The Industrial Giant Reborn - Chapter 627

c619 Euro Disneyland Plan

A month later, Chen Zhiwen received the news that the Rio Tinto Group’s board of directors agreed in principle to Chen Zhiwen’s request. However, how to allocate subsequent sales distribution rights still needs to be negotiated. As for the lithium mine, Rio Tinto agreed to sell it to Hutchison Whampoa in a package. In terms of price, Hutchison Whampoa also immediately sent representatives to the UK to conduct a review of related industries. After the completion of the review, the price will be negotiated and then direct transactions can be made.

On the other hand, Hutchison Whampoa has also begun to contact other mining giants around the world, and even some countries, with the intention of acquiring the lithium mines they own. Some of them are not negotiable and are directly rejected, while some of them have room for negotiation, which is enough. No matter how ambitious Chen Zhiwen is, he has never thought of monopolizing this industry. This is impossible, and after the value of lithium is discovered, more lithium mines will inevitably appear. As long as he can eat a big bite of meat, Will suffice.

In the next few months of 1986, several major events happened. The first was naturally the listing of Weisoft in the United States. As the major shareholder, it was time for Chen Zhiwen to reap rewards. However, he did not show up. The current Weiruan is already considered a leader in operating systems. In the eyes of the US government, its strategic significance is growing. As a Chinese, it is inconvenient to hold so many shares, at least not openly.

Therefore, while taking advantage of the listing, Chen Zhiwen publicly sold Weiruan shares many times and cashed out. However, on the other hand, he continued to take over with a large number of handbag companies. Of course, this model also has an upper limit. In any case, it cannot be compared to the above board. He holds close to 20% of Weiruan’s shares, and a little over 10% is the limit. Any more will make people notice abnormalities. However, 10% of Weiruan’s shares will earn sky-high profits in the future.

The second thing is that the Hong Kong government continued to auction several pieces of high-quality land at the end of 1986, including a piece of land next to the Admiralty Land King in early 1985, which was also acquired by Land, and then the second phase of the Mandarin Commercial Plaza began to be built. , when fully completed, the total area will be as high as 3 million square feet. In this way, Land will not only be the land king in Central and Tsim Sha Tsui, but also become the land king in Admiralty in an instant.

The third thing is that Dragonair was officially established. Dozens of Chinese bigwigs such as Chen Zhiwen, Li Jiacheng, Pao Yugang, and Huo Yingdong went to celebrate in person. TVB broadcast live broadcast, and all the news headlines were about this, and Dragonair also obtained routes to several mainland cities through its relationships in the mainland, and purchased three 80% new Boeing 737 aircraft to transport passengers, plus five older second-hand aircraft to serve as cargo aircraft, and started China Airlines. Regarding the company’s new journey, Chen Zhiwen even announced on the spot that air freight orders for many of his electronic products would be given priority to Dragonair, which previously belonged to Cathay Pacific.

On the other hand, Red Bull’s Very Coca-Cola suddenly started a very interesting activity in the Asian market. It was not a price reduction, but a “one more bottle” activity that opened the bottle cap. It instantly attracted countless people to buy, and the winning rate Not low. Such an operation immediately put a certain amount of pressure on Coca-Cola, and Coca-Cola’s foundry is the Swire Group. Coupled with the increase in labor costs in Hong Kong over the years, the Swire Group’s beverage factory immediately began to fall into a certain degree of pressure. difficulty.

Of course, such problems are not a problem for the Swire Group. However, the stock price of Swire Properties has also appeared very abnormal in recent months, rising and falling. It seems that someone is maliciously manipulating it. There are even rumors in the market that Land Land intends to forcibly acquire Swire Properties. The news immediately shocked the Schwaiya family, and they quickly prepared to allocate funds to acquire stocks.

If one subsidiary has a problem, Swire can easily solve it, but when all three have problems, Swire won’t have a financial problem, but it will devote a lot of resources to the defense war, and it will have almost no power to expand.

After Chen Zhiwen found everything, he was not in a hurry. It was difficult to deal with a company like this that had no big problems, and it would take a long time. It was enough to be able to drain their blood through Dragonair and Liu Luanxiong. .

The time soon came to February 1987.

Chen Zhiwen came to the United States again, but the difference this time was that his two children also came together. The two children are now almost two years old and always like to see the scenery everywhere. Anyway, for the Chen family who owns a private jet He said that even if there are two more children, travel will not be affected much, including nannies, bodyguards, doctors and many supplies, which can be easily brought on the plane.

When they came to Los Angeles, Liu Xiaoli, her parents and a bunch of bodyguards and others went to the bustling center to play. After the second generation of the Chen family began to grow up, Chen Tianfu basically gave up on his career. Instead, he had successors and his company paid Just give it to a professional manager. His main task is to accompany his children to grow up. Chen Zhiwen understands that maybe a few decades later, when he has grandchildren, he may think so too, but the premise is that his son must have the ability to take charge of the company. .

In prosperous areas of the United States, security is generally acceptable. In addition, friends of the Morgan family have been specially commissioned to find some bodyguards who are good at remote protection.

Chen Zhiwen himself had something to worry about, and soon he arrived at Disney’s headquarters building.

“Boss, welcome to our new building.” Disney President Michael Eisner said with a smile.

“This building is very nice, much more beautiful than what I saw in the photo.” Chen Zhiwen said with a smile. Disney’s previous headquarters had been in use for too long. It was still the founder of Walt Disney decades ago. It was built when he was in office. As time goes by, although there are no safety risks, it is too old and many infrastructures cannot keep up. To exaggerate, cooling in summer is not good.

So, I bought a new building. The price was not expensive, only more than 30 million US dollars, because it was not in the center of the city. After all, it was not a financial, legal, or accounting-related company. There was no need to put its headquarters in Los Angeles, even for Silicon Valley companies. So true.

With a mere US$30 million, Chen Zhiwen would not be allowed to come to Los Angeles during the coldest time. Eisner sent people to send a large number of photos and information to Hong Kong. After Chen Zhiwen saw it, he agreed.

“Please come in, let’s take a look inside. I have prepared the most luxurious office for you.” Eisner said with a smile. For this boss who does not interfere with his own management freedom, he is still very considerate. As a professional manager Man, who wouldn’t want that? Even professional managers of companies without major shareholders like General Electric or Coca-Cola cannot compare with him in some aspects. For example, to make a big investment, he only needs to convince Chen Zhiwen, and Chen Zhiwen respects him and believes in him. Even if you don’t agree with the theory and data, there are enough reasons, but for others, they don’t know how many people on the board of directors have to be convinced!

“Okay.” Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

Afterwards, a group of people walked around the entire building. The building was not very high, with only 22 floors in total, but it covered a large area. The logic of this construction was that because the land price was not valuable, the building was built with low floors. In the past, The same is true in Hong Kong, and in the suburbs of the United States, such buildings are already considered high.

After returning to his office, Chen Zhiwen said: “Is “The Lion King” starting to prepare to be released in other places around the world?”

Naturally, I came to Disney specifically because of something big, namely the success of “The Lion King.”

“Yes, “The Lion King” has basically been released in the United States. The next step is to prepare to go global. Based on the previous ratio of the U.S. and global box office, the total box office of “The Lion King” will exceed With $900 million, it will become the most successful movie in Hollywood in the past ten years.” Eisner said with a smile in his eyes. The animation “The Lion King” is really so successful. It cost only 30 million U.S. dollars, and the U.S. box office can exceed 450 million U.S. dollars. If you add in the overseas box office, you can get several times the profit from the movie share alone. The benefits will be huge, and the subsequent peripheral failure will be even greater.

If the previous “Beauty and the Beast” solved Disney’s confidence problem, then today’s “The Lion King” has almost solved all of Disney’s debt problems. The subsequent development, even if there is no such explosion as “The Lion King” With no big debts and the recovery of the global economy, Disney no longer has any negative pressure.

“Okay, I will continue to shoot various animations later. You decide what to shoot. In addition, you need to make more use of the latest computer technology. Saving money is secondary. The main thing is to save time.” Chen Zhiwen added.

Chen Zhiwen knew some classic animation movies, but he also knew the names and had almost forgotten the plot. Just like normal Hollywood movies, he basically had no impression of all the movies. Therefore, even if he had just time-traveled in the 1970s, There was little money at that time, and he was not involved in the film or entertainment industry because there was no way to start. As everyone knows, the movie “Home Alone” must be low investment and high return, but he didn’t remember the plot at all and wanted to make money. Money doesn’t have the ability.

To acquire Disney, just like acquiring TVB, what he needs is actually this platform, and then handing it over to the right people to manage it. With a little financial support, he can maximize the benefits. In the original history, Eisner took Disney To rise, he must have very strong abilities. Now, Disney is a few years earlier and has got rid of its previous debt problem, which means it has a few more years of early development time. With Chen Zhiwen’s financial support, the future potential Unlimited.

The “Lion King” movie was able to be shot quickly, in addition to Chen Zhiwen’s direct and generous support, and computer painting began to become popular within Disney. Although the current functions are still very low-level, under normal circumstances, most of the work is the most wasteful. Time is about constant low-level repetition, but computers can solve this problem to a large extent. Although the labor saved is worth a lot of money, it is nothing compared to time. If we can continue to launch a large number of high-quality animations in the future For movies, the most important thing is the speed of release.

“Okay, we have already tasted the benefits in this regard and will definitely turn to computers.” Eisner nodded.

“The Disneyland in Hong Kong is already under construction. It is estimated that the first phase will be opened in early 1990. Now the Disneyland in the United States basically has no economic problems. Do you think we should Consider building a fifth Disneyland.” Chen Zhiwen then said.

“Boss, what do you mean, are you planning to build a Disneyland in Europe?” Eisner asked.

In fact, as early as the 1970s, the Disney Company had already planned to build Disney parks in Japan and Europe at the same time. However, due to the sudden oil crisis, the global economy was turbulent, and after the death of Walt Disney, the Disney Company Its income is declining day by day, and it is gradually unable to expand globally.

Even countries in Europe have no such interest. After all, when there is no oil, France is eager to find oil in the center of Paris. If there is not enough oil, who will give you a chance to travel? As for the Japanese company, it can also be said that because the Japanese have foresight and have been in a state of oil shortage, they have been prepared, so they were least affected by the oil crisis, so they took over all the shares of the Japanese Disney joint venture. , in the end reality also pointed out that they were correct.

After the 1980s, the global economy improved, and Europe began to be interested in introducing Disney parks again. However, due to Chen Zhiwen’s personal reasons, the fourth Disney park in the world was settled in Hong Kong. But now Disney Corporation’s economic problems It’s getting better, so we can reconsider building a Disneyland in Europe.

“Yes, Europe is also a collection of developed countries. Although due to differences in currency and language, the internal market is not as good as the United States to a large extent, but this is also a market we need to fight for. Moreover, with a paradise, we can It is more convenient to launch various of our peripheral products.” Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

Do you really think Disney makes money from its parks?

It’s nonsense. The park is just one of them. It doesn’t even matter if it doesn’t make money. It is an important means for the entire Disneyland to maintain global popularity. As long as the popularity of Disneyland can be maintained for a long time, all kinds of peripherals can make money. Logically speaking, take-off is similar to highways in the mainland. It doesn’t matter whether it makes money or loses money. What is most meaningful is that it can drive the nearby economy.

“Many countries in Europe are interested in our project. If it is confirmed, we will also need to prepare to visit Europe.” Eisner said.

“Actually, it’s just those big cities. In addition, we will only build in continental Europe. Don’t even think about London. However, don’t veto it directly. We should wait for now and give priority to Germany and France.” Chen Zhiwen added.

The two major economic trains in Europe are Germany and France. No matter what problems they have within them, Disneyland must choose these two. No matter where it is built, the consumer groups of its own countries, or in other words, The number of people in nearby cities is very important, because locals will visit more frequently. The same is true for Hong Kong. Locals will always be the mainstream consumers. This logic is different from that of a country with a huge area.

“Okay, there are still several large cities in France and Germany. I will go and see them myself.” Eisner nodded and said. (End of chapter)