The history of the United States does not seem to be very long, two hundred years before and after, but the historical process of these two hundred years has been continuous, except for the Civil War, there is no more civil strife in the country. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Such a history is very conducive to the inheritance of wealth, and in the history of the United States, those once prominent rich families are even more numerous, as strong as the Ford family, and after two times of ZTE, they still lost control of Ford.

Xu Teng knew early on that the current Ford company is jointly controlled by seven different family funds, and this shareholding structure has been formed since the 70s of the last century.

There is even news that the Watson family, which founded IBM, is one of the seven family funds.

Xu Teng is sure of this, because one of Ford's seven funds, a family trust registered in the Amman Islands, originated from the Pritzker family, but the Pritzker family did not sit on Ford's board of directors and delegated the voting rights of its holdings to another family.

Xu Teng still lacks understanding of the rich list in the United States, and after meeting with Mr. Andrew Beale, he learned who Mr. Andrew Beale is, this lean old man who looks like a gust of wind can blow up the Empire State Building in New York, is actually the maternal uncle of Chairman Bill Ford, the second generation of the Beale family in Pennsylvania.

is actually the same as Xu Teng, both of them are rich second generations.

After this morning's negotiations, Xu Teng looked back and carefully calculated the actual goals of Andrew Beal, the old thing, and pondered for several hours before realizing that the other party was testing the depth of the alliance between Huateng and BMW Group.

If this alliance is very close and unbreakable, it is not a big deal for Ford to absorb Huateng as a shareholder, and it will be troublesome to sell Land Rover and Jaguar car brands and related assets to Huateng.

What an enemy!

Selling to anyone is a rival, but if it is sold to the Huateng-BMW Alliance, this is not an ordinary rival.

The combination of Huateng's capital, BMW's technology and reputation can fully integrate the brands of Land Rover, Jaguar and Aston Martin to operate very exquisitely.

The whole negotiation process seems to be harmonious, but in fact, they are doing the first step of testing, to determine the sincerity of the other party's cooperation, and the way of cooperation that is acceptable to both parties, Xu Teng is actually happy to write a huge check to take advantage of this dangerous stage to buy Ford Motor Company.

Truth be told, at least two or three of the seven funds behind Ford are really willing to sell, including Andrew Beale.

This is a very special stage, and all parties are suffering.

Andrew Beal, as the vice chairman of Ford, is not very sure that Ford will survive this disaster, and bankruptcy and restructuring may not be a bad option.

The performance of the three major U.S. auto companies is shocking, there is a comprehensive gap in technology compared with Europe and Japan, and the debt problems of the three major companies are all accumulating.

In the past, loans were relatively easy to handle, and the three major companies could tear down the east wall and make up the west wall.

Immediately after the subprime mortgage crisis, the situation became very difficult.

There's never a shortage of good business on the planet, and car companies are definitely one of the worst businesses in this day and age.

BMW is still a cash cow, but not every car company can become a BMW.

Andrew Beale, the vice chairman of Ford, comes from a typical investment family, similar to the Pritzkers, who sees Ford as just a business, a business that is no longer profitable.

At this point, he and Bill Ford's judgment is very different.

However, Xu Teng can also see that Andrew Beal absolutely supports any decision made by Bill Ford, as long as Bill Ford insists on his opinion and never gives up on Ford, Andrew Beal will also support it, not to mention that Ford's situation is at least much better than Chrysler.

Xu Teng is observing the bottom line of the other party, and the other party is also observing Xu Teng's bottom line, obviously, the merger is by no means the best choice, both parties lack this kind of courage, even from a business point of view, the merger may be the best long-term strategy.

In the days that followed, the two sides negotiated secretly at the Park Hyatt Manhattan, owned by the Xu Teng family, and finally reached an agreement that was temporarily satisfactory to both parties, in which Huateng paid a one-time payment of $3.5 billion to acquire Ford Motor Company's Land Rover, Jaguar and Aston Martin brands and related technology assets.

Land Rover, developed on the Ford platform, and the related engine production patents are included in the contract and transferred to Watteng.

At the same time, Huateng injected $2.7 billion into Ford Group and provided an undisclosed three-year financing loan in exchange for a 15.5% stake in Ford Group.

If you don't talk about the loan, this price is definitely a conscience price, but neither side will disclose the amount of the financing loan and the corresponding terms.

This is a loan of up to $7 billion, and if Ford fails to repay the debt on time, there is no guarantee of the company's profitability and stock price...... This means that Huateng's financial investment has failed, and Huateng will initiate the VAM agreement in the contract to obtain 33% of the shares of Huateng pledged by the board of directors of Ford Group, and approach the controlling stake of Ford Group.

This is a typical VAM agreement.

If Ford breaches the contract or is unable to enforce the VAM due to other factors, it must pay up to $15 billion in damages.

Even so, both Bill Ford and Andrew Beale believe that this is the best option for the Ford Group, not only to deal with the existing debt crisis, but also to have enough money to help Ford build new production lines in Mexico and Asia, expand into new markets, improve technical standards, and launch new models.

With Chrysler and General Motors both old rivals starved of funds, Ford was well positioned to turn the tide and regain its position as the best local car company.

Since it is a bet, it must be risky.

Doing business is like that, the greater the risk, the higher the probability of making a lot of money.

George W. Bush is still in power, and this time period through the transaction is the smoothest for Xu Teng and Ford, basically will not encounter any approval problems, the two sides can be called lightning negotiations, August 25 to start formal negotiations, September 10 to sign the final contract, officially announced to the public.

As soon as the news was announced, Ford's stock price climbed out of the fall limit and rose slightly.

The domestic media, of course, were amazed.

It's good to have money, everyone knows that this stage is the best time to acquire overseas assets and manipulate the bottom, but you have to have money to manage the bottom, Xu Teng is relatively rich, and it is quite scary to the bottom.

Xu Teng's purchase of Aston Martin means that Huateng Company is going to officially start playing the Formula 1 Championship, Huateng Company has previously intervened in the World Rally Championship, and the results are not very good, after all, the strong are like forests, and the opponent is not Mitsubishi, or BMW Volkswagen.

As a result, the poor student jumped the level and went directly to play F1.

Although the Huateng Automobile under the Huateng Company has not been very good, the domestic cars are not the best technology, let alone the most cost-effective, as a result, the parent company is rich, in addition to its own Huateng brand, it also has Aston Martin, Jaguar, MG, Land Rover, Rover car brands, all the British automobile industry.

In order to avoid damaging the industrial alliance between Huateng Automobile and BMW, this time, Xu Teng directly invested in the Ford Group with the parent company "Jiangzhou Huateng Industrial Holding and Investment Company", and Huateng Company did not participate in the operation of the Ford Group, did not participate in any resolution of the board of directors, but only made financial investment.

For Huateng, the first partner must be BMW, which is beyond doubt.

Of course, BMW has an objection to Huateng Automobile's acquisition of the Jaguar brand and its related assets, that is, the convenience of the leopard is declining, and it can no longer be compared with BMW in the field of sports cars.

For the time being, this contradiction will not affect the overall cooperation between Huateng Automobile and BMW Group.

After all, Rover and MG have been under the brand of Huateng Automobile for four years, and there has not been much improvement so far, and the sales in China are tepid, but the Huateng brand is gradually among the second-tier, and has been able to keep pace with some second-tier joint venture brands.

In fact, Xu Teng did abandon the Rover brand and replaced it with the independent Huateng Roewe series, and MG has never been introduced into China from beginning to end, only pure imported cars, not localized.

At that time, Xu Teng did not have a good choice, and if he wanted to quickly enter the automobile industry, he could only acquire two brands that had long been outdated.

Relatively speaking, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover still have a high reputation, in the domestic and foreign markets also have a stable consumer group, this time, Xu Teng is really planning to Jaguar and Land Rover new production lines in China, with the Huateng brand to promote.

Of course, in the end, if you want to make Huateng Automobile rise to become a world-class car company, you still have to promote the "Huateng" brand in the domestic market, and Aston Martin, MG, Jaguar, and Land Rover are just a supplement to make up for the gap of Huateng Automobile outside the low-end market.

China must be a big country in the automobile industry, not only in terms of production and sales, but also in design, which means that after all, it is necessary to rely on its own brand to promote the road of the entire automobile industry.

Huateng brings together talents from Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, MG and Rover automotive business units to jointly promote technology research, share R&D expenses, and rely on the design and R&D center in the UK to slowly cultivate local talents.

It's a step-by-step path.

In any case, Xu Teng started very quickly in this wave of subprime mortgage crisis.

In September 2008, the U.S. election was in full swing.

Xu Teng observed closely, watching Ao Guanhai rise all the way, although he did not support the Democratic Party, but he was invited by several founders of Facebook to participate in several political speeches of Ao Guanhai and attend banquets offstage.

There are roughly three kinds of political activities in the United States, one is the large-scale gathering in the outfield, and in general, this situation is relatively rare, because the rate of gun ownership in the United States is too high, and the security requirements in the outfield are very severe.

The second is more common, that is, the infield, choosing a closed venue to invite the party, or a certain group of policy beneficiaries, to participate in such an event, usually not too many people.

This kind of activity is generally biased towards the middle and lower classes of the United States.

The third type is relatively rare, it belongs to the banquet form, there is a round table style, which is the highest level, and there is also a buffet form.

The political activities that Xu Teng participated in were basically in the form of banquets, and only those who were specially invited could participate, two were round tables, and two were buffets, but in fact, there was nothing to eat, and there were some snacks and drinks.

He certainly won't donate directly, but he can donate to Super Action, or to a good cause called for by politicians.

In fact, politicians like these generally understand that Xu Teng has a particularly close relationship with the bigwigs in the US IT industry, and has been making political donations to senators and federal representatives of the Foreign Investment Committee through these bigwigs.

In Chinese parlance, this is legal bribery.

Including Okukanhai.

To put it mildly, three of the ten largest financiers of Ao Guanhai are directors of SVB Silicon and Silver, and of course, Xu Teng has also made millions of dollars in political donations to Senator McCain through Miss Holmes's super action agency.

American politics is absolutely inseparable from money.

Now at the end of September, it is the most critical moment, and voting will start in about 20 days.

Speaking only of the polls, O'Guanhai is definitely ahead of Senator McCain, Xu Teng donated part of the money through SVB Silicon Silver, and funded Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook, who is on Oguanhai's campaign team, in charge of the new media communications business, and has a similar super-action agency.

That's what American politics is all about.

If it is really to be exposed, it will be an uproar for the public to know that Xu Teng, as the richest man in Asia, made political contributions to the two candidates, but there are naturally these loopholes in the American system, and the High Court has also approved these loopholes as legal.

Xu Teng only provided public welfare donations, and as for whether these donations were used for politics, this was not a matter for him to ask.

With Xu Teng's great popularity and wealthy level, Ao Guanhai must know that some of the political donations he received must come from Xu Teng, and of course, Xu Teng will not do any kind of transaction with him.

Don't think about bribing the president of the United States, just bribe the senators, it's easy to get it, it doesn't cost much, as long as you have the connections, you have the means, and you can fund the other party with a legal means when they need it most.

In Washington, D.C. today, shaking hands with senators and taking pictures, having a lunch, all of them are clearly priced, knocking on the other person's door, and having nothing to do has to be sent a political donation.

Tonight's banquet was in the form of a relatively high-level round table, but everyone who could come was dressed in formal attire, and the people on the stage were either Democratic senators or congressmen, and there was laughter and laughter, ridiculing McCain and Bush Jr.

Xu Teng sat between Chris Hughes and another wealthy Chinese gentleman, listening, watching, just being a witness to history.

Oguanhai's slogan is change.

In fact, nothing can be changed.

There is no one in this world, no force can change the United States, Xu Teng is very fortunate to be able to watch this empire in the United States towards the turning point of history.

In the past, it was always said that the root cause of all problems was a systemic problem.

This is a very appropriate remark for the United States.

There is a fundamental problem with this system.

The United States is again a country of immigrants, magnifying the problems of this system, which is not like the Nordic countries, not like Germany, in fact, the risk of German democracy is also getting higher and higher, as is the case throughout Europe.

The contradictions arising from the absorption of immigrants have become more and more extreme.

Americans don't think so, they enjoy the joy of this serf turning into a master, enjoy this system, although there are some regrets, on the whole they are still very confident.

Therefore, when Ao Guanhai shouted the voice of change on the stage, the audience was simply applauding like a thunderous tide, shouting, this presidential candidate is simply a phenomenal existence.

There is a saying in China, which is very wonderful - the times create heroes!

It was getting late, and it was already dark.

The banquet finally ended.

Xu Teng didn't know how much political donations Ao Guanhai and the Democratic Party's super-action agency had received, but SVB was as generous as ever, and several directors signed new checks -- and they were quite excited.

Especially Chris Hughes.

Virgin.

This is the Virgin-type youth, although he is Xu Teng's partner and friend, Xu Teng actually really thinks that this peer is a bit naïve and reads too little, especially books like "Zizhi Tongjian", which he reads too little.

As he left the banquet, Xu Teng met Miss Elizabeth Holmes, a beautiful, fair-skinned, blonde, confident woman with a delicate intimacy.

The two got into the car together.

'How it feels, the situation is very good for him right now. Miss Holmes was talking about the campaign atmosphere, and the polls showed that O'Guanhai would win all the swing states without any suspense.

"I don't care if he wants to change or not, I just want to emphasize that there should never be any surprise scrutiny in our investment plan for AMD. Xu Teng made everyone think that his target in the United States was Ford, the automotive industry, Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover, which is obviously not the case.

In this once-in-a-decade opportunity, Xu Teng's goal cannot be just a small Aston Martin, and it cannot be just the automotive industry, but the more valuable semiconductor industry.

He wants to control overseas funds and SVB silicon silver companies, control AMD, and then control AMD to acquire the three giants in the FPGA field, so that AMD will become an international chip giant with general-purpose chips, FPGAs, and GPUs.

Finally, through the joint venture between AMD and Huateng, these technologies will be transferred to China to occupy a part of the market at home and abroad.

Xu Teng does not plan to make very wonderful achievements in the field of CPU, GPU, FPGA chips, because the entry threshold is too high, it is difficult to cut in, he wants technology, and transfer technology to the military field.

Of course, he will still try to compete for a place in the international market.

The core figures from Taiwan of SMIC are bound to be out, and Huateng Company has no resistance, and will soon integrate the IT hardware and semiconductor industry of Huayin Consortium into a new Huateng Electronics Group Company to form a professional and comprehensive semiconductor manufacturer.

Huateng Electronics Group Co., Ltd. itself focuses on mobile terminals, focusing on embedded chips, panels and memory chips, and at the same time takes a share of the traditional computer chip industry through joint ventures.

Now, Xu Teng needs technology more than ever, and it is too late to start from scratch, or even improve from 60 to 80 points, his goal is to start directly from 80 points and catch up with 100 points.

It is for this reason that Xu Teng and SVB Silicon Silver have put a lot of money out to make sure that the Foreign Investment Review Board keeps its mouth shut and that by this time next year, when the deal officially launches, the new president will turn a blind eye. (To be continued.) )