The return on investment in the automobile industry is definitely not comparable to that of the electronics industry and the future Internet industry. However, as his dream, even if the return is a little lower, it is still worthy of him making a large amount of heavy asset investment in Southeast Asia, and in terms of influence, With the automobile industry, it is even more powerful.
Although AMC is much smaller than the three American auto giants, it still sells four to five million vehicles a year, but most of them are small models, and their individual value may be lower. Such cars are more fuel-efficient and may be more expensive than They are not as good as Japanese cars, but American cars are still safer than Japanese cars, and they will have their own advantages. As long as they take advantage of the opportunity when Japanese cars are still conquering the European and American markets, they can lay out their plans in Southeast Asia first, promote their brands first, and be first in line. That’s enough to capture some of the market here.
Of course, the same is true for the mainland, but there is no way to directly invest in the terminal market, which is a pity. In the 1980s, investment was not possible and there was no need to invest, because once the cars were built, there was no need to worry about selling them. After the 1990s, China will also Promulgated a law that automobile manufacturers are not allowed to invest in terminal sales, that is, 4S stores. In the future, he can only build cars in China honestly.
The next day, Robert Kuok took Chen Zhiwen to a parallel import automobile city with an area of several thousand square meters in the south of Kuala Lumpur city center. This was the first target that Robert Kuok thought of.
Robert Kuok was relatively well-known. As soon as he came here, the owner of the store immediately recognized him and greeted him politely. Chen Zhiwen walked around to take a look.
As I expected, although Malaysia is very poor per capita, there are still many rich people. The automobile city is full of imported cars, the most common ones are Japanese. After all, it is relatively close to Japan, so the transportation cost will definitely be lower. , Japan's influence will also be greater, American General Motors and Ford, and European Volkswagen, Fiat, and Citroën also have some here, but the number is smaller.
Inside the store, there are luxury cars, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lincoln, Audi, Cadillac, etc. The central exhibition area is a Rolls-Royce, but it is surrounded by railings.
An hour later, several people left the auto shop.
"Sheng Chen, I arranged for someone to conduct an investigation last night. In every big city in Malay, there are such auto shops, some big and some small, with different scales, and the bosses behind them are all independent. This will result in no right to speak when importing cars. If we unified acquisition and unified operation, we may be able to negotiate with those cross-border car traders for procurement." Robert Kuok said with a smile.
"Yes, as long as our scale increases, they will also need to rely on us." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said: "These auto trade stores are independent, which is convenient for us to acquire. However, how to operate them in a unified manner still requires Thank you for your hard work Guo Sheng."
Doing business in Southeast Asia is the retail industry that he is good at, and with the low-cost procurement chain of Galaxy Trading, he is not sure that he can make a profit here alone, let alone the auto trade industry where he has no experience.
Recruiting professionals is one thing, but if you don’t have the local resources, or don’t understand the local culture, etc., you will definitely suffer a big loss. Therefore, the auto trade store business also needs to rely absolutely on Robert Kuok.
Of course, as long as the business is done well, there will be no losses. Even if the profit is not much, Chen Zhiwen can still compensate Robert Kuok elsewhere. If there are countless investment opportunities in the mainland, Chen Zhiwen can just take Robert Kuok with him, and he is guaranteed to earn more than him. You must be strong on your own.
This is the benefit of mutual benefit. If you help others make money in the areas you are good at, others can use their resources to help you succeed in the areas you need but are not good at.
"Sheng Chen, you're welcome. In the future, Mr. Chen will take more care of my group's business in Hong Kong or the Mainland." Robert Kuok said with a smile.
"No problem." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, "Did Guo Sheng go to Shanghai to invest in the Shangri-La Hotel?"
"No, I haven't contacted the mainland side yet. I just sent someone to take a look. I'm planning to build one in Puxi. However, I heard that some large-scale hotel projects in eastern Guangdong Province are not progressing smoothly, which makes me a little bit worried. Worried." Robert Kuok said hesitantly.
"That's because it involves foreign exchange, so you will always encounter problems. This is actually normal. Including the hotels in Taishan Club, you may also encounter such problems. Just let your subordinates solve it slowly." Chen Zhiwen shook his head with a smile. said.
At present, in China, except for projects in Shekou or those specially approved by the central government, all projects require joint ventures. Hotels are important, but they do not require special approval from the central government. Naturally, mainland municipal governments cooperate with foreign investors.
If each party owns half, then the foreign investor will contribute half of the funds. In this case, if many items in the hotel come from overseas, it will cause a tense situation of foreign exchange. This is the opposite of the current domestic investment, and it is an important weapon of the country. Investments in the automobile industry must ensure foreign exchange balance.
A five-star hotel in eastern Guangdong Province was also invested by a wealthy man from Hong Kong. He intended to build a super-luxury hotel in Guangdong City, so he invited European designers to design it. According to European and American rules, this kind of hotel The cost of the design team may only require about 5% of the budget, which is US$4 million. From a domestic perspective, this is simply outrageous, and contradictions arise.
It was finally solved later, but many of the hotel's supplies were imported, which caused conflicts. In short, there were many problems. No one could predict them until they appeared.
Therefore, Chen Zhiwen is too lazy to invest in hotels now, and instead leaves it to Hu Yingxiang to come forward. Hotels are not his main business anyway. Even if he will be involved in this industry in the future, it should be after 1986. At that time The country allows sole foreign ownership. If you want to invest in hotel chains in the country, you can just invest money directly. It will be your own funds, and the efficiency will be much higher.
Anyway, the country is so big, even the Shanghai Stock Exchange can accommodate hundreds of five-star hotels. There is no capital to monopolize it, and there is no rush for it.
"I know, so I'm arranging for people to collect other people's experiences and be prepared." Robert Kuok said with a laugh.
"If you are not in a hurry over there in Shanghai, you can consider Shenhai City. The external services here are much better, the cooperation is also high, and there is more internal foreign exchange, making it easier to do things. My father's Hengyi Group is planning to go to Shenhai City. There are two five-star hotels under construction in the city, and Guo Sheng can also check them out." Chen Zhiwen added.
Hengyi is currently preparing to gradually fade out of the Hong Kong real estate market. After the listing, it will have at least 2 billion+ funds in hand. It is just childish to spend a small part of it to invest in the deep sea city.
"Shenhai City, that's fine. Next time I go to Hong Kong, I'll go and have a look." Robert Kuok nodded.
"Next time you go to Hong Kong, tell me in advance and I will arrange for my plane to pick you up." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.
"That's good, I have never flown on such a luxurious airplane." Robert Kuok said with a smile. Although he is known as the Sugar King of the World, he also has his own private jet, but it is small, and it is worse than Chen Zhiwen's Boeing 747. A bit far.
In the following days, Chen Zhiwen also went to inspect the situation of Parknshop Supermarket and RT-Mart Supermarket in Kuala Lumpur. The business was better than he expected. With the cheap procurement chain of Galaxy Trading and the logistics and transportation efficiency arranged by Robert Kuok, , RT-Mart and PARKnSHOP have a strong advantage over other supermarkets in terms of item prices, which can be regarded as a dimensionality reduction blow to other brands.
According to Robert Kuok, if too much haste could lead to the closure of many local mom-and-pop supermarkets, the prices of the two supermarkets would have dropped even further. However, in this way, the supermarkets' gross profit margins would also have been much higher. , which can be regarded as killing two birds with one stone.
Robert Kuok also invited Chen Zhiwen to invest in real estate projects in Southeast Asia, but Chen Zhiwen declined. After all, he knew of many high-quality investment projects and there was no need to take risks in places like Southeast Asia.
Although the trip to Malaysia only lasted a few days, it allowed Chen Zhiwen to have an overview of the development of this retail company here and to make early preparations for the future development of AMC cars in the Asian market. It was considered a complete success.
On November 12, Chen Zhiwen took his own private jet and returned to Hong Kong.
During the period of departure, Hong Kong's real estate prices were still on the rise, especially the auctions of land in Hong Kong Island or Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui. Many Chinese real estate giants and British foreign firms were willing to participate. The same was true for the auctions held by the MTR. Hong Kong's The price of land king is now changing every month.
Although Hutchison Whampoa and Wharf do not participate in various auctions, they are still fully developing their own land and properties in preparation for converting them into more cash.
After getting to know it a little bit, Chen Zhiwen no longer paid too much attention. After all, it is easy to cash out self-owned land at such a high price. As for his father, he is preparing to go public.
The only thing that Chen Zhiwen is more concerned about is the research and development of Midea's first-generation computer. Various details are still being optimized. Some games specially adapted to computers have also been developed, and some connected software has begun to take shape, and in the legal affairs At the request of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, all patents have been registered worldwide.
Just a few more months of testing before it's ready for release.
While Chen Zhiwen was paying attention to computers, thousands of miles away in Yanjing City, in an administrative office building, the senior management of the First Machinery Department was preparing to start a high-level meeting.
In December, Yanjing City was extremely cold due to a Siberian cold wave. Although there was heating in the conference room, a group of people who had just been outside for a long time were still shivering from the cold.
The meeting staff quickly gathered. After a rather elegant leader in his early 60s with gray hair on his temples walked in, everyone fell silent.
"Everyone, I'm sorry, because there is an urgent matter, I have to recall you all from various places to Yanjing City." The visitor said with a smile, without any airs of leadership.
"Minister Rao, why are you gathering us all together in such a hurry?" asked a 50-year-old man.
"Our negotiations with Volkswagen in Germany have now reached a deadlock. Everyone knows this. But a big event happened in the automobile industry in the United States. AMC, the fourth largest automobile company in the United States, was acquired by Hong Kong Chinese Chen Zhiwen. .” Minister Rao didn’t say much nonsense and went directly to the topic.
"AMC? Haven't you heard of it?" Several officials present began to whisper among themselves. They really didn't know about this company, but Chen Zhiwen, an official with some status in Yanjing City now knows about it. After all, Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan Such a large project as the expressway has benefited tens of millions of people in Yanjing and TJ cities, and perhaps their automobile industries have a lot to do with it. When the roads are better, the requirements for cars will be much better, and cars will not be easily damaged.
"Xiao Wang, give me a brief introduction." Minister Rao said to the young assistant beside him.
"Okay, Minister Rao." Secretary Xiao Wang said: "Everyone, I believe everyone knows the three major automobile giants in the United States, but in addition to General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, there are also many small and medium-sized automobile companies in the United States. Of course, these Small and medium-sized companies are compared to giant automobile companies. In fact, they are also very large in scale, with the smallest ones having a scale of hundreds of millions of dollars.
AMC is a company second only to the three giants in the entire United States. Its main models are small cars and some SUV models. Last year, their total sales of cars in the United States were 457,000. "
"450,000 vehicles, that's a lot, isn't it?" After listening to the introduction, the people in the conference room were shocked. Compared with the current mainland's largest automobile company, Shanghai Automobile, its annual production capacity is only more than 20,000 vehicles. .
"Can the group of capitalists in Hong Kong have the ability to acquire such a large company? As far as I know, aren't most of them just building houses in Hong Kong and selling them? Can they make so much money by building houses? Buy such a big car company? "An old man in a gray Chinese tunic suit said in disbelief. For some wealthy people in Hong Kong, they also know that many people rely on selling houses, but there are only so many people in Hong Kong. How many houses can be sold? But you can make so much money to buy a car company? You know, a domestic car, not to mention imported, even domestically made, can be exchanged for two small courtyard houses in Yanjing.
"This Mr. Chen does not rely on selling houses. His industry is mainly electronic products, just like Yanjing No. 1 Electronics Factory, but on a much larger scale. It is said that the products sell well in Europe and the United States and can earn hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That's why I have the ability to buy the fourth largest automobile company in the United States." Rao Bing explained that although he didn't pay much attention to the situation in foreign non-automotive industries, since he was planning to cooperate with Chen Zhiwen, he naturally checked some information in advance to understand Some.
To be honest, it was simply unbelievable that a Hong Kong Chinese could develop to such an extent. He was also shocked when he first learned about it. And such a person's acquisition of a small automobile giant in the United States is a great thing for the country.
"Does Minister Rao want to cooperate with AMC and introduce AMC models?" asked another middle-aged man.
Minister Rao nodded and said: "Yes, I came up with this idea after hearing the news, but because I had no contact channels, I was not in a hurry. But a friend of mine in the United States, who works at General Motors, accidentally I heard that Mr. Chen from Hong Kong intends to build a factory in Asia after acquiring AMC, most likely in the Bay Area, so I think we need to take action, at least communicate with the other party first.
If AMC decides to build a factory in Wanwan, then we have little chance. Although AMC is not as good as Volkswagen in terms of technology or reputation, the Volkswagen board of directors now has strong opinions on whether to invest in China, and this Mr. Chen is at least Willing to invest domestically. "
Beginning in 1978, the country sent several teams to visit international automobile giants in an attempt to cooperate. This was because the quality of domestic cars was so poor that they would easily stall when accelerating normally, and their fuel consumption was very high. The domestic roads themselves are not very good. I don’t know how many cars are often parked on the road. Although cars are not as important as trucks, there is always a strong demand. The quality and quantity cannot keep up, which has seriously affected improve the efficiency of economic operations.
However, when negotiating with so many large companies, only GM and Volkswagen were willing to cooperate, and the others were basically disdainful. Subsequently, GM had no choice but to stop negotiations due to the veto of the board of directors, leaving only Volkswagen.
It’s just that in the past two years, the two parties have gone through more than 30 negotiations, involving so many issues that no one in the country would have thought of, and then solved them one by one. However, many aspects still failed to meet the requirements of the public, and Volkswagen internally was not very enthusiastic about this investment. It was monolithic and many people also held objections, leading to a deadlock in the negotiations.
The automobile industry is a major industry that the central government has focused on, which has also put officials in the Ministry of Machinery and Industry under great pressure.
(End of chapter)
