Reborn Tycoon Rise

News of Wheelock's acquisition came and went as quickly as it came.

On January 16, 1985, the fourth day after the public launch of the acquisition, Hutchison Whampoa Group publicly announced that it already held 52% of Wheelock's shares and would launch a comprehensive acquisition invitation at 15% of the stock market price before the acquisition. .

Hutchison Whampoa Group never pays dividends, which makes all investors gnash their teeth. It clearly holds tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars, but it refuses to distribute any to shareholders.

Now more than half of Wheelock's shares are in the hands of Hutchison Whampoa. Even if some shareholders reject the acquisition price, Wheelock will definitely implement Hutchison Whampoa's policy of not paying dividends in the future.

Having no voice and no dividends naturally led to a large number of investors selling their stocks after thinking twice.

One week later, Hutchison Whampoa acquired 90.3% of Wheelock's shares and entered the final step of the acquisition, forcibly delisting and conducting full privatization.

What followed was even simpler. Within a month, Hutchison Whampoa and Wharf's delegation conducted more than ten negotiations. Hutchison Whampoa resold all non-high-quality assets under Defeng to Wharf, leaving only Three core companies: Commonwealth Real Estate, Lane Crawford and Wheelock Shipping.

The core assets of Federal Real Estate are Wheelock Building and some shops in Central and Kowloon areas, all of which have been merged into Land.

Lane Crawford naturally merged into Watsons and became an independent high-end department store brand.

Wheelock Shipping changed its name to Hutchison Shipping Company. Due to serious losses, Hutchison also separately allocated HK$300 million to maintain its operations and wait until the shipping market recovers before making plans.

There are hundreds of other small companies involved in many types, from car repairs to hairdressing chains, from hardware and electrical machinery to plastic products companies, but they are all very small in scale. Although these companies operate independently, many are still operating. Profitable, but Hutchison Whampoa obviously looked down upon it and arranged a special intermediary company to put everything up for sale.

At this point, Wheelock, once one of the four major foreign banks in Hong Kong, completely disappeared. Among the four major foreign banks, only the Swire Group and the Jardine Matheson Group, which began to withdraw from Hong Kong after losing its land, were left.

…

In Prince's Building, Central, the temporary headquarters of Midea Group:

"Chairman, all our negotiations with Shanghai Municipality have ended. Shanghai Municipality has allocated a thousand acres of land for us in Anting District for the construction of the first phase of the new factory. At the same time, the nearby farmland will also be used as a reserve. , to prepare for the second and third phases in the future." He Guoyuan came to the company early in the morning and reported the good news.

Although both parties have reached an agreement, an investment project worth hundreds of millions of dollars cannot be launched immediately without discussing the details. In three months from October last year to February this year, the negotiation teams of both parties finally reached an agreement. The speed is already considered very fast in the business world.

Xu Zhidao: "Okay, the factory construction must be done as quickly as possible. How is the procurement of production equipment?"

"I just want to report this to you." He Guoyuan said: "Huo Jianning sent several inspection teams to Europe last year. They have reached an agreement of intent with Siemens. The new production line is expected to arrive in Shanghai early next year. By then, the factory's infrastructure will be almost completed, and the domestic team is now making preliminary preparations for listing in Shanghai."

"Okay, I'm still very confident in Huo Jianning's ability." Xu Zhi nodded and said: "If we follow this progress, by the end of next year, the first phase of the price war will begin in the United States. In terms of sales channels, you still have We need to pay more attention to the progress of the American team."

"Don't worry, Chairman, I have allocated another 50 million US dollars for the expansion of the US sales team and advertising. In addition, Best Buy has covered almost all major cities in the United States. Once the price war starts, channels will definitely not be a problem." He Guoyuan assured.

Xu Zhi nodded and said, "Okay, we have invested more resources in the United States. Asia is our home market, and the weakest is Europe. The European market may enter last, but we need to be well prepared!"

"Chairman, the European color TV market is not the main market for Japanese electronics giants. Do we need to have a price war in Europe?" He Guoyuan asked.

"Of course it is necessary." Xu Zhi said with a smile: "If you think about it, it is difficult for even Japanese brands to enter the European market. This also shows that the market there must be very resistant to Asian brands. How can we not rely on low prices? Maybe you can get in.

But this was at least in the 1990s. It’s hard to say what changes will happen in the future. Let’s wait and see. "

"Okay, I understand." He Guoyuan nodded, took out another document from the document bag, handed it to Xu Zhi, and said: "Chairman, this is Midea's revenue and profit data for all departments of the company last year. .”

Xu Zhi took it, turned it over twice, and said, "It's up to you to tell me!"

The financial statements of formal large companies are relatively complicated. Of course Xu Zhi can understand them, but he still needs to study them carefully.

He Guoyuan also understood his boss’s temperament and reported: “Chairman, currently, Midea’s main profit-making departments are games, software, personal computers, and home appliances.

In the game department, global arcade sales last year reached 400,000 units, with a net profit of US$280 million. Sales of home game consoles were 5.6 million units, a total of 83 million game cartridges, and total profits of US$460 million. The total sales volume of Gameboy is 18 million units, but the profit is not high, only 20 million US dollars. There are also sales of some games on personal computers, with a profit of almost 30 million US dollars.

In terms of software, WordExcel has the best sales and is suitable for most computers currently on the market. PPT has higher hardware requirements and is currently difficult to popularize. Others such as CAD and painting software have high unit prices and profits, but the market is limited, and the entire software department Last year's net profit was US$180 million.

In terms of personal computers, last year we sold a total of 720,000 units of four models of computers under the Honor brand, with a total profit of US$263 million.

As for household appliances, global sales of color TVs last year were 8.8 million units, and about 2.5 million units were manufactured. However, the sales of household air conditioners and refrigerators were not high, with sales of 800,000 units and 1.4 million units respectively. Because we built the factories ourselves, we incurred a loss of US$56 million due to investment costs.

In addition, we also have some factories, semiconductor memory chips, LCD factories, and our own assembly factories, but these are internal transactions, so their data do not appear in the final financial report. "

Xu Zhi listened to the report and at the same time looked at the information in his hand according to the data. After combining it, he immediately had a direct sense and said: "The total profit is 1.16 billion US dollars, which is indeed very good. According to the data compiled by Forbes last year, our company's profit It is enough to enter the top 20 in the United States, but we are also moving forward on one leg. The game is almost our lifeblood. In the next few years, we must invest more resources in the personal computer."

In the 1980s, the only companies in the world that could achieve a net profit of one billion US dollars were super giants with huge influence, such as IBM, General Electric, Boeing, or the automobile, oil industry, banking, insurance, retail, etc. The existence of the top few in the industry.

Midea may be comparable to these giant companies in terms of net profit, but its actual influence is far behind. The rapid development of the personal computer market can fill this gap.

He Guoyuan said: "We have reached an agreement with IBM. The personal computer market will explode soon. By then, whether it is hardware or software, our revenue will increase significantly."

"Well, personal computers will determine whether Midea can become the world's top electronics company. Otherwise, no matter how much money we make just by playing games, we won't be able to become a big success." Xu Zhi shook his head and smiled, Later generations of Nintendo and Blizzard, no matter how good they are in the gaming field, are still one level behind Sony, Panasonic, HP, and Dell, even if they have high market value or profits.