it was already the tallest building nearby. In the suburbs of old American cities, there were not many taller buildings, and most of the residences were villas.
"Eric, what are you drinking?" Pierce asked.
"I don't care, coffee or tea will do. What's important is what do you want to drink?" Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.
"Me?" Pierce was stunned for a moment, not understanding what his boss meant.
But when Chen Zhiwen took out a Coke-like bottle from his small bag, he understood and asked: "Is this Coke produced in a Hong Kong factory?"
"It's not a factory, it's a laboratory. This is a sample. I brought it to you specially. You can drink it and see." Chen Zhiwen handed the Coke over.
Pierce found the Coke bottle. After opening the bottle cap, he took a slight sip and said after a moment: "It's a little sweeter. It feels a little different from Coca-Cola or Pepsi, but the difference is not big. I drank it because I knew it in advance. Most people If you don’t care, you may not be able to tell the difference clearly.”
"Coke itself is similar, there is not much difference, the main thing is the brand issue." Chen Zhiwen said.
"The brand doesn't matter, as long as the price is cheap enough, and Costco's main focus is low prices, ordinary customers may not care. As long as they are used to it, the so-called brand has no advantage." Pierce said.
"If you think it's okay, in a few days I'll arrange for a few thousand bottles to be flown over from Hong Kong, and then you can arrange for someone to conduct a double-blind test to see if the taste is in line with the taste of Americans compared to Coke," Chen Zhiwen said. .
The so-called double-blind test involves finding a certain number of people and letting them experience two different drinks without informing the tester and the tested person, and ultimately obtains data on how many people prefer which one.
The reason why the tester is not even told is to ensure the fairness of the test. This test is commonly used in the beverage and pharmaceutical industries. The most famous one was Pepsi-Cola last year. The double-blind test of Pepsi and Coca-Cola was broadcast live on TV. The results of the test data show that Americans are more suitable for Pepsi-Cola, killing Coca-Cola's dominance.
But having said that, taste is important, but not that important. Even if the test data is not deceiving, Pepsi is more popular among Americans, but after hundreds of years of competition, Pepsi has still not been Coca-Cola’s opponent. The market share gap has always been very large. Only by reluctantly adding a bunch of its own food business can it compete with Coca-Cola in the top 500 rankings.
This is also the ultimate advantage brought by the brand. It is almost impossible for anyone to surpass Coca-Cola in the field of cola. Similarly, as long as Red Bull monopolizes the field of energy drinks, it will be indestructible.
However, the taste cannot be ignored just because the brand factor is outweighed. A drink that is very unsuitable for American tastes is a question of whether it can survive. Hong Kong factories also need to confirm it before they dare to mass-produce it.
"Okay, this kind of test will take some time. It's Christmas soon, so it won't be completed until February or March," Pierce said.
"Okay, there's no rush. Hong Kong also needs time to prepare the factory." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.
Pierce continued: "This document is my budget list for building the first Costco logistics center in Los Angeles, including a land area of about 1 million square feet, on which I will build three large warehouses and... There are internal equipment and the first batch of heavy trucks, the number is 50, the total price is about 6 million US dollars, but it is a bit over the budget. Eric, you want to use a supercomputer to process Costco data, I I consulted IBM and their quote was US$15 million, which was too high.”
(End of chapter)
