All Apple's top executives and investors are very satisfied with the success of Apple's IPO. A company that has only been established for a few years has become one of the top 500 listed companies in the United States. This is one of the fewest companies in the history of the United States. There are countless major events in the history of technology. Unlike traditional companies, Apple’s business has just begun. Its revenue just exceeded US$100 million last year. It has already reached this number in the first four months of this year. In addition, the personal computer market has unlimited potential. At the party, under the passionate speech of Jobs, many people were full of confidence and believed that Apple would be the next IBM.
"Hello, Mr. Chen. I'm glad to meet you here. I'm George York, the vice president of investment at Goldman Sachs Group." A thin man about 50 years old said politely after walking up to Chen Zhiwen.
"Hello, Mr. York." Chen Zhiwen nodded politely in response. One of the stock issuers of Apple's listing was Goldman Sachs.
"Mr. Chen, one of our businesses at Goldman Sachs is responsible for the listing of companies. If your Red Bull, Midea or other companies have listing needs, we at Goldman Sachs will be happy to serve you." After York said, he immediately handed over a business card.
"Okay, at that time, if my company will be listed in the United States, I will seriously consider it." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.
In addition to assisting investors in making investments, investment banks in the United States also serve as issuers of listed companies. The profit of the latter is also very high. It can be said that this market is basically monopolized by a few investment banks. It is natural to find other small investment banks to operate the listing. However, if the publicity ability and road show arrangements are not in place, the listing financing ability will be It has dropped significantly. For listed companies, many times they would rather be ripped off than find these big investment banks.
Even though Apple is famous, if there is not enough publicity, how many people in the United States will know when Apple will go public? Without enough early stage momentum, how can we attract more funds to enter the market? This is different from Hong Kong. In a small city like Hong Kong, companies preparing to go public spend some money to buy a few newspaper news, and even let shareholders spread the news by word of mouth, and almost everyone knows about it.
For example, if Apple goes public this time, the IPO requires up to 20 million U.S. dollars in funds paid to investment banks. With this amount of money, many large American companies will not be able to achieve this amount of profit in a year.
Assuming that companies like Red Bull and Midea want to be listed in the United States, they will also need to cooperate with such large investment banks.
"Thank you Mr. Chen." George York continued: "I heard that Mr. Chen is preparing to acquire AMC?"
"Yes, Goldman Sachs has this plan. What are your thoughts?" Chen Zhiwen asked with a smile. The acquisition of such a large company is actually not a big secret for the major investment banks in the United States, especially because it involves the acquisition of local industries by foreign capital. Reporting to the U.S. Department of Commerce, investment banks that have these relationships leading to the White House will naturally know about it.
However, those who know will basically keep it a secret and spread the matter within a small area without informing the general public. After all, if the acquisition that Morgan Stanley is preparing to facilitate is leaked to the public in advance by someone from Goldman Sachs, it will cause huge consequences. loss, then the next time Goldman Sachs does the same thing, others can do the same thing.
"Although Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are competitors, you are already talking about cooperation and we will not get involved. However, I have another business that maybe Mr. Chen will be interested in." George York said.
"What business?" Chen Zhiwen asked.
"Mr. Chen should know that Chrysler is now in a life-and-death crisis. Although last year, the White House agreed to allocate $1.5 billion to Chrysler to rescue itself, but for a loss-making automobile giant, this amount of money is just a drop in the bucket, so they urgently More funds are needed, so Chrysler is preparing to sell a large number of assets in its hands. One of them is 330 car sales stores covering the United States. Many of them are in good locations. If you acquire AMC, plus these cars The sales terminal will be even more powerful, right?" George York said.
"Mr. York is joking. Nowadays, car sales in the United States are basically declining by half. These stores themselves must be suffering from serious losses." Chen Zhiwen said with a faint smile.
When the second oil crisis broke out, many gas stations, not to mention car sales stores, closed due to lack of oil. Costco also relied on its strong relationships to directly purchase a batch of gasoline and diesel from Southeast Asia to make up for the shortage. It has filled the gap of its own gas station, and because of the gas, it has attracted many people to come and sign up for membership.
"Yes, so the price for Chrysler's sale will not be very high, and you also know Chrysler's current situation. As long as they can get cash, they can sell any assets." George York said: "The current oil price is very high, resulting in the car It is difficult to sell, but this gasoline cannot always be like this. The problem in the Middle East will be solved sooner or later. Many developed countries in Europe, the United States and Japan will not allow such a shortage of oil to continue. And I can tell you one thing, the US government is ready to spend thousands of dollars. 100 million US dollars to prepare federal oil reserves. As long as oil prices return to normal, in the next three years, the United States will reserve as much as domestic oil demand for one year, and Europe and Japan will do the same. In other words, there will be another war in the Middle East in the future. , it may not lead to a doubling of oil, and the future of the automobile industry is still unlimited."
"What you said makes sense, but I still need to use the funds for AMC." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said.
"AMC is not a large company, and with Mr. Chen's financial resources, it is nothing." George York continued: "We are not suitable for detailed discussions here. How about making an appointment tomorrow? Chrysler CEO Lee Aiko Ka is also in New York now, I think you can meet him."
"Lee Iacocca is also in New York? Okay, then we'll be here tomorrow, and I'll book a coffee shop." Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and said.
Nowadays, Chrysler has indeed made everyone feel that it is about to go bankrupt. Even the US government, which borrowed US$1.5 billion, has publicly stated that it may face a financial loss of US$1.5 billion. But Chen Zhiwen knows that this top ranking player in the 20th century The CEO of One Hundred saved Chrysler within a few years and subsequently became one of the most influential figures in the global automotive industry.
In the original history, AMC would be acquired by France's Renault next year, but after several years of struggling, it still couldn't be saved and was subsequently sold to Chrysler.
Chrysler is currently in a serious crisis, but this kind of century-old company has a lot of heritage, and maybe it can get some unexpected benefits from it.
The next morning, Jobs invited Chen Zhiwen to Silicon Valley to discuss some future plans for Apple. Chen Zhiwen declined. He did not want to get involved in future Apple affairs, because history is expected to repeat itself, and the next two years may be Apple's peak. Yes, there is no need for him to get involved.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, George York and Lee Iacocca, who had a Chinese-shaped face, came to a private room in a Western-style coffee shop in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
"Mr. Chen, this is Mr. Lee Iacocca, the CEO of Chrysler. Li, this is the Mr. Chen I'm talking about." George York introduced with a smile.
"Hello." Chen Zhiwen and Lee Iacocca greeted each other respectively.
Then the three of them sat down, and after asking the waiter, they went to prepare the corresponding coffee.
Lee Iacocca took out a stack of information from the bag behind his back, handed it to Chen Zhiwen and said: "Mr. Chen, here is all the information on Chrysler's 330 car sales branches, including assets, liabilities, operations, labor, etc., with There is also information on the number and distribution of sales branches throughout the country, so you can know the value of these car sales branches very directly."
"Mr. Iacocca is very thoughtful." Chen Zhiwen nodded and praised after turning the first page and seeing the catalog list.
Because this document is bilingual in traditional Chinese and English, it is obviously prepared to facilitate his reading, but it also reveals another piece of information. It is unlikely that it will be ready in such a short time from last night to now. This information is in traditional Chinese, so either the two of them had been thinking about selling these car sales stores to themselves a long time ago, or there were other potential Chinese customers before.
The latter is unlikely. Looking at the entire world, there are only a handful of Chinese people who have the ability to help Chrysler. These few people are unlikely to be interested in Chrysler branches. Only Chen Zhiwen is preparing to acquire AMC and its assets are invested all over the world. In many retail terminal fields, if an investment professional conducts analysis, he can judge that Chen Zhiwen, who is preparing to enter the automobile industry, will repeat the old path of other industries and first rely on abundant capital to start the terminal automobile sales field, and then give back to himself. manufacturing.
"This is what we should do. Let me give you a brief introduction." Lee Iacocca said: "These 330 car sales stores are located in 170 cities on the east and west coasts of the United States. They mainly sell various models of Chrysler. It also sells cars of other brands, such as General Motors, Ford, and even some Japanese brands. The location is very good and it is well-known locally. In terms of profitability, it suffered a loss last year, but it was also due to the oil crisis. Previously, losses were incurred only during the first oil crisis in 1974. In other words, without the oil crisis, these stores would have been profitable.
Currently, there are almost 13,000 car sales stores in the United States. We hold almost 2% of them, and our turnover is about 1.5% of the country's. "
PS: There is another one tonight
(End of chapter)
