Can business exist independently of politics?

According to Han Hao's previous thoughts, he will get a positive answer, if he is at ease to be a provincial enterprise leader, then he can keep a certain distance from politics.

But if you want to become the leader of a national or even world-class enterprise, it is a fool's dream to draw a line between politics and politics.

This feeling has become stronger since going abroad, and it is really difficult for enterprises without national endorsement to gain a foothold in international competition.

The reason why trade wars continue to break out in economically developed countries is essentially that national political forces are taking the lead in the commercial economy, and multinational companies without state maintenance are a piece of fat meat, and anyone can run over and take a few bites. Of course, you can also think about it from another angle, small enterprises with no background have just gone to sea and have been eaten by multinational giants, and there are no bones left, so they naturally cannot grow.

Despite China's strong economic development, in 2006 it was India, one of the BRIC countries, that made a big splash in the international market. With strong support from the Indian government, India's two largest steel groups have embarked on a frenzied M&A campaign in Europe.

First of all, Mittal Steel, a subsidiary of Mittal, the richest man in Asia, is preparing to maliciously acquire Arcelor, the largest steel company in Europe, and strive to build the world's largest super steel aircraft carrier. Two years ago, Mittal Steel seized the opportunity to swallow the American International Steel Corporation, and in one fell swoop, it jumped to the first place among the world's steel companies with an output of 45 million tons. Now, they have set their sights on Arcelor, the world's second largest producer with an output of 40 million tons, and plan to raise $25 billion to force mergers and acquisitions, and join forces to build a giant enterprise with an output of more than 100 million tons.

The second is Han Hao's old friend, Tata Steel, which belongs to the Tata Group, is also preparing to launch a takeover bid for the European steel giant, that is, the second largest production in Europe with an output of 18 million tons, with an initial bid of up to 8 billion US dollars. However, they will face an all-out sniping from another formidable rival, Brazil's state-owned steel company (CSN), with both sides hoping to take advantage of Conlix and overtake China's Baosteel to become the world's fifth-largest steel group. The $8 billion is just a test price, and the final purchase price is expected to be as high as $13 billion, so as to get the second largest steel company in Europe.

If all goes well, India will instantly have two of the world's top five supersteels, one of which is still a Big Mac. At that time, the world's top 10 iron and steel companies will all be controlled in the hands of Asian countries, and India, Japan, South Korea, and China will share all the shares.

As one of the representatives of heavy industry, the competitiveness of steel companies in Europe has declined year by year due to high labor, high energy consumption and serious pollution, and profits have plummeted, and they are finally sold by shareholders with their feet. This is also a manifestation of the continued de-industrialization of developed countries in the West, which has shifted high-polluting and energy-intensive enterprises to Asia.

India, which is also an emerging country, has eaten into European steel companies with government support, because India is one of the world's major steel demand markets, second only to China and the United States.

Whether it is Arcelor, or Conlix Steel, behind them are the figures of European governments. Arcelor is supported by the governments of France, Spain and Luxembourg, while Conlix is highly watched by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

In order to promote the success of the European mergers and acquisitions of the two major domestic steel companies, the Indian Prime Minister temporarily visited Europe to stand on the platform of the Indian steel industry to publicize the relaxation of European countries' control over the mergers and acquisitions of steel enterprises. India, which is also a Commonwealth country, has a more relaxed political atmosphere than other countries, especially the willingness of companies to accept all debts, keep factories located unchanged and in principle not lay off workers, which opens up the political key to mergers and acquisitions.

While Chinese companies are becoming bigger and stronger in the domestic market, Indian companies have begun to look to the world and achieve the giant operation of snake swallowing elephants through cross-border mergers and acquisitions in certain industries.

This gave Han Hao a great inspiration, in addition to the domestic mergers and acquisitions of related enterprises to open up the industrial chain, but also to raise our eyes to the world, and strive to learn from India's successful experience in the automotive industry, to achieve cross-border mergers and acquisitions in China's automobile industry.

Indians can go to Europe for mergers and acquisitions, why can't we Chinese?

China and the EU are getting closer and closer in terms of economic and trade relations, and if they find suitable targets for mergers and acquisitions, then Zhonghua Group can also become one of the world's top 10 automotive companies. According to statistics, in 2005, Suzuki surpassed BMW with 2.01 million sales to rank tenth among global auto companies, according to the good results of 1.4 million sales of Zhonghua Group, the annexation of a foreign automobile company coupled with its own growth, sales of more than 2 million to replace Suzuki is not a problem.

In the list of the world's top 500 enterprises in 2005 announced a month ago, the Zhonghua Group once again entered the list with a sales revenue of $19 billion, and its ranking suddenly rose to 266, an increase of 221 places compared with 2004! This achievement is about to catch up with Suzuki Motors, which has an income of 19.3 billion yuan. The two sides are engaged in head-to-head competition in the micro-car markets of China and India. If the Chunghwa Group wins, then Suzuki will pay the price for its arrogance and all-out bet on the mini car market.

In 2004, Zhonghua Group entered the list of the world's top 500 for the first time with an operating income of 12.68 billion US dollars, but it ranked very low to 487, just a little ahead of the threshold of the top 500. At that time, FAW and SAIC were also on the list at the same time, and everyone ranked around 450, and Zhonghua Group was at the bottom of the three.

Unexpectedly, in just one year, the situation suddenly changed, and Zhonghua Group soared like a rocket, suddenly increasing its revenue by 6 billion US dollars and running to 266th. Although FAW and SAIC continued to be shortlisted, their rankings stagnated, still hovering around 450.

Such a ranking result made the staff of Fortune magazine, which is responsible for the ranking of the top 500, think that the data was wrong, you must know that the three Chinese auto companies are interdependent, but they did not expect one to suddenly soar. After carefully reviewing several times and calling up China's authoritative statistics, they finally admitted that the Zhonghua Group did not falsely report the data, and indeed ran ahead.

And on the just-announced Forbes rich list, Han Hao has no doubt that he is the richest man in Chinese mainland, and he continues to stand out with a net worth of 148 billion yuan (equivalent to about 18.5 billion US dollars). Last year, Han Hao expanded his corporate territory through a series of capital mergers and acquisitions, and the mainland and Hong Kong stock markets rose sharply since 2006, and his net worth grew by leaps and bounds from 100 million yuan to 148 billion yuan, almost doubling.

Followed by Li Shufu of Geely Real Estate, relying on Geely Real Estate's enthusiastic pursuit of Hong Kong stocks, the market value exceeded 200 billion, and his net worth also reached 48 billion yuan, successfully standing in the second place on the mainland rich list.

The third is Huang Pengrun of Pengrun Group, who relied on the capital platform of Gome Electric Appliances to build his own Pengrun system, with a net worth of 18.1 billion yuan.

Compared with Han Hao and Li Shufu, the two bigwigs listed on the Hong Kong stock market, the wealth growth rate of domestic billionaires is relatively slow, and many have not yet broken through the 10 billion ceiling.

However, compared with the increase in the wages of the domestic people by just over 10%, the wealth of the rich led by Han Hao has increased at an astonishing rate, and they often use hundreds of millions of dollars, especially Han Hao's speed is calculated by tens of billions, which shows that China, a rapidly developing Asian economy, is essentially the same as India, and the gap between the rich and the poor is very serious.

The general public's interest in who is the richest man in Chinese mainland has greatly decreased, and according to Han Hao's net worth now, even if his wealth does not grow, he will be firmly in the position of the richest man in the next 10 years. On the contrary, the Asian rich list launched by Forbes began to attract everyone's attention, and everyone was speculating about when Han Hao would be able to sit on the top spot in Asia.

However, it is not so simple to sit on the throne of the richest man in Asia, Han Hao, who ranks fourth on the Asian list, in addition to the mountain of 23 billion US dollars, the richest man in China, has to cross the door guarded by India's two super-rich.

The first is that Mittal, the current richest man in Asia, continues to dominate the throne with $25 billion, and the second is the two brothers of the Ambani family, known as India's Rockefeller, who inherited the family business of up to $40 billion in the three major fields of energy, communications and finance, and entered the public eye in one fell swoop.

If Mittal's super merger and acquisition is successful, then the net worth of Mittal, the current richest man, will continue to rise. As for the two Ambani brothers, they are splitting up due to their different business philosophies about the family business, and it is estimated that they will also break up and become independent super-rich.

It seems that on the land of Asia, the competition for the position of the richest man will be carried out for a long time in China and India, two countries with a huge gap between the rich and the poor.

Returning to the topic of mergers and acquisitions, Han Hao convened people to do research and analysis on automobile companies that may have international mergers and acquisitions, and strive to have the opportunity to realize his dream of swallowing elephants.

According to the analysis of the top ten international automobile groups, GM, Toyota, Ford, Nissan, Renault, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz Chrysler, Hyundai-Kia, Peugeot Citroen, Honda and BMW in the top ten lists are not the targets of Zhonghua Group.

The remaining brands such as Fiat, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Isuzu, Subaru and other brands are also inextricably linked to the top ten, such as Fiat, Suzuki, Isuzu was invested by General Motors, Mitsubishi was invested by Mercedes-Benz, Mazda was invested by Ford, and Subaru was abandoned by GM and then taken over by Toyota.

After turning around, it is found that the global automotive industry has carried out large and small mergers and acquisitions, and all enterprises are inseparable from the control of the top ten automobile groups.

However, after in-depth analysis, many brands have not generated full vitality after entering the top ten automobile groups, but have become a burden to reduce the group's profits. They could be opportunities for the Chinese group, as brands that are losing money are most likely to be sold, and the Chinese can then take advantage of the opportunity to gain access to new technologies and market pedals.

For example, General Motors, the world's largest and most branded automobile company, has ten major brands under its umbrella: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontic, Saab, and Saturn, and even cross-border sales of relatively controlled Daewoo, Suzuki, and Isuzu brand cars.

For example, Opel has been losing money in Europe, and it has not created the goal of allowing General Motors to occupy Europe through it, but has brought a heavy financial burden to General Motors.

Ford, another American auto giant that also believes that big is strong, also owns eight independent brands: Ford, Lincoln, Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, Mazda, Volvo, and Mercury. When the British car industry was in decline, Ford took the opportunity to grab the three British brands of Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover, and at the same time took Volvo under its umbrella in Europe.

However, too many brands have not been able to form the expectation that 1+1 is greater than 2, and the internal brand positioning is chaotic and there is a counter-competition that leads to dumping, and the four major brands that have newly entered the Ford Group have been on the verge of losing money or losing money, and Ford has been unable to integrate them.

"GM and Ford may sell off certain independent brands to get their own money back and lower their operating costs, so that they can get out of the quagmire!"

"According to credible rumors, the Mercedes-Benz Chrysler Alliance is very likely to dissolve within the next year, and the delay in effective integration between the two sides is the key reason. Germans are no longer willing to spend billions of dollars a year on blood transfusions for Chrysler!"

......

These are all analyses and predictions made by authoritative media experts in the United States, who are very optimistic about the future of American auto companies.

Truck and SUV sales fell due to rising oil prices, as well as huge pension and health insurance expenses, and three U.S. auto companies, GM, Ford and Chrysler, all fell into huge losses.

In 2005, General Motors suffered huge losses, losing a total of $10.5 billion. Entering 2006, the pace of losses has not stopped, and the loss in the first half of the year is still more than 3 billion US dollars.

They lost $8.6 billion in 2005, continued to lose $5.8 billion in the first half of the year, and suffered $9 billion in early warning losses for the whole year.

Even Chrysler, which has Mercedes-Benz bonuses, will warn of a loss of up to $1.5 billion in 2006 and a spending gap of $18 billion in pensions and retirement benefits.

At that time, BMW admitted defeat and retreated from Rover Motors, and Mercedes-Benz did not believe in evil and annexed Chrysler Motors. Unexpectedly, in less than 10 years, they will also repeat the mistakes of their German hometown BMW, ready to return from Chrysler.

Three years ago, General Motors took the lead in reaching an agreement with the United Auto Workers (UA) to agree to the UA's request for high welfare benefits, which became the fuse that overwhelmed American auto companies. The increasingly huge welfare expenditure, the expected high growth in sales revenue, and the competition for Japanese automobiles that could not build factories in China, the three major American automobile companies are stepping into the quagmire and moving towards death.

Mercedes-Benz can fully support Chrysler's $1 billion loss with the Mercedes-Benz brand's billions of dollars, but after seeing Chrysler's increasing amount of retirement benefits, it was really scared away from the American market!

While China's auto market is thriving, the world's largest auto market, the United States, is experiencing unimaginable difficulties!

These changes will be transmitted to the whole world, triggering a new paradigm change in the automotive industry.

Soon, the M&A opportunity that Han Hao was looking forward to came unexpectedly!