"David, the dark circles on your face are about to become pandas, it's embarrassing for me as a boss to fight so hard!" Li Xuan said as he looked at Lin Jieping, who couldn't hide the tiredness on his face, but his eyes were still bright.

David is Lin Jieping's English name, after all, for him who lives in the United States all year round, it is not appropriate to use a Chinese name that makes foreigners embarrassed. Lim Kit Ping was actually a Chinese born in Saigon, Vietnam, which is now Ho Chi Minh City.

However, as early as the 50s, Lam's parents sensed the growing tensions in Vietnam, so they fled there decisively, and the family moved to Hong Kong. So Mr. Lam spoke Cantonese fluently, and he didn't leave Hong Kong until he graduated from high school to study at the University of Toronto in Canada, where he earned a master's and doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and stayed in the United States to found Lam.

"The jet lag hasn't been reversed yet, and I was not used to sleeping on tatami mats in a hotel in Tokyo last night!" Lin Jieping shook his head with a wry smile, but his tone was very relaxed. He has been with Li Xuan for a long time, and he also knows that his boss is actually very easy to get along with on weekdays.

"You can't live by yourself, who told you to take a detour to Japan, but now Sharp Company has a request for you!" Li Xuan motioned for the other party to sit casually. He accompanied his two children to the kindergarten yesterday to participate in parent-child activities, but he was tired from playing games, so he was too lazy to go to the company today. When Lin Jieping came to visit, Li Xuan had just gotten up after a big sleep. Seeing his subordinates so dedicated, he, the boss, inevitably felt a little ashamed.

"The company only enters and exits every year, and this time when I encounter a big fish that is willing to bite the bait, I have to be more active and let the other party swallow the bait first!" Lin Jieping explained, as the CEO of Lam Research, the pressure on his shoulders is not small at all.

Lam Research has been acquired by Li Xuan since then. Over the years, there has never been a single penny profit, but instead it has gobbled up a lot of money every year. Of course, these massive investments have also been exchanged for Lam Research's great progress in research and development. Li Xuan, the boss, has never objected to this, but is happy to see it come to fruition, and has never spared no effort to support Lam.

But Lin Jieping still couldn't relax. There are many gold-swallowing behemoths in the Oriental Group, such as the Oriental Research Institute, Oriental Semiconductor, and CG Company (computer park). However, the Oriental Research Institute has already turned into a super cash cow and has begun to feed the entire Oriental Group in a steady stream. As for CG and Dongfang Semiconductor, their financial situation has also improved rapidly after a period of frantic expansion. In particular, these two companies have successfully landed on the NASDAQ, and there is no longer a need for blood transfusion support from the Eastern Bloc.

By contrast, Lam Research still seems to have no hope of large-scale profitability in the short term. And Li Xuan also showed that he had no intention of making money through listing, and Lin Jieping's purpose in coming to Hong Kong this time was to take money out of Li Xuan's pocket. This inevitably made him a little lacking in confidence.

"In the next second generation TFT panel production line, we plan to reduce the number of CVD units from the current six to four. In this way, the entire lamination process can be greatly simplified, which is conducive to improving the overall yield of LCD panels! However, we have also invested a lot of R&D funds in these CVD technologies.

Since Sharp has taken the initiative to come to the door, we have just the opportunity to recover our costs! And I heard that IBM seems to be preparing to cooperate with Japan's Toshiba to jointly invest in the TFT LCD panel industry. I'm going to look for an opportunity to sell our CVD equipment to them by the way!" Lin Jieping said with a smile.

In fact, the cost paid by the Oriental Research Institute for the development of liquid crystal CVD equipment has allowed Lam Research to basically protect its capital. Orders from other companies such as Sharp. For Lam, it's pure revenue. It's a bargain to make a fortune with experimental technology that's ready to be phased out.

"So confidentiality must be done well. If the Japanese knew that you were already developing a more complete replacement equipment, they would definitely not be willing to be slaughtered! Sharp is still confused, and the 10% yield rate is indeed too maddening. Before they figure out the situation, you will have to quote all over the world!" Li Xuan took a sip of the bitter gourd tea that the Filipino maid had made for him, and said with a smile, he has been a little angry these days.

"Li Sheng. The main reason why I'm here is to report to you about the acquisition of AMAT, which is complementary to Lam's deep experience in CVD, plasma injection, wafer preparation, and other fields.

And AMAT's recent share price is also good for our acquisition! Since AMAT's stock price peaked at $42 per share in January, it has been in the dark throughout the first half of the year. Now the stock price has fallen back to just $25 per share!

I had made a takeover offer to AMAT at $28 per share, but it was rejected by the other party! Not long ago, I raised the price to $30 per share, and this time the position of AMAT's management and board of directors seems to have loosened, although they still rejected our offer, but they have already said that they can sit down and talk!" Lin Jieping first briefly introduced his purpose for coming to Hong Kong, in fact, he had already sent the relevant acquisition report to the group headquarters in Hong Kong a few days ago.

The full English name of Applied Materials is "AppliedMaterials", and AMAT is the abbreviation of the company. Li Xuan was naturally familiar with this company, so as early as the beginning of seeing Lin Jieping's acquisition plan, he had already agreed to Lam's merger and acquisition in his heart.

The huge syndicated loan brought about by the acquisition of RCA has been fully repaid by Oriental Group, and the group now has a very strong cash flow. Applied Materials' current total market capitalization is only $330 million, which is a piece of cake for Li Xuan, and the Eastern Group is fully capable of easily pocketing the other party.

In fact, the scale of the semiconductor equipment market is not large, such as Applied Materials, last year's total annual sales were only 140 million US dollars. Even after twenty or thirty years, it swelled to about $40 billion. This is still the sum of the market size of nearly 100 kinds of equipment, compared with the market of hundreds of billions of dollars such as LCD, computers, and mobile phones.

However, semiconductor equipment can be said to be the most upstream of the entire semiconductor industry, and it greatly affects the development of the entire downstream industry. If there is no progress in semiconductor equipment technology, it is naturally impossible to have a leap in the performance of various chips, and it is impossible to realize the upgrading of electronic consumer goods such as computers and mobile phones.

What's more, although the size of the semiconductor equipment market is not large, the profit margin is very high. You must know that the future of Applied Materials and Lam Research can squeeze into the top 20 in the list of highly profitable technology companies in the United States.

"Since AMAT is willing to let go, even if you boldly raise the offer, as long as the total offer is controlled within $500 million, I will not object!" Li Xuan said bluntly.

This made Lin Jieping a little stunned, he didn't expect his boss to be so decisive. When Applied Materials' stock price peaked at the beginning of the year, its total market capitalization was only $530 million. He estimated that the purchase price had been raised to $33 per share, enough to make AMAT's shareholders capitulate. At that price, the total cost of the acquisition is less than $450 million. That means he hasn't bothered to say anything, his boss has already agreed to his plan! )