In any case, through the thorough and sincere communication during this week's vacation, Gu Biao let Mina fully understand his arrangements and also had psychological preparations for the follow-up layout.

Considering the various practical and operational troubles cited by Mina, Gu Biao knew that the matter of deciding on the heir was in a hurry, so let's prepare slowly and think about it in the long run.

As for whether Mina will use this time to further package herself as a decent girl who meets the requirements of Gu Biao's public image, Gu Biao didn't think about it at all, and he didn't care.

Mina also felt that after a complete showdown on some topics, it would be more embarrassing to spend a vacation in front of her every day with nothing to do, so she stayed in France until the end of early January, so she proposed that Gu Biao accompany her to the United States for a short time before the year, get busy with business, and then return to China together for the New Year.

The so-called business, of course, is to settle the funds with the Blackstone Investment Fund and officially end the project of acquiring Kentucky fried chicken.

Gu Biao thought about this arrangement for a while, and felt that there was nothing wrong with it.

He came to France to inspect the renovation work of the "Princess Caroline", and he has already done it, and he will only have fun if he continues to stay in France, so he will take advantage of the year to go to the United States.

Strive to control the itinerary for about two weeks, and then quickly return to China for the New Year.

The only thing that surprised Gu Biao was how Mina could scrape together enough money so quickly.

He and Mina had nothing to shy away from, so he naturally thought of it and asked, "Didn't you say that you have to use all the profits from selling wine in Lucia this winter to make up 30 million dollars? ”

To this question, Mina's answer was also very neat: "Lucia people asked me that of course the purchase should be in advance, even if it is only winter in April, they must not buy enough goods in February, and then transport them, and sell them through first-class channels?

Secondly, Schwartzman's side seems to have negotiated more effectively in the early stage, and the final offer they gave me will not exceed $20 million, of course, the plan has also been adjusted, not a 100% wholly-owned acquisition, but I think it's okay, and he asked me to go to the interview to confirm.

If everything goes well, I will try to open a store after the Lantern Festival in China - in fact, the store and decoration, I have already asked Zong Qinghou's people to help find it in advance. ”

Now that the Lantern Festival is only two months away, if everything is finalized before the start of work, it will be too late anyway. But if the pilot store is prepared in advance, that's fine, after all, this thing has no technical content.

The next day, January 5, a Friday, Gu and Mina set off for Paris in a pioneer car, and then flew to Atlanta, the southern hub of the United States.

Schwartzman, who provided financial services for Gu and Mina, would meet them in Atlanta and then transfer to Louisville, Kentucky, for final negotiations before signing.

(Don't learn the machine-translated pronunciation of "Louisville" from the editor of the domestic shock department, you will be ridiculed as only knowing English and not French.) Just like the S of LOUIS in the donkey sign is not pronounced, and the S in Orleans in New Orleans is not pronounced, which is typical of the French name and place name The last letter S is not pronounced.

But even in French place names, if the S is followed by a vowel letter, the S must be pronounced, so the place name "Louisiana" has the right pronunciation of 'Si'. ）

As for Xiao Sui, she doesn't like the hypocrisy and grievances of these business negotiation occasions, and this business has nothing to do with her, so she chose to fly back to China alone from Paris after going to Paris together.

At the end of the year, she decided to help Gu Biao visit the staff and front-line volunteers at all levels of the "Tiansuo Greening Public Welfare Foundation" (the charity fund that Gu Biao planted trees in the northwest, co-branded with Sony), and helped Gu Biao put on a down-to-earth posture that was close to the people.

Anyway, Xiao Sui is a casual lifestyle and work nature, a female writer, you can accumulate life materials and write anywhere, and it is best to go to the end of the world with a book and a pen. Since graduating from Lu Xun Academy of Literature with a master's degree and winning the Contradictory Literature Award, her follow-up life plan is to do some publicity work for the public welfare foundation, and then continue her chic.

After receiving the local atmosphere, she will naturally return to Qiantang in February and accompany Gu Biao for the New Year.

……

Leaving aside Xiao Sui, who returned to China alone, Gu Biao and Mina arrived in Louisville, Kentucky with the intermediary brokers of the Blackstone Fund after transiting in Atlanta.

Before the formal negotiation of the final signing, Gu asked Schwartzman straight to the point what the conditions were that were roughly finalized.

Schwartzman replied: "At the beginning, the budget you gave and the valuation given by our Blackstone appraisal team both believed that the current market value of Kentucky fried chicken should be around $24 million ~ $26 million, and considering the acquisition premium, the bid should be above $30 million to ensure that it is secured."

But then we also learned about Miss Mina's needs - you just want to deceive vanity consumers in markets other than North America, especially in third world countries, under the guise of 'this is a big name that is very good in America', so we thought it was possible to work together in a different way.

The current plan is to create a global parent company, Kentucky Fried Chicken Group, and then turn the company currently operating in North America into a subsidiary of Kentucky Fried Chicken Group — a regular subsidiary, not a controlling or wholly owned subsidiary. In other words, Kentucky Fried Chicken Group plans to hold only 25% of Kentucky (USA) shares, and the remaining 75% of the North American company's shares will remain fully owned by the current company's shareholders.

As we all know, shareholders who own more than 70% of the shares can decide almost everything in the company, so this does not affect the existing shareholder team to continue to operate in the North American market.

However, all brands, recipes, goodwill, and all intellectual property rights and overseas operating rights of Kentucky Fried Chicken are owned by the Kentucky Fried Chicken Group. And this fried chicken group will be 95% owned by Miss Mina and Red Bull, leaving only 5% of the shares to the existing American company-

In fact, it is okay not to leave at all, but the reason for this design is also because it is afraid that after entering third world countries and deceiving vain consumers in the future, it will be revealed that 'this is no longer an American company, it is a fake foreign brand wholly owned by the Chinese'. So please understand that leaving 5% for American companies is entirely for your own good, because with American shares, it appears to be more ideological, cultural, and lifestyle-wise. ”

Schwartzman said this business logic, Gu Biao completely agrees.

He is fully aware of how many of the Chinese people who gritted their teeth and ate KFC in the late 80s and early 90s to satisfy the vanity of "we experienced the American way of life". If they know that this thing is not American, even if the quality does not change at all, they will feel completely disinterested and satisfied.

In the years at the turn of the century, the domestic brand "Oudian Flooring" was once fined 7.5 million by the Beijing Industry and Commerce for "pretending to be a German origin". But in good conscience, the quality of the flooring found out that time was actually very good, and it completely met the standard of similar original German products. But just because you are not real Germany, consumers feel that there is a pimple in their hearts, and they feel that it is not cost-effective to pay more money - those consumers who buy flooring do not want the same quality as Germany, but the psychological satisfaction that you bring by real German manufacturing.

You can't say that other consumers are wrong, this is a legitimate and reasonable demand of people, and they have the right to pay extra money to buy the psychological satisfaction of an original foreign product.

No matter how rebellious Gu Biao is, he won't be able to solve this problem within twenty years, so let's put it on hold for the time being. All he can do is "since some Chinese need to spend this money to meet the needs of self-esteem, then at least don't spend it on real foreigners, it is better to spend it on Gu Xiao, the real big guy who holds foreigners in front of the platform and stands behind foreigners to collect money."

Let the Chinese waste foreign exchange for vanity instead of wasting foreign exchange to Gu Xiao, which is equivalent to earning foreign exchange by saving money.

However, agreeing with business logic belongs to agreeing with business logic, Gu Biao is still a little skeptical about Schwartzman's offer.

He questioned from Mina's position: "I agree with the plan, but since it is this plan, $20 million is still too high - you just said that 25% of the equity of the North American company is only worth $7 million." That's the equivalent of spending the remaining $13 million, all of which are buying out the future 'exclusive expansion rights in overseas markets'?

After all, Kentucky fried chicken has not yet expanded on a large scale outside of North America, and who knows if this brand that has been in the United States for 20 years will be able to kill it? It is not McDonald's, it has proven itself throughout the Western world. ”

"Mr. Gu, you couldn't be more right. In fact, the limited acquisition of Kentucky Fried Chicken for a total price of only $15 million — a $20 million plan that also includes a portfolio of defensive acquisitions of several other small brands that act as spare tires, is also a model that leaves 75% of the North American company to the current owner, while the new superstructure parent company, controlled by Miss Mina, holds the right to expand globally.

Of course, these defensive combination brands are small and not very valuable, so I didn't make them clear to you just now. But you should be able to understand this, because letting the 'spare tire' threaten Kentucky fried chicken and prevent them from sitting on the ground is a strategy that you agreed to. ”

Gu Biao pondered for a moment: "The total price of 20 million US dollars also includes 25% of the shares of several defensive foreign fast food companies that are not very valuable, and all overseas expansion rights? Only 15 million is for Kentucky, which is reluctantly accepted, which is equivalent to half of the money given to Kentucky to buy existing high-quality assets, and the remaining half to buy future expansion options......

There were some things that he couldn't think of clearly, so Gu asked Schwartzman to take out all the negotiation memo papers, and he did his homework with Mina.