The Industrial Giant Reborn - Chapter 607

c599 The arrival of the Plaza Accord

Mini’s investment in the mainland has been settled here. Although I am the boss, for such a big matter, I still need to convince all the management. Otherwise, if there is a dispute over the general operation direction just after the acquisition, it will only Increase internal friction for no reason.

Some things can be done in the simplest way, so don’t complicate them. Even the ancient emperors had the power of life and death over their ministers, and they also needed to discuss various matters with them. Only in this way, and with good cooperation, can efficiency be maximized. Highest.

Of course, everyone also has their own Xiao Jiujiu in their hearts, and the issue of interests is also an eternal existence of all parties. What Chen Zhiwen can do is to seize the biggest piece.

In the UK, in addition to mini, there are two important things. One is the acquisition of Standard Chartered shares. This matter is still being implemented slowly. Anyway, it will have to wait until Lloyds Bank launches the acquisition station next year, and he does not need to do any other operations. , Second, is Watson’s acquisition of Tesco.

This matter did not go smoothly because Tesco was unwilling to sell.

This is actually normal. They are running the business well, so why should they sell it to you? It doesn’t matter if you have money, it will work. As a company with a history of decades and generations, it is not like Hong Kong. As long as the money is in place, most companies can be traded.

As a last resort, Chen Zhiwen did not want to launch a hostile merger in Europe and the United States. Therefore, the matter was stuck. Watsons could only continue to communicate with Tesco’s management and acquire Tesco’s shares at the same time. This way you can be better prepared for the future. At the same time, other suitable targets are also being looked for.

Chen Zhiwen didn’t pay much attention to this matter. Business in this world is not something you can just acquire if you want. It’s not that easy. For such a trivial matter, it is enough for him to know the progress, and it is not enough for him to step in and do anything.

After staying in the UK for a week, Chen Zhiwen rushed back to Hong Kong again.

In total, he has been abroad for more than half a month. He misses his children very much. Fortunately, he is a rich man and can use satellite communications to transmit videos and make video calls with his family, but the cost is very high. It’s high, but it’s nothing to the Chen family.

He has this thing on his plane and also at home so that he can use it later when he is outside.

However, limited by the technology of this era, the video is still very blurry and can only be seen roughly. It is far different from later generations of even thousand-yuan machines.

After returning to Hong Kong, nothing bothered him for a short period of time. He could just spend time with his family without any worries.

…

Time flies and September 22nd arrives soon.

Japan, Tokyo, and the world’s attention are focused here at this moment.

The finance ministers of the United States, Japan, Britain, France, and Germany signed the world-famous Plaza Accord in Tokyo. In the future, the finance ministers of the five countries will join forces to control the foreign exchange market in order to protect the U.S. dollar system.

In addition to the U.S. dollar, the other four monetary sovereign countries will sell the U.S. dollar to buy back their own currencies. The United States does the opposite. The core purpose is to depreciate the U.S. dollar currency against other mainstream independent currencies around the world, thereby reducing the U.S.’s Debt pressure and annual trade deficit, but because global trade is dominated by the U.S. dollar, and the currencies of many small countries and regions are also bound to the U.S. dollar, if you don’t study it in depth, you will think that it is the Japanese yen and the British pound. The appreciation of currencies such as , Mark and so on.

Of course, regardless of research or not, judging from the global total data, it is still equivalent to the currency appreciation of these countries. The purpose of the United States is to save its own manufacturing industry and suppress the industries of Japan and Germany. As for why If these countries would agree to this kind of operation that benefits themselves and others, then we can only say that the American aircraft carrier is awesome.

Because it is a mainstream currency, the relative depreciation of the U.S. dollar actually has little social impact on the U.S. dollar system. Instead, it is the industries of Japan and Germany that are affected. Their export industries have suffered a huge blow. Even if the process is slow, the exchange rate The impact of the fluctuations is still far-reaching. The first thing affected is the low-end and mid-end industries. Take Japan as an example. Although Japan has long entered the developed world, many low-end industries have been affected by its industrial chain advantages and the care of its own domestic enterprises. We can still barely survive, but this wave of exchange rate surge has caused exporters to die immediately. In addition, in this era, the United States has anti-dumping tariffs on many industries in Japan, resulting in Japan’s mid-to-low-end manufacturing industry having to be quickly relocated. , and because of cultural and distance factors, the mainland is naturally the first choice. Therefore, one of the beneficiaries of the “Plaza Accord” is the mainland.

Hong Kong’s currency is pegged to the US dollar, so there is basically no impact. Only a small number of businesses selling Japanese goods may be damaged. However, this kind of business can be transferred at any time, and if you buy Japanese assets, you are prepared. I collected the money lying down.

Hong Kong, Hong Kong Building Headquarters:

“Sheng Chen, you are really clever. The United States is really going to forcibly lower the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar.” Zhou Jiayang said with a smile. Also here are Dong Youwei from Land Land, Lei Shengli from Midea, and Qin Zhihao from Red Bull. These companies have all invested heavily in the Japanese real estate market in the past few years, or directly purchased the stocks of some Japanese real estate companies.

“There are actually quite a few people who can predict it. Judging from the situation of the Japanese market in recent years, many people have already invested heavily.” Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

Any opportunity or crisis will never be so quiet, especially when it comes to evading government policies. Perhaps the core content is absolutely confidential, but it is difficult to hide what countries need to do. Yes, because there are too many people involved, and there are many smart people who will judge the future economic policy direction based on the economic conditions of each country. For example, the simplest thing is that when inflation becomes serious, the European and American governments will inevitably raise interest rates, and After the interest rate hike, there are too many financial derivatives that can be operated. Of course, there are still risks, and that is the timing. If you want to get enough benefits in the financial market, you have to use leverage. Once the timing is wrong, your bet will be Even if the direction is right, the whole army will be wiped out.

However, the risk of betting on the rise in the exchange rates of Japan or Germany, Britain and France is very low, because this will be a long-term trend. The U.S. government’s fiscal deficit and trade deficit, as well as the decline of a bunch of core manufacturing industries, will inevitably cause the U.S. government to take some measures. to save their own economy. In addition, before such an agreement is signed, the time for discussion among several countries will be in years. Smart people will naturally have entered Japan, Germany, Britain and France long ago, which is the main issue of leverage.

Among the four countries with relatively rising exchange rates, only Japan has the greatest potential for investment. It has also signed an agreement on rising exchange rates. In fact, the exchange rates of Germany and Japan will rise at about the same rate in the next five years, but Germany has. There is no serious economic overheating, and even exports are only partially affected. The UK and France are a little worse than Germany, but they are almost the same. Only Japan, while its exchange rate is rising, has absorbed a large amount of hot money. The surge caused the real estate and stock market to double, and one Tokyo bought half of the United States. This is a portrayal of this madness.

No one can control this kind of thing. No matter how strong Chen Zhiwen’s butterfly effect is, it can’t affect Japan’s development pattern. Besides, he doesn’t want to affect it. Wouldn’t it be more fun to follow behind and make a lot of money?

“Judging from the current situation, this matter has been officially announced. A large amount of funds will inevitably abandon the U.S. dollar and enter countries such as Japan or Germany. This is probably the U.S. government’s plan. Do we need to increase our investment in Japan?” Zhou Jia Yang asked again.

“Appropriate is enough. There is no need to continue to invest heavily or even use large leverage. We have already invested enough money before.” Chen Zhiwen said: “If you have some spare money in the past two years and no good investment direction, you can invest it. , limit it to before 1987, and after 1988, I will make a decision based on the situation.”

The main representative of investment in Japan is naturally Hutchison Whampoa. Over the years, Chen Zhiwen mobilized a large amount of external funds to enter Hutchison Whampoa, and then invested in the Japanese market through Hutchison Whampoa. Midea and Red Bull, although they have no real estate business, they have been in business for many years. Since then, they have accumulated a lot of cash. Although Chen Zhiwen does not allow them to invest in real estate, it is still okay to invest purely in real estate speculation or buy stocks. Moreover, these two companies mainly buy stocks of Japanese real estate companies. With their help, Earn higher profits. As for Land, because the main business is in Hong Kong and it has only begun to return to normal this year, there is little investment in Japan. However, under Chen Zhiwen’s previous arrangement, Land has obtained an additional loan in the past few months. A total of 3 billion Hong Kong dollars was invested, and then an office building in Osaka was purchased at lightning speed, which was regarded as grabbing a ticket.

But it doesn’t matter. The signing of the “Plaza Accord” is only the beginning of the Japanese market. In the next few years, at least before 1987, you can still invest in it. At most, you won’t make as much as you did before 1985. But considering The same is true in Hong Kong. Which one is more worthy of investment is a bit difficult to say.

Moreover, there were many golden opportunities in the 1980s. Even if some of them were not as good as the opportunities in Japan, the investment in Japan was lower as the years went by, so they were not as good as others. Besides, even if the return on investment in Japan was the highest, they It is impossible to really invest all the capital. Other industries also need to be developed, and investments also need to be diversified.

“Okay.” Zhou Jiayang, Lei Shengli and others agreed. Their group would make a certain profit every year, especially Midea, which now controls half of the world’s home game market. The profits are very high, if it weren’t for a large number of chips If you are still purchasing in the United States, you may be targeted.

“As for the Japanese side, that’s it. We have almost prepared it before. We don’t need to pay too much attention later. We can just evacuate when the time comes.” Chen Zhiwen said: “Our core mission is to do our best. In this industry, only by growing bigger in the industry can we maintain profits in the long term. Appropriate investment will always be much better than speculation in the long run.”

In the next few years, although Japan was a holy land for speculation, as long as the evacuation was successful in the end, it would be difficult not to make a lot of money. However, in just a few years, in the long run, it is obvious that a normal career is more stable. Of course, if you take these If the money is reinvested in normal business, that’s another matter.

“Understood.” Several people nodded.

“Old Qin, Red Bull has burned more than one billion US dollars in recent years, right? Among the other beverage giant companies, who else is persisting?” Chen Zhiwen looked at Qin Zhihao, who was sitting aside drinking tea, and asked with a smile.

“Sheng Chen, in terms of pure energy drinks, the current European market is basically dominated by our Red Bull family. Several local brands in Europe, including Danone and Nestlé behind them, have basically given up. In the United States, , there is a beverage company called Devil’s Claw, with Pepsi behind it, and it is still competing with us because the price is lower than ours. Under misaligned competition, it is difficult for us to suppress them. In Asia, we basically cannot enter the Japanese market. , they have their own brand internally, Red Bull once invested a lot of advertising, but the effect is still not very good.” Qin Zhihao simply described.

“Well, that’s pretty good. Even Coca-Cola can’t achieve such results in the field of carbonated drinks.” Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, if there were no Pepsi-Cola, then Coca-Cola would definitely be the only one, but there are two companies. Under such circumstances, no matter how strong Coca-Cola is, it cannot monopolize the market in many places.

Of course, energy drinks are a small category, and their market size is much smaller than that of carbonated drinks. However, because they follow a high-profit route, if they are run well, in terms of profits, even if they are not as good as Coca-Cola, they are still an order of magnitude higher. .

“And in the Mainland, our Red Bull beverage still has some sales in first- and second-tier cities, but not a lot. One strong competitor is Jianlibao. They are much cheaper than us.” Qin Zhihao added: “Sheng Chen, You had a good vision when you invested in Jianlibao before. This company is very suitable for the current domestic environment. Although it is a competitor with Red Bull, Red Bull’s sales are not good because the price is too high, so it is not suitable for the mainland, just like Africa and South America. Or the same in some Southeast Asian countries.”

“The influence is still there.” Chen Zhiwen smiled and said: “Even Coca-Cola, which also has Sprite and Fanta, there is no single drink that can be liked by everyone. It has been burning money for ten years, and now Red Bull has basically reached its limit in various markets. Although the market itself can still expand, you only need to maintain market share.

So next, what Red Bull needs to develop is a variety of drinks with different flavors, similar to Coca-Cola’s model. It can develop it itself, or it can invest in suitable targets, especially in the blank market in the mainland. ”

PS: There are 600 chapters, and the book is almost finished. However, after finishing the book, I will write some extra chapters and write some stories about the 1990s and the 21st century. (End of chapter)