The Industrial Giant Reborn

"Well, okay, try to use local teams in Europe. If Tesco is acquired by Watsons, people can be transferred from Tesco." Chen Zhiwen added that Costco still needs to expand in Europe. Even if it is not as successful as the United States, as long as it is Once the scale has increased, there are still benefits, but it is not as good as the United States. And the retail industry is not accustomed to the local climate, which is almost an iron rule. The best way is to let the local team take responsibility. Even in the future, the mainland may need to do this. Hong Kong Team, managing mainland factories is no problem, but retailing may be different.

"OK." Pierce nodded and asked: "Then for this financing and listing, should we still use Morgan Stanley as the middleman?"

"Let us first let you know that among these investment banks in the United States, whoever offers the highest discount will be the one to go to. They also have to give others a little sweetness. The Morgan consortium is not the one who can dominate the world." Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and said.

In the past few years, Chen Zhiwen has prioritized cooperation with Morgan Stanley. Although the other party has also given discounts, he is involved in too many industries in the United States. Whether it is employment or supply chain, it has also given many benefits to the United States. , in the financial field, we also need to give other people a chance, otherwise there may be negative results.

No matter what happens in the end, if there is a chance, it means that we can still cooperate in the future, which at least may be profitable in the future.

"Okay, then I will send the message through some law firms." Pierce nodded and said. American law firms have great functions and have long-term cooperation with many large groups and banks.

"Okay, but remember one thing, whether it is the current management team or the future management trained now, the core business will always be retail or related business, not finance. Finance is just an auxiliary." Chen Zhiwen added said

Last year, although Costco was still building 11 new supermarkets at the same time, its profit still exceeded US$250 million, surpassing Wal-Mart and becoming the most profitable emerging retail group in the United States.

Although profit is not everything, and scale may be more important, the ultimate goal of increasing scale is to make profits. With profits, the capital market will be more optimistic about you, and large local consortiums will be more willing to invest and provide more resources. It will be easier to obtain financing.

Nowadays, Costco's scale has reached the stage where it needs to prepare for listing. Otherwise, if Infinite continues to make money in the United States, it may attract some criticism. It is of greatest significance to introduce enough strategic partners to allow the company to develop normally. .

In a previous financing, Costco only released 10% of its shares. This time it will be a little more, about 15%. The specific situation depends on the situation. After this financing is completed, it can apply to the US Securities Regulatory Commission for listing. , just need to go public before the 87 stock market crash, first raise a large sum, and then take advantage of the low price of the stock market crash to recycle the stocks, and then sell them when the stock price is high in the future. If these two go back and forth, the profit is expected to reach the net profit of Costco itself in several years. Profits were made.

The charm of the financial industry is so awesome. It is actually a historical trend that the United States and even some European countries in later generations have turned away from reality and turned to fiction. Except for the few global monopoly giants that can be born in the electronics industry or the Internet industry, any other company, In terms of profit, it is not as good as finance. For example, the American manufacturing giant General Electric accounted for 60% of the company's total profit in the early 21st century. At its peak, Volkswagen accounted for 55% of the company's net profit. Profits come from the installment loan business when the cars are sold.

When a company has a certain scale in the market and a certain amount of capital in hand, it will find that it only needs a little investment in the financial industry to make a lot of money, and can even easily surpass its original traditional business, and the former only requires a small amount of investment. , the latter requires a lot of money, a lot of resources and a lot of risks, and it is natural to turn away from reality and into fiction.

"Large companies in the United States do have a big trend towards financialization, but that is also because their scale has reached the limit, or because of market reasons, it is difficult to expand at a high speed. The annual profit on the account, Either return it to shareholders, or you can only invest in finance or real estate. But we are still early at Costco, and there are still many supermarkets in the United States that we have not set foot in." Pierce said with a smile, as someone who has worked in dozens of American shopping malls. As a young elite, he naturally knows the current trends of American companies. One is industrial transfer, and the second is financialization.

"Yes, yes, but you will experience the benefits of finance after going public." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said: "It's not that I don't allow funds to be invested in the financial industry, but retail will always be the core of Costco."

"Understood, I will do my best to expand the number of Costco members and stores." Pierce nodded and said.

"Okay, that's it. As long as we work together to reduce costs to a minimum, we will be able to gain more markets soon." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

When Chen Zhiwen started his business, he had to invest in Costco even when funds were very tight. Today, it has been able to develop self-sufficiently. It has 105 large retail terminals in the United States and more than 4 million member users. It provides hundreds of millions of dollars in membership fees every year, and almost all of them have become Costco's most loyal customers.

Because you can earn points for shopping, and the points can be used to offset annual membership fees and discounted products during certain periods, etc. After all, all the money is not in the hands of the customer, but it makes the customer feel that it is a very good deal.

Of course, the most loyal reason is that the price is low enough and the price-performance ratio is high enough. Galaxy Trading's large-scale purchase + main production model in the mainland or some Asian countries has almost reduced costs to the minimum.

It turns out that the Costco of the future in history did not have the cost advantage nor the capital support today in the early days. It will become a retail giant with a total turnover of US$220 billion in the future. Now, Chen Zhiwen's goal is naturally more Big.

But the risk is that even in an ordinary industry, if the scale is too large, it may still cause dissatisfaction with the United States, especially when relations between China and the United States are not good in the future. Therefore, Costco will also try its best to compete for the markets of other countries in the future. Anyway, there is no direct conflict with Watsons. It is a completely different customer positioning, and the close proximity of the terminals can also reduce various operating costs.

Soon, Pierce gradually released Costco to prepare for a second financing, and after this financing, it was ready to be listed on Dow Jones.

Many people in the financial industry in the United States have begun to smell the smell of wealth. As the retail chain group with the strongest momentum at present, Costco will definitely become one of the largest financings in the entire United States in the past ten years once it goes public. This It can bring hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to any investment bank.

And if Costco is successfully listed, it will also be a very beautiful advertisement for its investment bank. With Costco's current performance, the recovery of the overall U.S. economy, and the continuous rise of the stock market, it is difficult to think of success.

Jim, the vice president of Morgan Stanley, immediately called Chen Zhiwen, intending to win the project first, but Chen Zhiwen naturally could not just agree and pushed the matter to Pierce.

Regarding Costco, he is only responsible for decisions on some major matters, such as large investments, such as new stores, logistics centers or large-volume material procurement, listing financing, etc. The details of these matters are naturally left to Pierce. The team is responsible. This is the right that he originally granted them. Even companies such as Hutchison Whampoa, Midea, and Red Bull are still operating in this way. Otherwise, he would probably be busy with one company by himself.

When many investment bankers from New York came to Los Angeles, Chen Zhiwen came to Disney's headquarters. He delegated more power to the company. In addition to discussing Disney's future development with Eisner in the early days, he also , that is, approval of investments exceeding US$1 million.

"Boss, please sit down, you haven't been to Disney for a long time." Michael Eisner said with a smile, while motioning to the secretary next to him to serve coffee.

Although Eisner can be said to be very rude to his subordinates on weekdays, he is still very polite to his boss, especially a boss who can give him the freedom to use his own strength. This is compared to when he was at Paramount. Much stronger.

"Yes, I have been busy in Hong Kong before, so I haven't come to the United States much." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile. Being busy in Hong Kong is one thing, but the most important thing is the multiple businesses in the United States, which were prepared a few years ago. He does not need to pay too much attention to the next stage of development. People from the United States can report to Hong Kong every once in a while, bringing relevant information, plus daily annual audits.

"It just so happens that summer is coming soon, and several animated movies shot by Disney will also be released." Michael Eisner said with a smile.

Disney has many businesses, and they are all incurring considerable losses. If they want to quickly recover and boost the confidence of the company's employees, they need to win a battle in a short time. Therefore, Eisner had discussed with Chen Zhiwen before, We decided to start with movies, because movies are one of the easiest business models to quickly gather large amounts of cash, apart from finance, especially blockbuster hits, which can easily earn hundreds of millions of dollars. At the same time, this in itself is Eisner's strength.

Disney doesn't really need to launch any blockbuster movies. There aren't many such movies in the United States a year, but just one of them is enough to relieve the company's financial pressure.

"Yes, it is finally about to be released. The American summer schedule is also very suitable for our animation movies." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

He doesn’t have an incredible memory. Although he has watched some American movies from the 1980s and 1990s, such as "Jurassic Park", "Forrest Gump", etc., he has already passed it. For decades, he only knew the general story.

For example, Jurassic Park was nothing more than a story about a group of scientists cloning genes on an island, but he couldn't remember the specific plot, let alone let anyone film it. Of course, "Jurassic Park" mainly relies on special effects, and the plot is not very important.

But other movies can't do that. Therefore, when Disney shoots movies, it still has to engage in what it is good at: animated movies.

Chen Zhiwen only suggested reshooting "Beauty and the Beast", but it was all produced and filmed by Disney's own people, and the content is definitely different from the original history.

As for what kind of results you can get, half of it depends on luck.