Rebirth of the World’s Richest Man

Chapter 2948 The Four Major Automobile Manufacturers

Jiang Xiaobai arranged the contact route and was about to go back. As soon as he made contact, Ford Company, which had been paying attention to the news of Huaqing Holding Group, had already received the news.

 Then an urgent meeting was held. The content of the meeting was also very simple, that is, how to receive Jiang Xiaobai.

 How to receive Jiang Xiaobai? It seems to be a simple reception issue, but what is reflected is the attitude towards Huaqing Holding Group in the subsequent negotiations.

 Should it be an appropriate concession, or should we continue to take a tough stance?

This is a question. Appropriate concessions, even a small concession, involve amounts and assets in the tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions.

 At the end of the meeting, Ford finally agreed that these brands were too much of a drag on Ford and diverted too much of Ford's energy.

Now Huaqing Holding Group wants it and has the strength to afford it.

 There are many people in the automobile industry around the world, and there are also many powerful companies that can take over many of the automobile brands they hold, such as the four major automobile manufacturers, General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota, etc.

It must be very simple to eat these things.

  Let’s take other companies as an example, such as BMW, DaimlerChrysler, etc. These can all be acquired.

 But for these companies, they won’t come to acquire these brands. After all, they don’t have any brands.

For example, General Motors, the well-known ones include Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, and Hummer, all of which are GM.

 From low-end to mid-range to high-end, we have cultivated our own brands.

ˆ Let’s talk about Volkswagen’s brand group including Audi, Lamborghini, Volkswagen, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche, etc.

That is also a lot.

 Everyone has their own brand group, so why would they acquire your brands?

 Everything is a loss in your hands. If you don’t want it, will others want it?

 Find a suitable one to buy and those who are interested in it, such as some small car manufacturers, but they do not have the strength, so they have more than enough ambition but not enough power.

 So Ford wants to shrink its front lines and deal with these brands, but that is just for the sake of looking at it, and there is no money. Those with strength are looked down upon.

 It’s not easy to deal with it either. Except for Huaqing Holding Group, Huahai Automobile has been established for a short time and has not cultivated its own brand group. It needs to acquire some brand groups to fill itself.

 It just so happens that Huaqing Holding Group has this demand and has the strength.

It is not easy to meet such a buyer. If you miss this buyer, you don’t know when the next buyer will be.

So on the fourth day after Jiang Xiaobai arrived in Nuoyue City, the president of Ford Company, along with several vice presidents and heads of the negotiation team, came to the hotel where Jiang Xiaobai was staying to pay homage to Jiang Xiaobai.

This time, all the main people in charge of Ford Company came over. Jiang Xiaobai stopped worrying about it and just packed it up and came down.

There was no such thing as jet lag or acclimatization. The two parties had a pleasant chat at first, and then Jiang Xiaobai attended the belated reception banquet prepared by Ford Company.

Of course, it’s not called a reception banquet here, but a welcome dinner.

On the fifth day after arriving in Nuoyue City, the work officially started, and the inspection and evaluation process entered.

 Jiang Xiaobai also began to visit various automobile manufacturers. The founder of Ford is known as the man who "put wheels on the world", and Ford is currently one of the four largest automobile manufacturers in the world.

 It employs 500,000 employees, and its annual sales exceed 100 billion US dollars. It also has many sub-brands.

The brands that are planning to transfer out this time alone include Land Rover series cars, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Volvo.

 The four brands involve a lot of assets and so on.

 Ford is particularly active and wants to package and sell these four sub-brands at once.

However, Jiang Xiaobai's attitude is not very positive. Anyway, if you invite me to visit, I will visit, and if you invite me to inspect, I will inspect.

 I read the materials that were handed to me when I needed to, but after reading them, I didn’t rush to express my opinion.

 Instead, let Ford quote a price.

 Ford's offer for Land Rover's cars was proactively lowered by US$100 million to US$1.1 billion, and then Jaguar's offer was US$1.5 billion.

This adds up to 26 US dollars, and Aston Martin’s price is quoted at 800 million US dollars, adding up to 3.4 billion US dollars.

 Then Volvo’s stock price is 1.6 billion US dollars, which adds up to 5 billion US dollars.

Five billion US dollars, this sounds like an astronomical figure to ordinary people, but from Ford's point of view, this is a tough deal.

 It’s really a huge sale.

 When it originally purchased Land Rover, it cost more than 2 billion U.S. dollars. At that time, Ford purchased all four-wheel drive vehicles from BMW, including Land Rover.

It cost 3.9 billion U.S. dollars, of which the Land Rover series cars were quoted at around 2 billion U.S. dollars.

 Now it only has 1.1 billion US dollars, a loss of 1 billion US dollars.

The acquisition price of Jaguar is even more expensive. In order to acquire Jaguar, Ford mobilized US$4 billion. So far, it has only dared to quote US$1.5 billion, resulting in a loss of US$2.5 billion.

Aston Martin did not spend less when it was acquired. Now it has quoted a price of US$800 million, but it has also lost hundreds of millions of US dollars.

 Finally, there is Volvo. When Ford acquired Volvo, it spent a total of 6.4 billion U.S. dollars. Now the quoted price is 1.6 billion U.S. dollars, and it suddenly lost 4.8 billion U.S. dollars.

  If you calculate carefully, these four brands have lost more than 8 billion US dollars. Now they are packaged and sold, but they can’t hold on.

I want to shrink the front line, but the front line is too long and I really can't bear it. Even if it is a loss, I need to sell it.

Just hearing this offer, Jiang Xiaobai was already happy. It was five billion US dollars. If Ford had not taken advantage of this opportunity, Ford would not have packaged and sold it at such a low price.

ˆ Comprehensively shrink the front line and maintain profitable brands. There is no point in keeping these brands that have invested so much money but are unable to make profits and continue to suffer losses.

This is no exaggeration. For example, Aston Martin has experienced seven bankruptcies. It has been tossed back and forth between various funds. Sometimes it cannot continue to operate after a period of time.

It's not that Aston Martin's brand is not well-known enough, these are royal cars, but its production capacity and sales volume are not good enough, and it is always losing money.

 (End of this chapter)