Reborn Tycoon Rise

Fortune Economic Weekly was born in 1930. It mainly publishes research articles on economic issues. Since the launch of the Global 500 list in 1954, it has always been the focus of attention in the economic community and has had a huge impact.

Although the Forbes ranking seems to be more famous in mainland China in later generations, Fortune magazine has always been superior in terms of economic authority. As for this ranking, in the 1980s, Forbes only counted listed companies. , and "Fortune" also added unlisted companies.

Listed companies publish financial reports every year, and statistics are extremely simple, but unlisted companies are different. Specific investigations require extremely high costs and time, but this is why Fortune is more specific and authoritative in this era.

Although he wanted to see Fortune magazine's evaluation and introduction of him, he was not too anxious during the Chinese New Year. On the second day of the new year, Xu Zhicai calmly informed his assistant, who then contacted his colleagues in the United States. , by the time the weekly magazine arrived in Xu Zhi’s hands, it was already the fifth day of the Lunar New Year.

In fact, Midea's conquest of the U.S. gaming industry has attracted the attention of many authoritative economic magazines. Coupled with Xu Zhi's consecutive acquisitions of Hutchison Whampoa and Hong Kong Electric Group in 1979, the company secretariat has received numerous requests from all over the world. There are enough interview letters to fill a small bookshelf.

However, Xu Zhilan's interview was not acceptable even with his reputation in Fortune magazine. Linda, who was in charge of the investigation, was helpless. However, she did not give up. She stayed in Xiangjiang with the entire team for two months to make statistics. Xu Zhi's main industry.

On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, Xu Zhin came to the company headquarters for the first time in a new year.

Sitting by the floor-to-ceiling window of his office on the top floor of Hutchison Building, Xu Zhi was basking in the sun. The winter sunshine was very soft and the indoor temperature was not very low. He was reading the Fortune magazine he had just received and drinking a glass of it. Cappuccino, if you raise your eyes for a moment, you can see countless ant-sized pedestrians downstairs, hurriedly going about their lives.

It has to be said that magazines like "Fortune" are indeed very professional, and Xu Zhi's assets are counted very clearly:

A traditional enterprise in Hong Kong, Xu Zhi holds a total of 49% of Hutchison Whampoa's shares. Hutchison Whampoa's current market value is HK$5.3 billion.

28% stake in Cheung Kong Holdings, current market value of Cheung Kong is HK$3.2 billion

It holds 36.8% of the shares of Electric Power Industry, which currently has a market value of HK$3.1 billion.

It holds 36% of the shares of TVB, but TVB is an unlisted company with a valuation of HK$1 billion.

Owns two buildings, Federal and International!

At the same time, it wholly holds all the land under the former Hong Kong Electric Group.

Holds 100% interest in the Mong Kok Center project.

These are properties that Xu Zhi apparently owns in Hong Kong. The total value of these properties exceeds 10 billion Hong Kong dollars. However, Fortune magazine also stated that these assets must have used highly leveraged financing methods. As for the amount of debt, Fortune magazine based A large number of business models in Hong Kong are estimated to be between HK$6 billion and 8 billion.

Xu Zhi smiled after reading it and had to admire these professional magazines. In fact, the data was similar. The original acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa was because he and Li Jiacheng cut a wave of leeks in the stock market. The acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa and Yangtze River shares cost It was all my own money and I did not borrow any foreign debt.

But from the beginning of Hong Kong Electric, they desperately began to use bank funds. They borrowed HK$2 billion to acquire Hong Kong Electric, spent HK$3.1 billion to privatize Hong Kong Electric's real estate business, and borrowed HK$1.4 billion to purchase the Federal and International Building. Mong Kok Center's The entire project also borrowed almost HK$500 million, and the total liabilities totaled almost HK$7 billion.

As for some other real estate projects, there are also loans, but they all use their own projects as collateral and set up separate fund operations. In fact, these loans add up to a lot of funds, but basically the loans can be paid off when the project is completed and are not included in the calculation. total liability.

However, what "Fortune" didn't know is that land prices have almost doubled in more than a year. After Evergrande privatized Hong Kong Electric's land and properties, it began to sell off a large number of assets in non-core locations, along with a large number of Chinese capital. The company has recovered more than 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollars from developing its land properties, and in 1981, the land price was at its peak. It is possible to earn more than 2 billion Hong Kong dollars, which is enough to repay the privatization loan. In this way, it is equivalent to Evergrande making a free profit from several core properties and land owned by Hong Kong Electric. If these land prices were based on the land prices in 1981, they would be worth at least HK$3 billion.

As for Xu Zhi’s other core industry: Midea Electronics, because it is an unlisted company, various data are extremely difficult for Fortune to obtain:

The first is the arcade machine. Over the years, although Midea has launched a small number of arcade machines, each one is extremely popular, from the very beginning of Snake, Xiangjiang Cube, Tank Battle, and Pac-Man to the later Soul Fighting Luo, Super Mario, Donkey Kong, etc., each of these once dominated the entire American market.

The King of Fighters, launched at the end of last year, detonated the entire arcade industry, bringing arcades into the realm of two-player confrontation. People go to arcades to play arcades not to kill time, but to engage in "forced confrontation" with friends and indulge in it. I don’t know how many teenagers there are.

In 1978, Japan's Taito Company earned more than 100 million U.S. dollars with its "Space Invaders" game. Fortune magazine concluded that Midea's annual net profit would never be less than 200 million U.S. dollars, or even more, just from its arcade machines. !

Another product of Midea, Gameboy, has formed a strong monopoly in the handheld field. Although Sony also launched the same gamewatch, the latter's global sales are only 1/10 of the former. With several of its own classics small games, Gameboy has formed a monopoly in the hardware field with software quality.

However, "Fortune" also conducted an in-depth investigation. Although Gameboy sales exceeded 10 million units a year, Midea took the low-price route in order to monopolize market share. According to "Fortune" estimates, the net profit of a Gameboy is about The total profit from sales of 10 million units is US$1-2 at most, and the total profit is US$20 million at most. Taking into account various advertising cost factors, the handheld console is not the core profit product of Midea Group.

Midea's third product is a home game console. This product has now competed with the global hegemon Atari in the United States, and has begun to erode Atari's monopoly in terms of market share. It is said that last year Sales in the United States alone exceeded 3 million units.

This number is nothing compared to the Atari 2600, which has sold 25 million units, but data surveyed by Fortune magazine show that countless families who bought Midea game consoles have begun to look down on the games carried on the Atari 2600 console.

Fortunately, Midea has not opened up global third-party licensing like Atari, and is far from the latter in terms of game types. This has not threatened its dominance for the time being. In order to deal with this threat, Atari began to produce a large number of games, intending to win through quantity.

"Fortune" magazine conducted surveys in many places in the United States and analyzed that Midea's game consoles follow the strategy of low-priced consoles and high-priced game cartridges. The price of Super Mario and Contra alone is as high as 80 US dollars per game. In comparison, Atari's normal game board only costs $25.

But Midea's strategy was very successful. After a long investigation, Fortune found that a large number of customers who bought Midea game consoles would buy several additional cartridges for other games, even if these games were expensive. Even the investigative reporter Dou used his personal money to buy a console + game disk, and then gave it a very high evaluation!

"Fortune" magazine finally judged that the annual net profit of Midea's game console business was no less than that of arcade machines, at least US$200 million.

As for the other personal computer business, Midea has just started and its business is not big. Fortune only mentioned it slightly in the analysis of the article and did not describe it too much.

However, Fortune also stated in the article that it was very unfavorable about the RCA TV business it acquired last year. The analysis pointed out that RCA's own business was already in many difficulties. Coupled with the pollution incident that broke out last year, it not only caused serious losses to the company's brand, but also caused serious losses to the company's brand. Problems with the supply of goods for a period of time also have an impact on the entire sales system.

Under such circumstances, an Asian company actually acquired the business, spending nearly US$500 million and taking on a lot of liabilities. This acquisition was not favored by Fortune. At the same time, tens of thousands of RCA employees in the United States were also "Fortune" determined that it would become a liability for Midea's company.

Therefore, Fortune values ​​Midea at US$1.5 billion.

"Dong dong dong..." There was a knock on the door, and secretary Zhou Xiqian walked in and said, "Xu Sheng, Mr. He Guoyuan is here."