With the establishment of Yanjing Jeep, Chen Zhiwen's investment plan in the mainland has also come to an end for the time being. First, because this market currently has few opportunities for foreign investment, and most fields have not been opened to the outside world. The investment is entirely to enter this market first, and the rest is just to use the cheap labor force in the mainland to produce the simplest light industrial products.
The next best time is after 1984. After the leaders see the economic results of the Deep Sea Special Zone and the Shekou Industrial Zone, they will further open up more special zones and welcome foreign investment. At the same time, the domestic economy will It will be much better than now.
This happened to avoid the most turbulent years of 1982 and 1983. During the economic crisis in Hong Kong, you could also use your own funds to take advantage of the sharp fall in the stock market and land prices to make substantial purchases.
As the first joint venture factory in China and capable of driving the improvement of the domestic automobile industry chain, Yanjing City attaches great importance to this project. On the third day after the contract was signed, all relevant people within the land acquisition scope came to the rescue with the help of the government. Next, they moved out of their homes, many construction machinery could enter, and thousands of workers began to build short-term residences nearby. Everyone started to move.
After the visit, Chen Zhiwen was also very satisfied with the speed. However, as a conscientious capitalist, Chen Zhiwen paid for it alone and sent a red envelope to everyone. It was not much, 100 Hong Kong dollars per person. In addition, he also received money from the Yanjing General Supply and Marketing Cooperative. , bought 30 tons of bacon and salted chicken, and each person can get about ten kilograms, which he can bring to his home. Maybe he can eat them until the Chinese New Year.
As for the more than 300 households in the two villages that needed to be relocated due to the construction of the factory, Chen Zhiwen also sent bacon and coal. The latter was for their winter needs. The sudden move caused a big change in the environment, although Yanjing City had already done so. I was prepared, but after all, it was still no better than what I had at home, and there was certainly compensation for it. However, considering that the temporary residence might not be as cold-proof, I sent some more coal. Otherwise, if there was not enough coal, in the severe cold in winter, , not something you can buy just by having money. The winter in the 1980s was much colder than 40 years later. Even in the south, people can easily walk in the river.
Chen Zhiwen would not ask too much about other professional matters. He only needed to know the approximate time point. Considering what RCA was doing in Wanwan, sometimes the people under his command might make their own decisions, so he informed him many times. After making sure to pay attention to environmental issues, Chen Zhiwen left Yanjing.
Time soon came to early 1982.
Henry Morgan, with the help of multiple investment banks, locked up about 21% of RCA shares, spending about US$700 million. This also consumed most of Henry's cash assets and also owed some debt. This capital It is not a big figure for Chen Zhiwen, but it is also a huge sum of money for Henry.
However, what is gratifying is that the plan is now smoother than expected. RCA, as a traditional industry, has actually been gradually abandoned by investment companies. It does not mean that it is no longer possible, but that it has reached the end of its development and there is no room for improvement.
And relying on the 21% of the shares locked in his hands, Henry Morgan met with several powerful leaders of the Morgan family after New Year's Day. After some negotiations, the Morgan family also decided to support Henry. After all, one of the three major television stations in the United States , no consortium would think this is unimportant, and over the years, the Morgan family's status in the United States has been on a downward trend, and there is an urgent need for more companies with greater influence.
And when Henry already owns 21% of the stock, the Morgan family also knows that it is impossible to take away this equity as an insider of the family, and it is impossible to bypass it.
Thus, the alliance was formed.
Next, the Morgan family sent people to Bay Bay, but they had no interaction with RCA. Instead, they discussed the possibility of cooperation with the Bay Bay government. For example, some of the physical properties of the Morgan consortium could consider investing in Bay Bay, and Morgan's bank also We can consider large-scale lending in BayWan, or participating in the financing of infrastructure, assisting BayWan companies in listing in the United States, or serving as a matchmaker to guide some technology companies in the United States to cooperate with BayWan, etc.
Everything sounds huge, but it is also a plan. Whether it can be finally implemented is another matter. Moreover, these cooperations are actually very feasible in themselves. In other words, even if it is not for RCA , these projects themselves are also profitable. Naturally, the Morgan family does not engage in loss-making business. If they find out through discussion that the returns may be high, then they will really invest.
Although the Morgan family's size and influence in the United States have not been as large as in the 1930s in the past few decades, they are still a behemoth. Such a large consortium suddenly showed an attitude of interest in Wanwan, which naturally flattered the Wanwan government. At present, The Wanwan, like the mainland, prioritizes economic development. With such a big pie, it naturally took the bait and sent a huge business team to connect with the Morgan family.
The contact between the two parties was also very smooth. The first person to invest in Wanwan was a small beverage company in North America. The investment intention was reached within a week. They were willing to invest in a beverage factory in Taoyuan City to take advantage of Taoyuan City’s high-quality environment. to produce beverages for the American market.
Although the investment is not large, the speed is so fast that the Bayan government sees hope for the future. If everything goes well later, then this year (1982), the Bayan government can obtain more than one billion U.S. dollars from the Morgan family. Investment, this is no less than RCA ten years ago, an absolute great achievement.
Chen Zhiwen also knew everything, and was very satisfied with Morgan's operation. Only such a large consortium in the United States could do such a thing. Wait until the right time, and then suddenly detonate, and the rest would be a siege. .
Soon, the time came to the end of the year.
An unexpected but reasonable thing happened.
American Fortune magazine announced this year's Asian Person of the Year, and the winner was naturally Chen Zhiwen.
"Fortune" magazine was first published in the United States. Henry Morgan knew about it first, so he called Chen Zhiwen directly.
In the mainland of China in later generations, Forbes has a greater reputation, mainly because of its "Forbes Ranking" name. In the early 1980s, the globally recognized financial magazine was "Fortune", and the ranking list it launched, As early as 1954, it began to promote the Global 500.
However, in the 1950s to the 1970s, it was difficult to check the status of a company. The easiest way was to use listing information instead of listed companies. Unless it was very large, it would not attract the attention of Fortune. .
Chen Zhiwen was selected, and naturally his two companies, Red Bull and Midea, became best-sellers around the world.
Red Bull is a bit better. Although its profit margin is high, it takes a high-end route and most people will not drink it under normal circumstances. This results in a small total market. At least compared to Coca-Cola, it is probably very small. It doesn’t have the scale of one, plus the beverage industry doesn’t attract much attention, and Red Bull’s finished products are not sold intensively. It is estimated that it will be difficult to attract the interest of Fortune.
But Midea is different. In the past few years, its monopoly position in the arcade market has made many peers jealous. But after all, arcades are only a very small market. The entire U.S. market is estimated to be only a few hundred million dollars a year. This is compared to The giant companies are far behind, but the Famicom and the handheld game boy are selling well in the United States. The sales volume is so huge that even an ordinary reporter can find it, not to mention Fortune magazine. In addition, Midea has begun to enter the computer field again, so any No one can ignore its terrible influence.
Of course, the same goes for Costco. The company's expansion rate in the United States is astonishing, and it has become one of the small retail giants that cannot be underestimated in the American market.
Although there is no Internet, once the breaking news in the United States is released, the whole world will basically know it very quickly. The next day, newspapers and media in Hong Kong will publish the news on the front page, but they have not yet received the information from Fortune magazine. But Chen Zhiwen had already obtained the original copy, and Henry Morgan immediately arranged for someone to take the nearest flight and send the magazine to Hong Kong.
The content of "Fortune" is naturally in English, which is naturally not a problem for Chen Zhiwen. His English is pretty good, and with so many years of study, as long as it is not a vocabulary in a professional field, he generally has no problem reading articles. Besides, although some content in Fortune magazine is very professional, the words used to attract attention are relatively simple.
After all, the world's languages, that is, a few languages such as Chinese, can use the original vocabulary to create new words, while Western languages must create new words. From the perspective of technological development, Western languages are stupid languages, because one person It takes a lot of effort to learn the vocabulary of your own specialty.
At noon that day, Chen Zhiwen came to the company after having lunch at home and sat in a sunroom on the highest floor of the Galaxy Building. The winter sun was very soft and very comfortable. In the sunroom, there was no need to turn on the air conditioner to keep warm. temperature.
On the home page of Fortune magazine is Chen Zhiwen's photo, which is a bit blurry and obviously taken from other places. Over the years, Chen Zhiwen has also participated in many exposure activities, such as invitations from the Hong Kong government, large-scale auctions, Banquets of wealthy people in Hong Kong, annual meetings or important gatherings of their companies, as well as some events in the United States, many public events, there will always be many people taking photos, and these will also be leaked, but this is normal, huge wealth It can't be hidden. After all, with the huge amount of transactions and the employment of hundreds of thousands of people, every move will attract countless attention.
"Fortune" first counted Chen Zhiwen's wealth in the United States. The focus is naturally Costco, one of the U.S. retail giants that has publicly raised funds. The last valuation was US$1.5 billion. However, "Fortune" also collected information from some channels. I know that in order to expand, Costco has increased its debt on a large scale, especially building second or even third Costco stores in first-tier cities. Although the overall turnover is higher, the average single store turnover has declined. At the same time, Costco has also begun to enter smaller cities. Anyone with a little analytical experience knows that Costco's model is most suitable for big cities. The smaller the city, its profitability will inevitably decrease.
Therefore, the rapid expansion has made some people not look at this special model that is only suitable for big cities. Another point is that Costco is consulting with multiple satellite companies and is preparing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a satellite into space. This matter Many people cannot understand this, and it has even led to some funds that had invested in Costco intending to sell their shares.
But there is also a good point, that is, except for Sam's Club under Wal-Mart, other large supermarkets have entered warehouse supermarkets, and their results are not ideal. Although they continue to persist and even expand, everyone can see their weakness. Sam's The membership stores are very good, but Wal-Mart is also on the road of rapid expansion and currently does not have strong investment capabilities for the growth of Sam's Club stores.
After many considerations, "Fortune" set Costco's current valuation at US$2 billion. Costco's current share allocation is 70% for Chen Zhiwen, 20% for the management team headed by Pierce, and previous financing. At that time, foreign capital obtained 10% of the shares.
In other words, just for Costco, Chen Zhiwen has assets of 1.4 billion US dollars. However, "Fortune" also stated that because this is an unlisted company, how much debt is owed and whether there will be other shareholders, etc. None of it is public, and this data can only be used for reference.
In Hong Kong, the only two large listed companies owned by Chen Zhiwen are Wharf and Hong Kong Electric, with current market values of about HK$4.5 billion and HK$2.5 billion. Chen Zhiwen probably controls about 40% of the shares each, worth about US$600 million.
Hutchison Whampoa is a non-listed company that has investments overseas and in the Mainland. However, Fortune seems not to be optimistic about its investment in the Mainland, especially the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan Expressway. This project requires a huge investment. If there is no way to achieve poor results in the later period, there will be losses. It will be as high as hundreds of millions or even billions of US dollars. Therefore, Fortune only values Chen Zhiwen's most valued company at US$500 million.
As for Galaxy Group, its trading company is indeed large enough, but its profit margin is extremely low. This was also found by Fortune, and its valuation is only US$200 million. But this is pretty much the same. Although Galaxy Trading has a huge turnover, it not only supplies Costco and Wal-Mart, but also relies on its extremely high cost performance to become a supplier to Celtic, Sears and some large supermarket companies in Europe. Currently, the monthly turnover exceeds 150 million US dollars, but the profit is indeed very low, basically controlled at around 1-2%. This purpose is also to learn from Coca-Cola and reduce costs to the extreme. Others have no way to do it. Step in and gradually expand.
As for some properties owned by Galaxy Group, "Fortune" has not counted them because these are non-public transactions and they are far away in Hong Kong. Naturally, reporters in the United States may not be willing to investigate so deeply.
The most noteworthy ones are Red Bull and Midea, but the news about these two companies is completely closed, especially Red Bull. Although outsiders know that its profits are high, its long-term advertising investment also makes Fortune not sure whether it currently has Profitability, but still bullish on the beverage company with a valuation of $500 million (Coca-Cola is around $4-5 billion at this time).
As for Midea, it is much stronger. Especially the sales and huge profits of arcade machines, home game consoles, and handheld consoles are known to all electronics majors. Relatively speaking, other companies such as personal computers, home appliances, and automobiles are very popular. The spare parts business is just a child's play, although any of these, if it becomes an independent company, can also become a large company that makes all the difference in Hong Kong.
"Fortune" values Midea at US$2.5 billion, which is actually an underestimation of Midea's value. You must know that in the past six months, Midea earned US$620 million from its gaming business alone. According to US listed companies Judging from the financial report data, it has surpassed General Electric.
Of course, the technical capabilities are far behind. Midea simply captures people's needs for video games.
But even if it is underestimated, such a market value is second only to several giants in Japan in Asia. In the United States, it can also be ranked among the top ten in the electronics industry.
Finally, "Fortune" stated that when Chen Zhiwen made his fortune in Hong Kong, he once controlled a large number of properties, but later sold them. It is unknown where the funds went. They may have been used as internal funds for other companies, or they may have been invested in other companies. At the same time, "Fortune" also found that Chen Zhiwen signed many bank debts, but the details were not clear. Therefore, in the end, "Fortune" set Chen Zhiwen's net worth between 4.5 and 5 billion US dollars, officially replacing the previous Pao Yugang of the United States and Wang An of the United States have become the richest Chinese in the world.
On the third day, relevant information from Fortune magazine reached Hong Kong, and all the contents were published in the newspapers. Public opinion in Hong Kong suddenly exploded.
(End of chapter)
