When will I have a long tassel?

Chapter 510 It’s not a problem

Hearing Tang Zifeng's words, Zhao Xinggen said with a smile: "I really judge a gentleman with a villain's heart. If I had known that Mr. Tang had such a mind, why would I have to do all these tricks."

"Let me tell you what tricks Mr. Gen has done." Tang Zifeng seemed to be talking about something unrelated.

"It's about the acquisition of PATEO..." Zhao Xinggen said awkwardly, "Actually, Xingwang has told me a long time ago that our Zhao Group cannot afford PATEO. Isn't this just for..."

He couldn't go on because what he said next was really ugly. Tang Zifeng spoke up for him: "Isn't it just to use this to negotiate terms with us? Tell us what your real purpose is."

"Actually, I don't want to negotiate terms with Lingji. I just think that if we do it this way, Mr. Tang may pay attention to us, so that we will have a chance to talk to Mr. Tang." Zhao Xinggen said. After that, he quickly added: "However, Mr. Tang, I really didn't expect you to come to our Heling in person. I originally wanted to take Xingwang to Linhe to visit you. If I had known earlier President Tang came to Heling specially, I would never come up with this idea."

Tang Zifeng waved his hand and said: "There is no need to say this. Anyway, now that I am here, I can't tell you what your true intention is."

"Actually, what we like is Italy's Mero." Zhao Xinggen said.

"Mero? What is this for?" Tang Zifeng frowned. He had never heard of this name before, and he couldn't even tell whether it was the name of a company or a person.

Han Weichang said "Oh", and then explained to Tang Zifeng in a low voice: "Mr. Tang, this matter has been circulating in the private entrepreneur circle in Jinnan for a long time. Mero is an Italian carmaker. The brand has a history of more than 100 years. I heard that in the 1960s and 1970s, Mero was also considered a big international brand. Later, it gradually declined. As of now, it has not produced a product for at least 30 years. The car is gone.”

"No wonder I've never heard of this brand." Tang Zifeng nodded, then turned to Zhao Xinggen and asked, "What does Mr. Gen intend to do with such a brand that hasn't made a car for at least 30 years?"

"It's just building cars." Zhao Xinggen said. After the matter was exposed, he stopped hiding and began to return to his normal way of speaking:

"Mr. Tang, our Zhao Group has been mainly engaged in real estate and logistics in recent years and has made some money. However, real estate is getting harder and harder to do now. There are many real estate bosses in Jingnan who are preparing for transformation. Among them are Some people are interested in the automobile market and want to build a car factory.

"Building a car is now very easy. It's just four wheels and three sofas, and the technology is very mature. The biggest difficulty is to create a car brand out of thin air. If consumers don't buy it, the car will be useless." Can't sell.

"Later, someone thought of a way, which was to go abroad to find old car brands and spend some money to buy them and use them. I heard people say that this Mero car was as famous as Mercedes-Benz and BMW in the past. Later, because of It slowly declined due to poor management. By the 1980s, the company had completely ceased production, so we didn’t even know the brand.”

"So you want to buy this brand and use it on domestically produced cars." Tang Zifeng understood.

In fact, the technology of cars is really not that complicated. If you want to build a top-notch Ferrari racing car, of course there are still some difficulties, but there is no technical threshold for ordinary family cars. As long as the funds are in place and a full set of equipment is purchased, it can be produced. The difference in quality does not matter. Not obvious.

Competition in the passenger car market is now largely a battle of brands. Cars are a symbol of wealth, status and taste, so consumers are very sensitive to car brands. Domestic brand cars cannot sell as well as foreign brand cars. In the final analysis, consumers think foreign brands are more high-end. Even if you drive a Korean car, you will have more status than a domestic car.

Zhao Xinggen took a fancy to the business opportunities in the automobile market and planned to build cars, either exclusively by himself or in conjunction with other private enterprises. In order to attract domestic consumers, they decided to go to Europe to buy a long-lost brand and paste it on their own cars to pass it off as a foreign brand car. Such a calculation is indeed shrewd enough.

"How much does it cost to buy Mero's brand?" Tang Zifeng asked.

"The brand alone doesn't cost much, just a few million euros," Zhao Xinggen said. "Merro still has some old patents, which are now used by many European car companies. If we get these patents, we can It can be used to exchange other patents with Mercedes-Benz and BMW, which are also very valuable. Mero's old patents are worth 30 to 40 million euros, and several of our companies plan to join hands to buy them."

"Thirty to forty million, plus several million in brand fees, it's not much money." Tang Zifeng said. Forty million euros is equivalent to more than 300 million yuan, which is indeed not a big amount of money.

"Yes, money is not a big issue." Zhao Xinggen said, "What we are worried about is whether the country can allow us to do this. We asked people to inquire and they said that the country has strict control over automobiles. We I plan to find a state-owned automobile company to cooperate and play a side game, but I am afraid that the state will not be accommodating."

"But what does this matter have to do with me?" Tang Zifeng asked in surprise, with some displeasure in his tone.

Zhao Xinggen laughed along and said: "We know that Mr. Tang has many connections above. If Mr. Tang can help us smooth things over, our affairs will be much easier to handle. My original idea was that we would give up Botai and then trouble Mr. Tang supports our acquisition of Mero. If Mero is acquired, it will become our Chinese brand, and the country should support it, right?"

Tang Zifeng finally understood the whole story.

After a long time of quarrel, the Zhao Group's acquisition of PATEO was a sham, and its real purpose was to use the acquisition of PATEO to make a deal at the last moment. To be more precise, the other party wanted to make a deal with him, Tang Zifeng, and give up the opportunity to acquire PATEO to Lin Ji, in exchange for Tang Zifeng going up to the top to clear up the car-building issues for them.

To put it bluntly, this matter is not difficult for Tang Zifeng. It is not a treasonous thing to buy a brand from abroad and put it on domestic products. In fact, when the company acquired PATEO on the spur of the moment, there was also the idea of ​​using PATEO's brand to attract users.

In any case, Europe's industrialization was 200 years earlier than China's, and China's brand advantage is difficult to shake for a while. You can't criticize consumers for admiring foreign goods. This is human nature and cannot be changed casually. What's more, a considerable part of Linji's product market is abroad. It is much more difficult for Western users to accept a Chinese brand than for them to accept a mature European brand.

Thinking of this, Tang Zifeng suddenly had a thought and said, "Mr. Gen, are you building cars mainly for the domestic market?"

"Of course." Zhao Xinggen responded, "Now it is too difficult for our domestically produced cars to be sold abroad."

"What is the reason for the difficulty? Have you analyzed it?"

"The reason... maybe the brand awareness is too low? Our domestic brands have a history of 20 years at most, which is not as long as that of foreign brands. As for those joint venture brands, foreign joint venture partners do not allow them to Let’s take out food abroad.”

"However, these two issues are not a problem for you, Mr. Gen." Tang Zifeng said with a smile.

"For us..." Zhao Xinggen was stunned for a moment, and then he came to his senses, "Isn't it right? If we get Mero's brand, it will be an internationally renowned brand. And this brand is owned by us. We can sell wherever we want.”

"At the very least, you have no problem selling to Africa." Tang Zifeng said, "Africans admire European brands very much. I guess you can still see Mero brand cars on the streets in Africa. In those countries, It’s not surprising that a car can last forty or fifty years.”

"That's right, Mr. Tang really reminded us." Zhao Xinggen became excited, "Mr. Tang, if our cars can be sold to Africa and earn foreign exchange for export to the country, it will be easier for the country to talk about it."

Tang Zifeng said with a smile: "Mr. Gen's thinking should be updated. Now we are still talking about earning foreign exchange through exports. Our country has trillions of dollars in foreign exchange and we still can't spend it. You use the excuse of earning foreign exchange through exports." Talk to the National Development and Reform Commission, I’m afraid the National Development and Reform Commission won’t care about you.”

"Hey, Mr. Tang is right, my brain really can't keep up with the times. So, what do Mr. Tang think we should say?" Zhao Xinggen asked.

Tang Zifeng said: "Now we have the best name. The country has just put forward the concept of building the Belt and Road Initiative and encourages companies to develop in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative. If you can build your car factory in Africa, hire local people." It has workers and the products are sold locally. It can definitely be regarded as a model project for the Belt and Road construction. Are you still worried that the Reform Commission will not support you?"

"Great! Oh, if we had thought of asking Mr. Tang for advice earlier, why would we have to take such a detour? Mr. Tang, don't worry, our Zhao Group has completely withdrawn from the acquisition of PATEO. Not only did we withdraw , if other companies in Jingnan have this idea, we will also advise them to give up, and we will definitely not cause any trouble to you, Mr. Tang."

Zhao Xinggen slapped his chest loudly and promised Tang Zifeng.

Although Tang Zifeng gave him an idea to develop in Africa, if he wanted to set up a car factory, he still had to deal with the "relevant departments" of the country. Who knows if there are any things that need to be settled by Tang Zifeng? Now I promise Tang Zifeng more. When I ask Tang Zifeng for help in the future, I think Tang Zifeng will be more dedicated, right?

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