Tokyo, Japan, September 1984. New Otani Hotel.

While the Hong Kong media are paying attention to the rise and fall of the stock price of the New Venture Publishing Group, Lin Qiren has been in Japan to negotiate the issue of the other half of the equity of the Japanese branch of the New Venture.

At the beginning, in order to register and establish a Japanese branch, we had to choose a joint venture with a local Japanese company. However, after the expiration of the three-year period of incorporation, the equity is redeemable.

Although, redeeming it now, the cost of paying is definitely not expensive.

After all, the business of the new start-up electronics company is clearly thriving, and the valuation of the Japanese branch will certainly not be cheap. If the equity of the branch is redeemed, it is bound to be opened by the lion.

But Lin Qi has no choice, if he doesn't redeem the equity, the future loss will be greater!

Information is money, Lin Qi knows how the United States will shear sheep on Japan in the future, although it is impossible for him to eat the largest piece of meat, but because Japan has such a big pot, it is still possible to find a place to drink a few mouthfuls of soup. For the future layout of the Japanese market, it is necessary to use branches. It is precisely for this reason that Lin Qi must redeem the equity of the branch.

In fact, the Japanese market is quite exclusive, and various policies exclude foreign companies from entering the Japanese market and compete with their local counterparts. For example, foreign companies are not allowed to invest directly in the Japanese market, and must have joint ventures with local Japanese companies, of which local Japanese companies must hold at least half of the shares. In this way, many foreign-funded enterprises that want to enter the Japanese market have to give up a large amount of equity in the joint venture.

Later, Yahoo Japan and Yahoo's parent company were completely different companies, because Yahoo could not invest directly in Japan, but could only make a joint venture with SoftBank, and after that, SoftBank became the majority shareholder. With the sluggish operation of Yahoo's parent company, SoftBank became the controlling shareholder of Yahoo Japan, and Yahoo Japan's business had nothing to do with Yahoo's business in other regions.

The same is true for new start-up electronics companies, which can only cooperate with Ricoh in Japan to establish a joint venture when entering the Japanese market. However, in a few months, it will be three years.

According to Japan's local policy, after three years of registration, a local company in Japan can sell its equity to a new start-up electronics company. At the same time, although it is a foreign-owned company, the Japanese branch of Shinsho Electronics has most of the rights similar to those of local Japanese companies.

Through this kind of restriction, many Japanese companies have taken advantage of the Japanese market to force foreign companies that want to make money in Japan to share their core technologies with Japanese companies.

Exchanging the market for technology is also the first to be played by the Japanese, and it is precisely because of the relatively successful play that China later shouted that the market for technology was also shouted. In general, exchanging the market for technology works theoretically, but blindly kneeling and licking may not really be able to exchange technology. The Japanese are such goblins, they can learn if they can, but they can't learn to steal. Before the expiration of the technology patent, the learning is almost done, and the patent expires quickly in the layout, relying on price wars and micro-innovation, and seizing the market with the technology inventor.

For example, the patent for DRAM memory was created by Intel, but in the early 80s, 80% of the DRAM market was taken away by Japanese semiconductor companies by dumping at low prices. Even Intel, the original memory boss company, was forced to give up memory and became a company focusing on R&D and manufacturing CPUs. You can see how ferocious the business war in Japan was in the 80s.

If it weren't for the United States' timely use of the Plaza Treaty to force the yen to appreciate wildly, which greatly increased the production cost of Japanese products and erased its original advantageous cost-performance advantage, Lin Qi has reason to believe that it is possible that a large number of companies such as IBM, Intel, and Microsoft may be killed by Japanese companies!

It is precisely because the United States has eliminated the competitive advantage of Japanese companies by using off-the-board tactics that it has consolidated its privilege of eating most of the cake in the information age.

"Mr. Hayashi ......," Kentaro Ichikiyo said with a smile, "why rush to redeem the shares? We at Ricoh have a huge local advantage in the Japanese market, and as shareholders, we rarely interfere in the operation of the company, so wouldn't it be good to continue to cooperate?"

Lin Qi shook his head and said, "No, I'm a person with a strong desire to control, and I want to get the absolute right to speak." The three-year period is only a transitional measure to cope with Japan's policy, and we don't really need joint venture shareholders who may affect our normal operations. ”

"We don't seem to be so bad at cash, and if we want to redeem our equity, we need to pay a huge price!" said Kentaro Ichikiyo.

"At present, the financial statements of the Tokyo branch show that after deducting debt, the net assets size is $117 million, that is, half of the equity held by your company, which is worth nearly $60 million. Lin Qi said, "Compared with your company's negligible efforts, the equity transfer of 60 million US dollars is almost a pure profit! If the news of the sale of equity is released, your company's stock price will rise sharply!"

"No!" said Kentaro Ichikiyo with a smile, "Compared to the business of the new Japanese branch, the profit accumulation is too small. Who wouldn't deliberately do such a thing as low profits?"

"$180 million!" Lin Qi said, "You know, this price is already very high!"

"We don't want money!" Kentaro Ichikiyo said sincerely, "If you can license the X16 architecture chip technology to us to produce, and authorize us to use the XRM architecture to develop and produce our own chips, then we can transfer the equity of the new venture Japan branch to your company for free!"

In fact, Kentaro Ichikiyo has previously gained a foothold in the semiconductor industry by OEM 6502 chips for Shinkai Electronics. Since then, it has eaten chip supply orders for Nintendo FC and game atch, and the monthly shipments have steadily exceeded one million units. However, although Ricoh has a certain processing capacity, it does not have top R&D talents, and can only optimize and improve the technology of 6502 slightly, but no matter what, it can only produce 8-bit chips, and cannot enter the more lucrative 16-bit chip market.

"If it's just licensing the production of XRM16 architecture chips, I can make it clear that yes!" Lin Qi said, "as long as your company pays a ...... royalty."

"Thank you!" said Kentaro Ichikiyo, "Your company can completely entrust the production to us, although the price may not be lower than that of Chinese production, but the Japanese factory is not subject to the technological blockade of Western countries, and most of the advanced equipment can be bought as long as we have money." If your company cooperates with us, it will definitely be a win-win situation! We can jointly develop and share technology, and we may not be able to break the hegemony of the PC and seize the technological dominance of the computer industry in the future......"