Football giants

Chapter 99 Burning money is an art

When Yang Huan came to the town of Gayton in Warwickshire from the M40 highway to the headquarters of Aston Martin, he discovered a very novel and interesting thing.

That is the headquarters of Jaguar Land Rover, which was acquired by the Indian Tata Motors in [-], and it is actually next door to Aston Martin.

There is not even a fence between the two factories, but a green belt to cover it up.

"In the past, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin belonged to Ford Motors, so Ford built such a huge and magnificent automobile industrial park here, but who would have thought that Ford would not manage well a few years after moving in, and now these brands have been sold."

After Zhao Yuanfang was poached by Yang Huan during that phone call, he really ran to England from China.

Yang Huan also handed over the acquisition business to Zhao Yuanfang without hesitation.

This investment expert, who was highly valued by Yang Wenfeng before, did not disappoint Yang Huan after he came to the UK. Whether it was Aston Martin or Sunseeker Yachting, he managed to keep the purchase price very low.

And Yang Huan's acquisition plan is still being implemented.

"Jaguar and Land Rover, both brands are good!" Yang Huan had a good impression of these two brands.

Now they ride in Jaguar's limited-edition XJ limousine, and Yang Huan also has a Range Rover at home.

"It's not bad, but the Indians are definitely not willing to sell, even if they are losing a lot now!" Zhao Yuanfang laughed.

After Jaguar and Land Rover were acquired by India's Tata Motors, they have indeed suffered losses every year for the past three years.

If Yang Huan remembers correctly, it seems that he started to turn losses into profits after he aggressively entered the Chinese market.

So at that time, many people in China said that it was not the Indians who saved Jaguar Land Rover, but the Chinese.

Except for important cities such as London, the UK is basically sparsely populated and land is very cheap.

Aston Martin has at least [-] acres of land in the northern suburbs of Gayton, and the Jaguar Land Rover next door is not much less.

To get to Aston Martin's headquarters and factory, you have to go through a roundabout. There is a sign on the roundabout that reads, Aston Martin? Lagonda, which makes Yang Huan feel very strange again.

"Is this factory called Lagonda?"

The British always like to give a name to the building. For example, the training base in Southampton is called Stapletwood.

The reason is also very simple. The road outside the training base is called Stapletwood Road.

"No, Lagonda used to be one of the super luxury car brands in the UK. Its car manufacturing technology is also quite superb, especially good at engine design. It was acquired by Aston Martin in [-]. Later, it also launched a Lagonda model, but the sales were not good, so it was stopped."

Yang Huan groaned, and then realized that the full name of Aston Martin is Aston Martin Lagonda.

Finally, I slowly drove into the factory area. The clean roads, green environment, and fresh country air all make people have a good impression of Aston Martin's Gayton headquarters.

When Yang Huan arrived, Ulrich Bates had already led a group of managers waiting outside the gate of the headquarters office.

As soon as he saw Yang Huan's Jaguar arriving, he immediately went up to meet him.

"Master Huan, welcome to Aston Martin!" Ulrich Bates' attitude towards Yang Huan is completely different now.

Before, he was humbled to settle a lawsuit, but now he is being polite to his boss.

"Ulrich, thank you for your hard work!" Yang Huan said with a smile.

"No hard work!" After closing the door, Ulrich Bates led Yang Huan to meet the company's senior management.

"This is Hanno Kerner, the company's chief financial officer, and here's Keith Stanton, the company's director of manufacturing operations, and here's Malik Rickman, the company's design director, and John Kinstor, the company's director of sales."

Following Ulrich Bates' introduction, Yang Huan walked over and shook hands with them one by one.

The company changed a group of bosses in [-], and after a few years of poor management, they were all a little bit disheartened.

Now the new boss is young, but his reputation is scary. As soon as he bought the company, there was a car smashing incident that shocked the world in a blink of an eye. But it was this incident that made everyone realize the strength of this new boss.

Among other things, after smashing the car, Sun Yue intervened in Aston Martin's public relations to transform the original potential crisis into brand building for Aston Martin and turn the crisis into a business opportunity. This ability is worthy of recognition.

I just heard that the Chinese marketing director spent a six-figure fee for this incident.

It also seems to be a big spender.

Besides Zhao Yuanfang, Sun Yue and Long Wu accompanied Yang Huan to Aston Martin.

Accompanied by Ulrich Bates and others, a group of four visited the company's exhibition hall first.

The exhibition hall is similar to a 4S store, but the decoration is very simple, even worse than some low-end brand 4S stores in China, but it displays every model of Aston Martin in the past.

It was also in the exhibition hall that Yang Huan noticed that in addition to designing cars, Aston Martin also designed a lot of things such as leather shoes, watches, wallets, bags, etc. No wonder Ulrich Bates was wearing so many Aston Martin items when he met Ulrich Bates at Harrods.

"Master Huan, this is our production workshop. Except for the use of robots in the body-in-white process, we use manual manufacturing in every process, even including body painting."

Ulrich Bates introduced Aston Martin's manufacturing process with a smug expression.

In his view, here represents the cutting-edge technology and tradition of automobile hand-made.

When it comes to hand-made cars, Aston Martin ranks second, and I am afraid that no one dares to recognize the first.

But in Yang Huan's view, this is more or less ironic.

While you are obsessed with high-quality hand-made products, your competitors are aggressively carrying out assembly line operations. While ensuring quality, they are constantly improving their car-making skills. This has also led to an important reason for Aston Martin’s annual losses.

After visiting the leather workshop that Aston Martins are most proud of, Yang Huan, accompanied by Ulrich Bates and others, returned to the administrative office area, and all the core management also entered the conference room one after another.

Yang Huan glanced at everyone present, and found that everyone was also looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

"I want to say that we must forget the glory we have achieved in the past, or the indifference and trough we have suffered in the past."

Everyone present raised their heads, looked at Yang Huan, and heard him start his first opening speech after acquiring the company with a faint voice.

"Today, we say goodbye to the glory and trough of the past Aston Martin. Tomorrow, we will usher in a brand new Aston Martin and create a new situation!"

Yang Huan's words won a burst of warm applause.

After all, after David Richards acquired Aston Martin, he spoke even more beautifully than Yang Huan, but what happened?

Those present are all veterans of the auto industry, and they are all very aware of the problems Aston Martin is currently encountering and the solutions to the problems. In the final analysis, there is one thing, money!
"I announce that Aston Martin will invest 2000 million pounds to upgrade the car manufacturing factory. I will complete this project in the shortest possible time. After the new factory is put into use, Aston Martin's entire car production line will be further improved, and Aston Martin's car manufacturing process and efficiency will be raised to a higher level."

Everyone present was in an uproar when they heard this.

Use 2000 million pounds to upgrade the car factory?

This is indeed a good idea, but to improve production efficiency, wouldn't it be necessary to return to the mistakes of previous years?

You know, now Aston Martin's car factory has an annual output of 3000 vehicles, but now it sells only more than [-] vehicles a year.

Just upgrading the factory, is it useful?

Moreover, during the Ulrich Bates period, the most criticized point by the outside world was that there was sales but no quality.

But Yang Huan also knew about this point with Ulrich Bates, and listened to his explanation, that is, the research and development could not keep up.

The current auto industry is updating faster and faster, and the R&D investment is getting higher and higher, especially for super luxury cars like Aston Martin. Every car and every new technology needs to invest a lot of money in the research and development.

But whether it was at Ford, or later under David Richards, Aston Martin did not invest enough money in research and development, which caused Aston Martin to have sales and production, but no quality, and it turned into a disaster.

"I announce that in [-], Aston Martin's annual research and development budget is [-] million pounds. I have only one request for the design department and the R&D department. In the shortest possible time, we must not only regain what we lost in the past, but also catch up with our competitors!"

Yang Huan's words made the whole meeting room go crazy.

"One hundred million pounds?"

"Oh my god, all our R&D projects can start at the same time!"

"Yeah, those plans that were stillborn due to insufficient funds can be restarted."

"Great, the new boss is good and courageous!"

Everyone in the meeting room was in an uproar, talking a lot.

Ulrich Bates, who was sitting next to Yang Huan, knew that Yang Huan had courage, but he never expected that he would have such courage. He invested 2000 million pounds in research and development and equipment upgrades.

"I hope that we can master all the core technologies of the entire car manufacturing industry chain, including engine research and development. This is our biggest weakness at present. I don't want us to do things based on other people's faces. I like to let others do things based on my faces!"

"So, we have to rectify the former outsourced parts suppliers at the same time. I don't care what happened in the past. In short, from now on, we Aston Martin will only do the best as long as we are the best!"

Yang Huan's bold words resonated with everyone present.

Aston Martin used to be a high-end and high-end existence, but it has been reduced in recent years. It was first taken care of by Ford and later acquired by private capital.

The feeling of getting ahead is good and enjoyable!

If you want money, you can have money, and you can get what you want!
One word, cool!

"In addition, I plan to build an Aston Martin car manufacturing center in China. The future car consumer market, especially the core of the high-end car consumer market, is located in China. I can even say bluntly that whoever loses the Chinese market will not be able to get involved in the car field."

"If anyone disagrees with my statement, he has no right to stay at Aston Martin!"

Everyone present couldn't refute it. The importance of the Chinese market is self-evident, and everyone knows it.

"So, in order to cater to the Chinese market, we should not only manufacture sports cars, but also try to manufacture luxury cars, SUVs and crossovers. So in the next few years, we will focus on creating a product lineup with supercars as the arrow, followed by luxury cars, SUVs and other models."

Speaking of this, Yang Huan showed extremely strong self-confidence.

"I not only want to revive Aston Martin's supremacy in the field of super sports cars, but I also want to make Aston Martin an important force in the car kingdom, and the core market is the battle for China's high-end car consumption in the next few years!"

Burning money is also an art.

Some people burn money without even seeing ashes.

But some people burn money but burn out a mountain of gold.

Yang Huan undoubtedly wants to be the latter.

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(End of this chapter)