Material Empire

Compared with the interests of shareholders, Snyder undoubtedly values ​​​​his own interests more.

In fact, the idea of ​​selling Nice Company did not come from Snyder. If he could choose, he would prefer to keep Nice Company going. If Nice Company is sold, he will be the CEO, and the new owner will definitely not give him such a position. And if Nice Company is still in the hands of the original shareholders, even if it is in a recession like it is now, he can at least bear a false name and show some status in front of others.

However, the company's shareholders will not take this into consideration. In their view, Nice Company has no hope of rising, and it is better to sell it early than to sell it later. As for the impact on Snyder's identity after the sale, what does it have to do with them?

This kind of contradiction between shareholders and managers is the quite popular principal-agent problem in economics. the best.

Snyder doesn't understand the principal-agent model. He only knows that if the Chinese are willing to acquire the Nice Company and at the same time allow him to stay in the management position of the Nice Company, then these two in front of him will be his new future employers, and they are A new owner who can bring benefits to himself.

Mr. Xiao is right. Snyder organized the sentence in his mind, and then pretended to be reserved and said: As a professional manager who has served Nice Company for many years, I have deep feelings for Nice Company. I also hope that I can continue to contribute to the development of Nice Company. If your company intends to acquire Nice Company and is willing to continue to inject funds into Nice Company, then our interests should be completely consistent and we can fully communicate.

We are very pleased that Mr. Snyder is willing to cooperate with us sincerely. Qin Hai spoke, and Snyder has already handed in the letter of surrender. How can he not accept it, We have sincere wishes We came here to discuss the acquisition of Nice Company. We hope to fully receive Nice Company’s brand, equipment and technology, including all technical personnel. Our initial estimate of the purchase price is 320 million US dollars. What does Mr. Snyder think of this price? ?”

This price is lower than the board's expectations. However, in view of the sincerity of Mr. Xiao and Mr. Qin, I am willing to persuade the board of directors to accept such a price. Snyder said.

In fact, the purchase price of US$320 million is already higher than the board's expectations, and Snyder is fully confident that the board will accept this price. However, negotiations are like this, no matter how good the terms are, you have to pretend to be embarrassed in order to win more benefits for yourself.

Qin Hai didn't try to expose Snyder's lies. It's not that he didn't know how much the Nice company's board of directors valued the company. The reason why he wanted to acquire the company at a premium was not without additional conditions, and the additional conditions were very difficult.

Thank you Mr. Snyder for your cooperation. Qin Hai first affirmed Snyder, and then continued: Mr. Snyder, please explain our acquisition conditions in detail when reporting to the board of directors. We hope that We can get all the assets of Nice Company. After the acquisition is completed, we will divide Nice Company into two parts, and one part of the assets will be kept in the UK to continue production; the other part of the assets will need to be dismantled and shipped back to China in order to make full use of China's Cheap labor resources. This condition needs to be explained before the acquisition.”

Disassembly? Snyder frowned slightly: Mr. Qin means that you plan to ship some of the equipment back to China?

Yes. Qin Hai nodded and said.

So that's the case. Snyder understood, no wonder the two Chinese were so generous, it turned out that they had such an idea.

Semiconductor technology is so sophisticated because the equipment it involves is very complex. According to the classification of SEMI, which is the International Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Industry Association, semiconductor manufacturing equipment can be divided into seven categories: plate making equipment, wafer preparation equipment, thin film growth equipment, graphics processing equipment, doping equipment, microchip assembly equipment, Test Equipment. Each type of equipment includes several sub-categories. For example, in the so-called pre-process stage of semiconductor manufacturing, exposure machines, gluing and developing devices, wet etching equipment, degumming machines, and dry etching equipment are required. , Diffusion/oxidation furnace, ion implanter, sputtering table, expansion resistance instrument, Fourier infrared instrument, scanning electron microscope, etc. dozens of different equipment.

It is very difficult for one country to cover the manufacture of all these equipments. Western countries are also able to establish such a huge semiconductor equipment manufacturing system by huddling together for warmth. Then, in order to limit China's development and maintain a strategic advantage over China, Western countries imposed an embargo on a considerable part of semiconductor equipment, which blocked China's development of the semiconductor industry. Although China has developed some equipment through self-reliance, it is still far behind the level of foreign countries.

Although Nice Company is only a second-rate company in the international semiconductor market, its semiconductor manufacturing equipment is far more advanced than that of Chinese companies. Qin Hai paid a high price to acquire Nice Company in order to obtain these devices and ship them back to China.

Snyder is no stranger to these situations, and has also realized Qin Hai's plan. But he had to admit that this was a difficult problem Qin Hai posed for him, because even the second-hand equipment used by Nice Company is still within the scope of export restrictions to China. The difficulty in transporting these equipment back to China is very huge.

Mr. Qin, I'm sorry, you should know that some of our company's equipment is included in the Batumi restricted shipment list. If you want to disassemble these equipment and send them back to China, it may be difficult to pass the Batumi review. Ned said.

Hasn't Batumi been disbanded? Xiao Weihao reminded softly from the side.

Yes, Batumi has been disbanded, but this does not mean that the restricted shipment list has been cancelled. Snyder said, To tell you the truth, the Americans are initiating a Wassenaar Arrangement, as far as I know In this case, this arrangement will fully inherit Batumi’s control list and rules.”

The so-called Batumi, whose full name is Paris Coordination Committee, is a multilateral export control coordination committee initiated by the United States in November 1949. The US embassy headquartered in Paris, hence the name. The members of Batumi include the United States, Western European countries and Japan, whose purpose is to contain the development of socialist countries such as the Soviet Union and China.

In the Batumi Organization, there are three control lists, namely the International Atomic Energy List, the International Military List and the Industrial List, which involve industrial machinery, electronic equipment, transportation equipment, metal materials, minerals and their products, chemical products, and petroleum products. , weapons, atomic substances and equipment, etc. When member states need to export the above-mentioned products and technologies to restricted countries, they need to submit an application to Batumi first, and the export license can only be issued after obtaining the unanimous consent of all member states.

Batumi is a product of the Cold War, so with the end of the Cold War, Batumi has less and less reason to exist. On March 29, 1994, Batumi member states held a high-level meeting in Wassenaar, the Netherlands, and decided to dissolve Batumi. The decision came into force on March 31, and Batumi finally died without a problem.

However, anyone with a discerning eye can see that the emergence of Batumi is nominally to curb the development of the military power of socialist countries, but in fact it is to protect the technological advantages of Western countries, so that Western manufacturers can rely on this advantage to develop globally. capture excess profits. The dissolution of Batumi does not mean that Western countries will abandon this policy of restricting the development of socialist countries, so the so-called Wassenaar Arrangement came into being.

The Wassenaar Arrangement is the inheritance of Batumi, and its origin can be traced back to the Wassenaar Conference before the dissolution of Batumi, but the Wassenaar Agreement was finally formed in November 1996. The Wassenaar Agreement stipulates multilateral control of conventional military products and dual-use goods, in which the so-called dual-use goods are items and technologies that take into account both military and civilian uses, including advanced materials, material processing, electronic equipment, computers, telecommunications and information Security, Sensors and Lasers, Navigation and Avionics, Marine, Propulsion and Spacecraft, and more. As for which scope is dual-use, it depends entirely on the two lips of the participating countries.

At this time, the Wassenaar agreement has not been officially signed, but as a CEO in the European high-tech industry, Snyder can still know some of the details. It is precisely because of this that he knows how difficult it is to transport Nice's equipment to China.

Qin Hai and Xiao Weihao looked at each other. They had already heard about the Wassenaar agreement, and they were not surprised to hear Snyder say it now. However, they did not expect Snyder to think of the Wassenaar agreement so sensitively. It seems that the opponent's Cold War nerves are still very tense.

Nice Company is a civilian product company, whether it is Batumi, or the Wassenaar arrangement you mentioned just now, it won't impose restrictions on civilian products, right? I don't think there will be any other companies except us. The investors would be willing to pay such a price to acquire Nice Company, and Mr. Snyder should know this. Qin Hai said.

Of course I know. Snyder didn't pretend anymore. It would be boring to pretend to be stupid in the conversation between smart people. It was just a waste of words.

Qin Hai's meaning is very clear. He actually thought of the issue of the restrictions on transportation, and he also knew that there would be great difficulties in transporting these devices back to China. It is precisely for this reason that he will pay such a high price. Now he threw this hot potato to Snyder, and asked the other party to choose: Either accept the price and find a way to help Qin Hai obtain these devices; or... then he can only hehe.