Reborn Industrial Tycoon

Chapter 606 Building a Bridge

"Has the negotiation for Volvo's acquisition of the heavy machinery factory been concluded?"

Li Weidong held the phone, his tone full of surprise, but his expression did not look surprised.

At this time, Li Weidong bullied Li Zhongwei, unable to see his expression through the phone, and deliberately acted to possess him.

Li Zhongwei, who was on the other end of the phone, said, "I didn't expect the talks to go so quickly. According to the news from the translator we sent, the talks went very smoothly.

After simple bargaining, the two parties determined that Volvo would acquire 90% of the equity of the heavy machinery factory for US$58 million!"

"So cheap? It's less than 500 million yuan. The assets of the heavy machinery factory should be more than this!" Li Weidong said.

"The assessed assets of the heavy machinery plant are more, but Volvo said that they will use the heavy machinery plant as the Volvo Group's production base in Asia. At that time, advanced construction machinery technology will be moved here, and these will also be counted as investments.

." Li Zhongwei answered.

"Theoretically, there is no problem. Technology is the primary productive force, and technology can be exchanged for money, but I always feel that it is cheap."

Li Weidong paused and then said: "That Olaf came to visit me before, and it was clear that he wanted to take the opportunity to lower the price. The heavy machinery factory should be able to calm down after knowing these tricks played by the Swedes!"

"Maybe they are eager to complete the signing! After all, the negotiations have been going on for a long time, and they don't want to delay it any longer." Li Zhongwei paused and then said, "

"I have told the Heavy Machinery Factory about Olaf's plan, and also advised Zhang Tao to wait a little longer and grind it out with the Swedes. However, they still agreed to the Swedes' conditions.

Although I have the power to guide this matter, it is not convenient for us to interfere too much. The state has decided not to interfere in business operations many years ago. As long as there is no sale of state-owned assets at a low price, it is not easy for us to interfere in enterprises.

business negotiations between.

And it is also a good thing for Volvo to settle down. If Volvo really builds its Asian production base in Qinghe, the upstream industrial chain will also come, and our city's manufacturing industry will also be greatly improved.

"

The settlement of a large enterprise will not only create jobs and tax revenue for itself, but also bring other enterprises in the supply chain, and these enterprises can create more added value, which is also a point of great concern to the local government.

Therefore, when attracting investment, the larger the enterprise, the more the investment personnel will bow to their knees.

If a company like Boeing or Airbus goes to a third-tier city and says I want to put the production line here, the people responsible for attracting investment will be able to serve on their knees throughout the process.

Because of this, Li Zhongwei is happy to see the success of this acquisition.

Anyway, the heavy machinery factory is a fixed asset. Even if it is sold cheaper, Volvo cannot move it away, and it will end up rotting in Qinghe.

After ending the call with Li Zhongwei, Li Weidong also breathed a sigh of relief.

"I originally thought that Li Zhongwei could help delay it for a year and a half, but I didn't expect that Zhang Tao, a boy with such soft bones, couldn't bear to be frightened, so he fell to his knees so easily!"

According to Li Weidong's plan, the negotiation will have to last at least another half year before it can be concluded. Zhang Tao and his subordinates are more greedy than the others and will definitely try their best to get benefits from Volvo.

But he didn't expect that these people couldn't help but scare him. Even though Li Weidong had judged that Volvo's visit to Fukang Engineering to inspect was just a price-cutting strategy, Zhang Tao still quickly chose to compromise and signed a contract with Volvo.

"But this is fine. After all, we are leaving Volvo in Qinghe! It would be really difficult for me to deal with it in any other place. Now that you're here, don't leave. This heavy machinery factory is the prison I prepared for you!"

Thinking of this, Li Weidong picked up the phone and dialed a number.

"Hey, Bridge Engineering Research Institute? Please help me find Academician Chen..."

…

After the news of Volvo's acquisition of Qinghe Heavy Machinery Factory came out, it undoubtedly caused an uproar among domestic peers.

After all, Volvo is the world's top construction machinery company. With the technical level of domestic companies, it will take at least five to ten years to compete with Volvo.

The Swedes are also very efficient, and they quickly shipped part of the production line from Sweden.

With the support of the Swedes, the entire heavy machinery factory seemed to have returned to its most glorious era ten years ago, and the old factory area was revitalized overnight.

In contrast, there is some panic within Fukang Engineering. Once a heavy machinery factory rises, Fukang Engineering will be the first to bear the brunt.

Qinghe City, a small place like this, cannot support two construction machinery companies, and the nearby market is not large enough for two construction machinery factories to survive.

At that time, the loader factory was almost bankrupt due to a run on the heavy machinery factory, and was then acquired by Li Weidong.

It took Li Weidong nearly ten years to finally push the heavy machinery factory to the edge of bankruptcy.

Now, between the heavy machinery factory acquired by Volvo and Fukang Engineering by Li Weidong, only one is destined to survive.

Including Ding Youliang, the management of Fukang Engineering is somewhat worried. After all, they have never directly competed with such a large international company.

Early in the morning, Ding Youliang found Li Weidong.

"Chairman, Volvo's engineers arrived yesterday. It is estimated that the heavy machinery factory will start debugging the new production line soon." Ding Youliang said a little impatiently.

"It shouldn't be a production line for core equipment, right?" Li Weidong continued calmly: "As long as Volvo doesn't move the core technology over, we don't have to worry. Besides, Volvo, which I also laid out, will send the core technology to China so easily.

."

Market exchange for technology has always been an important strategy for China when facing foreign investors. However, there are always some foreign investors who want the Chinese market but are unwilling to use their own technology.

This is the case in the field of construction machinery.

Foreign construction machinery companies have long been eyeing the big market of China and can't wait to make money.

However, China is different from other developing countries. China only lags behind in technology, but it still has an industrial foundation. It can produce construction machinery on its own. Although the performance is inferior, it can be used with makeshift machinery.

Many developing countries have no industrial base at all, so they really can't produce anything, so they can only be at the mercy of technologically advanced developed countries.

It has a certain industrial foundation, which is one of the reasons why China can trade the market for technology.

As early as the mid-1990s, construction machinery companies in developed countries have begun to cooperate with Chinese companies. From the initial establishment of joint venture factories for spare parts to the establishment of complete construction machinery manufacturing companies through joint ventures.

Many domestic construction machinery giants also have precedents of cooperation with foreign companies, such as XCMG and Caterpillar, Sany Heavy Industry and John Deere, Changzhou Machinery and Komatsu Manufacturing, etc.

However, these foreign-funded enterprises are not willing to bring core technologies to China. After they establish joint ventures with Chinese enterprises, they try every means to obtain the equity of the enterprises by various means.

Take the joint venture established by XCMG and Caterpillar, for example. At that time, both parties jointly invested US$82 million to establish an excavator company and operated it jointly based on a 4:6 share ratio.

According to XCMG's plan, it can suffer some losses in terms of investment and shareholding, but as long as Caterpillar can bring over advanced technology, it will not worry about the profitability of the joint venture.

However, this joint venture has been losing money, which is completely beyond XCMG's expectations.

There are two reasons for the loss. First, Caterpillar is unwilling to bring core technology to the joint venture. Without core technology, it can only continue to purchase from abroad.

And this is also the second reason why the joint venture is losing money, that is, it has been purchasing core products from Caterpillar's foreign companies.

Caterpillar is moving money from the left pocket to the right pocket, but XCMG is losing money.

This is also a routine operation for many foreign-funded companies and is no secret in the manufacturing industry.

The reason why Caterpillar did this was to force XCMG to withdraw from the joint venture and achieve the goal of becoming a sole proprietor.

In the following years, Carter continued to increase its equity through capital increase and share expansion, while XCMG's equity ratio was diluted from 40% to 15.87%.

In the end, Caterpillar simply gave up and asked XCMG to withdraw from the joint venture.

This joint venture is Xuda Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Fortunately, XCMG itself has two plans. While establishing the joint venture, XCMG has been researching excavators on its own.

After XCMG withdrew from the joint venture, it began to launch its own excavators, initially small excavators, and then further transitioned to medium and large excavators. In the end, it became one of the top construction machinery companies in the world, capable of challenging Caterpillar.

Caterpillar wants the market but refuses to provide technology, so most of the companies they invested in China have been reduced to factories producing parts. However, after the rise of Chinese companies such as XCMG, Sany, and Zoomlion, they have

Became a competitor of Caterpillar.

Foreign construction machinery companies have always used "absolute holding and brand control" as the rules of the game in overseas mergers and acquisitions.

In fact, this method was used by Caterpillar when it was in Japan, and it was the famous Mitsubishi Heavy Industries that they used.

When Caterpillar originally invested in Japan, each of the joint ventures with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries held 50% of the shares. Within a few years, Caterpillar's shares became 67%.

This time delayed the expansion of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in the field of construction machinery, allowing companies such as Komatsu Manufacturing, Hitachi Construction Machinery, and Kobelco Construction Machinery to catch up and surpass Mitsubishi, the big brother, in the field of construction machinery.

Li Weidong is well aware of the behavior of foreign-funded enterprises and knows that they will never bring core technologies to China. Companies like Volkswagen in Germany that are willing to move technology from more than ten years ago to China are already considered conscientious companies.

Therefore, Li Weidong is not in a hurry about Volvo's investment. As long as Volvo does not bring core technologies, Chinese companies will still have room to compete.

What's more, Li Weidong also had second-hand preparations. He had already set a big trap for Volvo.

Now, some of Volvo's parts production lines have been moved here, and Li Weidong's plan is about to be implemented.

…

Under the leadership of his secretary, Li Weidong walked into Li Zhongwei's office. At this time, Li Zhongwei was lowering his head to review documents. He looked up at Li Weidong and said, "Chairman Li, please sit down first."

The secretary brought Li Weidong a cup of tea, and Li Weidong thanked him, and then said: "Boss, I see that you are very busy, so I will keep the story short. I am here to see you today, and I have two things to report.

The first thing is that the real estate development loan has been approved, but the bank needs to go through procedures to mobilize funds, so the loan will be received in batches within the next three months.

I have already started the construction of the ceramic products mall. The construction period is expected to be ten months. In addition to various acceptance work and internal decoration, if it goes faster, it can be opened by this time next year!"

"It will be operational next year, faster than I thought!" Li Zhongwei raised his head and continued: "But we must pay attention to the quality of the project and not cut corners."

"Leader, don't worry, I'm building a market for myself. How can I cut corners when building a house for myself?" Li Weidong laughed, and then said: "As for the second thing..."

Li Weidong stood up and walked to a wall. There were three maps hanging on the wall. The first was a map of Qinghe City, the second was a map of Handong Province, and the third was a map of the whole country.

.

As for the world map, although there is no one on the wall, there is a globe on Li Zhongwei's desk.

Li Weidong pointed to the national map and said, "Our wholesale mall currently has two main trade routes, one is to the Beijing-Tianjin region in the north, and the other is to the Yangtze River Delta region in the south. These two routes mainly take the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway.

."

Li Weidong pointed to the route of the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway and continued, "I plan to open up a third trade route, which is to go east, to Dongdao City, Shigang and Laigang!"

"Are you planning to develop international trade?" Li Zhongwei had already put down the documents in his hands and listened carefully to Li Weidong's explanation.

Li Weidong explained: "In the past few years, Yiwu was mainly engaged in domestic trade. In recent years, it has started to engage in international trade. I heard that it has made a lot of money. Since we want to catch up with Yiwu, we cannot lag behind in this aspect!"

We open up trade routes to the East and develop international trade. Those who are closer can do business with Japan and South Korea, while those who are farther away can cross the Pacific and do business with the United States. Isn’t it better to earn US dollars than to earn RMB!"

Li Weidong walked to the map of Qinghe City again and introduced: "We usually transport goods eastward by rail. This is also a regular route and has been used for decades.

However, there is a disadvantage in railway transportation. You can’t just move the goods if you want. When the goods can be moved and how much can be moved at a time, it is the railway department that has the final say. And many times if it cannot fit into one carriage, people are not willing to transport it at all.

.

In addition, railway transportation also needs to transport the goods to the train station, and when unloading the goods, the customer also needs to hire a car to transport them to their own warehouse, which is quite troublesome.

The second is road transportation. The advantage of road transportation is that it is fast and flexible. The goods can be taken away whenever they want, and they can be transported directly to the location designated by the customer. Therefore, currently, merchants in our wholesale mall ship goods to the east.

It's still mainly highways.

Leaders, please see, the road transportation route has to bypass the urban area, so after starting from the wholesale mall, first go 25 kilometers to Nanrao, take the Shengli Bridge, cross Qinghe, then get on the 225 Provincial Road, and go north to the 206

National Highway, then go east.

This detour requires at least an extra 60 kilometers of walking, which is really inconvenient. It has already affected our commercial transportation to the east, so I wonder if we can build another bridge near National Highway 206.

In this way, freight vehicles don’t have to go so far, they can directly cross the bridge and get on to National Highway 206! This can save the 60 kilometers of detour.”

"Build the bridge?" Li Zhongwei frowned and thought for a moment, and then said: "Building the bridge is a good thing. It can also promote communication between the two sides of the Qinghe River.

But repairing a bridge requires a large amount of money, especially a bridge carrying freight vehicles, which requires a large investment. With the current financial situation of Qinghe City, we cannot spend so much money to repair this bridge!"

Li Weidong smiled slightly; "Leader, I didn't say we should build it now. I just proposed such a plan. You can see if it is feasible. And when we really need to build the bridge, we can also use social financing.

At least the logistics companies in the wholesale mall are definitely willing to pay. A 60-kilometer trip to Shaorao means a round trip of 120 kilometers, which can also save a lot of gas money!"

Li Zhongwei nodded: "With the development of the city, building bridges is inevitable, so this plan is definitely feasible, but where to build it, how to build it, and what kind of building it needs, planning, research and expert guidance are needed.

discuss."

"That's what the leader said." Li Weidong continued; "I know an expert named Chen Tongshu. He is an expert from the Bridge Engineering Research Institute and an academician of the Academy of Sciences. I would like to invite him over first to make a plan for us.

."

"Academician of the Academy of Sciences? That's much better than the bridge experts here!" Li Zhongwei said immediately; "Chairman Li, if Academician Chen really comes to our Qinghe, you have to inform us in advance so that we can greet Academician Chen.

Wash off the dust!”

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