America's Road to Fame

Chapter 421
At that time, in the segmented field of consumer electronics, ATL was already known as the world's number one in the battery industry.

And the reputation of ATL's battery is also good. For example, in Chen William's previous life, around the end of 2016, South Korea's Samsung Company launched the Note7, and there was a case of battery explosion, and this phone was sold in mainland China. Yes, but there are almost no such incidents, the least of any region in the world.

The official reason given by Samsung is that the Note7 mobile phones sold in mainland China use different battery suppliers, and this supplier is ATL.

However, the ATL company at this time also has hidden dangers, that is, in order to grow rapidly and expand its scale, they initially introduced too much venture capital funds, resulting in a small proportion of shares held by the entrepreneurial management team.

Then when they succeeded, those investors left the market in order to cash out and sold their shares to a Japanese company-TDK Group, which was acquired as a whole.

Since then, ATL has become a company founded by Chinese people and managed by Chinese people, but the behind-the-scenes boss is a Japanese company.

This also caused many difficulties in the development of their company. The ATL company with the name of a Japanese company is already considered a foreign investment, and it will inevitably be tied to expand new businesses in China.

The most important thing is that just this year, Huaguo domestically began to support new energy vehicles. At this time, Huaguo's domestic new energy bus market has begun to take shape.

However, due to national regulations, wholly foreign-owned enterprises cannot produce power batteries!

So just recently, Zeng Yuqun has prepared to spin off ATL's power battery business, led by them, to form a new company, break away from the parent company, and start a new business.

This company, which Zeng Yuqun intends to establish in his hometown - Ningde, Min Province, is the Ningde era that was famous in William Chen's previous life - CATL New Energy Technology (CATL), focusing on power batteries for electric vehicles.

William Chen had a friend who traded in stocks in his previous life. He was most enthusiastic about the new energy sector. He talked about the stock of Ningde Times all day long. Therefore, William Chen still has some understanding of the ins and outs of this future giant in the battery industry. Zeng Yuqun was about to leave ATL, so he sent someone to contact him to invest in his new company, Ningde Times.

It's just that Huaxia Future Capital encountered some difficulties when contacting Zeng Yuqun.

The main reason is that now Zeng Yuqun has learned the lesson of ATL's acquisition, not only is he very cautious about accepting investment, but also to allow the creation team to maintain absolute control of Ningde Times, and it is even more necessary for Ningde Times, a company with Chinese capital. Background, foreign ownership of shares, very vigilant.

As for Huaxia Future Capital, in essence, it still has a foreign background, which has a very big disadvantage in this kind of investment.

Therefore, when William Chen came to Shenzhen this time, he hoped to meet Zeng Yuqun and see if he could be persuaded to agree to his investment.

In fact, Zeng Yuqun is also very entangled in Chen William's investment intentions, because on the one hand, Chen William's reputation is too great. If he invests, after the development of the Ningde era, there is no need to think too much. There is a problem with the investment, and his investment reputation has always been very good, let alone worry about being acquired by others like ATL.

In addition, William Chen is currently the most well-known leading company in electric vehicles - the largest shareholder of Tesla (Musk's shareholding is already lower than that of William Chen, but he has high voting shares and is still Tesla's largest shareholder) controller), so if William Chen can have a stake, CATL will be able to get Tesla's battery orders from him.

In the development of ATL Company, Zeng Yuqun deeply felt how being a member of the supply chain of industry leaders like Apple and Tesla would help the company's development.

But the current reality is like this. Huaguo has begun to vigorously support the new energy industry. Zeng Yuqun can see that the domestic electric vehicle market is about to take off. Faced with this trend, he naturally hopes that Ningde era can take off.

But in terms of policy, it is obvious that local enterprises in Huaguo are the most supportive. Therefore, Zeng Yuqun must maintain the premise of the Chinese capital background of the Ningde era. However, the introduction of Chen William's investment was okay at the beginning, but in the later stage, After the IPO of Ningde Times, it is difficult to guarantee that he can keep control of the company, which is also the biggest problem he is struggling with.

In fact, the problem that Zeng Yuqun was struggling with was very difficult for the people of Huaxia Future Capital to solve, because they couldn't change the fact that Future Group was a sole proprietorship of William Chen and itself a foreign capital.

But for William Chen, it is still easier for him to solve this problem.

Just like he used Fan Bingbing's Meishen Film and Television Investment and Yang Mi's Weimi Investment to invest in the film and television industry that also has restrictions on foreign capital, Chen William can also complete the investment through the relevant Huaguo background investment company. Investment in Ningde era.

And the so-called Chinese-funded background does not mean that there cannot be any foreign investment, but that the company cannot be a wholly foreign-owned enterprise. Otherwise, these companies will not be able to raise funds from US stock IPOs.

Therefore, after arriving in Shenzhen, William Chen went to meet Zeng Yuqun in person, and without much effort, he had already persuaded the other party to accept his investment.

The plan provided by William Chen has already been used in his previous investment. First, Huaxia Future Capital will only participate in this seed round of financing. For subsequent investments, William Chen will use investment companies with a Chinese background. conduct.

The second is to sign an agreement in the investment to ensure Zeng Yuqun’s control over Ningde Times’ operations, and to support Ningde Times in writing to use the AB share structure in future IPOs to maintain management’s control.

Thirdly, William Chen will serve as a matchmaker for the cooperation between Ningde Times and Tesla. Under the premise that the battery quality is guaranteed, Ningde Times will have a higher priority for cooperation.

Through these promises, William Chen relieved Zeng Yuqun of his worries, and finally decided that Huaxia Future Capital will invest US$1 million at a post-investment valuation of US$2000 million, holding 20% ​​of Ningde Times shares.

At the same time, Zeng Yuqun also made up his mind to separate from ATL with his team and prepare to go to Ningde in Min Province to start a new business and create Ningde Times New Energy Technology Company.

With the accumulation of battery technology in ATL, its own R&D team, and the financial support provided by William Chen, Ningde Times has already had a good foundation since its establishment. William Chen also believes that this time In the Ningde era, there will be a smoother development process.

(End of this chapter)