The group visited a liquor manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Farmington.

American liquor, mainly whiskey, obtained by distillation of grain maltose, the concentration after distillation generally does not exceed 80%, and then it needs to be diluted with water, and it is stored in wooden barrels for at least two years, the longer the taste, but this preservation method is not suitable for factories, in order to quickly return funds, the barrel will be sold after two years.

The alcohol concentration of whiskey in the United States is not high, and the best-selling strong whisky in the United States has a degree of about 43 degrees, which is a younger brother compared to Chinese platinum that often has fifty or sixty degrees!

Seeing Xu Zhi take a slight sip, Jack Marshall smiled and asked, "Mr. Xu, how do you feel?"

"Not bad, although I'm not very fond of drinking. Xu Zhi nodded and praised, the taste of this wine is okay, but there is not the slightest spiciness, and it can already be done not to make him annoyed.

"This is our most famous 'Smimov' brand whisky from Huberline, with a proof of 34% and is made entirely from 100% wheat grains, so even if you drink too much, there will be no serious after-effects. Jack Marshall boasted, "By the way, Mr. Xu, our company has a 5,000-acre farm in the north of about 20 camps from here, and the main grain in it is wheat, which is specially used to provide food for our winery." ”

"5,000 acres?" Xu Zhi secretly calculated in his heart, almost 20 square kilometers, that is, a rectangular area composed of 4*5 kilometers, this area is not small.

Jack Marshall continued, "Yes, we have farms in Texas, Anvada, Canada and even France, mainly to provide ingredients for our company's various wines.

Of course, our company's production of sake is very large, and it is not enough to rely on these own lands, but these lands are also extremely valuable assets, and I think Mr. Xu will definitely like them. ”

"I'm interested in farms and other land, but it's not Huberline's main business, and I've heard that the company's business hasn't been doing well in recent years. Xu Zhi immediately said in a suppressed manner, although the price negotiation has not yet begun, it is absolutely impossible to follow the other party.

"It's just a self-regulation of the domestic market, if you're interested, Mr. Xu, I can give you an official industry statistics document, at present, the entire U.S. liquor market is starting to decline, and among these companies, Huberline's performance is definitely at the top. Jack Marshall said confidently.

"If it's just that the company's performance is not good, then there is hope for a pullback, but if it is the contraction of the entire market, it will be weak. Xu Zhi shrugged and said with a smile.

"Mr. Xu is too worried, baijiu has existed in the United States for hundreds of years, and in Asia, where Mr. Xu is located, many countries have a history of thousands of years, with Mr. Xu's influence in Asia, if the acquisition of Huberline can open up the business in Asia, then the company's performance will inevitably rise significantly, and I believe that as long as it is a few more years, the American market will inevitably recover." "Jack Marshall's presentation was clearly the subject of a detailed analysis.

"My resources in Asia are my assets and have nothing to do with what Huberline is worth today. Xu Zhi said calmly.

"Of course, I'm just analyzing all your advantages, Mr. Xu. Jack Marshall smiled awkwardly: "The factory has been visited, let's go to the office for a visit." ”

"Okay!" Xu Zhi smiled and nodded, before coming here, he had learned through Goldman Sachs that Huberlane's various businesses have begun to decline sharply over the years, especially the core liquor business, although the annual turnover is as high as 1 billion US dollars, but only last year it lost 40 million US dollars, and the loss of the core business has led to the development of KFC being put on the brakes.

But Huber Lane's liquor is actually not bad, and the business has been troubled over the years, which is actually caused by many external factors.

Many times, the boss of the industry is not worried that the younger brother in the same industry will steal his job, but he is very worried that other industries will impact him, which is very common in the Internet industry in later generations, and Huber Lane also encountered a similar situation.

It all started with a wine crisis.

At the end of the 70s, when the global wine and wine industry was in a life-and-death crisis, a group of industry tycoons gathered at a French winery to discuss a way to save the industry.

After half a month of meeting discussions, a group of people did not discuss without the slightest result, one of the genius figures, tired of the so-called meeting, ran to the city of Paris, and during a shopping trip, suddenly noticed a phenomenon, that is, the proportion of fat people in France is not much.

After some research, he found that the daily complementary foods of the French and Italians are nutritionally balanced, the calories are very strict, and there are many varieties, but the number of each type is not large, and the French do not like fried food. As a result, there are fat people in France, but the proportion is much lower than that of Americans who love hamburgers.

This matter has nothing to do with red wine and wine, but capital doesn't care, as long as the profit is enough, they can even trample on the law, let alone just create a lie.

Back at the winery, he told the other wine tycoons about his findings, and a group of people decided to combine red wine with obesity, and then everyone joined forces to start delivering the message:

Why aren't the French fat? Just because they love to drink wine!

Many people in the United States do attach great importance to the problem of obesity, and under the concentrated bombardment of the media, the sales of red wine have rebounded considerably.

It's just that it quickly returned to stability, and the wine merchant conducted another analysis, and finally judged: Lao Mei still doesn't care about his fat for the most part.

So, after some discussion, they decided to link red wine to one of the most terrible diseases - diabetes.

In the 21st century, diabetics are all over the world, but except for some patients who are really terminally ill, most of them do not have to worry about their lives and only need regular insulin injections.

But in this era, insulin is very rare, although as early as 1920, Canadian doctors have extracted insulin from the pancreas of dogs and cows, but this is only a laboratory method, in industrial production, the pancreas of cattle, pigs and other animals must be taken out and dried and then extracted, the cost is extremely high, if you want to produce insulin to maintain a type 2 diabetic patient for a year, you need to extract the pancreas from 50,000 pigs to produce.

In terms of quantity alone, even the combined number of common animals such as cows, pigs, dogs, and sheep is not enough for 10,000 patients, not to mention that this unprecedented demand will cause the market to collapse and the price of pancreas will rise sharply.

The low production of insulin has led to a very high price, non-super-rich, it is impossible to lose, and after all, these insulins come from pigs, cattle and other animals, and there is a big difference between the amino acid sequence of human insulin, and there is no problem with using less, but once you use too much, the human body will have a serious rejection reaction, which is life-threatening, even if you are reluctant to use anti-rejection drugs, the intermediate process is painful, and it can endanger your life at any time.

In the face of this disease, the super-rich are also inevitable, in fact, the existence of diabetes has suppressed the market for high-calorie foods and drinks to a certain extent.

It was not until the late 80s of the 20th century that the Danish company Novo Nordisk used genetic recombination technology to imitate artificial human insulin after more than ten years of efforts, and the fear of diabetes was alleviated.

Before that, in developed countries like the United States, the number of patients dying of diabetes was second only to cancer, and a larger number of patients did not dare to touch any high-calorie food in order to survive, and their lives were miserable.

It can be said that people in this era are more afraid of diabetes than AIDS in the 21st century.

Wine merchants have obtained official data from the French Ministry of Health, confirming that the number of diabetics in France is much lower than in the United States, and that wine and wine play a central role in their new campaign.

Out of fear of diabetes, the sales of red wine and wine in American society have exploded, and this group of red wine tycoons has not forgotten to step on the competitive industry, and secretly promote liquor as a high-calorie product.

As a result, under the propaganda of this kind of riotous operation, the market share of liquor in the United States has declined rapidly, and the industry is declining.

However, the bad luck in the liquor industry didn't stop because PepsiCo came in!

Speaking of PepsiCo, everyone in the United States knows that the world's second largest beverage production company, in the 70s, PepsiCo caught up, forcing Coca-Cola, the boss of the beverage industry, to almost mess up.

The beverage and liquor industry are involved to a certain extent, and it is not uncommon for giant beverage companies to enter the liquor field, but if it is just like this, the American liquor industry will not be affected much.

PepsiCo was not ready to make liquor, but sold vodka on a large scale in the American market, hitting the entire industry.

It turned out that under the competition of Coca-Cola, Pepsi knew that it was difficult to challenge the hegemony of the other party in the mature market, so it set its sights on the polar bear.

Beginning in the 60s, after nearly a decade of negotiations, PepsiCo finally convinced Polar Bear's top management to obtain the right to sell PepsiCo throughout Polar Bear's territory.

It's just that there was a problem with the final payment method, the polar bear also lacked foreign exchange, of course, it refused to give out the dollar, and the value of the ruble was extremely unstable, and Pepsi naturally did not accept it, and in the end, the two sides reached an agreement, Pepsi for vodka!

With this condition, Pepsi monopolized the entire polar bear market and became the only capitalist enterprise to settle in the polar bear at that time, which was a sensation.

Pepsi is very popular in Polar Bear, sales are increasing day by day, from the late 70s to the early 80s, in a few years, several times over, but this also raises the question, what to do with so much vodka?

In the end, Pepsi chose the easiest way and sold a lot, so the price of liquor plummeted, and the cost of American distilleries far exceeded that of polar bears, and PepsiCo made a big profit even if it was sold at a low price, but other liquor companies fell into blood mold.

Huberline's board of directors also saw this situation, and thought that the liquor industry had reached the end of the era, and there was no chance to turn around, so they sought to take action.

Huberline is a typical factory enterprise, and its headquarters building is not located in some big city, or even in the town of Farmington, but two 20-story office buildings are built a kilometer from the factory.

After visiting several departments, Xu Zhi entered the president's office with Jack Marshall.

Jack Marshall took out some documents from behind the desk, handed them to Xu Zhi, and said, "This is some of our company's sales data and internal business introduction in the first half of this year, Mr. Xu can take a look at it first." ”

"Thank you. Xu Zhi took it and looked through it carefully, not surprisingly, these documents are only financial reports that listed companies must publish every year, and they are not internal secrets.

From January to June in the first half of this year, the company's liquor business suffered serious losses, reaching 27 million US dollars, and the main loss was the main liquor business, while other businesses such as beer, red wine and wine had increased profit margins, but the market share was small, and the total profit was only 2 million US dollars, which was a drop in the bucket compared to the loss of liquor.

The development of the packaged food business is smooth, but there is no obvious room for growth, the product range is very miscellaneous, from ordinary packaged food to mustard and various sauces used in the kitchen, everything, but fortunately, the company's senior management has a certain vision, has long closed the factory in the United States, moved to Asia, the head office is just for purchase and then sell to some supermarket dealers in the United States. In addition, these factories are self-financed, separated from the head office in terms of operation, and do not show performance in the financial statements.

The third major business is the KFC chain of restaurants, at present, more than 90% of the world's KFC restaurants are licensed models, although they can not enjoy higher profits, but the risk is very well controlled, the head office is responsible for collecting franchise fees, selling sauces and all the chicken, the only large investment is in the east and west of the United States, a total of 7 large farms have been invested, as long as there is no bird flu, KFC is difficult to lose money. In the first half of this year, KFC's profit was $33 million.

Diversified operation, even though the main business of Huberline is sluggish, but the entire financial report in the first half of the year still obtained a total profit of 6 million US dollars.

However, as long as those who are interested in a little analysis, they will know that in the case of the loss of the main business and the large-scale withdrawal of funds from the side business, it has affected the normal development of KFC, such as last year, KFC's investment in expansion was only 50 million US dollars, while the competitor McDonald's was 400 million US dollars.

If it continues, KFC's performance will inevitably fall seriously, and at that time, the entire Huber Lane company will be completely in trouble.

After reading it, Xu Zhi closed the document, looked at Jack Marshall, and said: "Mr. Marshall, everyone knows my intentions very well, I want to ask first, if I only want to buy KFC, I don't know if it's okay?"