At the moment, Rufford was having a headache.
Sometimes, it was easy to fall into a vicious circle. In the 1.0 era, there were not many employees, and the business was not big, but it could still make a lot of money. In the end, when the company was ready to enter the 2.0 era, it suddenly discovered that there were more employees, and the business was bigger, but the money was less and less.
Ford was like this.
In its glory days, Ford was at its peak. In addition to Ford, it had Mercury, Lincoln, Aston Martin, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, and many other brands. However, the more brands it had, the lower the profits, and it had even started to have a major financial crisis.
Ford's own financial department estimated that in the next few years, Ford's losses would increase, and the financial crisis would become more and more serious, until Ford was pushed to the brink.
Right now, Ford was like a successful middle-aged man, but he was burdened by a large group of useless children. These children did not really want to live off their parents, but Ford did not educate them well, and did not plan a successful path for them. As a result, these children could only rely on him to raise them.
If it was really a father-son relationship, Ford would definitely not have the idea of getting rid of this burden. However, the key point was that a company was not a father-son relationship. No matter who caused these sub-brands to fail, for Ford, since it could not help them improve, the best way was to quickly get rid of all these burdens.
This way, not only would there be no burdens, but when it was time to get rid of the burdens, it could also use the money from selling the sub-brands to recuperate.
Since last year, the automobile industry had not been in a good state, especially for established automobile companies like Ford and General Motors. There were bloated systems, serious internal friction, inadequate quality control, lack of product competitiveness, and major flaws in the sales network. All of the businesses were like a mess, and it was impossible to sort them out. The only way to do so was to cut them off.
Due to the current situation, although Ford wanted to sell off its subsidiary brands, it had not found a suitable opportunity. In Ford's opinion, at this stage, no automobile company would be interested in its subsidiary brands because these brands had become inferior assets.
Now, these sub-brands were like giant babies without any profitability, but they had a huge appetite. If any company wanted to buy them back, not only would they have to spend a lot of cash to buy them back, the first thing they would have to do after buying them back was to continue feeding these giant babies. Otherwise, once the giant babies died, all the investment would be for naught.
Who would add a few mouths to feed themselves in this economic situation?
In fact, these sub-brands were like ten-thousand-ton beasts. Whoever bought them would ride on their necks. If they had the ability to withstand it, everything would be fine. If they couldn't, these giant babies would immediately crush them to death.
However, Ford never dreamed that someone would really want to buy its sub-brands in this economic situation. What's more, the person wanted to buy three of them.
When Davidson and Ford's chairman of the board of directors, Bill Ford Jr.
Relayed Li Mu's intentions. The current head of the Ford family, Bill Ford Jr., was so shocked that his jaw almost dislocated.
He couldn't believe that Li Mu, who was at the forefront of the high-tech industry, would be interested in traditional manufacturing.
It wasn't that he hadn't come into contact with the internet tycoons in Silicon Valley. These people had their eyes on the top of their heads, and all of them were self-proclaimed masters. They couldn't wait to buy a pair of shoes and write the word "moral" on them to tell you that they would always stand on the moral high ground.
Bill Ford Jr. felt that the Silicon Valley tycoons were particularly boring. Although some of the things they did were really amazing, these people were really not interesting.
Under normal circumstances, if you talked to him about the oil industry, he would talk to you about the greenhouse effect. If you talked to him about the national will, he would talk to you about LGBT equality. If you talked to him about Ford, he would talk to you about the Prius. In the eyes of these people, the Prius was the future of the automobile industry, and all traditional gas-powered cars were demons that caused global warming.
Bill Ford Jr. hated these kinds of people the most. They were all Americans, who the f * ck didn't know who the other was?
You guys usually lived in villas in the Bay Area that cost more than 50 million USD. The villa consumed thousands of kilowatts of electricity a day. Who knew how much greenhouse gas was burned to generate these thousands of kilowatts of electricity. Yet, you drove a Prius and told me that it was environmentally friendly? That it was global warming? Go to hell with your grandpa.
It was precisely because he knew these kinds of people that Bill Ford Jr. was very dissatisfied with the tycoons of Silicon Valley and the internet. Of course, he also knew that these people were also dissatisfied with him.
This was also why he couldn't understand why Li Mu, who was at the top of the internet industry, would be interested in the traditional automobile industry.
This didn't seem to fit his character!
Moreover, wasn't Li Mu a little too greedy? Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, he wanted to buy them all?
This gave the impression that a vegetarian suddenly came in front of him, pointed at a pig, a cow, and an elephant, and said, "Excuse me, how much are these three? I will eat them all in one go."
He was stunned for a long time before he confirmed with Davidson, "Davidson, you're not joking with me, are you? Li Mu wants to buy three of my brands? "
"I'm not joking with you." Davidson said, "I was entrusted by Li Mu to help him. If you are interested, I can arrange for both of you to sit down and have a chat."
Bill Ford Jr. couldn't help but ask, "Davidson, we can be considered old acquaintances. Can you tell me why Li Mu is interested in the traditional automobile industry?"
"I don't know …" Davidson said seriously, "I also advised Li Mu that the automobile industry isn't very good now. Compared to the internet industry, this industry has no advantages. It takes up a lot of capital, the recovery period is long, and the management risk is higher. But Li Mu doesn't seem to care."
As he said this, Davidson added, "He should have some interest in the automobile industry. I think it should be a personal hobby."
"Personal hobby …" Bill Ford Jr. couldn't help but say, "If it is a personal hobby, wouldn't it be good to buy Aston Martin? It's not expensive, and it produces performance cars. "
Davidson said with a smile, "What? From what I heard, you don't plan to sell it? If you don't want to sell it, I'll tell Li Mu. "
"No, no, no." Bill Ford Jr. hurriedly said, "Everything can be discussed. Since Li Mu is interested, I can have a chat with him. Or we can send someone to meet and see what both sides are willing to do. In principle, as long as the price is right, all of Ford's assets are possible to be sold."
Davidson said, "If that's the case, I'll pass on your message to Li Mu. You can communicate with him first and see what's going to happen next."
"Okay!" Bill Ford Jr. said with a smile, "Then please help me pass on the message."
After hanging up the phone, Bill Ford Jr. immediately waved his fist excitedly and shouted, "YES!"
Then, he immediately pressed the hands-free and quick call button on the desk. After the call was connected, he immediately said, "Lauren, ask the members of the board of directors to come to my office immediately."
A few minutes later, the members of the board of directors of the Ford Group came to Bill Ford Jr.'s office.
Although the Ford Automobile Group was a listed company, the Ford family controlled more than 70% of the shares through various channels. Strictly speaking, it was a family business. Therefore, no matter who the previous CEO was, they were just professional managers hired by the Ford family. They had no independent decision-making power on major issues.
Because of this, the people who came to Bill Ford Jr.'s office were basically direct members of the Ford family. Most of them had the surname Ford, and a few were relatives, cousins, or son-in-law of the Ford family.
Bill Ford Jr.'s office was more than 200 square meters. Even though more than a dozen people came in, it didn't seem crowded at all.
After making sure that all the members of the board of directors were present, Bill Ford Jr. said, "I asked you to come here because I have something to announce to you."
At this point, Bill Ford Jr. paused for a moment. Without further delay, he went straight to the point. "Li Mu, the founder and chairman of Makino Technology, expressed an intention to buy me through Davidson of the G family. He is interested in the three brands of our group, Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover. He intends to buy them all together."
As soon as he said that, everyone was dumbfounded.
The reason for their surprise was the same as that of Bill Ford Jr. Therefore, everyone speculated, and some even suspected that this was a prank.
However, Bill Ford Jr. interrupted their discussion and said, "I know Davidson quite well. He definitely wouldn't make something up. As for Li Mu, he has so many properties. It's impossible for him to have time to play pranks on us. In terms of his net worth, his time is more precious than ours."
Someone immediately said, "Li Mu is a fool with a lot of money. Why don't we take this opportunity to blackmail him?"
Bill Ford Jr. asked, "Do you think you're smarter than Li Mu? Blackmail him? If he could be blackmailed by you, he wouldn't have the net worth he has today. I've only heard of Li Mu blackmailing others, but I've never heard of anyone blackmailing him. If you don't believe me, you can check Google. "
The members of the Ford family, who had been excited to take the opportunity to blackmail Li Mu, immediately became listless.
Bill Ford Jr. was right. If Li Mu was a sucker who could blackmail anyone, his company wouldn't have been able to achieve what it was today.
On the contrary, Li Mu was simply a shrewd person. He was exceptionally accurate when it came to scheming against others. If someone wanted to blackmail him, they would definitely be the unlucky one.
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