After making an appointment with Chen Wan, Li Mu's phone rang again as soon as he hung up.
This time, it was Elon Musk.
Li Mu quickly picked up the phone and asked, "Elon, did you meet with Ford?"
"I did." Elon Musk said, "I talked with them until late. It's already late at night in Michigan."
Li Mu asked, "What's the situation like?"
Elon Musk said, "Ford is still sincere, and they know you better. They know your style of doing things, so they can accept payment in installments. As for their offer, the three brands add up to a total of 7 billion USD."
"7 billion USD?"
Li Mu didn't know how much Tata spent to buy Jaguar Land Rover, nor did he know how much Geely spent to buy Volvo. Therefore, he asked, "What does your team think of this offer?"
"It's too high." Elon Musk said, "Currently, Jaguar Land Rover's financial report is consolidated, and it's currently losing money. Therefore, we think its actual price should be around 3.3 billion USD. As for Volvo, it's at most 3 billion USD."
Li Mu nodded, thought for a moment, and said, "So, what you think is a reasonable price should be around 6.3 billion USD."
"Yes." Elon Musk said, "This is the highest price we think. Due to the economic downturn, we believe this price has a lot of room to go down."
Li Mu smacked his lips. Although he didn't remember how much Geely spent, it definitely couldn't be as much as 3 billion USD. At most, it would be 2 billion USD.
Therefore, Ford's offer for him was at least a billion USD higher than the price they sold to Geely.
That's f * cking unfair!
But when Li Mu thought about it again, Geely's acquisition of Volvo was something that happened after the 2008 financial crisis. The 2008 financial crisis was a hurdle, and the whole world's physical manufacturing companies were affected by it.
It wasn't the financial crisis yet, so it was acceptable for the price to be higher than after the financial crisis.
However, this also reminded Li Mu that 2008 was a good opportunity to hit the bottom of the world economy. If he could do a good job in the industrial layout of Muye Technology in 04-08 and amass a large amount of cash on hand, it would almost be a big buff in 2008.
Li Mu asked Elon Musk, "If we want to end this quickly, how much money do you think we need to spend to buy all three brands?"
"This …" Elon Musk thought for a moment and said, "I feel that if we want to finalize the acquisition within a few months, the actual capital should not be less than 4.8 billion USD. If we have more time to fight a tug-of-war with them, I think we might be able to close the deal for 4.5 billion USD next year."
When Li Mu heard this, he hurriedly said, "Forget about it next year. We can only exchange money for time, not time for money. How about this? Let's talk about 4.8 billion dollars. The ideal transaction price is set at 5 billion dollars, with a fluctuation of 100 million."
Elon Musk said, "This … I'll talk to them tomorrow."
As he spoke, Elon Musk continued, "Mr. Li, if we can pay off the purchase price within a year, we can lower the transaction price even further. Ford is currently in great need of funds."
Li Mu smiled and said, "You can talk to them first. You can pay them in installments or in one year. Google has already started its roadshow, and it won't be long before it goes IPO. When Google goes IPO, we will have more cash."
Makino Technology's current income was very high, but the amount of investment was also very large. If they really took out a few billion from the company's cash reserves to buy the car industry, they would run out of cash. Also, buying these three brands was just the beginning. They still needed to invest a lot of money to reorganize. If they bought them for 5 billion USD, they would need at least 3-5 billion USD to reorganize.
Therefore, for Li Mu, the safest way was to pay them in installments. He would get the three brands first and reorganize them first.
Ford wasn't going to throw billions of dollars into the new business in one go. As long as they had a stable cash flow for about three years, it would be enough for them. For this, Ford could pay them a premium as repayment for the interest on the installments.
If they weren't in a hurry, they could buy them at the end of this year. After Google's IPO, Makino Technology would follow up with a roadshow. It was expected to be a successful IPO in the second half of the year. By then, they would be able to realize at least tens of billions of USD in the stock market. If that was the case, acquiring these three brands of Ford would be a piece of cake.
However, Li Mu didn't want to wait any longer. Time was more precious than money.
Elon Musk said, "Ford also said that if we are under a lot of financial pressure, we can talk to them about Volvo or Jaguar Land Rover first. If we buy one first, our financial pressure will be reduced by half. We can also talk to them in the second half of the year or next year."
Li Mu said, "Don't bother. Let's talk to them directly. If they can give us a lower price and be straightforward, it's not impossible for us to pay them in one go."
For Li Mu, even if he didn't have that much cash, it didn't matter. He could just talk to the bank or investors to pledge his shares. He could pledge his shares of Makino Technology at a valuation of 200 billion USD, and he could get back 10 billion USD in cash. After the IPO, he could redeem his shares. At most, he would just have to pay some interest on the loan.
Li Mu thought that as long as he could get these three brands as soon as possible, he would immediately reorganize the entire management team and merge the three brands together. The finance would be merged, and the core leadership team would also be merged. After further tuning, he would immediately start to introduce new models.
He could take out one or two of the models from his previous life and introduce new models to increase sales quickly. At the same time, he would start to invest in a factory in Hua Xia. Then, step by step, he would bring at least half of the production lines of these three brands to China.
At the same time, he would immediately build a new sales network. Not only did he have to reintegrate and optimize the previous sales network, but he also had to further improve and improve the sales network. Then, he would also build an online sales network.
Online sales of cars was a very difficult thing for traditional car manufacturers. However, for people like Li Mu who came from the internet, it could be said to be a piece of cake.
Traditional car sales basically relied on 4S stores and secondary dealers. Among them, 4S stores took up a lot of space and investment, and it was difficult for them to exist in the city center. It was the same for secondary dealers, which were basically located in the suburbs.
However, online sales could decentralize many aspects.
For example, he only needed to rent an exhibition hall in the city center and put the car models there. If the consumers wanted to see the cars, they could directly go to the exhibition hall in the city center. If they wanted to test drive, they could directly make an appointment online or at the exhibition hall.
Then, in a slightly more remote place, such as within five to ten kilometers from the city center, he could rent a relatively small place as a test drive reception center. This kind of test drive center only needed a practical area of 200 square meters. Almost all of it would be used for customer reception. After the customers arrived, they could directly register for the test drive, even if they had to wait for a long time.
As for the after-sales and warehouse, he could set up a separate after-sales service center in a more remote area, such as an area 20 kilometers or more away from the city center.
In other words, the functions of the traditional 4S stores could be completely dismantled. The exhibition hall would be located in the city center, the test drive would be located in a slightly more remote area, and the after-sales service would be located in an even more remote area. This was much more reasonable than the consumers going to the remote suburbs to see, test drive, buy a car, and maintain a car.
As for the problem of sales, all of it would be placed online. Even if the consumers decided to buy in the exhibition hall or in the test drive center, they would be allowed to place the order in the online mall. If the consumers did not know how to do it, the on-site sales could help them place the order in the online mall.
There were many advantages to placing orders online, such as better direct sales, uniform and transparent prices, coordination of orders online, and more reasonable arrangements for the production and distribution of cars.
Once the consumer placed an order, if there was a ready car, the warehouse would directly transport the car to the exhibition hall in the city center for delivery to the consumer.
If there was no ready car, the system would directly give him an estimated delivery deadline. The car would be shipped from the merchant to the local warehouse, and then the local staff would transport it to the exhibition hall to be delivered to the consumer.
This way, it would be much more convenient for the consumer. If he did not need to test drive, he could even complete the whole process of looking for a car, buying a car, and picking up the car in the city center. He did not need to frequently go to the suburbs.
If the consumer wanted to test drive, he would only need to go to the test drive center a few kilometers away from the city center. He did not need to go to the after-sales service.
In fact, in the traditional way of selling cars, the consumer had to go to the remote suburbs to look at the car, test drive, order the car, pick up the car, and have after-sales service. However, in terms of the actual process, the consumer would look at the car, order the car, and then the merchant would deliver a normal car to the consumer. Only when the consumer needed to do the first maintenance, would they really need after-sales service.
Ordinary cars would need maintenance once every 5000 to 10000 kilometers. For most ordinary family cars, they often only needed maintenance once every six months or even a year.
If Li Mu used the new model, then from looking at the car, to test driving, to buy the car, to pick up the car, until the car reached 0 kilometers, he would really need to go to the remote after-sales service. This would greatly reduce the consumer's burden of running around, the cost of time, and the cost of physical strength.
Moreover, a company that could open an exhibition hall in the city center would greatly enhance its brand image. This was much more impressive than 4S stores that were all located in the suburbs of the auto parts city or the automobile trading market.
In this regard, Tesla did a very good job. Most of the time, they mainly had two models, one Model S, and the other Model X. Usually, they could easily and easily put two cars on display on the first floor of a big shopping mall in the city center. Then, they would accompany the two cars for sales, and then they could open their doors to do business. This was much more convenient and cost-effective than traditional 4S stores. Furthermore, the publicity effect was greater, and the traditional automobile manufacturers could not catch up.
At the thought of this, Li Mu's mood even began to surge. He couldn't wait to take all three brands into his pocket!
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